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Lee couldn’t walk. The soldiers didn’t care. They dragged him across the gravel outside, carrying him between them. Another soldier opened a steel bolt barring a heavy wooden door and the soldiers dragged him down several concrete steps before throwing him in a darkened half-cellar. Leaving him in the shadows as the sunset shone through the trees behind them.

Lee whimpered, curling into a ball on the loose straw covering the floor. He felt physically sick, still struggling to comprehend what had happened.

In the darkness, a hand reached out for him.

Chapter 08: Reality

“Are you sure you’re going to be OK?” Helena asked as Jason struggled to steady his shaking hand and insert the key into the lock of his door.

“I’ll be fine,” he insisted, finally feeling the brass key slip into the lock and click in place. He turned the key, turning the handle of his door at the same time and opening the door to his darkened apartment. A window had been left open. The curtains fluttered as rain blew in.

“You should stay with him,” Helena said, turning to Mitchell.

“I’m happy to stay with you,” Mitchell said.

Jason turned back toward them. “I’ll be OK. I just need to get some sleep.”

Mitchell pursed his lips, nodding. He didn’t seem convinced.

Helena’s phone beeped with an incoming message. She turned away to pull a pair of reading glasses from her purse, leaving the two men for a moment.

“Dude,” Mitchell said. “Is this about Lily?”

“No,” Jason replied, shaking his head. Lying didn’t come easy, and he looked down at his shoes.

“I told you, man. She was never going to be more than a one night stand. She probably found her dad and is already on her way upstate or heading over to Jersey … You’ll hear from her again, I’m sure. She’ll send you a postcard or something. She’s a nice kid. She’ll be in touch, but you know nothing will ever come of it, right?”

“Right,” Jason replied reluctantly.

He stood there in the doorway, nodding his head softly, his eyes still cast down. Part of him wanted to tell Mitchell what had happened, but another part of him felt he’d be ridiculed by his friend, and right now that was more than he could handle.

It had been a long night. After a couple of hours spent watching reruns of Seinfeld in the emergency waiting room, a nurse had patched him up, cleaning the specks of gravel out of his graze and bandaging his arms. He hadn’t needed stitches. A squirt of plastic skin covered the worst spots, and the compression bandage on his arms was more precautionary than anything else, to help reduce swelling and bruising.

Jason felt stupid.

He felt stupid for jumping out of the bus. He felt stupid for falling for Lily. He felt stupid seeing Lily levitating and disappearing into the belly of a UFO. He felt stupid thinking about the paper he’d given Professor Lachlan. In that moment, it was as though nothing in his life made any sense. If he had kept whiskey or beer in his apartment he would have drunk himself silly.

It was well after midnight and Jason just wanted to collapse on his bed and go to sleep and forget about the day. Maybe in the morning he’d be able to think straight and make sense of things. Right now, he was confused and hurt. Although his pain was more than physical and far more than the result of some emotional attachment to Lily. Seeing the UFO had left him feeling gutted, empty, stripped of the intellectual clothing with which he’d trusted his life.

Jason started closing the door, positioning himself behind it with only his head visible.

“Are you going to be OK?” Mitchell asked.

“I’ll be fine.”

“Breakfast. Mario’s. 9am. OK?”

“Make it ten,” Jason replied.

“Done. See you then, bro.”

Jason closed the door softly, pushing gently until the lock clicked into place. He could hear Helena talking to Mitchell outside.

“Someone should stay with him.”

“He’s a big boy,” Mitchell replied, as their voices disappeared down the stairs. “He’ll be fine.”

Inside his apartment, Jason slumped to the worn carpet, leaning against the door. A cool wind blew in through the window, but already the humidity was building again.

Several of Jason’s posters had come away from the walls. The Blue Marble had peeled away and twisted, falling forward, still held on by tape at the base, but it was no longer a thing of wonder. It was just a poster. Looking at the glossy white backing, it could have been a poster for some rock band. All the meaning was lost, which was quite ironic, he thought.

Jason felt his heart sink. Words failed him. He’d done his best. He’d tried hard to stay objective, to think rationally, to look at life through the prism of science, and yet he couldn’t explain what he’d seen a few hours earlier. If Mitchell had described a similar scene, Jason would have ridiculed him, asking him what he’d been smoking. Jason never would have believed him, regardless of any details Mitchell could have recalled. Alien abduction was an absurd notion, and yet he’d seen one. Could his eyes be believed? Was he in denial by not believing?