Classified Interview, Pulled for Admission

Primary Witness’ Responses to the Alien Bureau of Investigation (ABI) Interview, Transcribed: 

1. Thomas William Renner
2. I was 17-years-old at the time, born January 7th, 2037.
3. I’ve lived in Moncks Corner, North Carolina, all my life. I’m sure you already know that, though, seeing as how you’ve spoken with my father, Chief William Renner.  
4. No, I’ve gone nowhere else. Traveling for us laymen has been limited since the alien war.
5. Just one sister—Layla. She’s 13-years-old this year. 
6. No, we went to the local schools. 
7. I assumed I’d always be a police officer, like my father. Always stay in this town. Have my own family. It’s best to keep goals simple since The Truce was formed. And, besides, it seemed like a good enough life. At the time. 
8. Not anymore. 
9. Science. Genetic modification, specifically. 
10. After I met Ellery. She…changed everything. I mean, she is why you’re here, in this small, dark room, grilling me with questions, after all. 
11. You’re right, and that’s fair. I suppose. I didn’t change after I met her—I was a right jerk to her, actually, and I wanted her gone from our town…I changed after I lost her. 
12. No, I’d never met her before she appeared out of that first portal. 
13. Sure, I’ll tell you about it. No, there wasn’t anything unordinary about that day, initially. We were all in 7th period, listening to our creative writing teacher drone on about practicing different formats for short stories to learn our voice–whatever that means–when all of a sudden everything was shaking, like an earthquake. The lights kept flickering, classmates started shouting. Then, The Noise started. You know what noise I’m talking about–that one that means death is imminent; a sucking, charging sound that grows louder and louder as a portal opens wider and wider. Well, that started. We hear about it on the news, how since the aliens left our planet those portals sporadically pop open and consume entire towns, but I have to admit, I never thought it would happen to Moncks Corner…
14. Huh? Oh, right…Ellery. Once we heard the noise and knew it wasn’t a real earthquake, we all ran outside. That’s when we saw it—out in the baseball field, a blueish-white light that got brighter and brighter as it sucked and spun louder and louder. Even in the daylight, we had to shield our eyes. I thought we were done for. But then the portal abruptly disappeared–and our town was still there, completely intact–and in its place was a girl. Later, at the police station, I learned her name: Ellery. 
15. Nothing looked strange about her. Except the fact that she’d just appeared out of an alien portal and her body was smoking, or steaming, or whatever. She’d otherwise looked like a normal, human girl. She’d startled awake and shot up, staring wildly at us with big green eyes. She had long, brown hair, a tangled mess from head to waist. Even her clothes seemed normal: black jeans and a t-shirt, and I remembered thinking it odd that an alien was wearing green converse shoes, covered in writing. 
16. Hell no, my first reaction wasn’t to go to her, it was to keep my distance! I’ve never seen an alien before, but I’m pretty sure humans don’t use those portals, so I wasn’t about to take my chances. I only ran to her because the crowd that had formed was angry. I don’t blame them. But it had quickly turned into that scared type of anger that makes people act crazy. So I held them off from trying to kill her and called my dad.
17. He was already on his way. 
18. She was crying. Yelling from behind my back that she was a human and that she didn’t know how she’d gotten there. Apparently, she was at her own school on the other side of the continent–Washington–when the portal had appeared around her. 
19. She looked scared. Really scared. But I've seen human girls put on shows before, so certainly alien girls could, right? I…wasn’t very sympathetic. When my dad got there I helped him drag her to the patrol car. 
20. To the station. 
21. I was standing in my father’s office with him and his partner when two out-of-towners showed up late the next day–a woman and a young boy. I couldn’t hear them, but I could see them well enough through the glass partitions. My father was at his desk, telling his partner that the girl checked out; she was indeed human. They had the evidence down to her birth certificate from the Seattle hospital.
22. At first she looked relieved to see them. But then Ellery’s face changed as the woman spoke. She looked…shocked? She started crying again, and the little boy clung fiercely to her. It made me uncomfortable. Her mother was crying, too, but then she started dragging the boy away. They never came back. 
23. No, there wasn’t anyone who looked like her father that’d come. I was told he was killed by the aliens before The Truce. 
24. Then you lot–The ABI–were there. Speaking with her and my father. He never told me what ya’ll said, but I learned that she would be staying here instead of going home. 
25. I suppose she did the only thing adults know to do with teenagers–she started high school here. Turns out she was the same age as me. We attended many classes together. 
26. No, we weren’t friends at first. My father told me to keep an eye on her, so I did. Not to look out for her, but because I didn’t trust her. I felt like she was hiding something. After a few months of nothing weird happening, some of my friends started taking a liking to her, well enough. I mean, there was really nothing to not like–she was kind, funny, smart–but I kept my distance. Or at least I tried to. 
27. One day, when we were in art class, Ellery dropped her paint pots all over the floor. It was an explosion of color. It created more of a scene than it should’ve, because Ellery went to some fancy magnet art school back in her hometown–she was really good. She’d even had a scholarship. So when she didn’t move, I walked around her easel to ask her what was up. Only, she was hyperventilating, her eyes unfocused. And then the floor started shaking and the lights went off. When they flicked back on, she was gone from in front of me. I only just caught the end of her long hair whipping out the door, and I followed after her. When I got outside, she was running across the baseball fields, into the woods beyond. 
28. I caught up with her in the woods. I yelled her name, but she wouldn’t respond. So I grabbed her wrist to stop her. When she whipped around, she was crying. She’d shoved me hard and yelled at me, For once, just leave me alone, Tommy! Which had surprised me. I’d done a lot to earn her ire over the last months, but she’d never reacted before. Until that point, she’d always seemed…resigned? I should’ve left her alone, but I couldn’t. And, I’m glad that I didn’t. 
29. Because, I’d learned something very important that night. 
30. When she’d yanked away again, I’d run in front of her instead. I demanded of her to tell me what was going on–she could sense that earthquake before it happened! 
31. Yeah, I remember what she’d said. I won’t ever forget it, or how scared she looked when she’d said it. They’re coming back, just like the day I got to this town! Except this time…It’s just like what my mom told me that day–I’m different. I’m just like my father. I’d always thought he’d died during the war, but he didn’t. When he was 17-years-old, he’d been pulled through a portal–to the town that I lived in before here–to die in that town’s place! Our bloodline is genetically modified–some sacrificial catalyst–one life lost in place of hundreds. She’d been shaking so badly, choking on her tears. She’d said, He grew up there, knowing what was to happen one day, making a family worth saving when his time came…And now, it’s my turn. I can feel it–feel them trying to open the portal even now, to take this town. I–I won’t make it as long as he did.
32. I’m not crying! I just…don’t like that memory. 
33. Next? 
34. Nothing’s funny. Just ironic, really. I…I’d told myself that I had continued to follow her because it was my duty…but that had started to sound weak even to myself. Still, it wasn’t until she told me that she was going to die soon that I realized how much I had been lying to myself. Especially after what she’d said next: You will finally be happy–I’ll be gone from your town soon enough. 
35. No. I need a break. 
36. I’m feeling well enough now–let’s get this over with. 
37. For the next several months, I did my best to show her how sorry I was. She wasn’t easy to convince that I wasn’t up to something, but, slowly, I learned more about her. I learned that she loved poetry and art. That her favorite medium was pencil sketching and that her favorite poet was tied between Poe and Frost. Her favorite color was green. She liked the smell of musky books, and collected amber jars back at her moms house–which she pronounced mum. 
38. No, I can keep going…I learned that her smile was my favorite. I found that my favorite color had become green, as well, because of her eyes. The green they lit up with when she was excited, and the deep green they churned when she was sad. She missed her little brother most of all from her old life, and I think it’s why she’d taken such a liking to Layla. Apparently, it was mutual, and soon enough my sister had my parents loving Ellery just as well. 
39. Yes. 
40. I did try getting her to leave–don’t look at me like that! I do care about the people in this town, but she doesn’t owe anyone here anything. She said she couldn’t live with herself, knowing that hundreds of people died and that she could’ve saved them. I fought with my father often, to make him evacuate the town so that she would leave, but he wouldn’t. He said many wouldn’t or couldn’t do so, even if he tried. Ellery was convinced that if the alien’s didn’t take this town, they’d take another, and she’d be in the same situation again. She said she could feel it, deep in her core. I’m still a little mad at her, at both of them, for not listening to me. We should have tried. 
41. When another earthquake came. They’d been becoming more frequent, but this one didn’t let up. Ellery said she was going upstairs to get her things from my room, but then she didn’t come back down. She’d climbed out my bedroom window, down the ivy lattice. I knew where she’d gone. 
42. When I got to the baseball field, the portal was already open, and it was twice the size it’d been the first time. Ellery stood in front of it, her hair whipping about her. The sun was setting, and the portal was so bright in the dim light I could barely look upon her. I screamed her name, but the sucking noise was too loud. 
43. When I got to her, she was crying again, but it was different than before. She had her hand to her mouth and she didn’t look…scared. But elated. I looked into the portal and I saw a man–
44. Yes, that’s what I said, a man. I couldn’t see him well–the blue light was too bright–but he seemed almost transparent. Like…energy. Like, the portal itself. What I could see were his eyes. Deep green, like seaweed floating in a blue ocean. He was smiling sadly at us. Ellery looked at me and spoke then: He said it’s my choice. That I can step in and the portal will take me anywhere I want and swallow this town whole in my place. Or, I can step in and let it have me, and it’ll leave this town forever. He said, the vortex never comes to the same place twice. I’d asked her who’ he’ was. My father, she said softly. I’d asked her if he was alive. No, not quite, she’d said. I still don’t really understand it.
45. He stretched out his hand to her. I told her I needed to tell her something first. She said she already knew. And she took his hand. 
46. She waved at me from within, the blue light caressing her skin like an old friend. At this point, the portal had been spinning so fast it was whistling, but as she turned to her father and nodded, the spinning slowed down. It changed direction. And as it did, the portal closed shut, and winked out of existence. 
47. Often. Some nights, I lay in that baseball field and stare up at the stars. 
48. Yes, I attest that all statements are true to the best of my knowledge and belief.
49. No, it’s my turn to ask you a question. Ellery told me that the knowledge for genetic modification for a human catalyst came from the aliens. Apparently, not all of them believe in genocide, and some even work with you, the ABI. I want to meet them. I’ve applied to the ABI–will you accept me?  
50. Because I saw her father–he may not have been normal, but he also wasn’t dead. And I don’t think Ellery is either.