‘Seema!’ her mother’s voice rang out from the house. ‘Come inside! Your exams are over, and you should rest!’
‘No, Mom!’ Seema called back from the outhouse, her personal study-lab tucked away in the garden. ‘I’m sleeping here tonight!’
Her mother sighed and shut the door.
Seema, a brilliant tenth-grader, was always ahead of her curriculum, engrossed in books and experiments. That night, she worked on a complex math problem until exhaustion took over. She didn’t realize when she dozed off, but suddenly, she woke up with a start. Something felt off.
Her eyes adjusted to the dim light, and she froze in terror.
Standing before her was a strange, glowing creature. It had a conical brown face with dark eye patches, a spring-like neck, short arms, and long legs. Seema tried to scream, but no sound escaped her lips. The mysterious creature stared at her, unmoving, its faint glow pulsing like a heartbeat. Then, in the blink of an eye, the alien vanished.
She leaped out of bed, switched on the light, and ran outside. But everything was calm and quiet. Had she imagined it? Was Seema and the alien encounter just a dream? She shook her head, laughing at herself for being so jumpy.
The next morning, she couldn’t shake off the experience. ‘Can dreams come true, Mom?’ she asked over breakfast.
‘Some people believe so,’ her mother replied. ‘But I don’t!’
Seema bit her tongue. She considered telling her mother about what she saw but decided against it. What if she banned her from the outhouse? That evening, she was busy helping with guests, and by the time she finally returned to her study-lab, it was almost midnight. She hurried to finish the math problem she had promised to solve for her classmate and soon drifted into sleep.
A soft tickling sensation woke her up. Her breath caught in her throat. The mysterious creature was back.
Seema’s first instinct was to scream and run, but something about it seemed… curious. The alien moved its stubby arms in strange gestures, as if trying to communicate.
‘Who are you?’ she whispered. ‘What do you want?’
In an instant, the extraterrestrial being disappeared again.
The next morning, Seema finally told her parents. Her mother was horrified. ‘You’re never going to the outhouse again! It could be an evil spirit!’
‘She’s been reading too much science fiction,’ her father chuckled. ‘It’s just her imagination.’
But Seema knew what she saw. She couldn’t stop thinking about the encounter. Was it really an alien? What did it want?
One stormy night, as rain lashed against the windows, she couldn’t resist her curiosity any longer. Ignoring her parents’ warnings, she quietly slipped out of the house and ran toward her study-lab. Her heart pounded as she pushed open the door. The extraterrestrial creature stood there, waiting.
‘Hello!’ she called out. ‘Who are you?’
It turned toward the door, ready to leave. ‘No! Don’t go!’ she pleaded. ‘Be my friend!’ But in an instant, the alien vanished.
As she ran after it, a flash of light streaked across the sky. A UFO zoomed past the horizon before disappearing into the darkness.
‘Come back!’ she whispered.
Turning back to the outhouse, she gasped. On her table sat a glowing conch, embedded with shining diamonds.
‘A parting gift?’ she wondered, clutching it to her chest as sleep overtook her.
The next morning, her frantic parents found her asleep in the outhouse, soaked from the rain. As they brought her inside, her father suddenly exclaimed, ‘Look! The news reports a UFO sighting in our area!’
Seema smiled and held out the mysterious conch. Her parents stared at it in disbelief.
That night, Seema gazed at the otherworldly gift, wondering if her alien encounter was truly over.
‘Will my extraterrestrial friend ever return?’ she whispered into the night.
As fond of writing a good story as he is of reading one, Pravin is one of the most promising writers at Ameya. He can be contacted at pravinkumar2788@gmail.com.