Alien or Alian

Somewhere, in the freezing darkness of Elbel Court, Ezra wandered the quieting streets with stout intent.

Ozias would know exactly where, as Kaine had been in alternating communication with Ezra through top-notch walkie talkies since Ezra had left almost an hour ago to situate himself as bait, but he’d been dozing off nonstop for the last couple of hours.

From midday till nightfall, he had spent the time aiding the Knillimhyrs and Corte’s in working out the finer details of their perilous plan to ambush a bewitched Sid, any way he could. That was time he could have used to sleep off all the previous labour and hardship of waking up and leaving early to get to his exam, of confronting a hostile alian and its helpless host, and of fleeing his own home and venturing into the unfamiliar backwoods in frigid weather.

It was time that Nina had so kindly insisted Ozias could use to do just that, but Ozias had turned down the suggestion with staunch ease. He knew it was very likely his presence at Ethen’s house wasn’t necessary for the plan to succeed, but he wanted to be here for the two families, if at the most to supply mere support.

Before his drowsiness could nag him again, Ozias sat up on the navy blue wool couch he’d been lying on and rested his chin on one of the back pillows. His gaze oscillated as he regarded the preoccupied state of the residence: Kaine had drifted into the kitchen that was next to the living room where Ozias was, and he seemed to be tuning the controls on the walkie talkie; Nina strode back and forth in the hallway next to the staircase while on the phone with one of Sid’s parents, maybe both by the sound of it, Ozias thought; Lyza, Dimitri, and another woman Ozias recalled from the first time he stepped foot inside the secret laboratory beneath the Knillmhyr manor — Ingrid, she was called — all stuck closely together in a corner of the living room to inspect one of the spacesuits the families used for space travel.

The suits were all installed with built-in insulators and heaters, with external controls to activate their functions at any time. The only way to prevent the blob from taking another host once it was expelled from Sid, was for Ezra to don the suit and trigger the heat within before going inside the chamber.

Ozias watched on as Ethen and Ezra’s twin uncles (on their mother’s side) — one with a hulking figure, the other lean, and both maintaining flamboyantly furry beards — came into view and smoothly maneuvered past Nina with a heavy cabinet in their grasp. Another item from the basement of the house. The Hyper-inversion chamber was down there too, so the path from the front door all the way down needed to be an absolute clean break for Ezra to bolt inside, throw on the suit, and continue into the basement.

Both times Ozias encountered the possessed Mr. Halton, he’d been slow-moving while hunting his prey. The blob seemed to be slower while inside someone’s body, and faster on its own, which meant Ezra could have enough time to get the spacesuit on before a possessed Sid finally entered the house.

Ozias scooted off of the couch and straightened out all his limbs. The plan was in motion and there was no way he was going to fall asleep again. He scanned the room once more; everyone was immersed in their tasks. Everyone, except...Ethen. He wasn’t anywhere Ozias could see, which meant he must’ve still been removing the wires down in the chamber.

Ozias slipped around the twin uncles as they barreled into the living room with the cabinet still in tow, and slunk further down the hallway until he reached an open door leading to the basement. While padding down the steel steps, he noticed the throbbing quiet enveloping the place. Ozias didn’t know what it was like to detach a bunch of tubes from a temperature modifying machine, but he imagined it would be a lot less quiet than it was now.

He finally reached the last step and gave a slow sweep of the weakly lit room: a network of minorly rusted pipes in close-quarters with ceiling; countless cardboard boxes piled near and onto each other — some sealed with duct tape, some open with their flaps bent out of shape; several drab pieces of furniture that seemed to match the cabinet that was carried upstairs; and then at last, a lone, lofty white metal box installed neatly in a far corner. The colossal door was ajar, allowing Ozias to traipse right inside.

Ethen was on the floor; one leg folded up and the other sprawled out, his back sagged against the wall in the center of the chamber, his head tilted upwards staring at the box’s colourless roof. He sat in between a mess of disconnected, multicoloured tubes but he didn’t appear at all bothered by them, nor by Ozias who went and sat cross legged a few inches away from the entrance.

He was directly across from Ethen, but crookedly aligned, as Ozias was going for. It made it a lot more comfortable (for him) when he eventually disturbed the silence and asked, “so, why do you have one of these chambers if you don’t go into space yourself?”

Ethen didn’t lower his gaze as he answered. “A few years ago, our families had this place built for anyone opting out of the whole space travel business. If any of us decide to continue school, we can stay here for as long as we’re studying. It’s isolated from the manor so that it’s easier to focus on just school, and the chamber’s a backup in case of any emergencies. As of now, Sid and I are two of few staying in Elbel and taking the school route, so he rooms here with me when he’s not at his parents’ place.”

Ozias looked down at his clammy and fidgeting hands in the pit around his crossed legs. “U-umm...about Sid-”

“Don’t,” Ethen broke in. “What happened to Sid wasn’t your fault.”

Ozias flinched, both at Ethen’s words and the sudden ruckus of boxes being moved. He spared a shaky glance behind him at the twin uncles who had re-emerged to collect more obstacles in the path of the chamber. When he turned back to Ethen, he started to say, “how did you know that I-”

Ethen afforded a cursory glance in Ozias’ direction before his fixed look shot back up. “It’s written all over your face. Seriously, don’t get all up in knots about it. There wasn’t anything you could do.”

“But still...I was there. I might not have been able to completely stop what happened, but I could’ve tried a little harder.”

From where Ozias sat, he couldn’t see the sincere smirk that tugged its way onto the corner of Ethen’s lips. “You kind of sound like Ezra.”

Ozias didn’t expect the remark, but in spite of that it still sounded like a compliment to him. “Oh...Thanks.”

Ethen’s gaze finally dropped, and he didn’t hold back as a modest ripple of laughter broke free. Ozias watched on, stunned. Nothing twinged in his heart or screamed at him in his head, though. Nothing that spelled fondness or infatuation. Just something that was akin to the radiant sun reappearing after a long few days of endless cloudy skies of snow: a pleasant and warm gift.

Ethen recovered from his laughing frenzy, and surprisingly a small smile remained. “Maybe I’m overstepping, but I gotta say this. When all this mayhem is finally over, I hope you’ll stick around, for my brother’s sake. You’re like his only actual friend outside the family.”

“Oh,” Ozias said again, much less on the self-conscious side and more self-effacing. “Well, that’s unlikely. I don’t really have any friends either, so distancing myself from my one and first real friendship wouldn’t be the best choice for me.”

Ethen made a face like he couldn’t believe that, but he didn’t comment on it. Instead he said, “I’m sorry.”

Ozias went still. This was almost as odd as Ethen laughing. Almost. “F-for what?”

“For everything. For getting mad at you the other day when you first came to the lab — for being an asshole to you in general, and for never talking to you in school, then and now. I’ve always noticed you. Back in that creative writing class in high school, Mr. Dario always shared the best answers for the weekly prompts, and yours was always the first he read. Sometimes it was bizarre, sometimes it was kind of funny, but either way it was usually the best writing in the class.”

“You remember that?” Ozias didn’t usually like to recall the glory days of his bountiful writing bursts, because it was a bitter reminder of all the time he had spent since the school year started on leisure writing or working on his future bestseller novel — zero. He instinctively shuffled forward, though, enough to properly align himself across from Ethen.

“Yeah.” Ethen pulled up his other leg and let his arms rest atop his knees. “Maybe we could’ve been friends from the get-go if I’d just talked to you then, but I was...I don’t know. Really deep in a hole. The point is, I am sorry.”

Ozias didn’t know what to say. So many things, so many unexpected words laid out on the floor before him, for him, yet Ozias just didn’t know what to do with the serendipitous confession. His lips quivered open, a response trying an earnest effort to form itself, but then a voice called out from the chamber entryway as a figure materialized.

“Hey, both of you, get upstairs,” Kaine urged the two. He stuffed the walkie talkie in his back pocket and remained on standby at the chamber threshold. “Ezra’s coming up the street. Time to get into position.”