Shattered Stars: The Complete Duology

By C. S. Gaymon

Connor didn't remember alien abduction being a part of his college schedule.

He doesn't know it, but he's about to learn a whole lot more than what he paid for.

Disoriented and confused, he stumbles out of an unfamiliar room and realizes his body is no longer human. A renegade alien helps him escape captivity, but when he sneaks back home, his family is missing. Have they been transformed too?

Amid the search for his family, he uncovers an elaborate plan for an alien invasion, using the very citizens of Earth as their army. But does he have the grit to challenge such a plan? Failure will literally cost him the world.

The Shattered Stars Duology is an action-packed space opera that will keep you hooked until the very end. If you like unique alien species, ultra-advanced technology, and edge-of-your-seat fight sequences, then you'll love this series. Interested?

Get your copy now!

• Language: English
• Publisher: C. S. Gaymon
• Release date: Jan 6, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393735434

C. S. Gaymon

I am a sci-fi nerd born in California who had the fortune of being inspired to write a book, and seeing where life took me from there. Since 6th grade, I have been a regular golfer and I enter occasional amateur tournaments to give myself a challenge. I intend to enthrall my readers in the hopes they are struck with the gift of inspiration just as I had. Fun fact: My two favorite movies when I was three years old were Bambi and Apollo 13.

Book preview

Prologue

COMPUTERS ARE SO GODDAMN stupid.

I stared with half-lidded eyes at my computer screen, my elbows on the desk and my fingertips massaging my forehead. Had I missed a semicolon somewhere? No, this language didn’t even use semicolons. Maybe I forgot to increment a variable. Of course, my computer didn’t tell me the real problem; it didn’t even know there was one. My professor certainly wouldn’t mind if the program looked like it should run correctly, would he?

I leaned back in my chair, sighing and staring down my nose at the code as I drummed my fingers on my keyboard. A stream of asdfasdfasdf appeared in the middle of one of the lines, setting off the syntax error detection.

My eyes jumped to the other monitor. The urge to watch yet another YouTube video was growing without end. Just a click here, a few keystrokes there, and I’d be off to mindless-land again. How bad could one more video be?

No. I told myself, straightening in my chair. I deleted the random characters I created and hovered my fingertips above the keyboard. You’ve already watched one more video fifty times today. It shouldn’t take three hours to fix a single bug!

CONNOR! My mom called from downstairs.

I batted a headphone off one ear. Whaaat?

Time for dinner!

Ight.

I bounded down the stairs, mouth watering from the smell of chicken pot pie. My dog greeted me at the bottom of the stairs, ears pushed back and his stump-tail wiggling in excitement.

Hey, Dash, I said, smiling and patting him on the top of his head. Can’t give you too much attention, bud. The chicken pot pie calls to me.

He followed me into the kitchen, sniffing eagerly at my legs. Dad and Skylar had already seated themselves in their usual spots at the dinner table. Mom was serving herself dinner when she caught my eye. Hey! You can’t have those headphones on all the time. I called you four times!

Alright, I’ll turn down the volume from now on, I murmured, shrugging. I weaved around her, got a bowl, and served myself a quarter of the entire pie.

Well, it’s frustrating when I have to keep yelling across the house.

I rolled my eyes, then got myself a glass of water and hurried back to the table.

How was practice? Dad asked, blowing on the chicken on his fork to cool it off.

Extremely short. I chuckled, stirring the pie as it steamed in my plate. I only got to hit a medium bucket on the range and then do a single putting drill. Because somehow I figured my computer science homework would take forever, and guess what? I was right.

Big project?

Nah, just some bug that’s hiding somewhere within the program. I’ve tried pretty much everything to find it, I said, finally digging into my dinner.

Want me to get the fly swatter? Mom asked, trying to conceal a smile. I’ll swat the bug for you!

Dad snickered. I facepalmed and shook my head, making no attempt to hold back my smile. Heh, no mom. You are the last person I’d want trying to solve a computer problem.

What? Mom laughed. "I’m not that bad at computers."

No, trust me mom, Skylar said, nodding his head in emphasis. You are.

Hey, be nice, she mumbled, making a dramatic sad face.

No, mom. I pointed a finger at Skylar. "That is him being nice."

Skylar widened his eyes and grinned devilishly. Mom eyed him skeptically. Mmm yes, he’s being an angel.

You know, Skylar, I said after taking a drink, that face will get you tons of new friends when to go to college in a couple years.

He eyed his dinner and picked up his fork. You know I’ve already got it figured out.

Behind Skylar, Dash started chomping on his own food. Skylar glanced back at him. Hey, can you keep it quiet back there? Geez.

Dash looked around, giving us the big-eyed, adoring gaze that he always gave, then he dropped his head and the crunching returned. Skylar sighed. He never listens.

A minute later, Dash sprung up from his food. He growled and trotted over to the sliding glass door leading to the backyard.

Seriously? We just let him out! Skylar said.

I think he heard something out there, Dad replied, squinting at the darkness outside. Probably a cat.

Dash started howling at the door, his fur standing on end. My eyes searched the landscape of the backyard, but my reflection in the dining room window made it difficult to discern anything.

Skylar twisted around, helping us look. "Probably a huge cat."

I kept looking, and then caught something moving outside. Adrenaline shot through me as I bolted up from my chair. Run!

The dining room window shattered into a hail of glass. Mom screamed. Skylar bent forward in his chair, arms covering his head. Two figures covered in black, scaly armor stood on the table, each holding two guns. Somehow, they had already yanked out the chandelier and hurled it into the living room.

Before I could even reach for something to throw at them, they took aim. Dad made a leap for the phone near the dinner table, but he fell to the ground with a dart in his neck. Skylar didn’t even have time to look up before they got him. Mom was too frightened to move. Dash charged at the intruders, howling with rage.

I turned to make a run for it. Something stung the side of my neck, and my body went limp. The world closed in around me as the ground rushed up to my face.

My ears started ringing, all other sounds becoming muffled. There was another bark, then a yelp, then silence.

1

The Beginning

ACKNOWLEDGE, an uncertain voice echoed from the void.

What? I responded.

Connor, you must listen very carefully, the voice said with an urgent tone. Your life will depend on how well you carry out the following instructions. This is not a threat, I am helping you escape. There is not—

Escape from what? How do you know my name?

Do not interrupt. There is not much time left to inform you before you awake. At the end of the corridor, you must jump as hard and as fast as you can. I am confident you will survive if you are successful.

Okay...

Do not hesitate. Good luck.

I gasped awake in a room small enough to trigger a feeling of claustrophobia. I scrambled to get to my feet but fell back to the floor. My body felt incredibly distorted and awkward. A blurry white mass occupied the bottom corners of my vision, and it didn’t disappear when I blinked. A clawed hand covered in white scales reached up to touch my muzzle. My hand.

I jerked my head back. What the hell?

My legs wobbled as I rose slowly to my feet again. It wasn’t as though I was heavy. In fact, I was light as a feather, but only the balls of my feet touched the floor.

I looked down. My body was entirely covered in white scales. I now had a long, flexible tail extending from the bottom of my torso. I looked behind me, my neck twisting around far more than I should’ve been able to. In place of my shoulder blades sat two leathery wings. A silver mane ran from the top of my head down my back to the tip of my tail.

I’m a dragon? I mused with a smirk. Perhaps this was a dream? My latest memory flashed behind my eyes. Someone had broken into my house and tranquilized my family. This was no dream.

My head bumped the ceiling as I attempted to stand at full height. My long, animal-like ears twitched. A hiss of air rushed behind me. I whirled around and found a long corridor stretching out from the room. It ended at a blue wall.

I took a few tentative steps forward, paying close attention to my balance, and poked my head out of the room. The adjacent hallway was empty. I started on my way toward the blue wall, my claws clicking on the floor as I walked. The place was eerily empty, like a futuristic ghost town. There were no signs of aliens yet, but I figured that would change soon, one way or another.

As I neared the end of the hall, the blue wall became more defined. White, wispy streaks decorated the blue texture. It was almost as if...

I sped up my pace. That was no wall, but a window displaying a low orbit view of a planet. I skidded to a stop when I reached the window. It was about fifty feet wide, allowing a fantastic view of the Pacific Ocean. The shadow of night had just fallen upon the west coast of the United States, giving life to the network of city lights.

A low-pitch humming began to emanate from somewhere in the massive ship. As it got louder and higher-pitched, the floor began to vibrate.

I paced around in the hallway, dread rising into my chest. The voice had wanted me to escape, but could I really trust it? I had to either jump, or experience what these aliens had in store for me. For all I knew, this ship was about to explode.

I must be insane. I took my deepest breath, clamped my mouth shut, and put both hands over my nostrils to prevent air from escaping in space. Three, two, one...

I jumped to the wall that I planned to launch from, lining up my body parallel to the floor and letting my momentum put me into a horizontal crouch.

NOW!

As I committed to the jump, energy surged from within my legs. I immediately reached a speed far greater than I could imagine, and ripped through the glass like a bullet through a sheet of paper.

Immediately, the vacuum of space enveloped me in its cold grasp. Ice crystals formed all over my body, my ears popped several times as the air escaped, and my body inflated a little as the air pressure dropped to zero. My heart thumped like a drum amid the silence.

As if I wasn’t scared enough, I was slowly tumbling forward. In the absence of air, I wasn’t able to stabilize myself, but that didn’t stop me from flailing my wings around in desperation. The slow tumbling eventually pointed my head away from Earth, where I would get a view of the ship I escaped from, but nothing was there.

My hands didn’t have an airtight seal on my nostrils, thus the air in my lungs was slowly escaping. I froze in terror, convinced this was going to be my end.

Meanwhile, the side of me that was facing Earth heated up as I continued my descent. The atmosphere around me was thickening and burning up. My lungs ached as they begged for oxygen.

My vision was tunneling. I lost almost all sensations, except for the center of my vision and the lethargic beat of my heart. I relaxed as I fell into a state of peace. The distant stars faded behind the reddish air in which I was burning. My vision shrunk to a pinprick of orange light.

THE CHILLING WIND ROARED into my ears and tossed me around carelessly. My entire back tingled as if it were covered in spiders. My vision swirled with a mixture of red and deep blue.

I flared my wings as wide as they would go in order to stabilize myself. The dark water of the ocean rushed up at me, causing me to roar in surprise. There was only enough time to get in one flap of my wings before I performed the world’s highest belly-flop.

Instead of the extreme pain I expected, only a dull stinging spread through my body. After some momentary disorientation, I swerved my head around. The surface was receding above me.

I kicked hard to get back to the surface and accelerated with surprising speed. The surface erupted around me as I rose into the air. I opened my wings and flapped to stay aloft, but was unable to get any real lift. I plopped back into the ocean and shook the water out of my ears.

Land was absent from the horizon, and the sun had almost completely set below it. I gazed in the opposite direction. That means... the U.S. must be that way.

I aimed myself eastward and submerged a few feet underwater. Flying wasn’t an option currently as those skills were nonexistent. I kicked hard and accelerated with a reasonable amount of speed, but it was far too slow if I wanted to get anywhere in a timely manner. I pulled my wings flat along my back, making myself more aquadynamic. My kicking accelerated until the motion was more like a vibration. My body knifed through the water with little resistance. The wake I was generating on the surface was visible within my widened field of view.

Over the next hour, I taught myself how to fly. I started with just gliding for a few seconds at a time and eventually worked up to steering and learning how to flap correctly. Despite the situation, a certain joy arose in me as I marveled at the new experience. I mentally checked off Learning How To Fly off of my Pipe Dream Bucket List.

I stayed low to avoid being seen by airplanes. The last thing I wanted was a battle against the Air Force. Curiously, my body showed no signs of fatigue, though sleep became more appealing as the minutes passed by. The peach-colored backdrop behind me eventually gave way to stars as night took over. As I often did when I was outside on a cloudless night, I stared into space as the immensity of the universe mesmerized me.

Over the next hour, an orange haze started to creep above the horizon. I steadily increased my altitude, wanting to appear as small in the sky as possible when I eventually reached land. I held my arms close to my chest as the sea pulled away below me. My stomach was getting butterflies; sitting in the cabin of an airplane was one thing, but being exposed to the elements was something else. I settled for shutting my eyes, only sparing glances at the ground when I wasn’t certain how far I was from land.

By the time city lights dotted the horizon, I was miles in the air and still climbing. The wind had strengthened considerably, and my wings flailed every time a gust hit. I pressed forward as fast as I could, yearning for a safe place on the ground. I kept a watchful eye out for any airplane lights in the sky. None were present. As the mass of lights panned toward me, I scanned the network of roads and recognized San Francisco.

I raised my eyeridges. My house would only be a couple hours away by car, and far less time at the speed I was flying. It was convenient I landed in the ocean this close to home. A little too convenient. Whoever it was that had let me escape... somehow knew things about me.

My hand went to my thigh and grasped at air. I rolled my eyes. Right, no phone.

As I followed a highway I knew led home, I grew worried. Since I was abducted, was the rest of my family missing as well? Surely, if they were safe at home, I could convince them I was me. But what would I do if they weren’t there to greet me? Maybe they were turned into dragons as well.

I let out a frustrated sigh into a hand, which turned into a growl. Whyyyyy.

I jerked my head up in surprise. It sounded much more animalistic than I thought it would, even with the howling wind in my ears.

The hhheck? My lips felt sluggish as they tried to form the words, like I was drunk. At least I can still talk.

Within minutes, I was hovering above my house, still miles in the air. Somehow, I managed to flap my wings multiple times each second to keep from falling. I eyed my house’s backyard with apprehension. There was no way I’d be able to slowly glide down without someone seeing me eventually.

Once there were no cars in the general area of my house, I squeezed my eyes shut and quickly folded my wings. I dropped like a rock. The wind was already rustling my mane as I forced my eyes open and oriented my fall head-first. I fell halfway down in just a few seconds, then my wings sprang open seemingly on their own. Their membranes bulged and I shuddered as the deceleration jarred me. I started drifting slightly off-course, heading for my house’s rooftop instead. I tried to angle myself toward the thin strip of lawn in my backyard, but it wasn’t enough.

I yelped just before my legs impacted on the roof tiles. I tumbled off the sloped roof and landed flat on my back on the backyard lawn, my wings pinned under me.

I groaned and blinked at the dark sky, both shocked by the landing and confused as to why it didn’t hurt. A few of the shingles I had jarred loose slid from the rooftop. I rose my hands just in time to bat them away from falling onto my chest.

My head flopped back onto the lawn and my eyes fluttered closed. I grumbled to myself in a chuckle.

That’s one way to do it.

2

Traveler

I GOT TO MY FEET AND shook off the dirt from my back. I rotated my wing shoulders, noting how odd it still felt to have an extra set of appendages. I wasn’t sure whether I liked this body or not.

I ducked under the wooden patio awning, then stopped when I saw the dining room window. It was there, not shattered to pieces. I put my palm up against it, feeling the momentary chill it gave my hand. Not an illusion.

I furrowed my eyeridges and glanced around. Was last night real, or somehow imagined? Peering into the dining room, I discovered there was no chandelier hanging above the table. I looked to the living room, where I remembered the invaders had thrown it. It was still lying there, surrounded by the remains of several of its bulbs.

What? I whispered, trying to open the sliding glass door nearby. It was locked from the inside. The two other side doors were locked as well, but the side door to the garage was unlocked.

I snuck past the two cars, feeling my way past them with my hands until the motion-activated garage light turned on. The handle of the door to the rest of the house didn’t budge.

Dammit. I huffed. Why did my parents have to have such good security habits?

I put my hands on my hips, frowning at the door handle. There was no way in hell I was going to risk trying the front door. It was probably locked as well anyway. I looked down at my feet. If I was strong enough to survive a fall from space, surely I was strong enough to break down a door.

Careful to not scrape my mom’s car with my tail, I took a couple steps back and brought my fists up to my chest. You gotta do what you gotta do.

My jaw clenched as I lunged myself forward, taking the impact on my shoulder. The wood of the door exploded into a thousand splinters as I barreled through it with ease. My foot caught on an intact piece of the door and I broke my fall with my hands on the floor.

I stood and looked back at the gaping hole in the door. It had required next to no effort. I gazed at my hands. Maybe I would like this body.

I groped around the wall until I found the light switch, then crept into the kitchen holding my breath. Everything was almost exactly as I remembered it, minus the window. Our half eaten meals were still in the bowls, with specks of mold growing on them. A couple chairs had been tipped over from our hurry to escape the invaders, and there were a few spots of blood on the tile floor.

I knelt and dabbed a finger in one of the spots. Based on where I stood and where I had fallen that night, this was my blood. And over there was probably Dad’s blood, and there was Mom’s.

Had the same thing happened to them? I would have seen them escape the ship if that were true. For all I knew, they could still be on it. They could have missed the opportunity to escape. Or worse, they were never given the opportunity in the first place.

My jaw tightened as I covered my eyes with a hand. I curled my hand with the blood into a fist and slammed it into the floor. A loud crack reverberated throughout the house. I let my hand slide down my muzzle and hang by my side. I blinked dust and tears out of my eyes and gazed at the circular pattern of cracks in the newly-fractured tile. I held up my hand, wiggling my fingers to see if anything was broken. They were hardly scratched. The punch had hurt as much as if I had struck cardboard.

I snorted and stood, part of my lip curled into a snarl. I bounded up the stairs and squeezed through the doorframe to my room. They abducted the wrong humans.

I moved the mouse to wake my computer up, then used my knuckles to type in my password to avoid damaging my keyboard. The date on the computer read November 3rd, which wasn’t far from the date I was abducted.

I launched Google Earth and panned around my area for several minutes, looking for at least a few square miles of no civilization. I looked farther north, having found my area far too crowded. Canada was an option, but I didn’t want to stray that far from home. I wanted to stay within California so I retained at least some sense of security and belonging.

After another half-hour of searching, I came upon a small lake nestled in a snow-capped mountain range. The nameless lake was far enough from any civilization. I could fly around at night in that area without having to worry about being seen. Snow wouldn’t bother me at all, given I had coped with the icy ocean water for hours without getting hypothermia. In fact, I would blend in with the snow. Content with my destination, I wrote on a sticky note the landmarks I would look for to guide me to the lake.

My favorite playlist from my computer played as I packed all the things I might need on my trip. I used scissors to cut a big hole in the back of all the shorts and pants for my tail, and two long cuts from the shoulder blades to the bottom of the back of the shirts for my wings. The fit wasn’t perfect—my belt wouldn’t go tight enough around my waist—but wearing clothes was more comfortable than being naked, and dark clothes would make me less visible during the night.

I put my phone into my pocket and its battery bank in my backpack. I also wanted something to do to keep me busy while I was away, so I included a few novels, my calculus, physics, and computer science textbooks. I stuffed a second suitcase with a pillow, a blanket, and a towel, as well as my golf hat and sunglasses.

As I went into my bathroom to get my toothbrush and toothpaste, I froze at the sight my reflection, or rather the bottom half of my reflection. I was too tall for the mirror. I squatted and so did the dragon in the mirror, staring back at me with wide eyes and a gaping mouth. So many details hit me at once: the razor sharp silver teeth, the start of my mane on the top of my head with a pointed widow’s peak, my thin animal-ears perked up in alarm. To my surprise, my eyes weren’t reptilian as I had expected. Rather, they were exactly the same as my human eyes, with a blue-green iris and a round pupil.

That can’t be a coincidence, I thought. Certainly, I still had my human brain, but did that mean I was still considered a human? Where scientists would draw the line, I had no clue. I shook my head, deciding those types of questions only served as distractions at the moment.

I crammed myself into the shower to wash the seawater stink off and to fix my messy mane. I must have used half the bottle of conditioner by the time I was done. I dried off, brushed my teeth, combed my mane, put on some deodorant, and packed my bathroom supplies into my backpack.

I brought my things downstairs and packed whatever empty spaces were left with loaves of bread and nutrition bars, all while stuffing my face full of tortilla chips. There was no point in bringing water because there would be plenty where I was headed.

My breath fogged up in the midnight air when I went back outside for my departure. A shred of anger still resided in my chest. I looked back at my house for the last time in a long time and cursed whoever did this to me. I would get to the bottom of this and do my best to set things straight.

I put my backpack on over my chest, because my wings too big for the straps, and held the two suitcases firmly under each arm. The sticky note with the landmarks was secure in my palm. I looked skyward, momentarily admiring the infrared-tinted stars scattered across the night sky, and jumped upward.

Careful not to damage my luggage, my wings pumped with quick succession as I angled northward toward my destination. After several minutes of steep climbing, I leveled out. I narrowed my eyes at the web of streetlights below. Now that I had calmed down somewhat, I noticed something about the lights that eluded me before. All the cars on the road were each highlighted by a faint red glow. Pedestrians had faded into view as well, moving along the ground like glow-in-the-dark ants.

I lost interest in the phenomenon soon after, thanks to my curiosity about how my body was physically created. To call it magic was tempting, though I was never one to invoke magic so easily.

Veins of mountain ranges held my attention for the next half-hour until I spotted the small lake I had chosen as my getaway. The wide field of view from my vantage point and the insane detail my eyes provided made it easy for me to recognize the lake’s shape.

Seeing no need to divebomb this time, I glided into a shallow spiral directly above the lake. I eased out of the spiral once I was below the tops of the pine trees, and gave a few powerful flaps before landing on a small peninsula. The dirt-and-snow mixture crunched under my feet as I tried to keep my balance on the slippery surface. As I predicted, the frigidity of the snow under my feet and the chilling air on my scales didn’t bother me at all.

The white mountain loomed over the one thousand foot-wide frozen lake. Snow-caked pine trees stood in silence. The dim crescent moon in the cloudless sky cast long shadows on the pristine powder covering the ground. The wind was out of breath; time stood still in this place.

I trudged over to the nearest pine tree and plowed the surrounding snow with my tail. I took my backpack off and checked the time with my phone. 2:30 AM. Time for bed. I covered myself with my blanket and towel, curled my body around my luggage, and covered it with my wing to help keep it dry.

In the few minutes before I drifted off to sleep, I gazed at my surroundings again, sensing the absence of life. Though I was an introvert, the lack of any interaction with anyone for the past day was taking a toll. I needed someone to talk to, someone who would listen and understand, but of course nobody was there.

A single tear rolled down the side of my muzzle. I missed my family.

AAAHH! MY EYES SNAPPED open and my head shot off the ground in alarm.

I squinted in the blinding light. After my eyes adjusted, a majestic snowy landscape greeted me. A few wispy clouds floated in the sky. Sunbeams beat down through the pine trees, illuminating the snow. Wind whistled in the distance.

It all came back to me. My head sank to the mush, relieved the dream was over. I couldn’t even pinpoint what it was about, since the memories were already receding and becoming obscure.

I instinctively looked at my wrist to check the time, but my watch wasn’t there, only white scales. My phone read 9:30 AM, which was the latest I’d ever slept. I yawned widely, clouding the air in front of my muzzle. I checked my luggage. My wing had kept it dry for the most part. I went to get a power bar out of my backpack, but I wasn’t hungry. I took a few bites of snow instead to quench my thirst, then I instantly regretted it. I may have been resistant to cold conditions, but I was still susceptible to brain freezes.

Over the next hour, I explored the local area. I was uncomfortable flying during the day for obvious reasons, so I walked on all fours to get some practice in while I explored. Though going quadruped didn’t come naturally, it was comfortable. In fact, I ran much faster on all fours than on two legs. In a moment of bored curiosity, I tried to see if I could breathe fire, but all I could do was make denser-than-normal fog-breath.

I found traces of hiking trails that weren’t in use for the winter, but there wasn’t much else surrounding the frozen lake, which I had named Nameless Lake for lack of creativity. I didn’t bother checking the other side of the mountain, assuming it would be similar.

After a few hours of doing absolutely nothing, it occurred to me I might need shelter from the weather this place was likely to get. I had all the wood I ever needed from pines in the area, but getting it proved to be tricky. I tried to uproot the tree from the ground, but either my hands would scrape up the trunk without doing much else, or my feet would sink into the snow and mud below it. In the end, using my sharp claws to cut a deep trench in the bottom of the trunk like a chainsaw was the best way to take down trees.

Once I cut down the trees and shaved them into reasonably straight logs, I made a simple outline in the snow to outline the foundation of my shelter. I dropped logs into place one by one. Some didn’t fit quite right so I had to adjust their structures accordingly.

I was almost done with my project when anxiety crept up on me. I tried to mentally shake it off as an aftereffect of my dream earlier this morning, but it persisted. I looked around the area. Everything was as still as a photograph. My ears perked up.

The distant wind was more noticeable since I had directed my attention solely to hearing. Miles away, a hawk screamed. Everything was a sound of nature... except for one thing. A faint crunching sound repeated over and over. Footsteps. The longer I listened, the louder it got. It was coming in my direction.

I had to act fast; revealing myself to strangers wasn’t part of my plan yet. The snow restricted me from fleeing, since I would only make more footprints for the wanderer to discover. I flung snow on the partially completed log shelter to make it look like it had been there awhile. I smoothed surrounding snow with my tail and gathered my things.

The footsteps were getting louder. It must have been no more than a mile away by now. I dove onto the ground on the exterior of a half-completed wall, cradling my things close to me. I scooped up nearby snow with any available limbs and piled it on top of me. Once snow thoroughly covered me, I shuffled my body a bit to even it out on the surface and went completely still. Hopefully, I appeared as an inconspicuous lump of snow against the log wall.

My heart rate increased with every audible footstep for an agonizing few minutes. The wanderer’s scent reached my nose through my blanket of snow. It didn’t resemble anything I’d smelled before. The footsteps stopped near the pile of logs that had yet to be used for my shelter.

I know you are there.

I tensed as shock reverberated throughout my body. It surprised me not only because the wanderer found me so easily, but also because the voice was extremely familiar.

It was the one that spoke to me before I escaped the spaceship.

We need to talk, Connor.

3

Company

IT IS IN YOUR BEST interest.

I wasn’t so sure about that, considering he was creeping me out. I remained motionless, although it was pointless. He knew I was here and he knew my name.

The next few seconds passed in deafening silence.

I can wait, he said in an authoritarian tone.

Getting sassy now are we?

I lifted my head out of the mound of snow I was hiding in, and shook the snow off the top of my head. I peeked over the wall I was hiding behind, letting only my forehead and eyes show.

A humanoid figure sat on a limbless tree trunk I had yet to dissect, dressed in an all-black, heavy-duty suit covering everything except for his head. His smooth crimson skin and bald head, combined with the fact he was about five feet tall, suggested he was not from this planet. His ears resembled that of a human’s, but had soft points, and his nose was flatter than a human’s. An orange, star-shaped logo adorned the left chest of his suit and a few gadgets hung from the utility belt.

He was young, but his eyes told a different tale. His crimson irises drilled into me, portraying a storm of emotions raging within him. He emitted an aura of experience and authority. Despite my obvious physical advantage, he intimidated me.

I got up on all fours and crept around the wall. His eyes tracked my every movement. Unsure of what else to do, I stood on two legs and looked down at him with my arms folded. So, you’re the guy who did all this, huh?

He nodded slightly. You may call me Neval.

Out of nowhere, anger surged within me. "Well then, Neval, looks like you’ve got some explaining to do. What the heck is going on here? Where’s my family? And why did you to turn me into this!?" I gestured to my body.

Neval raised a six-fingered hand to silence me. In my defense, I did what I thought was necessary. Perhaps a bit of context would suffice.

He lowered his hand, pausing to gather his thoughts. His voice was calm and decisive. As you may have deduced by now, I am not of your world. I hail from Asturn, which was my home planet that orbited the star KIC 8462852 as known by your species.

Hold on, ‘your species’? I asked. Am I not a dragon now?

"I will have you know you are still human, and your family is alive, though explanations will have to wait for another time. For now, I must tell you why I am here and what we must do to prevent