Infinity on High

Eighteen Light Years Away

Eighteen Light Years Away

It's been two years, seven months, and three days since I was abducted by aliens.

Now that I think of it, "abducted by aliens" might not be the right term for what happened. There was only one alien aboard the Eclipse, and I can't say that I was "abducted" when I practically jumped onto the spaceship, beyond excited to explore the rest of the universe. Nevertheless, it's much easier to tell people that I was abducted by aliens than to explain that the Albanian exchange student who lived with my next door neighbors was actually an alien, and when it was time for him to go home, I begged to tag along.

In fact, I was dreaming of the aforementioned alien when my sister shouted, "Arthur! Did you seriously fall asleep in the basement again?"

"Sorry Grace," I said to my little sister, who was standing at the top of the stairs with her arms folded over her chest.

"You're going to make me late for school like you did last time," Grace said. "Now hurry up so I'm not late for my Biology final."

As I lifted my head up from a biography of Elvis Presley, which had conveniently forgotten to mention that he had not died in 1977, my sister looked around the basement. "Arthur?" she said. "What's with the map of the Denver International Airport, and why is there a painting of Dan Gallagher in here? Didn't he go back to Albania two years ago?"

"I'll tell you in the car," I said. Clearly, Mom hadn't explained everything to Grace yet. She probably thought that I was going to a ridiculously obscure college in Idaho, just like everyone else did.

What Grace didn't know was that today would be my last day on Earth.

"Don't make me late," Grace said as I followed her upstairs. I then returned to my bedroom. As I got ready for school, I remembered how I would flip my bedroom light switch on and off to send messages in Morse Code to "Dan Gallagher," better known to me as Danger Magellan. Danger was just about the only other person I knew who was fluent in Morse Code, and I never did find out how he learned it. Perhaps he had learned it to decipher Illuminati communications, just like I did.

Within a few minutes, I was ready to take Grace to school. She climbed into the passenger seat of my car, and immediately changed the radio station from classic rock to an obnoxious bubble gum pop station. "Was that necessary?" I asked.

"Is your 'Humans Are A Conspiracy Theory' bumper sticker necessary?" Grace asked.

"It's definitely necessary," I said. "I need to spread the word about aliens being real."

Grace rolled her eyes. "Aliens aren't real," she said.

"I have proof," I said.

"Is that what your map of the Denver International Airport is for?" Grace asked. "Are you trying to prove that it's an alien base or something?"

"No, it's a base for the Illuminati," Arthur said. "Get it right."

"This is what I'm talking about, Arthur," Grace said. "You're embarrassing me with your theories. At this rate, I'm going to be known as the sister of the crazy conspiracy theorist for the rest of my life."

"Isn't that a good thing?" I said. "When the rest of the world is ready to accept the truth, then you can say that you were right all along."

"That's what you don't get," Grace said. "A few Photoshopped pictures of you, Nora, Raquel, and Dan in a spaceship won't convince anyone that you actually went to space. Although I do have to admit that you are rather talented with Photoshop."

"They're not Photoshopped," I grumbled.

"I'm not arguing with you," Grace said.

The two of us sat in silence for the rest of the ride. I tried to focus on the road, but all I could think of was Danger's upcoming arrival on Earth. I just had to get through one last day of high school, and then Danger would take me to his home planet so that  I could begin my collegiate education at Zormarillion Prifysdaiguk, one of the most prestigious schools in the whole galaxy.