HASH: Human Alien Species Hybrid

Chapter Two

I looked then. I looked, and for one beautiful, terrifying instant, I saw it. I saw the circle of metal, far larger than our car, plunging through the fiery air. I saw it, and I heard my mother scream at the top of her lungs, "Frank, brake!"

My eyes widened, my heart pounded, I pulled my eyes away from the sky and looked at her side profile. That moment was the last time I could remember seeing my mother-that image of her sitting there, so terrified and so beautiful all at once. Her milky white skin turned red in the reflection of the growing fiery light in the sky, as the object streaked closer to us.

My father's hand moved between them and I saw him grip her delicate fingers as if he knew something bad was going to happen.

I didn't know that part then.

I didn't understand what was going on, I only knew that my mother was frightened, and that if she was frightened, then I should be frightened, too. I saw my own tiny arm reaching out toward her...my small fingers spread, tears in my eyes.

My father braked hard enough to throw me forward against the safety straps of the booster seat. He shouted something, my mother screamed again, and even I joined in.

The thin wails of a three-year-old cut through it all as we skidded across the paved road and off into the dirt shoulder.

Then the fiery thing hit us, and for a moment, in my dream, everything seemed to freeze at that second of impact. It was as if gravity didn't exist because I was just floating. We all were. I could see my mother's hair hanging almost in a halo around her face, her mouth open in a silent scream.

Then the world reasserted itself and we tumbled, rolling, over and over. It was too fast. Too rough to follow, but my dream provided snapshots. My father whipped forward into the steering wheel. My mother's head sent spider web patterns through the glass of the windshield. The world blurred and turned outside, tumbling the way it tumbled when my father spun me around or lifted me into the air when we'd play. But it was much more dizzying.

My dream jumped forward to the stillness of the aftermath. The kind of stillness that could only come after the end of that much violent, unexpected movement-the kind of terrifying stillness where even the creak of metal around me felt like an intrusion.

I crawled from what was left of the car, crying, looking around for my mother and father. The safety straps of my chair must have torn and set me free. I crawled, and I cried because everything hurt. Even in the dream, it hurt.

Ahead of me, there was a tangle of metal sticking out of the ground. A furrow of torn-up earth led to it, wider and deeper than I was tall. I could see the wreckage of the thing that had hit us in the dream, watching the torn-up curves of the metal and seeing the strange, impossible ways they connected to one another.

I tried to hold back. I tried not to go on. But I had, so I did, despite what was coming. That was how the dream worked. I crawled along the edge of the crater the metal thing had made, and in it, I saw the woman.