My arrival

You looked out the window and, not for the first time, thought about how wrong the weather forecast had been. The middle of July would not normally be so cold and those storm clouds had certainly looked out of place for mid-summer.

“Drive safe today all you cool cats!” crackled the radio in your car. “A strange storm is brewing.”

You turned off the radio as it was fading in and out as if something had been weakening the signal. That was your pet hate, when things did not work as you had expected them to. A large raindrop had fallen from the sky and thumped upon your windscreen. The droplet had such significant weight that it left a small crack in the glass. With obvious surprise you looked at where the droplet had struck and found a splodge of crimson, a distinctly bloody trail running down the glass. That first drop was then followed by a shower of others and then suddenly there was a body crashing through the glass.

It was my body.

You seemed surprised, shocked even and I guess I should have accepted that this scenario was unusual at best, horrific even. You looked skyward, seeking evidence of where this body, my body could possibly have fallen from. Amongst the dark, brooding, cumulonimbus clouds and the flash of electricity you noticed a large silvery shape. Putting two and two together very quickly you determined that I was not some fool in a costume. My leathery skin, salmon pink with green veins evident as little streams flowing had been your initial clue that I was far from human. My eyes opened fiery balls of purple with a catlike iris, you had seen three as my fourth and all Seeing Eye was still hidden from your sight.

You panicked and as I noted your life organ increased its pace one of your appendages slowly drifted toward your exit portal.

‘HELP ME…’ I had sent then as a mental message directly to your processor.

As I was able to distract you I used my connection to the computer embedded in your vehicle and locked the doors. My blood had continued to ooze upon the leather like material encasing your vehicle’s interior. Acidic it ate the seat covering and the gear stick as well as anything else it ran across. When it touched your skin you gasped, but your skin did not burn. My blood just seemed to run over and ignore this natural exterior. From my bodice I painfully, excruciatingly stretched and strained to protrude an appendage of my own. I struck, threw my newly formed limb at you like a gladiator’s trident. As did my acidic blood my tentacle merely bounced from your softness.

“Oh!” you cried in amazement and uncertainty and I thought that I had discovered my point of entry.

My arm shot forth and slid effortlessly into your open maw. I ventured toward you organs of vitality; lung closest of course but I desired the brain. I seemingly had not considered those tiny white grinders embedded in your fleshy gums. The all Seeing Eye prised open at the end of my leathery slitherer. Slinking and sliding back up your breather tube I noted one of the pearlers glinted golden. Then the gums closed over and my fourth eye was gone. With wisdom nullified soon too was intellect. The body shrunk back, under the driver’s seat and then through the floor.

This was not the plan, this was not how I was to convince my family I can scout, infiltrate, enslave. This was how aliens died, not the amazing tale of triumph. As I fell away from your metallic shell and spread out upon the blackness of the tar I noted your machine crawl away. I slithered and wriggled and felt more and more of my energy dribble and ooze from my cuts and wounds. As I limped inch by inch toward where I hoped I’d find safety I discovered your rounds of rubber creep back toward me. As I felt one of them sliding across me I discovered what true pain felt like. I decided there and then that for my kind your planet is hell. Every minute every second every moment, pain… Pain! Pain! Pain! Pain on my skin, pain in my mind. And when there was no pain there was no… No Eye, no arm, no blood, no body… I could not let no be my story. I clung on and rolled. I took the pain and refused to let it end me. Thinner and thinner I became until all I was and all I remembered was thin.

You traveled on, wondering if I had been the cause of the strange storm that had invaded your summer, ruined your radio reception, destroyed your windscreen. Well you knew about the windscreen but wondered if that strange encounter had been real. Then you coughed, a true fit of gagging, gasping followed by your vomiting up of my tentacle and my precious Eye of Wisdom and superior intellect. I heard it all as I remained smooshed to your rolling rubber. With each revolution I was reminded again and again what it was to feel pain. Until finally the speed of the revolutions pulled me free. As you freed me from your stomach your traversing freed me from your tyre. As I lay, defeated I saw what had been coughed and cascaded. You had not finished me yet. Sliding toward that Eye, the excruciating moment after pain filled inch all that could be considered was what may have been and what could have still been.

Perhaps my family had been right and your planet was the best place for me, the only place that deserved me. The only place where I could be and grow and consume. But then I discovered your atmosphere and how it disagreed with the skin of my kind. I had discovered your sky is much further from your ground than home and entry to your atmosphere was like needles or knives, thinly slicing as I flew, causing me to bleed and faze and ultimately crash.

Ultimately meet you.

Ultimately.