Chapter Text
My name is Yuri. At least, that’s what I’m going to tell you my name is. It’s a little too dangerous to give you my real, legal name. Actually, more than a little. It’s very dangerous. Deadly dangerous. And I’m not going to give you a last name at all. You’ll just have to assume that I have one.
Of course, according to my schoolmates, I don’t have a real name either. Everyone at school just calls me “Space Case”. They call me worse things, too, but I’m not going to dignify any of those with being put to record.
See, I’m what you might consider the “weird kid”. I don’t care for cliques and stereotypes and “fitting in”. I wear what I like, do what I like, say what I think, and anyone who doesn’t like that, I don’t give the time of day to.
A lot of people don’t like me. So I don’t have a lot of friends. Or, really, any friends. But I tell myself that that’s okay. I don’t want to hang out with jerks anyway. I much prefer my own company.
Which is how I came to be where I was that Friday night.
Across the road and a little up the street from the mall, where most kids my age hang out on a Friday, is this abandoned construction site. It’s been like that for as long as I can remember; half-finished buildings, pylons left to rust, hell, literal earthmovers and cranes just left there. Sometimes I wonder why. Like, I get construction halting if the people paying ran out of money, but… surely leaving the machines there would be even more expensive, right? Or did the construction company leave them behind for some reason? Like as their personal dumping ground? And got away with it, because that’s surely illegal?
You know, the kind of questions no one other than me cares about.
Most kids think the place is creepy. Probably because their parents tell them it’s creepy. Like it’s full of crazy ax-murderers and the ghosts of their victims. Firstly, the “ax-murderers” are a bunch of homeless guys, who’ll only hurt people trying to hurt them. I even know a few by name. Secondly, if “creepy” means “quiet, secluded, and a story hidden in the earth”, it is guaranteed to be my favorite place in town.
Thirdly, it makes a for a kick-ass bike track, once you know your way around.
It was kinda late. I was supposed to be heading home at least twenty minutes ago. I’d lost track of time, yet again, but I was in the zone, in my own world, focused on nothing but the wheels spinning under my bike and the story in my head that I was out of this town, somewhere up in the mountains, blazing a trail and going wherever the mood took me. But, at least until I’m older, the mountain bike clubs are “too dangerous” and I have to be home in the suburbs by the time it’s fully dark.
When I stopped my bike long enough to actually consider not risking my mom’s ire, I could hear voices, which jolted my heart a bit. If it was just the homeless guys, I knew they wouldn’t rat me out, but if it was cops or somebody else who could get me in trouble…
Turns out it was neither, as the voices were much too young. I’m not the only kid who risks sneaking into the construction site; in fact it’s a semi-popular, if not entirely legal, shortcut to the suburbs on that part of town. Granted, I didn’t want to be spotted by a bunch of bullies either. So I hid my bike behind a half-finished retaining wall and myself inside one of the buildings where I could blend in with the darkness. And then, because I hate not seeing what’s coming and totally not because curiosity killed the cat, I peeked out the window.
There were five of them, kids I recognized but couldn’t say I really knew. Jake sat two rows ahead of me in English class, and played basketball like his older brother, Tom. Marco sat to my right in Science, a class I’d be good at if he wasn’t distracting me all the time. Cassie and Rachel I was pretty sure were in my History class. And Tobias was another quiet, weird kid I’d probably get along with if the one class project we’d had together didn’t result in us both getting metaphorically ripped apart by the “in-crowd” and now we didn’t speak to each other. But, y’know. In another, less crappy life, maybe, we could have been friends.
Tobias was tailing behind the others a little bit, gaze raised to the sky as what little remained of the sunlight gave way to the stars. But whatever he was thinking about, I saw the moment he stopped. The moment he froze in place, his eyes sharply widened, and he pointed at something in the sky. Jake followed his gaze, then the others. I tried to, but my view was covered by the ceiling of the building I was in. I hadn’t quite turned back by the time Cassie shouted, “It’s a flying saucer!”
Okay, now I had to see what was out there. Because I hate not seeing what’s coming. And totally not because curiosity killed the cat.