The Visitor

Chapter 1

Six-year-old Yuma waited eagerly for his father to return. He was sitting at the window, looking at the darkness outside, when he heard something crash. The child perked up at the sound and, against the wishes of Akari and his grandmother, snuck out to see what the sound was. It was still late at night, and Akari and Haru were just leaving the airport to pick up Kazuma and Mirai after their trip to the mountains. There was a babysitter, of course, but she thought that he was already asleep, so she herself was in bed.

Yuma silently opened the door and peeked out of the house to see if the thing that caused the sound was in the immediate area. Upon seeing nothing, however, he went back inside and brought out a flashlight from the storage closet so that he could see in the dark. Since it was cold, the child threw a coat over his footed pajamas and slipped his feet into some shoes. Finally, he ventured outside.

It took a while to find what caused the sound. Whenever a car passed by the street, Yuma jumped and stopped moving in case it was Akari with his parents and grandmother. She would surely yell at him, but as long as he didn't get caught, everything would hopefully be fine.

After wandering around and finding his way to the outskirts of the city, Yuma finally spotted something white and glowing in a crater. It was a wonder no one noticed this! The child hurried over to his find and crouched in front of it. What was it? It looked like a giant version of the pills Akari took when she was sick, but it couldn't have been a pill, right? Those were normally tiny! So what was this?

Yuma jammed the flashlight into his mouth as best as possible to examine the thing with both hands. It was hard to keep it in there, though, and the pill-looking thing was already glowing, so he just spat the flashlight out into his hand and set it on the ground.

There was only one button on the thing. Other than that, there were no windows, no clear parts, and no color other than white. On top of that, it seemed to be releasing some kind of smoke. To any person older than ten, it would seem like a bad idea to open something that was smoking and had no discernible features, but Yuma was only six, and very curious at that. Any worries of anything that would happen were nonexistent.

He noticed the white button and immediately pressed it, not even thinking of possible consequences. Immediately, the pill-looking thing hissed and spilled more smoke as something like a door opened. A brighter light spilled out, nearly blinding the boy, but he managed to look through his fingers without blinding himself. Soon, the light dimmed down enough so that Yuma could pull his hands away from his face.

Inside, a small, blue, glowing body laid in a kind of soft bed. It had hair that was the same color as its skin and that arched forward. Its face and body were covered with small, diamond and rectangle markings. On its elf-like ears were elegant earrings that seemed to only stay together by some kind of force. Its eyes fluttered open. Yuma caught a glimpse of white and gold under the eyelids. The right eye was white, and the left was gold.

"Whoa..." the child breathed, hanging over the little body in the capsule.

The alien child looked up at Yuma, his face burning into his memory before he started gasping and wheezing. The foreign air seemed to constrict his lungs tightly.

Yuma saw this and panicked. He didn't think he would meet what he thought would be his imaginary friend here only to find it having trouble breathing. From what Akari told him, being unable to breathe properly wasn't a good thing.

Luckily (or unluckily, depending on how one views it), Akari's car came into view. When she looked out the window, she was horrified to see her little brother sitting outside on a cold night in front of some kind of capsule. She was more concerned than furious, so she stopped the car and stepped out since Haru, Mirai, and Kazuma were all asleep.