Mikaela’s doll hit the concrete with a smack. It made a noise. The spiraling saucer hovering over her garage, did not. Transfixed, the 10-year-old stood dumbfounded, watching it gyrate with a light tilt, wondering who was inside. She hoped against E.T.. He was ugly. She liked the big-eyed, stick-limbed ones in that movie her grandpa loved, what was it called? Didn’t matter. She always dreamt of being that boy in the final scene, but instead of walking away, she’d turn around, and go back in!

Inspired, Mikaela reached out and repeated the gestures she remembered. The saucer tilted to 90°.

Her breath started. She looked at her hand, “Oh my god!”

A part of her wanted to scream and wake up her sleeping parents to come and see. But the moment felt like it was just for her, that they’d travelled thousands of miles just to visit her tiny, Baltimore alley driveway.

She wanted it to come closer. The thought coalesced, hardened, and without precociousness left her tiny throat, “Come here.”

The saucer glid towards her and lowered, not enough to touch, but enough to make out a pattern blurred in the rotations.

Her heart was racing. “Open!” she commanded. Nothing. “Open!” she stomped. Nothing.

Mikaela sighed, imagining the aliens looking at her with a familiar disappointment. She rejected it, saying earnestly, “I want to see you.” But the voice that spoke wasn’t hers. She stood back, aghast,  slapping her hand over her mouth.

The speed of the disc accelerated, humming with a soft pitched whine. A burst of amber light erupted from its belly, enveloping her. In awe, she stopped breathing, not noticing the ground was moving away from her. Looking up, a cloudy shape descended towards her. It was bigger, and though afraid, Mikaela felt compelled to touch it. As her finger connected, her mind exploded with a kaleidoscope of memories. A million photographs of things she didn’t remember. It overwhelmed her small brain and everything went dark.