X. ARRIVAL
Joan Skinner arrived home from work. After easing her Datsun into the garage, she walked along the rust-colored parapet around the driveway as she headed for the frontyard’s cobblestoned walkway. It leads directly to the front door of their house.
Halfway through the yard, Joan noticed through her peripheral vision that there was something wrong with her lawn. She turned to see that the garden sprinklers are on. She shook her head.
That kid.
She also noticed that her garden gnomes – four of them – are lying haphazardly on their backs; their red conical hats pointed to different directions. She looked for the fifth gnome, the one with the damaged foot, and found it lying face down in the middle of the lawn, amidst the spray of the sprinklers. She wetted her skirt as she ran past the sprinklers towards the far end of the yard, where she turned off the water source. She then picked up her gnomes and then set them aside, intending to put them to their proper places some time later.
To her chagrin, the pebbles around her empty flower patch have been removed. She located them right below their doorstep. She stomped towards the front door, shifting her foot to keep herself from stepping over an eight-inch long toy spaceship that sat precariously at the edge of the first step.
Joan picked it up. Scrawled on its shiny plastic is the name ‘A.S Hydra’.
She was not surprised at all when she found out that the door was not locked.
As she stormed into their house, Joan yelled “ALEX!” in a motherly tone that proclaims an impending doom.
I’m doomed! Alex thought as he rolled helplessly inside the Great ReTarcan’s mouth. He was literally swimming in thick saliva. In the sticky mess, he managed to get a hold on his gun. He aimed for the roof of the cavernous mouth and fired the last loaded missile on it.
The explosion forced the Great ReTarcan to momentarily open its mouth. Alex did not bother to plan his next move – with all his might, he threw himself out of the gigantic being’s mouth.
After a fifty-foot drop, Alex landed on his back. If not for his backpack, he would not have survived the fall.
He looked up.
Above him, the Great ReTarcan writhed. He noticed that the shell on top of the behemoth’s head started to glow. All of a sudden, the gigantic creature released a great, swirling surge of violet electricity towards the sky. To his horror, the electricity produced a large storm cloud right before his eyes.
A sheer sense of helplessness overwhelmed him.
He will be dead before he knew it.
His wrist computer beeped three times, signaling the arrival of his spaceship – the A.S. Hydra.
At this point, Alex had to stop the story. He prompted his thick-rimmed glasses behind the helmet as he ran down the stairs to fetch his toy spaceship, because it was supposed to auto-pilot itself towards the plateau.
