Shattered Stars

Traveler

I got to my feet and shook off the dirt from my back. I rotated my wing shoulders, noting how odd it still felt to have an extra set of appendages. I wasn't sure whether I liked this body or not.

I ducked under the wooden patio awning, then stopped when I saw the dining room window. It was there, not shattered to pieces. I put my palm up against it, feeling the momentary chill it gave my hand. Not an illusion.

I furrowed my eyeridges and glanced around. Was last night real, or somehow imagined? Peering into the dining room, I discovered there was no chandelier hanging above the table. I looked to the living room, where I remembered the invaders had thrown it. It was still lying there, surrounded by the remains of several of its bulbs.

"What?" I whispered, trying to open the sliding glass door nearby. It was locked from the inside. The two other side doors were locked as well, but the side door to the garage was unlocked.

I snuck past the two cars, feeling my way past them with my hands until the motion-activated garage light turned on. The handle of the door to the rest of the house didn't budge.

Dammit. I huffed. Why did my parents have to have such good security habits?

I put my hands on my hips, frowning at the door handle. There was no way in hell I was going to risk trying the front door. It was probably locked as well anyway. I looked down at my feet. If I was strong enough to survive a fall from space, surely I was strong enough to break down a door.

Careful to not scrape my mom's car with my tail, I took a couple steps back and brought my fists up to my chest. You gotta do what you gotta do.

My jaw clenched as I lunged myself forward, taking the impact on my shoulder. The wood of the door exploded into a thousand splinters as I barreled through it with ease. My foot caught on an intact piece of the door and I broke my fall with my hands on the floor.

I stood and looked back at the gaping hole in the door. It had required next to no effort. I gazed at my hands. Maybe I would like this body.

I groped around the wall until I found the light switch, then crept into the kitchen holding my breath. Everything was almost exactly as I remembered it, minus the window. Our half eaten meals were still in the bowls, with specks of mold growing on them. A couple chairs had been tipped over from our hurry to escape the invaders, and there were a few spots of blood on the tile floor.

I knelt and dabbed a finger in one of the spots. Based on where I stood and where I had fallen that night, this was my blood. And over there was probably Dad's blood, and there was Mom's.

Had the same thing happened to them? I would have seen them escape the ship if that were true. For all I knew, they could still be on it. They could have missed the opportunity to escape. Or worse, they were never given the opportunity in the first place.

My jaw tightened as I covered my eyes with a hand. I curled my hand with the blood into a fist and slammed it into the floor. A loud crack reverberated throughout the house. I let my hand slide down my muzzle and hang by my side. I blinked dust and tears out of my eyes and gazed at the circular pattern of cracks in the newly-fractured tile. I held up my hand, wiggling my fingers to see if anything was broken. They were hardly scratched. The punch had hurt as much as if I had struck cardboard.

I snorted and stood, part of my lip curled into a snarl. I bounded up the stairs and squeezed through the doorframe to my room. They abducted the wrong humans.

I moved the mouse to wake my computer up, then used my knuckles to type in my password to avoid damaging my keyboard. The date on the computer read November 3rd, which wasn't far from the date I was abducted.