I was shaking like a leaf when I finally made it back home—and I don’t think it was the cold. I covered my tracks as best I could out by the crater—snow hadn’t fallen yet, so I just had to jostle up some leaves to make sure it didn’t look like I’d been there. I hadn’t left anything behind, I didn’t even move the space rock or touch it to leave fingerprints. I was sure some crazy Men in Black style agency would be here eventually, so I did all I could to make it look like I’d never been by the crash site.

  Crash site, was that really a spaceship? Would there be proof there’d been an alien occupying the little den in the black space rock? Would this little alien leave some radiation trail the government could follow? I shook my head—I was borrowing trouble; I needed to just focus on the now.

  I crept back inside and thankfully Gram was still asleep on the couch. I went up to my room and placed the little alien in my jacket on my bed. “Stay.” I told the little creature. It didn’t respond, but it was still shivering, looking up at me with that brilliant yellow eye—like a mix between a gem and a tiny sun, glowing slightly.

  I rushed out to my storage room to get an old terrarium for the gecko I’d had as a kid. It wasn’t very big, but the alien was small so it should fit fine. But what was I going to fill it with? Water since it looked like a squid? Did it need a heat lamp and sand like a lizard? Would it need rocks like its weird little ship? Would it need food?

  For the first time in a long time, I was so busy and distracted all my trauma was forgotten—this was the perfect project to keep me focused during my recovery.

  I snored a quick laugh, “Yeah, taking care of a fucking alien, that’s healthy therapy.”

  I decided to not delve too deep into the possible repercussions and ramifications and set to work preparing the tank. I got some rocks and sand and blocked off a third of the tank for water—hopefully tap was fine. I placed some old blankets on the sandy part of the tank and put the little alien inside. Right away, it burrowed deep into the blankets and disappeared from my sight. Worried it might actually disappear at some point, I put a lid on the tank and placed a couple rocks on top to keep it secure—though I had no idea how strong the thing might be, and those rocks might prove to be no obstacle at all.

  A grip of fear knotted my stomach as I realized I had absolutely no idea how dangerous this little lifeform might be; forgetting diseases and contagions cause that ship already sailed, what if it was like any thousands of those movie monster aliens? Maybe it would be like The Thing and try and assimilate me? What if it had acid blood like in Alien? What if when I went to sleep it tried to do an Invasion of the Body Snatchers on me? Holy shit, did I just doom humanity with my reckless action?

  I pulled at my hair and started pacing around my room as I realized how much of a dumbass I actually was. “Shit, shit shit shit…” This was absolutely not the way to handle this. Sure, I was terrified of getting ghosted away by the government—I probably just barely trusted the government more than an unknown alien at this point.

  Or did I? I chose the alien after all…

  It was probably too late to call the cops now since the alien had been in the house—my grandparent’s house. I sucked in a breath through gritted teeth; if I would’ve dealt with this in the woods, my grandparents wouldn’t have gotten involved. Now, they were contaminated too.

  I felt dizzy and sick, I turned my back to the door and slid down to the floor, shaking my head and pulling at my hair.

  “What the fuck have I done?”

  ***

  For the first time in a long time, I actually had a good night’s sleep. Maybe it was due to all the adrenaline, but I crashed in my bed and didn’t wake up until almost noon—no dreams at all even.

  And thankfully, I hadn’t been body snatched.

  I looked in the terrarium to see what the little alien was doing, and for a second my heart quickened when I couldn’t see any sign of it, but looking closely I saw the bundle of blankets shivering slightly, still in that strangely rhythmic way.

  I let out a sigh of relief, but it wasn’t much relief as I once again remembered how stupid I’d been last night. Seriously, taking in a fucking alien? I placed my face in my hands as I realized there was no going back from the stupidest decision made on earth in probably its entire history, but what’s done is done, so I got up and started planning out my next moves.

  Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.

  I got out a notebook to write down a list of how to proceed and what I might need next; the crash site was already taken care of. The alien had housing too. I would need to discover what kind of food it needed—if it ate food like a normal…thing. Honestly, I should probably see a doctor and get some bloodwork—an easy excuse I wanted to get a physical to see if I was healthy with the horrible insomnia I’d been dealing with. I wrote my grandparents’ names on the list, but couldn’t decide what else to add after that—what I should do about them. I’d want to keep the alien a secret from them for now—at least until I could assess how safe it was and see if the government came poking around. It would probably be better for them to be in the dark completely while they were being questioned.

  There was no doubt in my mind the government would come knocking on our door at some point—I had no delusions to think the government or military or whatever scary science shit they got up to wouldn’t be all clandestine. They’d probably make some excuse to look around the woods, and when they found the space rock they’d probably question us about it—maybe even want to do their own blood tests to see if we were contaminated. Well, those tests might be important—let me know if I’d contracted space-cancer from this nonsense.

  I threw on some old clothes and headed downstairs to grab some food for myself and the alien. I was very grateful my grandparents never hassled me about sleeping in—they let me recover any way I needed and knew how badly I’d been sleeping lately. Gramps looked up from the TV with a happy smile on his face seeing I was up before noon for once.

  “Well look who’s seizing the day.” He said cheerfully.

  My grandmother beside him on the couch nodded along, “You feeling okay? Hungry?”

  I waved them off quickly, “I got it. I was working on some of my art last night and got into a really good headspace and slept through the night no problem for once.” I lied easily, “Just gonna grab some food, head back to my room.”

  Gramps smiled brilliantly, “That’s fantastic Adam!”

  I went to the fridge and ate a couple slices of cold lunch meat as I thought over what to feed the alien. I should probably try a little bit of everything; meat, fruit, vegetables, maybe a little bread. I grabbed as much as I could carry and started back upstairs.

  “And what in the world is that abomination?” My grandmother demanded.

  My stomach dropped out as I was thinking she was talking about the alien abomination, “W-what?”

  Gram gestured at the random platefuls of food I carried, “You don’t have the munchies, do you?”

  My shoulders relaxed a little, “No Gram, just in a weird snacky mood while I’m drawing.”

  An acceptable lie, I continued to my room and closed the door gently, trying to act like everything was totally normal. The little alien was still shivering in its blankets. I removed the rocks and lid from the terrarium and started placing the food into the tank. I put almost everything around the blankets, but I put some fruits and veggies into the water to see if it would go aquatic at all.

  Shit, that movie Signs, the water on earth was like poison to the aliens. I shook my head quickly, “What the hell is with all the movie references? This is real life; it’s bound to be completely different from anything we ever thought possible.” I reasoned. Thinking back on that frozen explosion, the surprisingly small crater, that impossible space rock, it really was all stuff that didn’t seem like anything I’d seen before even in movies.

  I watched the tank, waiting to see if the little alien would come out from its safe blanket bundle to eat. The minutes rolled by, but still nothing changed. The little alien shivered, the food was ignored. I wondered if I should encourage it to eat, maybe open up the bundle and put the food inside? I shook my head, no, that’s something you might do for a wounded earth animal; there really was no telling how to treat this thing. It might not even eat in any way I could understand.

  I decided to turn my alibi into a true story as I got out my tablet and started drawing. I worked on some images of a frozen explosion and an alien squid monster in the middle. Hours passed and the little alien never came out from its makeshift cocoon. I don’t know why, but it bothered me it wasn’t eating at all—I had no idea what the alien needed, but I found myself strangely worried about the little creature.

  I sighed; I was such a softie. I pulled up a chair and sat in front of the terrarium. “You know, we’re in this together now, so you better survive all this to make it worthwhile.” I said quietly, gently.

  The shivering in the blanket seemed to slow a little at my words—like it heard me. Well, it must’ve heard me before; when I talked that’s when it seemed to shift back at the crash site and eventually the eye popped out. I very much doubted the alien could understand me—it would surely be impossible. But maybe there was something in my voice it responded to? Maybe it knew I was trying to communicate?

  Wait, was I of the belief it had that level of intelligence? It seemed little more than an animal so far. Of course, dogs responded to human speech…

  “I’m taking on a huge risk keeping you, you know? But I’m gonna take care of you—I’ve always taken care of lost or injured animals.” I chuckled and shook my head, “Always pissing Gram off when I was a kid bringing in strays, and she was furious when she found that racoon I kept when I was like 12. I get it from Gramps though; he’s always been an animal lover—loves his documentaries and everything.”

  The shivering seemed to stop completely, and I wondered if that meant I’d calmed it down. Hopefully I wasn’t hurting it—like it was vulnerable to sound attacks or something weird.

  To interrupt my musing, I saw a little black tentacle slowly snake out from the blanket bundle; the tentacle was thinner than my pinky, and almost translucent. It went right for a piece of lunchmeat and wrapped around it, then slowly pulled it into the bundle.

  I smiled; the little alien was eating earth food.