Chapter 32

I was back at Samuel’s early in the morning on Monday. The closing of school meant I had time to do whatever I wanted, within restrictions imposed by my parents. It had taken some convincing to let me come here, my parents anxious to not let me leave their sights.

The streets were deserted, the shadow of the spaceship looming over the entire city. I couldn’t get over how empty the streets looked, the entire city looking like it was out of a post-apocalyptic movie or something. Whatever cars had lined the streets yesterday were nowhere to be found today. Many people had left their homes at the earliest, moving into their relatives’ or friends’ homes in a city or town where spaceships didn’t seem to be threatening their existence every second.

My parents had also started making preparations to move out. I had still not confronted them about the fact that I wouldn’t be able to move with them. I just couldn’t bring myself to face them, especially since I didn’t have a good excuse. I couldn’t just tell them I was some sort of superpowered individual who would be responsible for keeping things in order when shit did hit the metaphorical fan.

Samuel was training by his lonesome, as he was used to doing whenever he wanted his mind off things. I just went ahead and switched on the television where the news was still rampant with speculation regarding the identity of the owners of these spaceships and their possible motives.

The news gave a perspective on how the appearance of these spaceships had changed the course of the world and not in a good way. I found myself staring at reports of the most popular cities that had been abandoned and resembled ghost towns. I saw how the smaller towns and villages were forced to hold the massive populations of the migrating citizens of the city, putting a real strain on its inhabitants.

The fact that was the most nerve-wracking was that there had been no movement of these spaceships nor had any actions been taken by them, malicious or otherwise. It was like they were content to remain a fixture in the sky, not bothered with the population of the planet. How I wished that was true!

“So, still nothing, huh?”, Samuel asked, all the while pounding away at the punching bag.

“Nope. You’d think that they had come for sightseeing rather than war!”

Samuel snorted at that. “True. What do you think is inside of those spaceships anyway? Armies of the dead? Maybe some device of mass destruction?”

I grew contemplative at that, having found myself wondering about the same thing dozens of times. What purpose did sending these idle spaceships serve in the grand scheme of things anyway, other than to alert the mortals on earth that humanity wasn’t alone?

I walked towards the window, wanting to look at the spaceship once again blotting out the sun. And that’s what I did for a good few minutes before something caught my eye. I quickly beckoned Samuel over and pointed in the direction of the spaceship, asking him, “Do you see something different today compared to yesterday or is it just me?”

Samuel looked at the spaceship for a long time before replying, “You’re right. There seems to be a red glow coming out of the radiator panels of the ship. Are you positive that it wasn’t there yesterday?”

“I can’t be too sure, of course, seeing as I couldn’t even see in the morning while coming here.”

We quickly turned to look towards the television, where images of the spaceships from various places were still being broadcasted. Looking at those images and videos carefully, there was no red glow present at all. The issue was that we couldn’t be sure whether these were the pictures of yesterday or the cameras couldn’t catch the red glow.

I was quite perturbed by this turn of events. I had a gut feeling that this would be significant in some manner pretty soon. Our enemy wasn’t doing things just for the sake of doing it. Every step they had taken had been instrumental in diverting our focus and spreading paranoia and fear.

I went home after training for some time with Samuel, although it was clear that neither of our minds was in it. I bade him farewell after a couple of hours and departed for my home with haste, not wanting to worry my parents too much in these trying times.

To say the atmosphere in my home was dreadful would be an understatement. The whole environment in my home felt akin to one when someone close had just passed away. My parents greeted me in tepid tones when I entered the house, the usual chirpiness absent from their voice.

I just idled about in my room, not finding any urge to do something meaningful. Before long, it was time for dinner. Like the previous day, the dinner was a quiet one before my mother got up to clear the plates. It was while she was doing that she froze completely, her sight concentrated on something outside the window. It was clear from her expression that she was feeling faint and was finding whatever she had witnessed hard to believe.