Ethereal (Short Story)

Max

Eliezer sat his glass on the coffee table and stood up, magazine still in hand. The whistling had not ceased, and he glanced at the ceiling to see if it was his smoke detector. The device could not have been the culprit, for its batteries hadn't been replaced in months. A sharp ringing sound suddenly replaced the whistle, and Eliezer tightly rolled his magazine before creeping towards the patio doors.

Standing by the door confirmed Eliezer's worst suspicion about the noise- it was coming from outside. He tried to think of a reasonable explanation as he scanned his backyard. His neighbors were all spaced considerably far from one another, and weren't visible due to the neighborhood's privacy fences. The neighborhood didn't typically experience issues with vermin either, but perhaps a raccoon had still managed to find its way into Eliezer's backyard. Eliezer rolled the magazine even tighter before he took a deep breath, opened his patio door, and stepped outside.

Eliezer dropped the magazine the moment he reached the middle of his lawn and uttered a small cry- a massive ball of light from the starry sky was hurtling towards his backyard. Was it his imagination? He had never seen a shooting star before, but didn't imagine that one would ever land on Earth, let alone his yard.

The ringing reached an earsplitting decibel once the star was only meters from his yard. Eliezer covered his ears and crumpled to the ground, disoriented from the intense brightness and noise.

"Help!" he attempted to cry out. "Help!"

He stopped shouting when he could no longer hear his own voice over the ringing, and felt an intense wave of heat wash over him. He curled up into a tight ball and silently prayed before he noticed that the ringing had subsided, and the heat became bearable. Eliezer slowly opened his eyes, and wheezed when he saw a ball of light on his lawn, thrashing about frantically.

The ball of gas attempted to hurl itself towards the sky, only to be blocked by an unknown force. It did so multiple times before shrieking, and began to dash around the yard, creating strong, hot gusts of wind as it did so. Eliezer held onto his hat and squinted in order to prevent dirt from flying into his eyes.

The star came to a sudden stop when it reached the magazine that Eliezer had dropped earlier. It swallowed the magazine and whipped it around itself at an alarming speed until Eliezer could no longer distinguish it. The ball of gas suddenly began to change its form.

Is that...an arm?! Eliezer thought, bewildered.

The fiery star quickly assumed the shape of a human. Once it had formed all of the basic extremities, it began to fine tune its form until it resembled a woman's body. The body stumbled, and fell to the ground as it took on a pale, flesh like appearance. Thick strands of brunette hair sprouted out of the being's newly developed scalp, and fell past its shoulders. Brown eyes emerged from what was supposedly a face, and Eliezer's mouth dropped when he realized that the star had taken the form of a nude Christa Miller- the actress on the cover of the magazine.

The body laid stiffly on its back, and slowly lifted an arm to the sky. A beam of light shot from the faux Christa's fingertips, but was instantly reflected once again by an unknown force. The body flinched, and stared at the sky emotionlessly for a while longer. Afterwards, it picked up the magazine, and gazed at the cover. In less than a minute, the Christa replica was clothed in the same red and white jersey and burgundy shorts that the actual actress donned on the cover.

Eliezer finally closed his mouth, and pushed himself off the grass carefully. The 'woman' did not move.

"Who are you?" Eliezer asked firmly.

The woman ignored Eliezer, and began to paw at the sky, sending rays of light flying in every possible direction.

"Hey, cut that out! What the hell are you doing, you freak?! Are you even Christa Miller, or is this your idea of a sick joke?!" Eliezer shouted.