It was a sweltering day like many others during that Texas summer. The summer when it all happened. With my parents out of town I, Julianne Rodriguez, was tasked with looking after my many younger brothers and sisters. As any tired older sister tasked with looking after 11 children all ranging in age from 18 months to 15 years old, I took them all to the park. Thankfully my twin, Jack, was trying to stop them all from dying while I took a nap with the babies on a blanket in the shade.
" Why did Mama have so many kids." I groaned to myself, slapping a mosquito that was resting on my leg.
" There would be less if there weren't so many twins. " said Andie, whom was one of the 5 sets of twins in the family. She and he brother Charles had just 13, marking them as the second oldest of our giant group.
We had been at the park for a few hours more hours and the tweens were complaining. I handed the babies, Diego and Jordan, to Andie and Charles as i packed up the picnic things. Walking home was always a show. 12 kids all flopping down the main road towards the smallest house on the block. It was hard to get them all the walk in a straight line, but I haven't lost one yet! As I unlocked the door to our small 3 bedroom house I got shouts for grilled cheeses and spaghetti dinners with cartoons already blaring in the background.
" Never stop, always working. " i sighed plopping the smaller ones in the living room and heading into the kitchen to work through dinner. Everything was going normally, Mave and Rowan were fighting over a toy of some sort, Alex and Ella had tied Benicio to a chair and were painting his nails, and Adric was screaming. Yup, normal night in the Rodriguez family home.
It was some time later, and all the kids were asleep. I was sitting on my bed, scrolling through my phone when I heard it. It was possibly the loudest noise I had ever heard. Metallic screeching and concrete falling through the air and hitting the roof of our home. It was enough to wake up Alex, who was the heaviest sleeper in the family. I whipped my head around, trying to find out where it came from. I didn't see what made the noise but I did see Jake flop down the hallway to comfort the crying kids.
" Jake, " I shouted after him, " what was that! "
" I don't know! " he shouted back. Well I guess I would have to find out myself. I grabbed my phone and one of the many cricket bats we had laying around the house and headed towards the front door. Movement behind me let me know that some of the older kids were following me. I felt Mave hug my leg from behind. She was always a mamas girl. I swung her onto my back as I pushed to door open.
Nothing in my 15 years of existence could have prepared my for what stood smoking in the middle of the street. I heard Mave whimper at the sight of a giant pod-type ship in front of us. I didn't blame her. It looked like an alien had just crashed on top of several cars. I shrugged her off my shoulders and passed her to Andie who, as a teenager, was livestreaming all of this. Now, I have no logical explanation for what happened next. I felt like I was no longer in control of my body. I knew from years of watching movies that you should never touch unknown things. But what did I do. I touched it. I regretted that decision almost immediately, because as I did a black gloved hand shout out of the pod and pulled me in.
