A Day at the Alien Mall

Avery and Ash have been best friends since pre-school. Ash was hiding a very big secret until they were both 10 years old, right after Ash’s mom passed away.

    “Hey, Avery.” Ash sounded overly worried.

    “What’s wrong Ash? Is everything okay?” Avery said, now worried about her best friend.

    “Well, okay. See, I’m half-human half-alien. My dad came down to Earth as an alien prince to explore human culture. My dad fell in love with my mom, who is a human, and had me. When his father died, my dad had to take over as ruler and was forced to go back so he could rule, and his ability to change forms was taken from him.” Avery’s jaw dropped. “As you know my mom recently passed away. Well, my dad can’t switch forms, like I can, I’m going to have to live with him in the secret, alien side of the world.” Ash pauses so that Avery can comprehend what's going on.

“How is there a secret side of the world?” Avery is confused on how there is a hidden side of the world that humans haven’t explored yet.

“Our earth is flat, but what humans don't know is that the alien world is under the surface of the earth. I’ll never get to see you again, and I’ll have to erase your memory of me.”

    “Okay. Wow. This is a lot to take in. Can’t we just convince your dad to let me in every night when it's dark. You’re always telling me how generous and understanding he is.” Avery still had the slightest amount of hope in her voice.

    “I’ll see what I can do, but for now, you have to go home.” Both Ash and Avery didn't like the idea, but it's what had to be done. They give each other a hug, not knowing if they would ever be able to hug again.

The room goes dark. All of the sudden, Avery wakes up in bed. She was wondering if Ash is working things out with her dad.

7 years later

Avery is climbing out her window, like she has every night for the past 7 years, to get to the dimly lit street to be taken to their meeting place. (Which was Ash’s front porch)

    “Hi Avery, I can’t wait to take you shopping today! Oh, sorry, let me change forms real quick. She switched from her hot pink, no arms, 2 legged, and no neck alien body to her tall, skinny, brown eyed, blonde hair, very pretty human body.

    “Here, it is 5am, no shops are open. You can still get some sleep before a long day of fun!” Ash was so excited.

    Exhausted, Avery said, “Good, because school was a nightmare today, I really need some sleep.”

    They started walking into the house as Ash said “School is definitely one thing that I do not miss about the human world. Let’s get you to bed.”

2 hours later

    “Hey, wake up. C’mon the shops open in 30 minutes!”

The tired Avery looked around, stretched, and yawned.

    “Ooh! This is my first time going to the alien mall! Lets go, I don’t want to miss a second of precious shopping time!” Avery said excitedly and continued. “Wait. Did you tell them who I am? Will they know me? They’re probably going to-” Avery was very worried, but got cut off by Ash.

    “STOP! Everything will be fine, besides, where do you think I spend all my free time, my house?” Ash said, very reassuringly.

    They headed off for the alien mall, and a day of fun!

    “I don’t know that much alien language, so you're going to have to translate.” Avery started sounding worried again. 

    “Relax, you’ll be fine. Just don’t try to talk, remember what happened last time.” Ash said in a joking voice.

    They arrived in just 10 short minutes. The shopping center was basically like the mall back home.

    “I promised my dad that I would do some grocery shopping while I was here. Do you want to go now or later?” Ash thought that Avey would be mad at her for taking away part of their day to run errands.

    “We should probably go to the grocery store last so that we don’t have to lug the grocery bags around all day.” To Ash’s relief, Avery didn't sound disappointed at all. 

    “Oh, I forgot to tell you. Anything we buy automatically goes into our own vault!” Ash said, excited to tell Avery something new about her world.

    “Well then, I think that we should save the best for last! Off to the grocery store! Avery just followed Ash, and surprisingly, no one stared at her. After just 20 minutes of asking Ash what almost every single alien food in the store, they were paying.

    “I have a special surprise for you, lets go!”

    The girls start running through the mall and eventually end up at the “Human half”

    “Anyone with a drop of human blood in their body can get in here! I have never been in here before because I wanted to explore it together!” Ash had been waiting so patiently for this moment to come.

    “3...2...1… RUN!!!” The girls run to the door, but only Avery can get in.

    “Ash, what's going on, you’re half-human. You are way more than qualified to enter this part of the mall.” Avery was so worried that her friend wouldn’t be able to get in. “Let’s go see the city construction records, I’m sure we’ll be able to find something there!” Avery has that same hope in her voice that she had only 10 years ago.

    The girls, eager to find out what's keeping Ash out of the human mall, head off to find the city construction records. They are greeted by a middle aged woman.

    “Welcome to city hall! What can I help you with today Ash?” The woman was very friendly.

    “We need to get to the construction records of the mall please.” Ash was not happy about the mess up

    “Sure, just go down the hall to the left, turn right, do down three rooms, turn left down the hallway, and-” Ash cut the lady off.

    “Can we just have a map please?” Ash was trying to hold back her anger because the lady was so nice. 

“Sure honey, here ya go. Do you want a person to go with you so you don’t ge-” Ash cut her off again.

Ash said with “no” harshly, and walked off, looking at the map intensely.

“Ash, don’t you think you were a little harsh back there?" Avery was disappointed in Ash for being so rude to the nice lady.

“HARSH! They messed this up for both of us!” Ash was yelling at Avery.

“Well maybe they did mess it up, but there’s still no reason for you to be mean to that nice lady. What did she ever do to you?” Avery was somehow keeping her calm after Ash, her best friend was yelling in her face.

“You wouldn’t understand what it's like to have something this important to you be messed up!” That crossed the line for Avery, now both of the girls were very angry with each other.

“REALLY! I wouldn’t understand what it feels like to have something important taken away from me! What about when we were 10 years old? That night I gave you one last hug, not knowing if I was ever going to see you again, or if I was even going to remember you the next morning!” Avery had been bottling this up for almost 7 years. “Please, enlighten me on how you weren’t the most important thing in my life when we were 10!”

“You still don’t understand what I had to go through to get YOU here!” Ash immediately realized what she had said, and was not proud of it. “Oh, Avery, I didn’t mean t-” Avery cut Ash off for the first time in her life.

“You know what, save it. If it was really that much trouble for you to get me here, then I should just go home! Avery could just go home whenever she wanted from any place she wanted, which really helped her with dramatic exits, like this one. She looked up as if she was talking to a god and said, “I WANT TO GO HOME!” With those words, before the girls even said bye, she was gone in a flash.

Ash couldn’t go into the human world, and Avery could only get into the alien world at certain times, so their friendship was on pause until Avery decided to visit Ash again. Every night for a whole week, Ash goes out on her front porch at 4:00 am. Avery is not there for every single one of those nights. Ash gives up hope and doesn’t wait for Avery at 4:00 am. She doesn’t erase Avery’s memory because she doesn’t want Avery to forget about their times together in hopes that she’ll come back one day.

Avery feels guilty for leaving like that, so 2 weeks later, Avery decides to go back, but Ash isn’t there waiting for her. She goes for a whole month, but still nothing. Even on Ash’s birthday, Avery goes to tell her happy birthday. Ash is never waiting for Avery, so she decides to move on. She learned to be more firm in her beliefs and stand up for what's right, even if it kills her.  Soon, Avery develops a strong relationship with a girl named Syd.

One day, Syd asks Avery something that will change everything for the better. “How do you immediately see something wrong, and try to fix it?”

Avery thinks for a while, and remembers Ash. “Well, I had a really good friend who was always there for me. She was being rude to someone, and I stood up for that person. She got mad at me and we haven’t talked since then.” 

Avery acts different for the rest of the day, and Syd realizes that thinking about her ex-best friend takes Avery to a really dark place.

“Why don’t you try talking to her. I can go with you if you want.”

“You’re right, I should talk to her! I can’t let you go with me though. It’s complicated, and a story for another time, if she lets me tell it.” Syd is happy to see her friend back to normal, and knows that she did the right thing. She is also curious about what secrets those girls could be hiding, she also wants to protect Avery just in case the other girl is still mad. She decides to follow Avery and see where her ex- best friend, Ash, and Avery meet up. 

That night, Avery climbs out her window and goes to the same spot she did every night for 7 years. Syd sees Avery just disappear into thin air. Syd goes into the same spot that Avery did and also disappears and she ends up standing right next to Avery, in another world. Avery hears her, and turns around.

“SYD!” She couldn’t yell because that would wake all of the aliens up, so instead she whisper-yelled. “How did you get here?” Avery was obviously furious.

“Well I may have sorta, kinda, followed you to the spot where you stood, and saw you disappear into thin air, and maybe did it too.” Syd knew Avery was furious, and that Avery would never trust her again.

“You can’t be here! I’m going to send you home.” Avery looks up to the sky. “I WANT HER TO GO-” Avery gets cut off by Ash opening the door.

“Hello?”