Two pairs of feet marched down the rocky trail. Surrounded on all sides by dense trees, the path would have been a scenic view had it not been 10pm on a Friday night. With only a clear sky full of moonlight to guide the pair, the two continued their trek through the trees in the heart of what was the city’s largest park.

“You know, a smart man might have planned to do this during the day.” The vixen chided him from behind, as he was leading the way.

“You might be right, but only a true gentleman would drag his girl out this late at night to the middle of the deep dark woods.” The fox told her in reply.

“Uh huh. So, before I freeze to death, do I at least get to know what the secret is supposed to be? I’m cold!” She complained.

He laughed. The pair were a couple, some little lovebirds enjoying their second year of being Facebook official. Timothy was his name, and Chelsea was hers, a sweet pair of red foxes. Picture perfect, really and truly!

“Ok, ok. I’ll tell you.” He said, putting some somber tones into his voice.

“Oooh, ok? So?” She replied, hugging herself and rubbing her arms through her lightweight jacket.

Chelsea really should have brought something heavier to wear. Her boyfriend stopped, then turned around with a big sad sigh. Exaggerated.

She watched him deadpan in the cold.

“I’m a werehawk, Chelsea. I’m going to turn and carry you off into the sky and no one will ever see you again.” He replied.

“Oh, you’re such a butt, why are we out in the cooold!” She fussed at him, unhugging herself and pushing him playfully on the chest.

He laughed, then grabbed her by the collar of her jacket to tug it shut a little tighter, fixing the zipper with an upward tug.

“I told you it’s a secret but we’re almost there. You’ll like it, I promise!” He assured her, then dragged her by the shoulders to start walking again with him.

Together they kept going, in the cold, girlfriend pouting at the thinness of her jacket, boyfriend reminding her that it’ll be worth it once they’re there. Also, that he was totally a werehawk just like in the movies.

“As if you’d be something cool like that instead of the Toxic Avenger.” She told him.

They continued their banter until the trail led them to a break in the trees. The park had numerous places to set up for picnics and other activities, and what Timothy had led them to was just that. The break in the trees opened out into a modest grassy clearing with a few empty picnic tables and an old cast iron grill.

Between the two of them, Timothy was the only person carrying anything. He swung his backpack off and lured his girlfriend out into the middle of the grassy space, then sat his backpack down to unzip it. Chelsea watched him, now back to rubbing her arms to keep warm. She was pinching her lips together in consternation as he pulled out a rolled-up blanket.

“A picnic blanket, really? At 10pm?” She asked incredulously.

“You’ll see, spoil sport.” He told her with a smile as he shook out the blanket and let it flatten out on the grass.

He returned to emptying his backpack, drawing out a battery powered lantern, a lunchbox, and a pair of binoculars. All while Chelsea continued to stare at her boyfriend.

When he started to lay down on the blanket, he invited her to join him. She begrudgingly agreed, still pouting over the cold.

“There.” He told her, at last revealing the secret by pointing up at the sky.

Now they were both laying down on their backs, looking skyward. The weather had been clear all day, and now at such a late hour the sky was crazy dark, and you could see the stars.

“Whatever possessed you to plan this?” She finally laughed.

“Well, I remember your dad telling me you loved astrology-“ He began to reply.

“Astronomy.” She quickly corrected him.

“Astronomy when you were little, and I know you have those glow in the dark stars stuck on your bedroom ceiling.” He finished.

“Oh my God!” She laughed out loud, covering her face with her hands.

“When were you ever in my old bedroom! Stalker!” She accused him.

“You mom showed me when I was there last month.” He told her, and she let out an ugly exasperated noise. Of course it was her mother.

Chelsea’s bedroom hadn’t changed since she moved out after high school, so it still had the glow in the dark stars stuck to the ceiling from when she was a kid obsessing over planets and stars and Lisa Frank.

“So, you wanted to take me out stargazing in the cold because I had glow in the dark stickers?” She asked him.

“Yes.” He replied, then lifted the binoculars to his face and started looking skyward with them.

“That’s not what those are fooor, you need a real telescope to see anything far away.” She told him, hugging herself tighter on the blanket for warmth before scooting herself over to lay right next to him.

“Shows what you know.” He told her a few moments later.

He handed her the binoculars and started pointing at a spot in the sky. She took them, and with more than a little skepticism began to use the binoculars to look skyward. You didn’t need a telescope to see the stars, but if you wanted to see more than that you needed something better than a pair of binoculars, since those were really only meant to view things here on Earth that were miles away from you, not things way out in the cosmos.

“Stars.” She replied.

Timothy grabbed one side of the binoculars and nudged her head with them.

She paused, her brow furling.

Then she batted her boyfriend’s hand away and sat upright from the blanket, staring up at the sky.

“See it?” He asked her.

“I’m not sure what that is.” She confessed.

What her boyfriend had found, and what she was now looking at, was a bright sparkling object very far away. It had been a long time since she was interested in astronomy, so she’d forgotten a few things about it.

“I saw someone on Facebook say they saw a shooting star a few days ago, and it gave me star gazing ideas. Then I saw the university put out an article saying they think we might be getting a few close calls. Meteors or something.” He tried to explain to her as she watched the bright sparkle in the lenses, brighter than a twinkling star so it was something else, perhaps a comet.

“I hadn’t seen anything about that. This is cool, baby.” She was no longer that cold now, nor felt like pouting.

The night’s sky was perfectly clear, with the stars much more visible than they would normally be in the city. It might have been cold tonight, but you didn’t often get to see the sky like this most of the time.

“This was very sweet of you, I’m sorry for being a butthole.” She apologized, and then offered to let him use the binoculars again.

“I forgive you.” He replied and then took his turn to stargaze.

It was only just the one shooting star, or whatever it was. Chelsea didn’t remember enough about it to know for sure, and Timothy didn’t know anything about it at all, so the two of them just enjoyed each other’s company and talked while they took turns watching the sky with the binoculars.

“Now I have to think of a way to outdo you.” She told him after a few minutes.

“Breakfast in bed with a BJ.” He told her.

“No, don’t ruin the moment, baby!” She laughed. “Suggest something romantic!”

He laughed.

“I don’t know, that sounded pretty romantic to me.” He told her, and she sighed and tapped the binoculars so she could look again.

“Such a butt.” She replied, taking the binoculars and looking through them once again.

The object they were looking at continued to sparkle, the glinting light of it wavering and undulating in a weird way she couldn’t recall seeing before. She let the view linger, picking through her childhood memories to try and identify what they were looking at.

“Does it look bigger to you?” She asked him.

“Not sure, but I can kinda see it without the binoculars now that I know where to look.” He told her.

She put the binoculars down and let them rest on her stomach. They both found it in the sky and watched, and sure enough, it was right there. They might not have been able to find it without the binoculars but now that they had, it wasn’t that hard. It was just a bright spot in the sky, brighter than all the others.

“Pretty.” She sighed.

“Regret letting me drag you out here?” He asked.

“No.” She chuckled.

Turning her head to look at him, she tapped him on his side to get his attention.

“Seriously think of something romantic. If you come up with a good idea you might still get a BJ.” She told him, genuinely wanting him to think of something she could do for him.

“I promise.” He assured her.

She grabbed his hand and squeezed it, he squeezed back.

He suddenly flexed and started sitting upright. He’d forgotten all about the lunchbox, and it was quickly revealed that he’d brought some midnight snacks for them to share while they stargazed. It wasn’t anything special, just one of those little 16oz box wines and a plastic bag full of charcuterie board meats and cheeses.

They began to share their modest meal, and the thing about alcohol is that it tends to warm you up, just start drinking and let the fuzzy warmth flow. Chelsea didn’t feel so cold anymore, and with Timothy volunteering to be their designated drinker he only had the smallest of sips so she could enjoy the rest.

“I think we should do this again some time, but maybe when the weather is warmer.” She suggested.

“Yeah, we can do that. Maybe I won’t make it a secret next time so we can come better prepared.” He told her.

“I would like that.” She smiled.

“Man, that suckers pretty bright now.” He suddenly said.

She looked and agreed with him that it was awfully bright. He picked up the binoculars and looked before letting out an audible ‘wow’. Chelsea reached over and grabbed the binoculars from him and took a look of her own. What had once been an unknown sparkle in the night sky was now a burning yellow ball much larger than it had been when they’d first seen it.

Putting the binoculars down, she sat upright and looked up with just her eyes. The object wasn’t even streaking from one side of the sky to the other. It just seemed to be hovering there in the same spot but growing brighter and larger with every passing minute. Chelsea felt a chill that wasn’t coming from the night air. After a few more moments of staring skyward, she felt her mood change.

“I kinda don’t want to be out here anymore, baby.” She said instantly, something not feeling right to her at all.

“What’s wrong?” He asked.

“I think we should go.” She said and started to stand.

“What’s up, what’s the matter?” He asked, startled, and began to pick himself up off the blanket.

“Let’s just go, please, let’s just go!” She suddenly heard herself say, the fur standing up on the back of her neck faster than she could explain.

“Ok, ok.” Timothy was startled by her sudden change in behavior, but he started grabbing their things to leave.

“No, let’s go, please!” She grabbed him by the arm and began to tug at him.

Something was telling her to get out now, and as she tugged at his arm he initially protested until he realized the look of terror on her face. He dropped the blanket and stopped resisting. He didn’t argue with her as she pulled him along, and together they started to leave the park. Her feet were carrying her away faster and faster until both foxes were running back to the trail they’d started from.

“Chelsea, what’s wrong? What’s going on?” Timothy asked her.

“I think it’s coming our way!” She told him, her heart pounding.

She dared to look up, saw only the limbs and leaves of trees obscuring the starry night sky.

“Ok, ok.” He told her in confusion.

Now they were running, and she kept looking skyward. All she could see was the treetops and hints and teases of the night sky.

“Chelsea, it’s dark, we need to slow down!” He shouted, but she was now lost to the fear that gripped her.

“Wait, Chelsea!” He shouted again and actually tripped just as he’d feared.

He tumbled to the trail, and Chelsea stopped, spinning around to see him just as he began to pick himself up off the ground. She rushed to him, grabbing him by the arm and started trying to haul him up.

“Chelsea, stop!” He shouted at her, now angry.

“We have to go!” She cried.

“What is wrong with you!” He shouted back at her angrily.

She kept pulling at his arm, but he resisted, demanding she explain herself. Somewhere in the far distance there was a noise, something like a low rumble of a truck.

“Please, let’s just go!” She begged him.

The rumble was now louder, growing in volume until it began to sound like a roar. Chelsea’s heart was pounding as she gripped her boyfriend tighter and tighter in an effort to make him flee with her.

Timothy looked up, his ears perked up at the sudden introduction of an unmistakable noise.

“What the?” He asked as the night sky grew curiously bright.

She looked up too, and though the limbs and the leaves the sky was brighter, far brighter than it had any right to be. Both of them froze at the sight of the night sky turning a strange bright yellow that overpowered their other senses. The noise then grew so loud that both of her ears began to hurt. The pain snapped her out of it, and she yanked on her boyfriend again.

“Please, we need to go!” She shouted, but her voice was now a muffled mumble.

“What?” He shouted back, unable to hear her as he tried to cover his ears.

Something struck the forest through the trees, a thunderous boom knocking the air aside like an explosion. Limbs were torn from their trunks; trees were ripped from the ground. Mother nature in an instant became shrapnel, wood and earth alike being cast aside like feathers in the wind. The night sky was absent, just a startling bright white light as the sound of a sonic boom deafened everything within its earshot.

The sky fell dark again, only the orange glow of fire somewhere in the distance giving the world light, distant car alarms echoing loudly from all directions. The moon was overhead, looking down at the scene of a devasted park. In its center, a gaping hole, a crater hundreds of feet wide. The forest around it had been knocked flat, snapped like toothpicks by an unseen and terrible hand.

A loud, shrill ringing was the only noise left. The pain and anguish of countless injuries added to the noise; a million little dentist drills whining all across Timothy’s body. Slumped against the remains of a tree, its broken stump pressed against his back, the fox was trapped under the debris of broken limbs and loose earth.

He couldn’t move, something was lying across his legs, and when he moved his arms, they both screamed at him when he tried. He tried to speak, but he couldn’t hear himself if he tried. Timothy was suddenly tired, more tired than he’d ever felt in his life. As hard as he could, he tried to fight the urge to let his eyes close, because he needed to find Chelsea.

But he couldn’t move, only blink his bleary eyes and try to look through the limbs and debris he’d been buried by.

Silently, something stepped into his vision though he could barely tell what it was. Something was in his eyes, they were burning hot as he blinked through tears. It was Chelsea and so he tried shouting to her, but he didn’t know if she could hear him. He tried again. He blinked away more painful tears, then fell mute as his vision cleared enough to see.

That wasn’t Chelsea.

Something tall and grey stood far away from him, it’s body glossy and smooth with two legs and arms like a man, but it was unearthly, terrifying. Its elongated head was looking down at the ground, and Timothy watched in horror as its slender body reached low with a boney hand. It picked something up, and in its grip was Chelsea’s crumpled body, limp and lifeless as the creature lifted it higher.

Timothy’s heart pounded in his chest as a new terror filled him. His desperate exhaustion tried to drag him to sleep, but the fear fought it, his heart beating painfully harder and harder as the creature unhooked its jaw and began to open wide. It took a bite of her, and then the exhaustion finally won. Timothy lost consciousness, and his heart finally slowed down as the rest of him went limp.

----------

The ringing wouldn’t stop, it was like a piano key being held down forever, a constant high note that wouldn’t fade. It radiated from his head and down to his toes, aching all over. The more he listened to that high note the more painful it became. It had once been dull, like a monotone, but now it was growing sharper, but not from the same source. Louder here, sharper there, quieter there. The more he listened the more disturbed the sound became until it became almost too much to bear.

Timothy finally opened his eyes, but he couldn’t see a thing. Just bright white light that hurt to look at. He blinked, blinked more, his eyes beading up with tears as the ringing across his body became nothing more than large amounts of aches and pains. His legs and his left arm were the worst to feel it, and his head felt like it was splitting open with a migraine.

The white light faded as his eyes adjusted, and he finally saw that he was in a drab white and grey room. In his confusion he stared dumbly at the ceiling, then tried to look around but his body was surrounded by padding, he couldn’t twist his head further than an inch. He was in a small hospital room, and it was empty. A vase sat on a table across from him with flowers. Twisting his head as far as he could, he saw the door was open and outside was the dull drone of people and activity.

“Dr Morr, you’re needed at the 4th Floor Reception, Dr Morr.” A lady’s voice called out politely through an intercom system.

He saw a basket was to his left on another table, filled with what looked like candy and other things he liked.

Timothy was in a hospital; he suddenly was very much aware of himself and began to panic. He couldn’t move!

His left arm was in a cast and on his right, he was hooked up to an IV. Something was wrong with his legs, he couldn’t move them, and he couldn’t look far enough down to see what was wrong with them. The blanket laid over him felt heavy, like it weighed a ton. Even his one free arm felt like it was cast from lead.

He saw the small red switch on the side of the bed, but it was on the side with his cast bound arm.

“Help.” He said, but his voice came out weaker than a whisper.

Frustrated, he called out again, but not any louder than before.

He tried to lift his lead heavy arm, struggling to lift it higher than an inch. He barely achieved that. His fingers could move, and little by little he willed his arm to inch across his chest, pulling himself along by his fingers and pushing with all the strength he could muster through his shoulder. The fox felt totally drained, exhausted to his core like he’d just climbed out of a pool after several hours of swimming.

In a moment of triumph, he reached the call button and pressed it, then pressed it again. He stared at the button while he kept mashing it until a face popped into the doorway. A doe in a nurse’s uniform quickly stepped through the door and looked at him, saw his eyes were open.

“Mr. Wallace?” She asked him calmly, and then began to check him over, looking at the machine he was hooked up to, asking him questions about how he was feeling.

He couldn’t answer her; his voice was too weak. She then left the room and several minutes later she returned with another nurse and a doctor.

Timothy was then told that he had been in the blast zone of an impact from a meteorite that hit San Furnando’s Eastwood Park. He had two broken legs, a broken arm, several broken ribs, a concussion, numerous bruises and cuts across his body, and a puncture on the left side of his abdomen that mostly damaged muscle tissue.

He kept trying to ask them about Chelsea, but his voice was too weak to reach them, or they kept interrupting him to calm him down and explain his situation. He’d been in the hospital for a week, his condition was stable, but he was far from recovery with how many different injuries he’d sustained.

When he again failed to ask them about Chelsea, he began to cry. Every time he asked about her, he remembered it more and more. He remembered taking her on a date, he remembered the two of them stargazing, and then running through the forest. He remembered being so angry at her for acting crazy, and then he remembered the explosion.

Chelsea wasn’t here anymore, and it hurt to cry, his ribs letting their injury sing long and loud as his chest rose and fell with his grief.

“You’re going to be ok, Mr. Wallace. You are pretty banged up, but the damage isn’t anything someone your age won’t heal from. Anything can happen of course, but for now I do expect you to make a full recovery.” The doctor reacted to his tears by offering words of encouragement.

Someone was loudly talking outside his room, much louder than the general commotion of the hospital.

“Let me go!” A woman’s voice demanded.

The nurses turned their attention to the doorway, then one of them left to check. Soon then, the doctor’s own attention was drawn to the doorway as a young woman appeared. She was angrily arguing with another nurse to let her through.

Chelsea forced her way past the nurses and started sobbing when she saw him. She was dressed in a hospital gown with an arm in a cast. She looked rough, like she’d been sleepless for several days straight, her fur was unkempt, and her hair was a mess.

“Timothy!” She sobbed harder when she saw he was awake and staring at her.

The doctor let her pass by him, and while she rushed to Timothy’s bedside the older man waved the nurses down to stop them from interfering.

“Oh my God, Timothy you’re ok!” She was ugly crying, her warm hand reaching out to grab his own.

She gave him a gentle squeeze, and he didn’t want to believe what he was seeing. It was Chelsea.

“How?” He tried to ask, but again it came out as a whisper, barely audible.

“I’m going to get them to call your parents, they were just here this morning to visit. They’re going to be so happy, baby! You’ve been asleep for a whole week since it happened.” She told him.

He didn’t bother trying to talk anymore. It was pointless, no one could hear him. Instead, he let Chelsea tell him what happened, about the meteorite that they were watching, and how they were both found by first responders. The more she filled him in on what had happened that night, the more he gaslit himself into thinking that maybe he had just… imagined things. She was ok, hurt, but not as bad as he was.

Chelsea was standing right there, and that was her hand squeezing his.

He was sure of it.

Two pairs of feet marched down the rocky trail. Surrounded on all sides by dense trees, the path would have been a scenic view had it not been 10pm on a Friday night. With only a clear sky full of moonlight to guide the pair, the two continued their trek through the trees in the heart of what was the city’s largest park.

“You know, a smart man might have planned to do this during the day.” The vixen chided him from behind, as he was leading the way.

“You might be right, but only a true gentleman would drag his girl out this late at night to the middle of the deep dark woods.” The fox told her in reply.

“Uh huh. So, before I freeze to death, do I at least get to know what the secret is supposed to be? I’m cold!” She complained.

He laughed. The pair were a couple, some little lovebirds enjoying their second year of being Facebook official. Timothy was his name, and Chelsea was hers, a sweet pair of red foxes. Picture perfect, really and truly!

“Ok, ok. I’ll tell you.” He said, putting some somber tones into his voice.

“Oooh, ok? So?” She replied, hugging herself and rubbing her arms through her lightweight jacket.

Chelsea really should have brought something heavier to wear. Her boyfriend stopped, then turned around with a big sad sigh. Exaggerated.

She watched him deadpan in the cold.

“I’m a werehawk, Chelsea. I’m going to turn and carry you off into the sky and no one will ever see you again.” He replied.

“Oh, you’re such a butt, why are we out in the cooold!” She fussed at him, unhugging herself and pushing him playfully on the chest.

He laughed, then grabbed her by the collar of her jacket to tug it shut a little tighter, fixing the zipper with an upward tug.

“I told you it’s a secret but we’re almost there. You’ll like it, I promise!” He assured her, then dragged her by the shoulders to start walking again with him.

Together they kept going, in the cold, girlfriend pouting at the thinness of her jacket, boyfriend reminding her that it’ll be worth it once they’re there. Also, that he was totally a werehawk just like in the movies.

“As if you’d be something cool like that instead of the Toxic Avenger.” She told him.

They continued their banter until the trail led them to a break in the trees. The park had numerous places to set up for picnics and other activities, and what Timothy had led them to was just that. The break in the trees opened out into a modest grassy clearing with a few empty picnic tables and an old cast iron grill.

Between the two of them, Timothy was the only person carrying anything. He swung his backpack off and lured his girlfriend out into the middle of the grassy space, then sat his backpack down to unzip it. Chelsea watched him, now back to rubbing her arms to keep warm. She was pinching her lips together in consternation as he pulled out a rolled-up blanket.

“A picnic blanket, really? At 10pm?” She asked incredulously.

“You’ll see, spoil sport.” He told her with a smile as he shook out the blanket and let it flatten out on the grass.

He returned to emptying his backpack, drawing out a battery powered lantern, a lunchbox, and a pair of binoculars. All while Chelsea continued to stare at her boyfriend.

When he started to lay down on the blanket, he invited her to join him. She begrudgingly agreed, still pouting over the cold.

“There.” He told her, at last revealing the secret by pointing up at the sky.

Now they were both laying down on their backs, looking skyward. The weather had been clear all day, and now at such a late hour the sky was crazy dark, and you could see the stars.

“Whatever possessed you to plan this?” She finally laughed.

“Well, I remember your dad telling me you loved astrology-“ He began to reply.

“Astronomy.” She quickly corrected him.

“Astronomy when you were little, and I know you have those glow in the dark stars stuck on your bedroom ceiling.” He finished.

“Oh my God!” She laughed out loud, covering her face with her hands.

“When were you ever in my old bedroom! Stalker!” She accused him.

“You mom showed me when I was there last month.” He told her, and she let out an ugly exasperated noise. Of course it was her mother.

Chelsea’s bedroom hadn’t changed since she moved out after high school, so it still had the glow in the dark stars stuck to the ceiling from when she was a kid obsessing over planets and stars and Lisa Frank.

“So, you wanted to take me out stargazing in the cold because I had glow in the dark stickers?” She asked him.

“Yes.” He replied, then lifted the binoculars to his face and started looking skyward with them.

“That’s not what those are fooor, you need a real telescope to see anything far away.” She told him, hugging herself tighter on the blanket for warmth before scooting herself over to lay right next to him.

“Shows what you know.” He told her a few moments later.

He handed her the binoculars and started pointing at a spot in the sky. She took them, and with more than a little skepticism began to use the binoculars to look skyward. You didn’t need a telescope to see the stars, but if you wanted to see more than that you needed something better than a pair of binoculars, since those were really only meant to view things here on Earth that were miles away from you, not things way out in the cosmos.

“Stars.” She replied.

Timothy grabbed one side of the binoculars and nudged her head with them.

She paused, her brow furling.

Then she batted her boyfriend’s hand away and sat upright from the blanket, staring up at the sky.

“See it?” He asked her.

“I’m not sure what that is.” She confessed.

What her boyfriend had found, and what she was now looking at, was a bright sparkling object very far away. It had been a long time since she was interested in astronomy, so she’d forgotten a few things about it.

“I saw someone on Facebook say they saw a shooting star a few days ago, and it gave me star gazing ideas. Then I saw the university put out an article saying they think we might be getting a few close calls. Meteors or something.” He tried to explain to her as she watched the bright sparkle in the lenses, brighter than a twinkling star so it was something else, perhaps a comet.

“I hadn’t seen anything about that. This is cool, baby.” She was no longer that cold now, nor felt like pouting.

The night’s sky was perfectly clear, with the stars much more visible than they would normally be in the city. It might have been cold tonight, but you didn’t often get to see the sky like this most of the time.

“This was very sweet of you, I’m sorry for being a butthole.” She apologized, and then offered to let him use the binoculars again.

“I forgive you.” He replied and then took his turn to stargaze.

It was only just the one shooting star, or whatever it was. Chelsea didn’t remember enough about it to know for sure, and Timothy didn’t know anything about it at all, so the two of them just enjoyed each other’s company and talked while they took turns watching the sky with the binoculars.

“Now I have to think of a way to outdo you.” She told him after a few minutes.

“Breakfast in bed with a BJ.” He told her.

“No, don’t ruin the moment, baby!” She laughed. “Suggest something romantic!”

He laughed.

“I don’t know, that sounded pretty romantic to me.” He told her, and she sighed and tapped the binoculars so she could look again.

“Such a butt.” She replied, taking the binoculars and looking through them once again.

The object they were looking at continued to sparkle, the glinting light of it wavering and undulating in a weird way she couldn’t recall seeing before. She let the view linger, picking through her childhood memories to try and identify what they were looking at.

“Does it look bigger to you?” She asked him.

“Not sure, but I can kinda see it without the binoculars now that I know where to look.” He told her.

She put the binoculars down and let them rest on her stomach. They both found it in the sky and watched, and sure enough, it was right there. They might not have been able to find it without the binoculars but now that they had, it wasn’t that hard. It was just a bright spot in the sky, brighter than all the others.

“Pretty.” She sighed.

“Regret letting me drag you out here?” He asked.

“No.” She chuckled.

Turning her head to look at him, she tapped him on his side to get his attention.

“Seriously think of something romantic. If you come up with a good idea you might still get a BJ.” She told him, genuinely wanting him to think of something she could do for him.

“I promise.” He assured her.

She grabbed his hand and squeezed it, he squeezed back.

He suddenly flexed and started sitting upright. He’d forgotten all about the lunchbox, and it was quickly revealed that he’d brought some midnight snacks for them to share while they stargazed. It wasn’t anything special, just one of those little 16oz box wines and a plastic bag full of charcuterie board meats and cheeses.

They began to share their modest meal, and the thing about alcohol is that it tends to warm you up, just start drinking and let the fuzzy warmth flow. Chelsea didn’t feel so cold anymore, and with Timothy volunteering to be their designated drinker he only had the smallest of sips so she could enjoy the rest.

“I think we should do this again some time, but maybe when the weather is warmer.” She suggested.

“Yeah, we can do that. Maybe I won’t make it a secret next time so we can come better prepared.” He told her.

“I would like that.” She smiled.

“Man, that suckers pretty bright now.” He suddenly said.

She looked and agreed with him that it was awfully bright. He picked up the binoculars and looked before letting out an audible ‘wow’. Chelsea reached over and grabbed the binoculars from him and took a look of her own. What had once been an unknown sparkle in the night sky was now a burning yellow ball much larger than it had been when they’d first seen it.

Putting the binoculars down, she sat upright and looked up with just her eyes. The object wasn’t even streaking from one side of the sky to the other. It just seemed to be hovering there in the same spot but growing brighter and larger with every passing minute. Chelsea felt a chill that wasn’t coming from the night air. After a few more moments of staring skyward, she felt her mood change.

“I kinda don’t want to be out here anymore, baby.” She said instantly, something not feeling right to her at all.

“What’s wrong?” He asked.

“I think we should go.” She said and started to stand.

“What’s up, what’s the matter?” He asked, startled, and began to pick himself up off the blanket.

“Let’s just go, please, let’s just go!” She suddenly heard herself say, the fur standing up on the back of her neck faster than she could explain.

“Ok, ok.” Timothy was startled by her sudden change in behavior, but he started grabbing their things to leave.

“No, let’s go, please!” She grabbed him by the arm and began to tug at him.

Something was telling her to get out now, and as she tugged at his arm he initially protested until he realized the look of terror on her face. He dropped the blanket and stopped resisting. He didn’t argue with her as she pulled him along, and together they started to leave the park. Her feet were carrying her away faster and faster until both foxes were running back to the trail they’d started from.

“Chelsea, what’s wrong? What’s going on?” Timothy asked her.

“I think it’s coming our way!” She told him, her heart pounding.

She dared to look up, saw only the limbs and leaves of trees obscuring the starry night sky.

“Ok, ok.” He told her in confusion.

Now they were running, and she kept looking skyward. All she could see was the treetops and hints and teases of the night sky.

“Chelsea, it’s dark, we need to slow down!” He shouted, but she was now lost to the fear that gripped her.

“Wait, Chelsea!” He shouted again and actually tripped just as he’d feared.

He tumbled to the trail, and Chelsea stopped, spinning around to see him just as he began to pick himself up off the ground. She rushed to him, grabbing him by the arm and started trying to haul him up.

“Chelsea, stop!” He shouted at her, now angry.

“We have to go!” She cried.

“What is wrong with you!” He shouted back at her angrily.

She kept pulling at his arm, but he resisted, demanding she explain herself. Somewhere in the far distance there was a noise, something like a low rumble of a truck.

“Please, let’s just go!” She begged him.

The rumble was now louder, growing in volume until it began to sound like a roar. Chelsea’s heart was pounding as she gripped her boyfriend tighter and tighter in an effort to make him flee with her.

Timothy looked up, his ears perked up at the sudden introduction of an unmistakable noise.

“What the?” He asked as the night sky grew curiously bright.

She looked up too, and though the limbs and the leaves the sky was brighter, far brighter than it had any right to be. Both of them froze at the sight of the night sky turning a strange bright yellow that overpowered their other senses. The noise then grew so loud that both of her ears began to hurt. The pain snapped her out of it, and she yanked on her boyfriend again.

“Please, we need to go!” She shouted, but her voice was now a muffled mumble.

“What?” He shouted back, unable to hear her as he tried to cover his ears.

Something struck the forest through the trees, a thunderous boom knocking the air aside like an explosion. Limbs were torn from their trunks; trees were ripped from the ground. Mother nature in an instant became shrapnel, wood and earth alike being cast aside like feathers in the wind. The night sky was absent, just a startling bright white light as the sound of a sonic boom deafened everything within its earshot.

The sky fell dark again, only the orange glow of fire somewhere in the distance giving the world light, distant car alarms echoing loudly from all directions. The moon was overhead, looking down at the scene of a devasted park. In its center, a gaping hole, a crater hundreds of feet wide. The forest around it had been knocked flat, snapped like toothpicks by an unseen and terrible hand.

A loud, shrill ringing was the only noise left. The pain and anguish of countless injuries added to the noise; a million little dentist drills whining all across Timothy’s body. Slumped against the remains of a tree, its broken stump pressed against his back, the fox was trapped under the debris of broken limbs and loose earth.

He couldn’t move, something was lying across his legs, and when he moved his arms, they both screamed at him when he tried. He tried to speak, but he couldn’t hear himself if he tried. Timothy was suddenly tired, more tired than he’d ever felt in his life. As hard as he could, he tried to fight the urge to let his eyes close, because he needed to find Chelsea.

But he couldn’t move, only blink his bleary eyes and try to look through the limbs and debris he’d been buried by.

Silently, something stepped into his vision though he could barely tell what it was. Something was in his eyes, they were burning hot as he blinked through tears. It was Chelsea and so he tried shouting to her, but he didn’t know if she could hear him. He tried again. He blinked away more painful tears, then fell mute as his vision cleared enough to see.

That wasn’t Chelsea.

Something tall and grey stood far away from him, it’s body glossy and smooth with two legs and arms like a man, but it was unearthly, terrifying. Its elongated head was looking down at the ground, and Timothy watched in horror as its slender body reached low with a boney hand. It picked something up, and in its grip was Chelsea’s crumpled body, limp and lifeless as the creature lifted it higher.

Timothy’s heart pounded in his chest as a new terror filled him. His desperate exhaustion tried to drag him to sleep, but the fear fought it, his heart beating painfully harder and harder as the creature unhooked its jaw and began to open wide. It took a bite of her, and then the exhaustion finally won. Timothy lost consciousness, and his heart finally slowed down as the rest of him went limp.

----------

The ringing wouldn’t stop, it was like a piano key being held down forever, a constant high note that wouldn’t fade. It radiated from his head and down to his toes, aching all over. The more he listened to that high note the more painful it became. It had once been dull, like a monotone, but now it was growing sharper, but not from the same source. Louder here, sharper there, quieter there. The more he listened the more disturbed the sound became until it became almost too much to bear.

Timothy finally opened his eyes, but he couldn’t see a thing. Just bright white light that hurt to look at. He blinked, blinked more, his eyes beading up with tears as the ringing across his body became nothing more than large amounts of aches and pains. His legs and his left arm were the worst to feel it, and his head felt like it was splitting open with a migraine.

The white light faded as his eyes adjusted, and he finally saw that he was in a drab white and grey room. In his confusion he stared dumbly at the ceiling, then tried to look around but his body was surrounded by padding, he couldn’t twist his head further than an inch. He was in a small hospital room, and it was empty. A vase sat on a table across from him with flowers. Twisting his head as far as he could, he saw the door was open and outside was the dull drone of people and activity.

“Dr Morr, you’re needed at the 4th Floor Reception, Dr Morr.” A lady’s voice called out politely through an intercom system.

He saw a basket was to his left on another table, filled with what looked like candy and other things he liked.

Timothy was in a hospital; he suddenly was very much aware of himself and began to panic. He couldn’t move!

His left arm was in a cast and on his right, he was hooked up to an IV. Something was wrong with his legs, he couldn’t move them, and he couldn’t look far enough down to see what was wrong with them. The blanket laid over him felt heavy, like it weighed a ton. Even his one free arm felt like it was cast from lead.

He saw the small red switch on the side of the bed, but it was on the side with his cast bound arm.

“Help.” He said, but his voice came out weaker than a whisper.

Frustrated, he called out again, but not any louder than before.

He tried to lift his lead heavy arm, struggling to lift it higher than an inch. He barely achieved that. His fingers could move, and little by little he willed his arm to inch across his chest, pulling himself along by his fingers and pushing with all the strength he could muster through his shoulder. The fox felt totally drained, exhausted to his core like he’d just climbed out of a pool after several hours of swimming.

In a moment of triumph, he reached the call button and pressed it, then pressed it again. He stared at the button while he kept mashing it until a face popped into the doorway. A doe in a nurse’s uniform quickly stepped through the door and looked at him, saw his eyes were open.

“Mr. Wallace?” She asked him calmly, and then began to check him over, looking at the machine he was hooked up to, asking him questions about how he was feeling.

He couldn’t answer her; his voice was too weak. She then left the room and several minutes later she returned with another nurse and a doctor.

Timothy was then told that he had been in the blast zone of an impact from a meteorite that hit San Furnando’s Eastwood Park. He had two broken legs, a broken arm, several broken ribs, a concussion, numerous bruises and cuts across his body, and a puncture on the left side of his abdomen that mostly damaged muscle tissue.

He kept trying to ask them about Chelsea, but his voice was too weak to reach them, or they kept interrupting him to calm him down and explain his situation. He’d been in the hospital for a week, his condition was stable, but he was far from recovery with how many different injuries he’d sustained.

When he again failed to ask them about Chelsea, he began to cry. Every time he asked about her, he remembered it more and more. He remembered taking her on a date, he remembered the two of them stargazing, and then running through the forest. He remembered being so angry at her for acting crazy, and then he remembered the explosion.

Chelsea wasn’t here anymore, and it hurt to cry, his ribs letting their injury sing long and loud as his chest rose and fell with his grief.

“You’re going to be ok, Mr. Wallace. You are pretty banged up, but the damage isn’t anything someone your age won’t heal from. Anything can happen of course, but for now I do expect you to make a full recovery.” The doctor reacted to his tears by offering words of encouragement.

Someone was loudly talking outside his room, much louder than the general commotion of the hospital.

“Let me go!” A woman’s voice demanded.

The nurses turned their attention to the doorway, then one of them left to check. Soon then, the doctor’s own attention was drawn to the doorway as a young woman appeared. She was angrily arguing with another nurse to let her through.

Chelsea forced her way past the nurses and started sobbing when she saw him. She was dressed in a hospital gown with an arm in a cast. She looked rough, like she’d been sleepless for several days straight, her fur was unkempt, and her hair was a mess.

“Timothy!” She sobbed harder when she saw he was awake and staring at her.

The doctor let her pass by him, and while she rushed to Timothy’s bedside the older man waved the nurses down to stop them from interfering.

“Oh my God, Timothy you’re ok!” She was ugly crying, her warm hand reaching out to grab his own.

She gave him a gentle squeeze, and he didn’t want to believe what he was seeing. It was Chelsea.

“How?” He tried to ask, but again it came out as a whisper, barely audible.

“I’m going to get them to call your parents, they were just here this morning to visit. They’re going to be so happy, baby! You’ve been asleep for a whole week since it happened.” She told him.

He didn’t bother trying to talk anymore. It was pointless, no one could hear him. Instead, he let Chelsea tell him what happened, about the meteorite that they were watching, and how they were both found by first responders. The more she filled him in on what had happened that night, the more he gaslit himself into thinking that maybe he had just… imagined things. She was ok, hurt, but not as bad as he was.

Chelsea was standing right there, and that was her hand squeezing his.

He was sure of it.