♣

content warnings for the novel: language, homophobia (minor, for the most part this is a very queer-normalized novel), sexual references, gore, death, violence, gross and frightening imagery/moments, drug use, and more

(these content warnings will be moved to the introduction, but i wanted everyone to see them because i forgot to add them earlier. not every warning is present in this chapter, just language and sexual references)

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Aliens didn't exist. Not ones within a range that could reach the planet by the year 2022, at least. And even if they did, they would be much more interested in the freak of nature that is flying squirrels than humans.

No, aliens that are set on destroying the human race that could reasonably take over Earth in the year 2022 did not exist.

What did exist took the form of a slug from a different dimension that spent its time burrowing down into the gardens of a high school.

But at least it didn't have a spaceship.

♣

He hadn't tried to fall asleep yet, but Sawyer already knew he wasn't going to get a good night's rest. Sure, it was easy in theory–just close your eyes and relax–but it was a bit hard to do any of that with a giant Mothra burning holes through your forehead with its lifeless black eyes.

To be fair, it was nearly impossible to find a section of Daniel's ceiling that wasn't decked out in posters of fictional monsters. There was hardly a section of the original white paint on the roof of his room showing, instead being replaced by polarizing reds, blacks, and blues that highlighted the different creatures on display. Luckily for Sawyer, Daniel had selected his biggest and most disturbing creature to face whatever sad soul decided to take a nap on his futon.

When Sawyer won rock paper scissors with his friends and his prize was getting his own bed to sleep in, he hadn't stopped to think that maybe he wasn't going to be alone there after all.

The Mothra had wings similar to those of a Painted Lady Butterfly, but the similarities died while studying the pattern. It was one that he had never seen before. Sure, he wasn't the most well versed in all of the different subspecies of butterfly, but he had read a book or two about them. It had certainly taken inspiration from various butterflies, but there was no clear biological origin of the beast.

Sawyer couldn't judge Daniel too hard, he too had his favorite superheroes and strange entities from science fiction.

But a moth? It was hard to get more worthless than that.

"Theodore, I swear to whatever spiritual deity is out there, if you do not stop rolling around, I will throw you off of here."

"You're such a good host, Danny."

"Don't test me."

"Aw, do you not want to sleep with me anymore? And to think, it was going so well, too."

"This is why I don't have you guys over."

Sawyer turned toward Daniel and Theodore, the latter purposely exaggerating their movements to make the mattress bounce, and the former trying to shove the other off of said mattress. They either weren't genuinely trying to achieve their goals, or they were really bad at it, because neither was making any progress.

"Here's a compromise. I take the bed, Theo takes the futon, and Danny can sleep on the dirty clothes deluxe."

Sawyer pointed towards a pile of clothes shoved in the corner. Daniel stared at Sawyer as if he had just taken a bite out of their deodorant. "How desperate do you think I am?"

Sure, one of the three could have just slept on the floor, but Daniel's floor was somehow more of a mess than his ceiling. Unlike the ceiling that had occasional spots of emptiness, the floor was quite literally covered from corner to corner with random items, from clothes to homework to figurines that could pierce through someone's foot if they were unlucky enough to step on it. Getting over to his bed was like a game of "the floor is lava" with the books, blankets, and the occasional broken electronic covered up by a pillow.

"You know what? It's fine. We can just stay up."

Daniel tugged on a string connected to a lamp that sat in front of Theodore's face, who gave a true Hollywood Vampire style reaction. "You tried for five minutes, Danny."

Daniel ignored them. Sawyer grabbed a comic that had been resting at his side, now able to read its pages with the newfound light. It was one of those old Spiderman comics that he found and picked up solely based on the cover, and it wasn't the best thing he had ever read, but it also was not the worst.

"That from Kal?" asked Daniel.

"As if Kal would touch this," responded Sawyer, not taking his eyes off of the paper. "Caleb."

"We'll get Kal to check it out one day," Daniel lamented. He kicked his feet, showing off his mismatched socks.

"Caleb's been trying ever since they got together. Trust me, I've asked."

"Do you think they'd let me use the shop tomorrow?"

"For what?" asked Theodore.

"Y'know the project we got in English? I was thinking I could do it based on the idea of 'antiques' and the stories they can tell about the owners. Or I'll just, like, make a slasher found footage film. I haven't decided yet."

"Kal's gonna love that," said Sawyer sarcastically.

"But Caleb will," said Daniel with a smile in his voice.

"Who's Caleb? Your boyfriend?"

The high-pitched voice finally made Sawyer look up from his comic. A girl with almost identical hair to Daniel's with glasses in the shape of nearly perfect circles sat in her wheelchair right behind the door frame. How long she had been there was a mystery to them.

"Ew, no, Daisy-May! Get out!"

"Good, because I thought Theodore was your-"

"OUT!"

Theodore and Sawyer had to avert their faces from Daniel to keep him from seeing their snickering. Daisy-May stuck her middle finger up in Daniel's direction before using her foot to shut the door. Daniel slid his palms over his eyes and shook his head.

"I swear to hell, my fucking sister..." he complained under his breath.

Theodore finally let their laugh slip out. "Aw, Dan Dan," they teased in a sing-song voice. "Is there something you wanna tell me?"

"Yeah, actually. Call me Dan Dan again and I'll suffocate you with my dirty clothes."

Then, it was as if Sawyer went blind.

Every appliance in Daniel's house turned off in complete unison, stealing the light from every corner. For a moment, Sawyer assumed that he had fallen asleep, but when he heard the voices of the other two, that theory was quickly squashed.

"Really, Daisy-May! Cut it out!"

"Can you get over to the curtains?"

"I have no clue where they are."

"Hold on." Sawyer pulled out a pen from his pocket and pressed the button on the side. A small beam emitted from the tip and Sawyer guided it along the edges of Daniel's wall until he saw the dark fabric waves across a section. He directed his light to the floor to avoid stepping on anything that would cut his foot off, and when he did make it to the curtains and shoved them away, he was met with a mirror image of the room.

The only light that was visible from the outside was the soft glow of the full moon in the otherwise empty sky.

"Huh," said Theodore. "That's weird."

"Yeah," said Sawyer.

"Yeah," said Daniel.

The three stared through the window at nothing. To this day, they couldn't explain why, but something about the strangeness of that all compelled them enough to stare entranced for three whole minutes.

Then, after four minutes of partial blindness, the room lit up again, and Daniel almost gagged when they turned around.

"I really gotta clean this room, holy shit."

"Ya think?" responded Theodore sarcastically.

"Seriously, though, what just happened?" asked Sawyer.

"The power went out."

"But there was no storm. And it went out everywhere. Not just here."

"It was probably nothing," reasoned Daniel.

"We have to make sure. We've gotta talk to the others about this. Do you think we can sneak them in?"

"Like Mila would ever let girls spend the night."

"And Quinn?" asked Theodore.

Daniel raised his eyebrows. Theodore nodded slightly, not needing any further explanation. Quinn was introduced to the group when Daniel had first started dating them in middle school. Sawyer wasn't exactly sure why they had dated, but it was possible that Daniel was attracted to the fact that someone was just as obsessed with the media as he was. They only dated for about two months before they shared their first kiss and both agreed that it was the wrong choice to stay together–mostly because, as Sawyer later learned, it was the kiss that was Quinn's aromantic awakening. Even after the two split apart, Quinn stayed with the group. Neither one had any negative feelings towards the other, so being friends wasn't difficult.

Despite the fact that Daniel told his foster-mom Mila over and over that they were just friends and that getting back together was absolutely impossible, she was convinced that a sleepover would "change their perspective." Daniel eventually came to accept the fact that Mila's flawed logic would never change–until he possibly got together with a boy and wasn't allowed to have sleepovers with anyone anymore.

"Wait. Maybe we don't have to sneak them in." And with that, Daniel opened up the window and jumped down onto his roof.

♣

When the power went out, Sophie Beaufoy was stretching her hamstrings and calves using the floor and her loft bed. She had moved her circular carpet out of the way so she wouldn't slip, and slowly she tried her best to get closer and closer to her bedframe without bending her knees. She was getting pretty close, too, until everything went dark and she slipped. In retrospect, she was lucky not to have broken anything.

"Dammit," she swore under her breath. She scrambled around her room, trying to find some sort of flashlight. When she got her hands on her phone, she pressed the side button and urged for it to turn on. Right before any light from the phone lit up the room, she heard her door open from behind her.

"So you lost power too?" her brother asked. Mason was holding his phone--which had the flashlight feature on--towards Sophie.

"What happened?"

"Not sure. Bethany's checking with Dad right now." Mason's girlfriend--and future wife--practically lived there at that point, so even though Sophie had no idea she was even over that night, she wasn't surprised.

Mason's flashlight moved to point out of Sophie's window. "Oh, for fuck's sake." He made his way past Sophie and opened her window, peering out of it so far he could've almost fallen down. Not that it would be too big of a drop, since she lived on the first story.

Sophie joined her brother, and immediately she saw what he was looking at. Two people, both dressed in all black clothing, were running in the street, carrying sparklers. It was the only source of light throughout the entire street, and only illuminated their silhouettes. She couldn't tell much about what they looked like, just that they both had dark hair, one with curly locs and the other straight, and they seemed to have slim physicality.

"It's been two minutes, how the hell are they so quick?"

"Who are they?"

"My bet's on Cam. Not sure about the other one, though."

Even though the sparklers looked nowhere near burnt out yet, the glow from both disappeared simultaneously. Whether they tried again was impossible to tell, but if they did, it definitely didn't succeed. "Nice try," Mason remarked sarcastically. He sighed, turning his flashlight back near Sophie. "I'm gonna go check on Bethany."

Sophie nodded, and almost right as soon as Mason closed the door, the lights sprung back to life. Sophie let out a deep breath. It wasn't as if losing power was life or death, but it wasn't a great sign that everyone lost it at the same time.

Sophie took a step towards her bed, feeling the sting of her sore hamstring as she did so. Despite her brain wanting to continue her stretches, she took her copy of Little Women from her side table and flipped to the section that she had left off on. She sat on one of the beanbags under her bed, turning on her reading light above her.

"Sophie! Your friend is here!" Mason's voice called out from the hallway. Sophie furrowed her brows, and before she could open the door, someone opened it for her. A kid with short hair about her age and a phone in hand stepped directly into her room.

"Hey, Soph."

"Quinn? What are you doing here?"

They shrugged. "I was home alone. The power went out. I didn't want to get murdered."

"So you walked here by yourself in the dark?"

"Well, when you put it like that it seems stupid."

"It was stupid, Quinn. You could've gotten hurt."

"It's okay, I'm fine! Only a small papercut from earlier." Quinn sat on Sophie's other bean bag next to her. "Have you read that one yet?"

Sophie let out a small laugh. "Yeah, I have. I think I may have read it five times by now."

"Should I check it out?"

"For sure."

"Check what out?"

Sophie turned around so quickly that she almost threw her book on the floor. Daniel had fallen through the open window and onto Sophie's hardwood floor, causing him to yelp out in pain.

"Danny?" Sophie asked, attempting to mask her panic but failing.

"Hey, Soph!"

"Hey, Fi!" Theodore was now making their way over Sophie's ledge, stepping around Daniel, who was still on the ground in front of them.

"Teddy? Why are you here?"

"We have to talk to you," Sawyer said as he popped up from behind Theodore.

"About?"

"The power outage."

"That's it?" Sophie laughed. "Sawyer, it was a power outage. And it's over."

"Yeah, but Sophie. There's something else going on. I can feel it."

Sophie let out another laugh. Daniel and Theodore were finally up, Sawyer now making his way through the frame. "You could've texted me."

"You're not on your phone at night."

They got her there.

"Look, guys, thanks for stopping by, but it's getting late and..."

Her eyes directed towards the sky, and she didn't even realize that she had trailed off in her sentence. A light too large to be a star had made its way into the sky beside the moon, and only seemed to be growing with every passing second. The boys, Quinn, and Theodore all faced the direction that Sophie was staring at. The light was close to the size of the moon, then exceeded it. Finally, without a sound, it disappeared, as if it was a balloon that had just popped.

The group of five stood in silence, each one with different thoughts running through their heads. "Told you."

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after chapter note -

here's chapter one! this took an embarrassingly long time, wow. just wanted to make sure everything was how i wanted it to be before i posted it. also, to the characters who haven't been mentioned yet, don't worry. i have big plans for them ;) 

anyways, hope this kind of writing style works! it's definitely different than my usual type of writing. i wanted to try something new since this book is unlike anything i've ever done before (aka kinda batshit crazy). let me know what you thought!

sincerely, nicholas