Shift

2- Departure

I went back to where Klisa and I met and called out her name. "Klisa? Klisa Vefanti, are you here?" I waited, calling out often. Not until after I stopped calling, she arrived.

"Stop saying my name, would ya? I don't want someone to tell the Leaders on me."

Immediately, she strapped a band around my wrist. It was the full length of my forearm and had a long red button in the middle. Klisa squeezed it and altered my appearance, making me look like Shift. I was looking at Klisa face to face. It shrunk me, I don't know how and I don't think I'll ever understand.

"You must never take that off while we are out of phase, understand?"

Jittery, I replied. "Yes, maybe, umm not really, w-what would happen?"

"The Leaders would empty your memory banks and start you off new, somewhere on your own planet." Klisa explained in the saddest tone I had ever heard her speak in. Yet she still sounded so sweet.

"Ok... Yeah, I understand."

"Where does our mission begin?" I asked in the way I heard on television so many times.

"We must go to a frequent gathering place in Shifalia, my home planet. We like to discuss what we have learned about other species, including ones like you in the famous city, Arapadi!" Klisa in her normal effervescent spirit.

"Sounds like a plan. How are we going to get there?"

"I parked my ship out of phase, right behind your car. We just need to enter the same phase. I feel so weird talking to you like you know nothing. It's just that you look like one of my own people, it's so strange. Sorry, what was I saying?" She asked in confusion, tilting her head so that her hair hung at one side.

"Your ship?"

"Ah, right, aren't you so clever? I like humans, don't you?" She smiled, applauding my memory.

"I suppose so. Let's get in your ship now, shall we?" I replied. Klisa pointed to a button on the side of my wristband, grinned and squeezed the button on her own. She vanished. I stared at the button for a while. Was I supposed to squeeze it? I squeezed the soft button and she was back. Or was it that I was gone?

"We are now out of phase! How does it feel? First time!" She squealed in excitement.

"The same"

She turned her head with a look of doubt. "I don't believe that. Come on, I wanna show you something." Klisa dashed up the hill towards my car. I followed, but when I got there, an alien hovercraft was locked onto the ground behind my car.

"How in the world did that get there?" I asked, astonished.

"By O.P technology, oh yeah, you don't know what I mean, Out of Phase technology. It is what allows us to shift between phases."

"Wow, I never thought I'd see this in my lifetime."

"Come on, let's go! My ship isn't what I wanted to show you!" She blurted out and twirled on the spot.

She dragged me aboard her ship and hopped into the driver's seat. I sat next to her and looked at the screen in front of us. It was huge and displayed my car in front of us. It was quite the advanced windshield, if I could even call it that.

All of the alien technology overwhelmed me. I clasped my face with my hands, with alien hands, alien face. I was alien. I couldn't escape what was happening. If I did I would lose myself forever.

So, I managed.

Klisa pressed down on a glossy, glowing, green button and up we went, high above my car, high above the trees. She steered with a sliver orb that hovered over her panel of controls. She took us into town.

She flew past buildings and over parks and landed right in the middle of the mall parking lot. She opened the door and guided me outside. We walked up to the mall.

Not a single person laid their eyes on us. We were aliens, aliens right in the middle of the mall and no one noticed. I waved; I shouted; but no one looked.

I decided to stand right in front of one woman. I waved and shouted to her too. But then, she walked right through me. A chill ran through my spine as I realized what it means to be out of phase.

Klisa took me by the hand and ran back towards the ship. She was always so cheerful. She never took anything seriously and always looked on the bright side.

"So, how was that? I know, I know, it might seem a little unnerving when someone walks through you, looks through you and such. But, I must say, it is cool!" Klisa exclaimed.

"Yeah, totally," I said with fake enthusiasm.

"Wait now, are you telling me you didn't think it was incredible?" Klisa threw her arms into the air out of disbelief.

"Well, I'm not a Shift. I want to be noticed."

"Keep it down, would ya? You never know who else might be between in this dimension. They could be out of range of our sight and hearing and you would never know, invisible." Klisa warned.

"Ok, ok, sorry."

We went back to the ship where we buckled in and set off for the distant planet of the Shifts.

It took us about 6 hours to fly there even with such a high-tech spacecraft. Their planet was nowhere near any other populated solar system. They were out of the way, unseen, invisible.

They didn't seem to exist to other planets anyway. They were in there own phase. We had to enter the right phase to be fully in tune with the planet. We landed in a driveway far off from many houses, surrounded with fluffy trees.

"This is my house. I'm barely ever here. We must be in our planet of study for weeks at a time. When I come home, it is usually just for a day or two." Klisa explained as we got out of her ship.

"Good to know. So how long will I be here?".

"Here, as in Shifalia?"

I shook my head. "No, I mean out of phase."

"Oh, we might be a few months, maybe a year?"

"I can't stay that long!" I yelled.

"Earth time, oops, you would say, about 5 weeks. Our years are shorter. Sorry about the misunderstanding. Now, let's go to town!" She said happily and skipped forward on the tiled road leading to Arapadi.