Chapter Text
Strangetown 1985
Pascal and his brothers stationed themselves in the furthest reaches of Strangetown State Park, shutting off their flashlights to be lit by the sky. The Horowitz telescope was nothing compared to the Farstar E3 their father had locked away in his office, but it would suffice for now. Lazlo set up their radio, tuning the dial until he stumbled upon one of his favorite songs. He wasn’t initially invited, but he threatened to tell Mom if he didn’t tag along. Lazlo watched with gleaming eyes as his older brothers fussed over the telescope, glancing around at the open sky, making wishes on the fallen stars that streaked by.
However, watching Pascal hog the telescope was getting old…and Vidcund had just run out of his Chex Mix. Lazlo sighed loudly as he tiredly shoved his hands into his shirt, trying to shield himself from the chilly desert breeze.
“ Seriously, how long are we going to stand out here and stare at the sky?” Vidcund scoffed, kicking some sand around as his older brother continued stargazing. Pascal ignored his brother’s complaints, opting to zoom in on the moon. Tonight had a brilliant sky with a sea of dazzling stars across the black void of space. He claimed he was looking for Jupiter, but they had been standing around for at least an hour.
“ You’ve gotta get your eyes checked because Jupiter is right there; you don’t even need a telescope to see it.” Vidcund stepped in front of the telescope, causing his brother to flinch back.
“ Can you shut up! I am looking for another planet!” He shouted back, kicking dirt towards his younger brother.
“ Hey, watch it, you nearly hit Lazlo!” Vidcund argued, leaning down to shield the eight-year-old boy.
“ I did not! He’s not even supposed to be here! It’s past his bedtime.” Pascal just turned back to the telescope to adjust the lens.
“ Well, Mom said that you had to bring me along if you were going out.” Lazlo stood up and crossed his arms with a huff.
“ Yeah, like when it’s morning. Not to the middle of the desert at midnight.” His older brother leered down at him, his lips pursed. Lazlo couldn’t help but notice how deep his eye bags were from his obsessive studying and conspiracy research.
Vidcund stepped between the two and sighed deeply; his lisp was even more apparent when he was tired and frustrated.
“ Pas…did you drag us out here to look for aliens again?”
“ NO! Psh, I am just staring at Jupiter…uh, to study how big it is.” Pascal retorted; his blatant lies were fooling no one.
“ If I was an alien, I wouldn’t want to meet a dweeb like you!” Lazlo smirked and continued messing with his radio, trying to find some good music through all the static.
“Laz- never mind. Forget it.” Pascal shook his head, knowing that arguing with his brothers was useless. “ Hey, can you turn that freakin’ radio off! That static is annoying!”
Lazlo shook his head. “ It’s just not working…It’s like switching stations on its own.”
Pascal and Vidcund both looked at each other and rushed over to assess the radio as Lazlo tried to fine-tune it… Finally, it picked up a station. It wasn’t music or a familiar news channel, though. They bent down to listen to muffled static and garbled gibberish before the feed cut again.
“ Ah, you probably picked up a random signal or somethin',” Pascal said shakily. Vidcund looked around with the flashlight firmly in his hand.
“ Y-yeah, probably.” Lazlo nodded, reaching over to cling to Pascal as he went back over to the telescope - the static on the radio tuning in and out.
“ Pascal…we should leave.” Vidcund began gathering their things from the ground and packing them back into their backpacks.
“ WAIT…” The eldest brother shook his head, leaning into the telescope as he focused in on a meteor darting across the sky.
“ PAS!” his brother shouted.
“ It’s a meteor!” Pascal whipped his head around to see his brother pointing at the sky and shaking his head.
“ It’s getting closer!” Vidcund’s voice cracked as he shouted for his brothers to listen to him.
The radio suddenly started to go haywire, bursting into a cacophony of music and static and garbled mess. Pascal looked down at the hairs on his arms, feeling goosebumps all over himself. He glanced up at the sky one last time to witness a streak of cyan light speed through the clouds right above their heads.
“ Holy,” Pascal stared at the meteor with his jaw hanging. “ Shit!”
He grabbed his camera and made a dash to his bike. His brothers shouted at him to stop, fearing the worst as Pascal sped off into the desert, chasing desperately after the lights.
“ PAS! NO! COME BACK!” Vidcund screeched after him.
“ PASCAL! WHAT ARE YOU DOING!!” Lazlo tried running after him, but his brother pulled him back.
“Nuh-uh-you’re staying right here!”
“ But Pascal!”
“ Pascal is old enough to be stupid!”
He pumped his legs hard as the lights traveled across the night sky, fumbling with his camera in one hand as he snapped Polaroids, desperately trying to capture it!
Suddenly, sharp pops and bangs rang in his ears. The sky shone with streams of bullets as they collided with the ship he was following; a fatal bang could be heard before the spacecraft came careening down towards the earth, jetting further into the desert away from the assault of bullets.
Pascal hit his bike tire against a ditch and fumbled forward with his camera, smacking straight onto the hard ground. He panted hard as he covered his ears, the bullets finally stopping when the craft was out of view. After a moment of silence, he winced as he brushed rocks off his palms and painfully got up. Groaning, Pascal managed to steer his bike back towards his brothers, grabbing the polaroids he dropped across the desert floor.
“ PAS! WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU THINKING!” Vidcund shouted at his older brother.
Lazlo was covering his ears, shaking and sniffling as he looked around.
“ Quit screaming…let’s go. We have a few seconds before the military swarms this park.” Pascal ordered them hastily. He rushed over to dismantle the telescope before they could speed away. Vidcund placed his younger brother in his front basket and assured him they were safe, pedaling as fast as he could to get them out of there.
Pascal couldn’t help but ride behind, glancing at the empty horizon of the desert, his Polaroid camera swinging as he peddled his bike hard, the chilled air making his eyes tear. Through his haze, he spotted military vehicles bounding towards the desert - he knew what this was… he knew what he had witnessed firsthand… and he had proof! He smiled wide as he caught up with his brothers.
____
Jenny heaved a loud sigh as she entered her house, peeling off her cardigan and kicking off her nurse's shoes. She had just finished a long shift at the town hospital - it was never calm despite the small population.
“ Family, I'm home!” Jenny announced as she let her hair down. Of course no one answered…it was 1 am. She tiptoed over to her parents’ bedroom, creaking the door open to see her mother comfortably tucked into bed. She smiled softly and closed the door behind her, steadily making her way up the stairs to her own bedroom. After spending years studying for her nursing certification at La Fiesta Tech, she’d found herself right back where she started. She dropped her bag and collapsed on her bed, taking a second to breathe before looking up at the glow-in-the-dark stars she’d stuck to her ceiling when she was a child. She glanced over at her posters and various polaroids stuck to the wall beside her bed, focusing on her friend Lyla.If it weren’t for her best friend moving in with her boyfriend she would be out of there.
“ I thought I would be married by now…” She mumbled into her pillow. She stretched her whole body, letting every bone snap into place before she leaped up and began preparing for bed.
She turned on her radio, humming along to ABBA as she dried off her hair. She let herself let loose, using her minutes of freedom to dance along to the song, grabbing a hairbrush to be her microphone as she jammed out.
“Don't go wasting your emotion.
Lay all your love on me
Don't go sharing your devotion.
Lay all your love on me”
She jumped on her bed, her eyes making contact with her favorite singer’s poster, David Bowie. Jenny sang to her audience of knick-knacks and old stuffed animals - Until she was abruptly interrupted by a loud pop as the lights cut out.
“Don't go wasting your emo- ... .uh”.She blinked, realizing the power had cut off mid-performance. She let out a frustrated groan before storming down to the fuse box.
“ Watcher, dammit! This house is too damn old!” She grumbled as she investigated the fuse box, flipping the switches to no avail.
“ Of course this happens when Dad is out of town.” Jenny buried her face in her hands, cursing quietly.
____
Pascal and his brothers approached the town and realized that all the streetlights had shut off.
“ Guys…I’m really scared.” Lazlo frowned as he held onto the basket he was riding in; the only light they had was the one in front of their bikes.
“ It’s okay, Lazlo…it was just a helicopter crash - it probably hit the main power grid.” Vidcund tried to comfort his younger brother, but to no avail; Lazlo was scared of the dark.
“ Vid, you really think it was a helicopter?” Pascal rode up beside him.
“ What else could it be… and don’t say UF-”
“ UFO!” Pascal cut him off quickly.
“ Pas, you can’t be serious…there’s no such thing.” Vidcund rolled his eyes.
“ Shhhh…we’re getting close to the house.” Pascal rode ahead and parked his bike in front of the house, carefully grabbing the telescope out of his pack. He gestured for his brothers to follow him, stealthily unlocking the back gate and slipping through.
Vidcund and Lazlo hastily crept up to the back door with Pascal, as he peered into the window to make sure the coast was clear. He gave them a thumbs-up, beckoning them quickly to open the door.
As Vidcund fumbled with his house keys in the dark, the door swung open with enough force to make him fall back.
Vidcund grabbed his flashlight and pointed it towards the other person at the door.
“ JENNY?!” They all said in unison, their voices cracking in fear.
Dressed in her nightgown, she leered down at them with her piercing green eyes, her judgment evident as she pointed her finger at all of them.
“ You are soooo grounded.” She declared
“ Except you,” she waved at Lazlo, " c'mere, it’s past your bedtime.” Jenny smiled and welcomed Lazlo into her arms. Her sharp eyes returned to the other two.
“ Do you realize how late it is?”
“ Uh- it’s 1:45 am.” Vidcund checked his watch.
“ Actually, it’s 1:46 am.” Pascal corrected.
“ Oh great,t it’s even later…is that Dad’s telescope?” She noticed Pascal holding the large case.
“ Nope…it’s just a silly cheap thing.” Her little brother shook his head vigorously.
“ You are grounded.” She crossed her arms.
“ You’re not our mom!” Vidcund snapped back.
“ I changed…all of your diapers…ALL of them. As your older sister, I can say, you’re grounded … until College.”
“ What do you want, Jennifer?” Pascal sighed heavily as he dug out his wallet.
Jenny stood there, playing with Lazlo’s hair as she thought of a good bribe.
“ You have to do my laundry for the summer,” Jenny smirked.
“ The whole summer?” Vidcund groaned.
“ Stealing Dad’s telescope is a serious crime… the watcher only knows what would happen to you if you stole the Far Star E3.” She grinned as she checked her green manicured nails.
“O-okay. Fine, deal. Whatever.” Pascal sighed and walked inside with the telescope slumped over his shoulder.
___
Back in his bedroom, Pascal gazed at the polaroids in his hands; the photos were blurred and barely captured the structure of the ship he had witnessed falling from the sky. He closed his eyes and pictured the moment it broke through the night clouds, as streams of bullets struck the tail end of the UFO … it looked like a saucer, he thought… the cyan lights…the way it swiftly soared through the sky - there was no earthly technology like it.
“ Vid…are you awake?” Pascal whispered to his brother, who was sleeping at the other side of the room.
“ No. Now go to sleep.”
“ I think I saw a UFO.”
“ It was a helicopter…”
“ UFO”
“ A plane.”
“ U - F - O”
“ A drone!”
“ ufo.”
Pascal couldn’t react fast enough as a projectile pillow smacked him hard in the face, forcing him to knock back onto the bed and succumb to sleep.
04:00 - Strangetown State Park -
Military Trucks surrounded the saucer as scientists in hazmat suits waved around Geiger counters to assess the radiation of the UFO. A low hum emitted from its dying machinery, as bioluminescent fluid leaked onto the sand below it. The tail end of the ship had suffered major damage as the anti-airstrike cannon managed to take it out of the sky.
The General stood near the crash site, his arms stiffly pressed against his back as he gazed upon the wreckage. He furrowed his brow and turned his attention towards one of the hazmat crew.
“ Any signs of life on that thing?” He asked the scientist.
“ N-no…no signs of life.” The scientist shook his head.
“ Good.” The General nodded in approval.
“ Because…the pilot is not on the ship.” The scientist finished his sentence.
The military man narrowed his eyes and took a sharp inhale. “ What?” He gritted his teeth.
The vein in his forehead burst from concealed rage.
“ I see a trail, but it stops right around here.” The scientist pulled out his UV scanner, brightening up the remnants of footprints and spots of blood. “ It’s going in the direction of town!”
General Grunt noticed something in the distance, a small white square flapping in the wind. He leaned over and observed the polaroid in his hand - it was incredibly hard to read, but the lights were distinct. They weren’t the only ones there that night.
“ Alright then…I need this pilot found. Dead or Alive .” General Grunt directed.