When Meteors Strike

The Perseid Meteor Shower

Clarisse huffed out an impatient breath and huddled deeper into her father's baggy sweatshirt, staring expectantly up at the night sky. If her mother knew she was out here, she would get grounded before she could even climb back into her bedroom. After all, the sixteen-year-old was seated on the roof right outside of her window - already a huge misdemeanor as far as her mother was concerned - and at one o'clock in the morning, to add to her list of offenses.

Clarisse grinned at her own somewhat large act of rebellion and continued her silent vigil. Any minute now...

She gasped as something streaked across the sky. Then another - and another! One after another, pinpricks of light flew from one horizon to the other. Clarisse giggled in glee and clapped her hands together, making sure the fabric of her borrowed, over-sized sweatshirt was muffling the sound.

The 2017 Perseid meteor shower was officially under way!

Clarisse leaned back on her hands to get a better view and grinned up at the Perseid meteor shower. Ever since she was little, her father had always prompted her to, "Make a wish!" whenever they viewed the night sky together, and she felt her familiar wish, the one she always made, bubbling up in her chest, a palpable emotion. The teenager usually squeezed her eyes shut while she whispered her wish to herself, but she didn't want to miss a second of the meteor shower, so she merely crossed the fingers of both of her hands and wished with all of her might, hoping it would make up in her break from routine.

I wish...I wish to be the first person to discover alien life.

Her grin dimmed slightly as she watched the meteors streaking far above. She knew her wish was illogical and highly unlikely, even though she had always received top grades in her science and math classes and was more knowledgeable about space than most adults. After all, by every probability statistic out there, based on the zero contact humans had thus far had with aliens, other intelligent life forms likely didn't even exist.

Clarisse gasped, yanked from her somber thoughts as a meteor much larger than the others streaked overhead. It looked to be insanely close to the ground - it almost seemed as though she could feel the heat radiating from it, warming her cheeks in the night chill. But that was impossible.

Right?

She clapped a hand over her mouth as the meteor dipped lower...and...lower...

...and crashed into one of the many cornfields surrounding Clarisse's family's barn house.

Clarisse was frozen in place only for a second before scrambling back into her bedroom, pulling on her shoes, and sneaking out of her bedroom.

Her parents were both fast asleep - although her father loved outer space almost as much as she did, he was too exhausted from work to stay up late - and Clarisse had no delays while sneaking out of the house.

Her bike was resting in their front lawn, where she had left it after returning from her daily ride. For once, she thanked her forgetfulness as she leaped onto the bike and began pedaling furiously down the road, completely forgetting to wear a helmet.

She soared over the smooth asphalt with ease. The texture of the ride completely changed as she hit the cornfield across the street. Her bike was built with off-road tires, however, and while she wasn't strong enough to keep up her current speed for long, it would be long enough to get her to the meteor crash site, judging from where she had seen it fall.

The night air whistled past Clarisse as she sped over the now-empty cornfields. Her chestnut hair billowed out behind her and she couldn't keep the smile from her face, even with the ominous shadows looming in the nearby strips of trees. For once, all of her fears were forgotten. She was going to see an actual meteor, up close and in person!

From a couple hundred feet away, she noticed a glow emanating from the crash site, although the meteor itself was not yet visible. This slowed her slightly - what if the meteor wreckage was dangerous? After all, it was a mysterious object from outer space, and if it was glowing, it was still incredibly hot.

Clarisse swallowed her nervousness and continued pedaling forward, although at a much slower speed. Just be careful, she told herself. She could almost hear her mother's worried tone as she did so, the one she used whenever Clarisse announced that she was going to go on a bike ride alone, or climb trees with her father after sundown to get a better view of the night sky, or even simply cook by herself - her mother was a nervous person by nature.

About fifty feet away from the meteor, Clarisse hopped off of her bike and let it fall to the dirt as she stared in awe at the sight before her.

The meteor had punched a crater in the ground, one that was deep enough that the teenage girl couldn't see the bottom from where she was standing. What she could see, though, was that the glow that she had assumed was coming from the meteor's leftover heat was, in fact, clearly artificial. But that wasn't possible...was it? What within the meteor could possibly create artificial light?

A small voice whispered the answer in her head, but she shoved it away, annoyed at herself. That, she knew, was impossible.

She approached the crater warily, her hearing suddenly acutely picking up every leaf she crunched and twig she cracked underfoot as she moved. Even though she had suppressed her insane, illogical ideas, she still couldn't help the sudden nervousness that fell over her.

She reached the edge of the crater and stared down. Her breath stopped in her throat and her eyes grew as wide as a deer's in headlights.

At the bottom of the crater, curled in a strange pod-like spaceship, was an emerald-skinned girl.