Red Light, Green Light, Go

“Alright, so there’s this thing I have about green lights. They’re meant to be safe, warm, and inviting. Protective. You know, especially emphasis on the safe part. Intrinsically or perhaps inherently, we use it as a subconscious representation of good, while red signals danger.

“I look at it this way. We’re really just highly evolved animals, right? The most visceral representation of definitive hazard is blood. Crimson, sticky, painful, its presence means something hasn’t quite gone right. Green, on the other hand, comes from life, from trees and plants. Objects known to preserve life, to promote it, rather than signal its potential loss.

“We’ve woven the nuances of these subliminal contexts into something as ubiquitous as traffic lights. Mixed between red and green lights, there’s yellow or amber. Like the sun, it signals caution, for while it provides us with energy and of course, life - prolonged exposure can also take it away. In sum, and as any grade schooler should know, green means go, red means stop, and yellow means proceed with measured caution.”

Chelsea yawned, her pink-tipped fingers covering her mouth as she expressed her boredom. Shane seemed to always have the most bland notions. He couldn’t make a movie sound interesting to save his life.

“Shane, are you trying to bore me to death? Mrs. Hutch will laugh at this. It’s so preposterous,” she commented, her negative critique condemning Shane’s effort to revision. “We’re gonna need to start over.”

“Chels, we don’t have time. The report’s due in two days. Can’t just *fix* it that easily.” Shane looked at his watch, an old Casio calculator watch his mother had given him in 8th grade. He had no reason to have kept it, but also no reason to replace it either. “I hate oral reports. How do you make traffic lights interesting?”

Shrugging her shoulders, Chelsea looked at him. Her scowl said everything. “That’s just it, Shane. That’s the test. Look. We can’t make it interesting, so we’ll change it up and be different.”

“What do you mean?” he asked. Shane leaned forward, considering.

“Well, I’m suggesting we make it a bit personal.”

“Uh, not sure that’s a great idea. You’re sure you want to talk about...that?”

“Not really,” Chelsea said, shaking her head. “But it’s the only thing I can think of to punch it up a bit.”

“Poor choice of words.”

“Suck it.”

***

Ahead of them, Shane saw the traffic light go from green to yellow. Judging the speed they were traveling took an instant, and Chels punched the gas. Peak traffic wasn’t a concern, and the road they sped down had visibility for miles. That moment changed everything.

“Hold on, Shane,” she said, smirking in that way she had. The engine RPMs kicked up, cabin noise increased, and the speedometer slid smoothly toward 100 MPH.

“Check it, Chels, 88!” Shane laughed, calling out their speed.

“Ha, too bad we don’t have a flux capacitor!” she laughed back. The yellow light ahead held itself for just that moment of decision, stay or go, go or stay. It should have turned red. Instead it turned green as they passed beneath, its glow illuminating their cabin with a soft, crisp shimmer.

Shane’s laugh stopped mid chuckle as something massive smashed through the back of the car, shearing off the trunk and cartwheeling the front end over end into the field flanking the road. It dizzied him, even as his hands were pinned near his face by the airbag. In seconds the rolling stopped. He could still hear the wheels spinning above him as the engine sputtered off.

Chelsea moaned next to him as he unstrapped his seatbelt to extricate himself.

“You alright, Chels?” he asked, more concerned for her safety than his own.

“Yeah, I think,” she replied.

“What the hell was that?” he asked, climbing through broken glass out the passenger door window. “How are we not dead?”

More than not dead, he was unscathed. No scratches or bruises of any kind, no broken limbs, nothing. Not even scrabbling through the class had cut him. Chelsea climbed free of her own volition before he’d even walked around to her side of the wreck, and he saw that she too was similarly unaffected. The moment of incredulity faded as a more pressing concern drew Shane’s attention.

“Hey Chels...where are we?” Massive rings spread through the midnight sky, their curvature sparkling from one horizon to the other. Gentle wind blew past them, carrying an odd smell, hinting of cinnamon and a heady mixture of mushroom and dirt. Trees he couldn’t recognize surrounded them, and indeed what remained of their car rested against one of them.

She’d noticed too. “No idea. Even the road’s gone.” Massive bird-like creatures flew by overhead. The sky-rings, as they looked closer, seemed centered on a green-blue mass low on the horizon, nearly obscured by trees.

Shane sat on what appeared to be a log. “No one’s gonna believe this,” he lamented.

“Yeah, you’re right,” Chelsea agreed. “We need to figure out how to get back.”

“We don’t even know how we got here,” he pointed out. “Plus the car’s totalled. Do we need that to get us home? ‘Cause if we do, we’re hosed.” Assessing the damage, it seemed incredible they would have survived at all.

“We’ll figure this out,” She assured him, though he could tell she was just as worried as he was, and could see her demeanor begin to crack.

A howling shriek pierced the darkness, and she gasped. He grabbed her hand. “Let’s walk, slow. First let me see if that flashlight is still somewhere near.” She helped him look through the wreckage and found the emergency kit. The light worked, and there was a thermal blanket they could share if it came to that.

“Yep, the car’s a total loss, no point in staying here. We’ll never get this to move again,” she said. “I think we should go…” She looked around, unsure what she sought. “...We should go that way, “ she pointed. “I guess any direction doesn’t matter more than any other.”

“Hell, the direction home would be.”

“Shut up.”

They set off into the dark, and the shriek came again, closer this time. Shane exchanged worried glances with Chelsea, and picked up their pace. Barbed underbrush snagged their clothes, tearing it and cutting into their calves and thighs where they weren’t careful. Before long they bled from dozens of shallow cuts.

Chelsea brushed aside a branch in front of them, and the shriek blasted them in the face. She turned to flee, colliding with Shane and knocking him to the ground. Gossamer threads slipped out of the darkness and wrapped around them, binding their legs and arms.

Three creatures crawled out of the underbrush. Only vaguely humanoid, each had black, wispy shadows clinging to their flesh. Scales in alternating yellow and purple bands covered their lower limbs, changing to thin fur on their torsos. One had three horns on its forehead, while the other two had three eyes each.

Shane and Chelsea fell silent, terror robbing them of strength. Chelsea crushed his hand, her cold and clammy skin trembling. He felt no less afraid. The lead creature had no eyes beneath its three horns, but turned up its head to look at them. Tapered mandibles covered with thick bristles clicked open, and shrieked. Chelsea sobbed.

“What are you?” Shane asked, working up his courage.

“What are you?” came a disembodied reply, dissonant yet reverberating, with an electronic pitch.

“What are you” echoed twice more, an unsettling subtextual intonation staggered by less than a second from the original reply.

Green light pulsed from the two flanking creatures, streaking up the shimmering strands that bound Chelsea. She moaned, and Shane looked at her concerned as sweat beaded up from her flesh.

“Stop it!”

“Stop it,” came the reply. “Stop it,” came the echo.

The lead creature came closer, cocking its head as if to look closer with that sightless gaze. Shane watched it approach, entranced. Chelsea cried out.

Memories entered his mind, but they were not his own. A moon splintering, torn apart in its orbit. This world, bombarded with increased frequency by rocky death from the sky. Fear. The planet above. A calling. Shane shut his eyes and cried out. His terror grew, and the green light spread to him as well. He screamed.

“Shane. Shane!” Chelsea shook him, her voice full of naked urgency and concern. He opened his eyes, and the familiar sky of home blazed above him. The rear end of the car smoldered nearby in the field. “Shane wake up, please!” Her short hair came into focus above him, and he struggled to understand where he was.

“What was that, Chels? Did you see them too?”

“Yeah,” she broke down into shuddering sobs. He held her back and did the same. Nearby, the road beckoned. “I think we’re near where it happened. Found the other half of the car.”

“Let’s get home.”

***

“Hey Chels, think I came up with something for the report,” Shane said on the phone.

“Oh, what did you come up with?” she asked. “Did you take my advice?”

“Yes, and no, I guess.”

“Whatcha got?” He could tell she was excited and didn’t want to disappoint her.

“Whatcha got?” came the reply. “Whatcha got?” came the echo.

“Alright, so there’s this thing I have about green lights. They’re meant to be safe, warm, and inviting. Protective. You know, especially emphasis on the safe part. Intrinsically or perhaps inherently, we use it as a subconscious representation of good, while red signals danger.

“I look at it this way. We’re really just highly evolved animals, right? The most visceral representation of definitive hazard is blood. Crimson, sticky, painful, its presence means something hasn’t quite gone right. Green, on the other hand, comes from life, from trees and plants. Objects known to preserve life, to promote it, rather than signal its potential loss.

“We’ve woven the nuances of these subliminal contexts into something as ubiquitous as traffic lights. Mixed between red and green lights, there’s yellow or amber. Like the sun, it signals caution, for while it provides us with energy and of course, life - prolonged exposure can also take it away. In sum, and as any grade schooler should know, green means go, red means stop, and yellow means proceed with measured caution.”

“That doesn’t sound any different,” she said, confused.

“That doesn’t sound any different,” came the reply. “That doesn’t sound any different,” came the echo.

Shane smiled, rubbing his hand in the fur of the creature next to him, its three horns twinkled as it stared sightlessly at him. It pawed its scaled hand on his thigh, the misty shadow clinging to them both.

“Trust me, when I present this in class, everything will change.” Shane hung up the phone, and the shadow passed from the creature into his throat. It’s body clung tight to him, merging flesh to scale, fur to hair. His sight dimmed a little, and the sensation passed.

“Everything will change,” came the reply. “Everything will change,” came the echo.