Chapter 1
Yet another day of dog sitting. Not that I don't like it, I did
apply for the job after all. I needed a bit of the money so I could leave home
and buy enough food, bottles of water and blankets to live.
The dog I look after is really nice, it's the owner. Her name is Tia and I'm almost positive she is one of people who are control freaks.
Stepping off the bus, I walked up to her house and knocked the door. Almost immediately she opened the door like she was waiting right behind it or something.
“Your late, Kerrilyn. Sam was supposed to have her walk 5 minutes ago.”
“Sorry the bus was late.”
Tia walked away to the kitchen and I followed, closing the door behind me.
I went to the kitchen and Tia’s border terrier is laying in her bed. She wagged her tail when she saw me.
“You know what you have to do today right?” Tia asked.
“Walk around the forest trail not through it, don’t let her sniff for long, pick up her poop and wipe the grass, keep her at my heel and when I get back wipe her paws and brush her.”
“Good, you’re learning. I’ve spend a lot of time training her and I will not let you unravel all that in an hours walk.” I nodded. Tia grabbed her keys and said goodbye to the terrier. The way she said goodbye was if she was never going to see her again.
“I’ll be back in 3 hours, maybe more if the traffic is bad.”
“Okay, see you later.” I said. Tia left out the door and I waited until I could hear the car drive away and I sighed.
Sam got out of her bed and jumped up a bit. I fussed her then went into my bag and brought out a dog chew toy. Tia only brought toys and treats that would be good for her, not just to keep her from chewing the furniture.
I’m sure Sam liked me better than her owner, as I let her be herself. Earlier in my job Tia had told I was to clean where Sam poops but I quickly told Tia that that was never going to happen. She wasn’t very happy about it but she agreed that was the only thing I could back out of.
Grabbing Sam’s lead, I clipped it to her collar and left the house. We walked to the forest and instead of avoiding it we followed the path through the forest. When I was alone with Sam I pretty much ignored all of Tia’s rules.
There were always new smells in the forest, especially after it had been raining and Sam nearly always had her nose to the ground.
Halfway through the forest, Sam stopped sniffing and looked into the sky. She started barking and jumping up.
“What is it, Sam?” I asked. I looked up at the sky but I couldn’t see what had gotten her attention. I sighed and looked back down trying to get her to come along when a bright light flashed briefly in the sky.
I looked up again but it was gone as soon as it appeared, but was soon followed by a small earthquake. Some of the trees around the earthquake physically shook.
While I was distracted, Sam ran off into the woods, and I lost my grip on her grip.
“Sam! Sam come back!” I shouted. Crap, Tia’s will fire me if I lose her dog.
I ran after the terrier, jumping down a small embankment then stopped and listened for anything. I couldn’t hear anything for a moment then with a sigh of relief, I heard Sam barking to my left.
“Sam!” I ran in the direction of her barking and pushing past some branches that were covering where Sam was I saw the terrier sniffing around.
Something had landed here, as there was a medium sized crater and some of the branches has been snapped off and were lying on the ground.
I walked forward to grab Sam, but hit my head on something hard. “Ow!” I rubbed my head and looked up but there was nothing there. Its invisible.
I hope the military never use invisible stuff, as they are really dangerous.
“Sam, come here.” The terrier ran around the crater to me, put her nose to the ground and sniffed. I put my hand to the invisible something and touched something round and cold.
I slid my hand around, but there was no door, or not anything I could feel.
Suddenly I heard a sliding noise at the top and to my surprise a girl around about my age, with really long purple-black hair climbed out.
She looked around and when she saw me, she swung her legs out and jumped down.
“Homo sapien?” She asked.
“Uh… Yeah.”
“Homo sapien! It worked!” She said, happily, but it as short lived.
“Yeah, if you count crashing as working. Where did you come from?” I asked.
“My sol.” She said.
“Sol? What’s that?”
She looked confused. Maybe she had hit her head when she crashed, and now she’s delirious. “This is your Sol. I came to here from my Sol.”
She’s definitely delirious. I thought. “You’re from a different planet?” I asked.
The girl nodded, though she probably had no idea what I just said. “Right. So what’s your name?”
“Name?”
“I’m Kerrilyn. What’s your name?” Maybe she has amnesia too… Or if she is from a different planet, maybe her species don’t have names.
“I don’t label myself.” She said, and turned to the invisible spacecraft she came out of. “Would you like to see?”
“Umm… Yeah sure.” I said. The girl pressed her hand against the wall of the spacecraft and a wave passed over it revealing an oblong/circle spaceship, hovering almost a metre off the ground.
I was speechless. If it didn’t touch the ground, how did it make a crater? It must be some strange sort of brake system.
“Oh no…” The girl said. I snapped out of staring at the ship and looked to where she was standing now. On the side of the ship was a scratch where it must have bumped into a tree or something.
“Did it bump into a tree or something?” I asked. The girl looked at me confused again.
“A tree?” I pointed to a tree behind me. The girl shook her head. “It must have been when we came through the Sol to here.” She placed a hand against the scratch and a few seconds later she pulled it away and it had disappeared.
“How did you do that?” I asked.
“It’s just something from my Sol.” She said. Then she turned to me. “So what shall we do?”
“Umm… Well I have to get Sam back home before her owner comes back… Wait, Sam!” I turned around and looked around for the terrier, but she was nowhere to be seen. While I had been distracting by the ship and the alien, Sam had gone off on her own.
I ran off into the forest, calling her name. Right when I was about to give up, I could hear her barking so I ran towards her, but a hidden tree root tripped me up and I fell over a small embankment and fell down until I hit the bottom.
I sat up, groaning at my arms and legs. There are some hard things in a forest. “Sam!” I called again. Sam’s barking came again and I saw her some way away coming over to me, from the bottom of the small cliff. I got up, but quickly realized that is a bad idea as a sharp pain, shot up my leg. I yelled and fell over.
I felt my leg and my thigh was swelling up. “Great it’s broken…” This is what having a control freak for an employer gets you. She might have come if I had calmly walked through the trees and called her name but since it was an hour until Tia got back, I couldn’t waste any time.
Sam reached me and apart from having a leaf and some dirt in her fur she was fine.
“Kerrilyn.” I heard the girl’s voice and looked up. She is standing on the top of the small cliff, looking down.
“I’m here… I’ve uh, hurt my leg. It’s fine.” I’ve never been a fan of relying on other people, so I always make things not as bad as they really are.
Even though breaking my leg in the middle of a forest with someone else’s dog, is as bad as it gets for me.
“Your hurt.” The girl said. She looked around and the next thing I hear is a sound of wings flapping. All the birds had been scared away by the crash, I presume so I didn’t know where the sound was coming from.
The girl landed in front of me and I found out. She kneeled in front of me and held her hand over my leg, but all I could focus on was the pair of light blue wings on her back.
“It’s more than hurt, isn’t it?” The girl asked.
“uh… Yeah. Kind of. It’s just really bruised.”
I hiss as the girl pressed her hand to my leg. The same light blue that is the same colour as her wings radiates out up and down my leg. I don’t feel anything, but the swelling goes down and the girl stands up and holds out her hand. I grab it and stand up and to my great surprise my leg is healed.
Her wings go down and disappear out of sight. “Um…” I was totally speechless. “Thanks.” I finally say.
“Your welcome.”
