Glimmer

Part One

The glimmer of a moon falls down through a hole in the clouds, mixing with the pouring rain to create silver droplets that fall through a skylight in a bookstore on the west side of town, pelting a small wooden table with shimmery flecks of liquid, that condense and form a spiral silver necklace with a small, ruby red stone in its perfect center. The beam of moonlight passes over it, and it sparkles, sending out a symbol to the stars. Then clouds covers the pale face once more, and the jewel is dark.

Jenna paces behind her desk, waiting out the last five minutes before she can close the store, lock the doors, and curl up with a book, alone in the tiny little book shop her family owns, at the base of the mountain that overlooks the tiny town of Bramsche. She's anxious, the hero's about to save the world and get the girl. That's when Gemma, a passing acquaintance of Jenna's, walks through the door, her green eyes meeting Jenna's gray ones as she closes her umbrella. Jenna sighs in polite annoyance, and asks in a genuinely sweet voice, "How may I help you?"

"Well," says Gemma, "Do you have Dawn?"

"Well, that novel is sort of a lesson in repetition and actually not that good of a bo-" Jenna starts shyly.

"You don't have it," Gemma cuts her off.

"No, a book club in town is reading it."

"Shoot. I was really hoping I could-"

Gemma is interrupted in the middle of her honestly probably useless reason by a wall of the store exploding.

When the smoke clears, a large, scary looking alien steps through the enormous hole. Jenna squeaks, frozen in place. Gemma, on the other hand, has just been rudely stopped in the middle of a sentence, and she's a little mad.

"Excuse me? Hello? Welcome to the bookstore. Can she" (gesture to a petrified Jenna) "help you? Or are you just arbitrarily smashing through walls in quaint mountainside towns?"

The... creature? glares at her with angry blue eyes.

"Okey-doke."

The beast cocks its head.

"Wh..where is the nec-nec...lace?" It stumbles over the words in a deep, rumbling tone, as if it had just learned the language thirty seconds ago.

"Not telling," Gemma singsongs. The monster pulls a rather intimidating weapon that vaguely resembles a gun from behind its back in response.

"I'm not a helpless damsel, jerk. Wanna see who can find this thing first? Bet I'll win!"

Gemma grabs Jenna's hand, who's still standing in shock staring at the creepy giant guy, pulling her deep into the shadows of the bookstore right as the idiot grasps her meaning and fires his gun thing. It proceeds to emit a beam of light that shoots across the store and decimates an entire bookshelf, reducing it to ash.

"Laser," Jenna mutters under her breath as she is dragged behind the outwardly composed, inwardly panicking Gemma.

"Pardon?"

"He has a laser," Jenna repeats in a quiet tone.

"Speak up, girl. Ain't no way to hear you when some hairy beast is chasing us."

Jenna winces in response to the use of 'ain't,' but says in a clearer, slightly more confident tone, "The... guy has a laser. You can deflect it with a mirror."

"LOVELY!" Gemma exclaims, then ducks under the laser bolt that's really her fault. Quiet voice in a bookstore. Especially when being chased by a technologically superior monster with a light beam gun. She grabs a small mirror off a nearby empty Dark Night display and whisper-yells to Jenna, "Help me find whatever the heck he's searching for."