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     Apparently, possible alien invasions aren't good enough excuses to say home. With the dark of night chased away by warm rays of sun, my parents chuckled at how paranoid they'd been the night before, typical parent behavior, and they packed us off to school.

     Stepping out of the front door, I paused briefly to look up at the sky. Spring storm clouds gathered on the horizon but other than that, it was clear. A slight breeze drifted lazily along pulling at the light fabric of my tank top and at several loose strands of hair that had escaped my ponytail.

     While my parent's belief in the alien spaceship seemed to have subsided, mine had grown. I'd barely slept at all last night, constantly tossing and turning. At some point around 2 a.m. I had gotten up to stare out my window. I hadn't moved. I just stared up at the full moon wondering if that ship was there.

     The halfhearted excuses I'd told my parents echoed through my head.

     "Hackers? Really, Nova, this isn't some fancy spy movie. You should know better," I muttered taking my eyes off the moon and started pacing. "You know NASA wouldn't release those photos if they didn't truly believe that they were real."

     I groaned and rubbed my face with my hands. I was being stupid, aliens didn't exist. Just like fairies or unicorns didn't exist. I'd stopped believing in those when I was five. So why now when I was eighteen, was I entertaining the possibility of aliens? 

     I reached the wall of my room and stopped to look at all the books stacked there. Sci-fi, fantasy, adventure. That's where the aliens existed, in those made worlds with the funny names. Not hovering above Earth.

     "Ughhhhh. They haven't ever come up with any conclusive proof of aliens and UFOs in the past. Why would it start now?" I muttered to myself again. "It's probably some scam by the government trying to make us scared."

     Now I was grasping at straws. It's like when you find out something that you've known your whole life is actually wrong and completely different so you try to reason it out, make it make sense. You start to come up with wild theories just because you can't process the truth. That's what it was like in my head at the moment.

     I kept pacing, every now and then stopping at the window to look out. I don't know what I was expecting. To see the spaceship hoving above Springport? Maybe. But every time I was met with a clear sky.

     My sleep deprived brain kept going a mile a minute, quickly spiraling out of control. I went in circles for what seemed like hours. One minute I was reasoning the existence of aliens, the next I was ready to beat my head against the wall for even entertaining the idea.

     "Nova?" A small voice stopped my mindless pacing.

     "What do you want Milo?" I asked walking over to where my phone lay, screen bright with notifications, to look at the time. "It's three in the morning. What are you doing up?"

     Milo stood framed in the doorway hugging a blue stuffed dinosaur to his chest. I'd gotten it for his second birthday, six years ago. He still slept with it.

     "I can't sleep," he murmured.

     I ran my fingers through my straight blond hair and brought some over my shoulder to nervously play with.

      I sighed, "Why didn't you go to mom and dad?"

     "I didn't want to bother them and I could hear you moving around in here," Milo dropped his eyes to the floor and poked at the carpet with his toes.

     He looked so small in his oversized striped pajamas. His mop of curly hair covering his eyes and his hands drawn up into his sleeves. The stuffed dinosaur looked like it was being crushed in his arms. Milo needed someone to hold him and tell him everything would be ok. Tonight that would be his big sister.

     "You can sleep here," I said and patted the bed.

     Milo shuffled into my room and pulled the door closed behind him. He then shuffled all the way to my bed and clambered up onto it. I waited until he'd crawled beneath the sheets before crawling in as well.

     "Did you really mean what you said earlier about the world ending?" Milo's small voice asked.

     "It's not going to end," I said reassuringly.

     "Yeah but what if the world-"

     "It's not going to end," I repeated, this time a little more forcefully. "Now just go to sleep and don't worry about it."

     It didn't take long until Milo's breathing evened out. I felt my eyes growing heavy and just before falling asleep, I turned over to face the window and the inky blackness beyond.

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     "Nova!" Milo tugged on my arm. "We have to go."

     Right, I was driving Milo to school that day. Getting my license had definitely been the right move even if I had to drive Milo to school some days. It was dad's day off so he was still asleep and my mother had gone into work early to start on payroll. She was the owner of the salon in town.

     Milo and I walked to my white truck that was parked in our driveway. There wasn't room in the garage for it. My parent's cars always took up that space. Milo hopped in and put his backpack on the floorboard in front of him. I handed him mine as well and started up the truck.

     It came to life with a gentle yet powerful growl and I grinned. It was the best surprise I'd ever received. I took it out of park and pulled out into the road. I glanced over my shoulder to Ali's house. Her car was gone. She was probably already at school.

     I focused my eyes back on the road and took off in the direction of town. I dropped Milo at the elementary school, told him that dad would be there to pick him up later, and pulled out of the parking lot.

     Despite the news of a possible alien invasion, Springport seemed to be functioning as usual. Parents dropped their kids off at school and left for work. Teenagers drove by on their way to the high school and I joined them.

     The parking lot at the high school was unnaturally loud. People shouted back and forth across their cars. I pulled my backpack on and locked my truck before turning to face the mess that was the day ahead. How could it be anything but a mess after last night? Maybe it would be better if I found Ali and Blaze first.

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