Alien or Alian
Chapter 8: Hyper Inversion

Ozias didn’t know what to expect when they arrived at Knillimhyr Manor — home of Elbel Court’s Mayor, Nina Knillimhyr; the place Ethen (and Ezra) were likely raised, and a place he had just never seen before — not even on the news.

The Manor was three stories tall and 7000 square feet. It looked much more of a palace on the outside than the house Ethen was currently living in. Although, at the same time, it didn’t look to be a kind of place that many would come to visit.

There was nothing but barren and crowded forestry surrounding the area, and only one narrow road leading in and out of the estate. And the front lawn was decorated with several eerie statues covered partially in snow, of which they were some of the most dangerous animals in the world: bears, pufferfish, hyenas, sharks — Ozias went stock still after stepping out of the car.

“Come on Spacewalker, one foot after the other!” Sid called.

Ozias finally looked away from the minacious carvings, and saw Sid and Ethen trying to get a dazed Ezra out of the car. Once Ezra had two feet planted on the ground, the two hooked his arms around their shoulder yet again, and heaved him up before they all hobbled towards the front door.

Hesitant, Ozias began to shuffle over to them to offer his help, but Nina put a hand to his shoulder, stopping him.

“You boys go in first,” she called to Sid and Ethen. “We’re right behind you.” The two boys spared a brief glance back at her and Ozias, and continued their trudge to the door. Nina had been communicating to several people on her phone for the entire ride to the Manor. She at last tucked the device away into her coat pocket, and started for the door herself, signalling to Ozias to follow her. “Shall we?”

“Oh, um, yeah.” Ozias tried to avoid looking at any of the statues on the way, but even as he did, it still felt as if they were staring right back at him.

“What do you think of them?” Nina asked him, sporting a cryptic yet amused expression. “Blood-curdling, yes?”

“Oh, n-no, they’re...interesting, really,” he stammered. “Maybe a little creepy.”

Nina laughed. “That’s quite a response; I’ll take it though, and maybe later I’ll get a few more statues placed. They help to keep away visitors, and as depressing as that may sound, we can’t have people snooping around here.”

Ozias nodded as he mistakenly decided to provide furtive glances at each statue; their eyes had all been sculpted to appear wide open and predatory, and something about their stances seemed feral as well. They were undeniably blood-curdling, much more than just creepy.

“You know, I think you’re the first real friend Ezra’s had,” Nina suddenly said. “The first one he talks to about things that aren’t related to this whole space travel business.”

“What? Oh, really?” Ozias said.

“Yes, with all the training he had to do, he never had time to make any friends or go to school, or just be a kid. And I can tell he’s unhappy at times because of it.”

Ozias watched from afar as Ethen and Sid tottered through the door, with Ezra still securely in their grasp. “But then, why does he still do it, continue to be a space commander and travel to space and all that?”

“I don’t know. He insists whenever I ask him, that this is what he really wants to do. I always try to remind him that he can take a step back from all this whenever he wants, whenever he’s ready. We could always train another one of the Knillimhyr/Corte clan to become commander.” Nina went in first when she and Ozias reached the front door, and stood waiting until he was inside before she continued. “But, these days I don’t have much time to nag him about it since I became the Mayor.”

“How did you become the Mayor?” Ozias asked. Right after he did, he gazed all around, taking in all the enchanting details of the Knillimhyr Manor:

The walls were a chiffon white while the ceiling was adorned with swirled and curled line designs. The black velvet sofas and armchairs complemented the black steel cabinets and bookshelves. And much of the walls were garnished with simple portraits of various sizes of family members; the faces in them also resembled the ones in the portraits Ozias had seen at Ethen’s house.

“Oh, well my mother had the job before I did.” Nina resumed her stride through the living room, and after quickly recovering from witnessing the fancifulness of the home, Ozias followed her. “And about a year after Rhys passed away, she announced her retirement. Then right afterwards she offered me the position, and no one else was running so I decided I would accept the offer. With my husband gone, Ezra in training, and Ethen starting school, I thought it might be time for a change in my life as well.”

Nina continued further, descending down a short flight of stairs into what looked like a basement, then made a sharp left turn that led to a rusted elevator. She pressed the sole button that was to the side of it, and the doors instantly glided opened. Ozias quickly followed as she stepped into it without delay.

“And I couldn’t believe it when I got re-elected for a second term three years ago. If Rhys could see me now, his jaw would hit the floor and never come back up.” Nina let out a low but enamored chuckle as pulled out a laminated card attached to a small black keychain from a pocket inside her coat. With one quick swipe across a blackened mini screen with the card, the elevator began its descent. “I’ve been enjoying it though, and the whole experience so far trounces staying indoors, alone, being a widowed housewife.”

Ozias tightly grabbed one of the surrounding metal handrails with both hands. The elevator was moving much faster than every other elevator he’d been on. He glanced at Nina, and was surprised to see her calm and keeping her balance.

Despite the high-speed ride, Ozias tried to stay calm as well, but the last thing Nina had said weighed on him like an elephant hitching a ride on his back. For much of his life, Ozias could only recall staying indoors, alone, being a bookish wallflower. It wasn’t something he ever really thought about, let alone felt chagrined about...that was until last night when he came home from Ethen’s party.

A low hum suddenly reverberated inside the elevator as it slowed to a tremulous halt. They had reached the bottom floor. Without missing a beat, the doors glided open once again, revealing a hectic scene: sheets of paper scattered all over a formerly spotless white floor; computers of various sizes giving off constant sonorous beeps; people running all over the place trying to talk to each other over the beeping sounds.

There were four large monitors on one of the walls, each displaying pictures of the shuttle wreckage: the tail, the wings, the nozzles — they all just looked like colossal clumps of unidentifiable metal trash to Ozias.

“Welcome to our center of operations,” Nina said with glowing esteem, but her earlier jubilant expression had been replaced by something dire.

“Nina!”

Both Ozias and Nina craned their heads to see a plump woman with tawny hair tied in a ponytail, jogging towards them, stress evident in her eyes. She didn’t stop until she was face to face with Nina, and Ozias watched as she then clutched Nina’s forearms with the same tensity in her eyes, and Nina returned the gesture by clutching the woman’s forearms as well.

“Ingrid, have they left yet?” Nina asked her.

“Yes, a team just left a short while ago. They’ll cover as much ground as they can to look for this ‘blob’,” the woman answered. Nina was about to ask something else, but Ingrid beat her to it. “Ethen and Sid are helping Ezra into the chamber as we speak.”

Nina released a sigh of relief , “good. Thank you, Ingrid.” The two unhanded each other simultaneously, and Ingrid then rushed off into the disorderly swarm of people without another word, or even noticing Ozias. “Come on, we must head to the chambers!” Nina said to Ozias before scurrying over to another short flight of steps in the far left corner, motioning again for Ozias to follow.

When they reached the bottom of the steps, they saw Sid stepping out through the door of a lofty, white metal box that was muddled with thick wires. There were two other boxes connected to it on either side, both looking exactly the same as the one in the center. It took both Sid and Ethen to get the door closed all the way, compelling Ozias to think that the structure must’ve weighed tons.

As soon as the door was closed, Nina stood before it in the blink of an eye and peered through the round window to look inside.

“What is this thing?” Ozias asked, gazing up at the box as if it had just gracefully descended from the sky.

“Hyper-inversion chamber,” Sid said with some elegance.

“Our bodies — our kind, we don’t feel the natural temperatures on Earth as humans do,” Nina started to explain, still glancing into the window. “When it’s cold, we don’t feel cold. When it’s hot, we don’t feel hot. Our bodily temperatures simply stay somewhere in the middle. But it’s possible in extreme climates that our temperatures can change, like during space travel. If that happens, our bodies start to feel it — the cold, the hot — we get sickly, feel pained. To reverse that intense temperature that our bodies feel, Wylliam designed these chambers. You go inside, have a few thin tubes tucked inside, adjust some toggles here, then someone from the control room begins the process. It usually takes about an hour, and we have different control settings for both our kind and humans.”

“Wow…” Ozias whispered. The box no longer seemed like a box to him, but some outlandish extraterrestrial instrument that was capable of more than what Nina had just described.

“Sidriel, is your father here yet?” Nina asked, finally pulling away from the door.

Sid nodded. “He and my mom just got back. They’re in the control room now.”

“Good. Come with me Sidriel, we’ll go inform them of the recent events. Ethen, check that all the switches are correctly on, then come join us,” Nina instructed.

“Right,” was all Ethen said, and he turned to a small panel on the side of the box, brusquely lifting open a clear plastic covering and getting to work.

Nina turned to Ozias. “I must ask you to wait here until the process is finished, please.”

Still mystified by the unorthodox box, Ozias managed only a nod, and as soon as he did Nina marched down a long hall not wasting a second with Sid just a step behind her.

Ozias spared only a passing glance as the two got further away, and seized an opportunity for a firsthand look inside the machine. Ethen’s attention remained on the panel as Ozias moved the closest he could to the door, stomach lightly pressed against it, and peeked through the window.

At first glance, he saw Ezra seated on a bench on the left side of the box. Ozias boldly thought about waving a silent ‘hello’ to him, but as he looked closer, he realized Ezra had gone unconscious yet again: his eyes were shut, and several thin tubes were tucked into the skin of his arms, neck and chest.

Ozias shuddered at the sight and shifted his gaze elsewhere. The inside of the box was as porcelain white on the inside as it was on the outside, with splotches of silver embellishing the smooth protruding edges. It seemed bare aside from two silver benches, one on each side, attached to the wall, and a bundle of colorful thin tubes hanging out above both benches.

It was an effortless design, but Ozias couldn’t help sensing something ultramodern about it too. “It’s so futuristic…”

As if by a push of a button, Ethen’s sharp gaze veered away from the panel, and was now aimed at Ozias. He didn’t say anything, but his gaze suddenly altered to manifest his aggravation.

“Sorry…” Ozias mumbled. “I just heard about all these rumours of your house looking so ‘futuristic’. I actually went to your party last night but when I got inside it just looked like a normal house to me. And now I see this box thing and it looks like it matches that description way more.”

The moment that followed felt traumatically unending to Ozias as Ethen stared at him, his irritation visibly dulling down a few levels.

His focus returned to the panel, and he resumed adjusting the right toggles, but still he spoke to Ozias, “I have one of these chambers at my place. Last year when I had a party, someone found it by accident. Fortunately, they were completely trashed at the time so I was able to convince them that what they saw wasn’t real. But that didn’t stop them from talking about these elaborate dreams they had about what they saw. The rumours just got worse ever since.”

Ozias took two steps closer to Ethen. Not too close that it would suggest ‘certain feelings’ and make it awkward for both of them, but close enough to provide some consolation. It was a bold move, one that Ozias wasn’t sure Ethen had even noticed yet, but he wasn’t feeling bold enough to make another move, so instead he just said, “even after such a close-call, you still have all these parties at your house. Why?”

“It’s a distraction…” Ethen faltered, and Ozias thought he misheard his tone.

“A distraction from what?”

Like a shatter of glass, Ethen slammed the clear plastic covering back down. “No more questions.”

Startled, Ozias retreated the two steps he previously advanced. “Sorry I-”

“Just go. There’s a bench by the elevator, wait there.” Ethen didn’t wait for a response, and stormed off down the hall.

He didn’t look back, but Ozias did, and he continued until Ethen disappeared through a door at the end of the hall. One of the worst things that Ozias imagined could happen when he finally had a real conversation with Ethen happened, and despite it being for a totally different reason, he still felt a pang in his heart as he watched him go.

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