Under the Boundless Sky

Memory 1

In a desperate effort to escape reality, I find myself reliving the same memory. The tall grass in the backyard is damp from the last remnants of rain and I run my hands through the dewy blades. I can almost feel the phantom touch of my damp clothes sticking to my body like a second skin, and the smell of petrichor so strong it could choke me. I would often just stand there like a motionless marionette, strings snapped long ago by a merciless god.

I recall familiar scenes from my childhood, laughing and running with friends through the grass as tall as us; those were the times I still looked at the sky, unafraid and curious. When I think of looking at the sky now, I am seized by dread, the perspiration on my forehead caused by my cold sweat. My body seizes up and my stomach is tied up in knots, bile already at the back of my throat. A warm hand clamps down on my shoulder, the sudden interruption to my chaotic thoughts leaving behind my instinctual reaction to I swing my arm back, nearly hitting the person behind me.

"Hey!" They shout in alarm, staggering back a step. "It's me!"

My body still feeling tense and alert, slowly shifts to turn around where I see Jay standing behind me, visibly upset at my reaction. The tension drains from my shoulders and I let out a long sigh.

"Don't surprise me like that."

Jay shrugs. "You're just paranoid," she says with a grin. "Loosen up a bit, we're graduating soon anyway.

I frown. "It's that time? I thought, no, could have sworn that-"

"Don't get stuck on the little things," she interrupts, dragging me to sit down on the wet grass.

Easily enough, I forget what I was about to say. I am soon distracted by the disgusting feeling of water seeping into the fabric of my jeans, unpleasant memories resurfacing of our family trip to Canada, my socks constantly soaked by the piles and piles of snow. Jay was constantly irritated from my incessant whining.

"Ew," I complain, scrunching up my face.

"Get over it already," she grumbles, pulling me back with a firm hand on my shoulder, unceremoniously pushing me to lay on the grass.

I almost froze on the spot, still dreading looking up at the sky. I get the urge to shrug her hand off, but I take as many subtle deep breaths as I can to calm the furious pounding of my heart. Having not mowed the lawn in forever, the grass stands tall and is easily flattened by our weight where we lay, creating a comfortable cushion despite the dampness. The sight greeting me is not one I expected. Streaks of clouds adorn the sky like smears of white on a blue-painted canvas, the sun behind us illuminating the sky in a brighter hue. Somehow, I feel like something is wrong, that something important is missing.

"Speaking of graduation, are you still planning to apply to the NSA?" Jay asks.

"Of course, why else would I double major in Political Science and Computer Science if I wasn't going to......to....." I get stuck on my answer, trying to remember the reason why this job is so important to me.

"To what?"

When I turn my head to look at Jay, her eyes feel eerie, an unrestrained hunger unable to be contained in the dark irises, reminding me of a predator observing its prey, staring so deeply it could almost pick me apart to hear all of my thoughts. Suddenly, I remember how different her eyes are now from what I remembered. On that day, her eyes were filled with panic and fear, on the day that-

"The satellites appeared!" I finish.

"What about them?" She asks.

I sit up abruptly, a wave of vertigo sweeping over my disordered thoughts, temples pounding as I am consumed by the desire to plead with the remorseless beings that live in the sky, to insist that I have not lost the last fragments of my sanity.

"Where are they?" I demand, but all that greets me is the sky empty of any extraterrestrial objects.

I remember the day they first appeared. I had woken up to my mom yelling.

She kept complaining, complaining about our incompetent leaders, about a useless president that constantly kept secrets from the country. Before I had even stepped outside to see these extraterrestrial satellites now residing in orbit around earth, all I could hear was the same phrase repeated on the TV, an official statement issued by the international leaders: "We kindly ask that you remain calm. This is routine for a new method of military testing which, for your safety, cannot be explained further at this time. Please resume all normal activities."

How the hell was that supposed to explain anything?

My feet moved of their own volition as I slammed open the back door, to find Jay standing a few feet away from me in the yard, head craned to look up at the sky.

"Jay!" I shouted.

I was still too afraid to look up at the same sky we had spent years watching as children. So much could change in the span of a single night, it upheaved years and years of what we all thought we knew.

Slowly, she turned to look at me. And I remember -I remember so clearly- her eyes filled with fear and her voice shook as she asked me, "Sis, what's going to happen to us? To the world?"

That's right, her eyes are so different from back then. At the present, she seems like a completely different person, her unfathomable gaze directed at me feeling like a thousand needles are pricking at my skin.

"Who are you," I demand in a calmer voice that I would have expected from myself.

"Who else?" I'm too afraid. I'm too afraid to look at her and find someone other than my sister laying next to me, proving that those stupid, stupid Reddit forums, the one that insisted the satelies were really aliens and the world's militaries were too afraid and too weak to fight against it, were right.

I'm still looking up at the sky because I don't know what I fear most. The dreadful sky that decided my future, or the imposter laying next to me that was a direct result of it. Tears gather at the corners of my eyes, from which emotions, I cannot tell. I try to blink then away, blinking and blinking until each glimpse is traveling as fast as the frames on a rolling film. I can see it, the large metallic structures appearing in my vision, looming ominously overhead.

I start to curse, "You have got to be fu-"

Then my vision goes black. My senses feel dull, my awareness teetering on the edge of unconsciousness. I can barely hear the muffled sound of voices coming from somewhere near me.

"Patient 27325 is starting to regain consciousness again."

"Just put her back to sleep."

"This is the eighth time this week she has gained awareness, she is showing resistance to the anesthesia. I suspect her vague consciousness is why we still haven't gotten any information from her yet."

"Increase the dosage."

As my surroundings start to appear around me, the wind in the backyard whipping my hair in my face, I realize with a bitter laugh:

I can't tell the difference between dreams and reality anymore.