The Alien Sky

And so it swims. It swims not knowing its world, not knowing the significance. For a time, there is nothing untoward to inform it that something has changed. The water all around it is the same temperature, the same consistency, and the dim light of night penetrating the ocean’s surface to where the White prowls, is unchanged.

The feeble vibrations hitting it and the corresponding murmur it hears, those are… different. The White adjusts course, turning effortlessly in the water and gliding in the direction of the unfamiliar disturbance. Many minutes later it is still feeble, but equal any way it turns, everywhere it hits. It is far, not small. The White slows its pace, turning again this way and that, but it does not change. Curious, but cautious, it continues. The strength grows, but slowly.

If it had gone up and not sideways, entered the layer just below the surface, the vibration would have changed, but it might not have noticed that. For up there, it would have seen not the dim light of stars and a waning moon, the source of light it had swam beneath just a few hours before—no. Glimmering through the abnormally calm surface, is a bright yellow, red, and purple line starting at the horizon and careening up in an ark, splitting off a fifth of the sky. Distinct bands of colors run alongside one another, dimmer near the horizons, brighter in the center, lines sharp, unmistakable. The rings of the planet split the sky just below a white and blue crescent moon, which, unlike the waning yellow one the White had inadvertently left behind, runs across almost a tenth of the sky from tip to tip.

But below, just deep enough that, for the White, the light has not changed, only the vibration—now powerful, thumping in its ears—holds its attention. The alien sky above would not have even registered, honed in as it is on the so unseemly disturbance in its ocean.

And so it swims, and the night moves on. The vibrations have slowly become so powerful that the White’s bones feel like they are pulsating. Or maybe that’s the fear, an emotion wholly unfamiliar to it.

Then there is something. The ocean is no longer just the glistening specs of dust and miniscule lifeforms floating among the midnight water, there is a form ahead—a darker shade in the water that stretches across the White’s vision. The White continues, fear leaching away and curiosity triumphing. The shadow is now beneath it, above it, curving around it. It is coming closer, extending around the White. But it is no longer a shadow, instead a sleek black shiny substance, and massive cones of strikingly white light extend around it. The White flinches and it turns, disoriented, trying to go backward, but there is no backwards. The white lights are all around it, growing brighter, pulling the shiny substance with it.

The White swims in tighter and tighter circles, trying to escape the enclosing walls. Then, just as suddenly as it began, it ends. The lights shut off, and what is left is utter darkness. No more glistening specks of dust floating peacefully in the current. No shimmering of the surface light into the depths.

The White swims forward and its nose bumps into a soft, membrane-like material. It swims sideways, its nose never leaving the material. Around and around it goes. It doesn’t know how long it does this, but suddenly, it stops. It remains there, frozen until it feels the membrane beneath it and on its sides, pulling it up. It does not fight. It does not move. It waits.

Sometime later, the force of the membrane beneath it falls away, and it floats up ever-so-slightly. Then a hole appears in the membrane, and outside is a navy blue with specs of white light. The membrane continues to pull back on itself until it folds away into nothingness.

Beneath the White, purple, red, yellow, and white lights ride the caps of an ocean far below. To its left, puffy white shapes swim through a different ocean of midnight blue, broken by bands of color and a crescent shape directly overhead. The White swims forward. Its nose bumps against something—the puffy white substance? The band of color? No, those are farther away, this thing cannot be seen, but it is a barrier.

The White turns right, there is a band of darkness, pinpricked by strong, but small lights. It swims closer. There is something there, framed by the lights—an unfamiliar shape. The closer it gets, the stranger it becomes. Then there is a slight vibration as part of it knocks against the invisible barrier. The White stops, then swims closer.

There, on the other side of the barrier, is a pointed, furry, face. Big pale eyes stare from beneath heavy brows. Long pointed ears stretch sideways. A glistening gash reveals a mouth full of teeth. And around that face are long, thin, furry arms, fluttering like the tentacles of an octopus. Ten at least move this way and that, extending out from an unknown body behind the face. The smooth circular tip of an arm taps the substance again and the face presses up against the barrier, staring wide eyed at the Great White Shark.