Ebony

Chapter Three

What is that? Ebony stepped over her Styrofoam cup and decided she would clean it up later. This was much more important. There was something collapsed on the floor. It was shaking and had its head in its hands.

"Can't.... Get rid of them..."

And it screamed. It was a such a terrible noise, so high pitched and full of fear. She didn't know what it was, but she wanted its sadness and fear to stop, she wanted to help whatever it was. Ebony rushed over to it and shook it, trying to wake it from its trance. It slowly peeled its eyes open and they went wide, so so wide. She had never seen anything like it.

"Are you okay?"

"I... I don't know..." It was still shaking. It blinked a few times, like it didn't know where it was. Then it occurred to her that maybe it didn't know where it was.

It reached its hand out and Ebony grabbed it, observing it. She turned it over in her hand. It didn't have claws or scales. The thing pulled its hand back and started to breathe fast. Its eyes darted around the room and back to Ebony, and its eyes got wider.

"I... Are you real? I'm probably having hallucinations again...",

"Yes, I am real. Are you real? I have never seen a creature such as yourself down here before, and certainly not in my own home,"

It started to respond, but its image flickered like a hologram and faded away. Ebony stood up and reached toward the place it had been, then raced around the house trying to find it. Was it some some sort of trick? New technology? She needed more information. It could be a threat to the Phoenix family. It could be here to harm the civilization. But it could be here to escape where it came from, or it could be here to help....

She retreated to the front door, where she had dropped her coffee. Picking up the cup, she used a roll of paper towels to clean up the wasted coffee. She would let the maid mop the floor later. Right now, Ebony just wanted a rest after a long week, and now after this. Maybe she was having a hallucination of her own. She made a mental note to contact her doctor when she woke from her nap.