Laina was about to foul out.

​

The crowd’s hollering made it hard to focus, but she could feel the old referee eyeing her. His eyes bulged, and his whistle lay precariously in his mouth. To protect herself from getting removed from the game, she allowed more distance from her opponent than she liked. She was guarding a girl who’d previously blocked her shot. She could’ve shaken it off if the girl hadn’t flashed a devious grin.

​

Laina stepped back carefully, not wanting to get bulldozed. Her five-foot-eight height was just enough to make her opponent falter and come to a stop. Every other player on the court shuffled along to keep pace with the ball, their shoes squeaking on the refurbished floors.

​

As soon as the girl passed the ball, Laina made a rare interception, seizing the opportunity and dribbling past her opponent. She quickly passed the ball to her teammate, Brianna, who was further down the court. Coach Evans shouted her praise as Brianna ran straight to the basket and scored.

​

38–36. Less than a minute left in the game.

​

Laina smiled and wiped her forehead with her red-and-black jersey. This was her first semester at a new school, and she needed to consistently prove herself. A home-game loss would be unacceptable.

​

The other team, the Hornets, passed the ball in and started making their way down the court. Laina and Brianna sprinted over to double-team their opponent. The girl passed the ball to another teammate, who set herself up right behind the three-point line and shot the ball. Swish.

​

Oh, no. 38–39. Laina’s team groaned, and she checked the time. Fifteen seconds.

​

Leslie passed in the ball to Laina without much emotion. Laina sprinted down the court, but the other team halted her progress. She stopped and tried to pass the ball but found no one open.

​

The buzzer sounded. The other team cheered while the home team — the Scorpions — sighed. They slowly made their way back to their coach in defeat.

​

Coach Evans frowned but said, “Good try, girls.”

​

Laina shared the same sorry look as her teammates.

​

“Go shake hands, girls,” Coach Evans ordered without expression. The girls lined up for the standard “good game” exchanges, but with differing levels of enthusiasm.

​

Afterward, friends and family greeted the players on the court. When they finished chatting, the home team girls headed for the nearest bathroom to change clothes. They would’ve used the girls’ locker room, but someone had set off a garlic stink bomb in there as a prank.

​

Laina entered the bathroom, which smelled like frilly soap and lotion. She removed her headband and bobby pins, then undid her ponytail. Her brown hair fell a little past her shoulders. She’d gotten chestnut highlights about two months ago for her eighteenth birthday. Her hair fell to the left side of her head and gave way to side-swept bangs.

​

She met her brown-eyed gaze in the mirror. “Next time,” she said, promising herself. “We just ran out of time.”

​

Then she stepped into a stall to change her clothes. Some of the girls followed suit, but others simply pulled warmups over their jerseys. She neatly folded her uniform jersey with “Hughes” printed on the back. When she left the bathroom, she could still hear the idle chatter and grumblings of her teammates.

​

“We were so close!” one of them said.

​

“How often does someone get a three-point shot last minute?” another girl asked.

​

Almost never, Laina thought.

​

Minutes later, she exited the stall with her sweats on and her jersey in a bag. She searched the hallway outside the bathroom for Leslie, who was supposed to give her a ride home. She sat on a bench and texted her that she was ready to leave. When Leslie didn’t respond right away, Laina called her, but it went straight to voicemail.

​

The other girls were leaving, and Laina thought about asking them for a ride, but she didn’t. Another five minutes passed, and she suddenly remembered that Leslie had been sneaking off during water breaks to see her new boyfriend. She’d probably wandered off with him and forgotten about giving Laina a ride home. She’d only known Leslie since the beginning of the semester, but they’d become friends, and leaving her here seemed out of character.

​

Laina got up and made her way toward the exit. She pulled her hood over her head and tightened the strings. Then she shrugged on her heavier coat and stepped outside into the freezing cold. Maybe she could catch a team member before they left. If she didn’t have a ride, she’d have to walk home. In the cold.

​

Her mother was out with friends and might not answer her phone. Meanwhile, her dad was hours away in Salt Lake City. Her parents were separated for the time being. Mom had brought her to Ozark, Utah, over the summer, and while she didn’t love Salt Lake City, Ozark was also pretty mundane.

​

Unfortunately, Laina didn’t recognize anyone who was outside, but home wasn’t too far away — about a mile. Outside, her breath clouded and vanished into the breeze. The wind was always the worst, but if she jogged, she could probably get home in under ten minutes.

​

She headed down the street where she passed more buildings before reaching the sidewalk. This part of town ended abruptly. There were buildings, and then there was nothing but trees. The right side consisted of foliage for a few miles. Many branches had grown over the sidewalk, so she had to walk in the street. Admittedly, this area was beautiful, but Laina had been born in Las Vegas before her family moved to Salt Lake City, and she’d always preferred buildings to trees.

​

Laina slowed her pace. Even though it wasn’t yet nine o’clock, she hated being out alone. Her town was safe, but still, anything could happen. She tried listening beyond her breathing for any random sounds that gave away danger. If she needed to defend herself, she could resort to what she’d learned in karate. Mom and Dad had signed up her and her brother Kyle, so they could protect themselves if they ever needed to.

​

There was a long pause as she held her breath. Just some wind and a rustling of trees. She smiled slightly and took a moment to gaze at the sky. It was a clear night, with plenty of bright stars. A little cluster of red lights passed over — a plane, obviously.

She used to travel regularly, but that was when her family was together, and when they had more money. The clear night sky reminded her of the telescope that Dad had gotten her for her twelfth birthday. They’d spent nights together looking at the stars on their back porch, trying to figure out the mess of constellations. Eventually, they’d given up and plotted their own. They’d named themselves after their favorite stars and tried to find them again the next night.

​

Laina thought about Kyle. What could he be doing? He was away at college, and he was probably procrastinating for finals right now. Or maybe he’d kicked that habit. Did he miss traveling with the family as much as she did? Maybe he was having too much fun to really remember.

​

And what was Dad up to? The man was an irresponsible genius. He was an amazing architect, but he wasn’t very good at managing finances. Money mattered. Travel mattered. Family mattered. Thinking ahead did not matter as much. He didn’t seem to realize that those things were connected until Mom decided that they needed a break. Then again, she wasn’t that great at finances, either.

​

Suddenly, Laina stopped short in her tracks. The plane wasn’t flying straight anymore. It swiveled and spun violently in a zigzag pattern as it came closer and closer. A tail of smoke could barely be seen in the night sky. The object hurtled toward her, and she nearly tripped over her own feet trying to run. She dashed away, catching her breath in the frozen air, and took off in a random direction. The blazing plane roared right over her head and crashed hundreds of yards away.

​

Crunching metal reverberated through the woods, forcing wildlife to screech and flee. The outlines of birds, squirrels, and raccoons scampered away. The trees — shaved of their branches — crashed over like dominos. Small fires erupted and scattered across the bruised vegetation. It looked like a small minefield had gone off, one explosion at a time.

​

Laina could only stare. The frigid temperature no longer mattered. When she finally processed what had happened, she fumbled for her cell phone and dialed 911 with shaking fingers. A female dispatcher answered, and Laina tried her best to report what had happened.

​

“There was a … crash. I think it was a plane.” The ringing in her ears made it hard to hear her own voice.

​

It took a minute for the dispatcher to believe her, but an ambulance and fire truck were eventually promised. It didn’t matter that the woman was having a hard time believing her — emergency services would corroborate the story in minutes.

​

Laina surveyed the horrible mess, wondering if she should try to help. Could anyone have survived? She hesitantly started walking toward it, wary of the fires. Even though she could plainly see the crash, it didn’t seem real. She always figured the worst she’d see in Ozark would be the occasional fistfight and weed.

​

But then something caught her eye as the wind and fires illuminated the area. Wide-eyed, she stared at the plane wreckage, though it didn’t look like a plane. It was bigger than a jet, but smaller than a commercial plane. It was a very unusual-looking craft. The wind revealed, briefly, the debris of something she had never seen before, something that looked … alien: four wings, with a slender body and a marbled texture.

​

Her eyes narrowed. It couldn’t be … Maybe it’s just a special Air Force plane or something.

​

Laina didn’t believe in aliens — not really. She’d spent the first seven years of her life in Las Vegas, Nevada, and everyone in Nevada was acquainted with the wild conspiracies about supposed extraterrestrial activity. They also didn’t do much about it. Aliens didn’t matter when people still had to go to work, and the chances of meeting one were practically zero anyway.

As she gazed at the smoking mess, she noticed that it smelled different from petroleum. The smell was hard to explain — almost sweet, like candy, but it still smelled like fuel.

​

Her stomach twisted as she tried convincing herself again that this was just a plane.

​

Look with your eyes, her instincts told her.

​

Suddenly, a figure started climbing out of the remains. Whoever — or whatever — it was, Laina didn’t think she was looking at a human any more than she was looking at a plane from Earth. In the illumination from the fires, she could see that the figure was unusually pale. The being wore a tattered silver jumpsuit and was covered in wounds.

​

Okay, they have red blood. That means it’s a regular person.

​

Or maybe not. Just because sci-fi movies showed aliens with different-colored blood, that didn’t mean the biology was accurate.

 

Yeah, but it can’t be an alien, right?

​

Laina’s heart stopped and started like an old engine as she locked eyes with the figure. The being pulled themselves out of an opening in the middle of the ship and jumped to the ground. She could’ve sworn that the firelight glistened off of metallic skin. Before she could see anything else, the figure quickly limped off into the forest.

​

A few seconds later, the spacecraft exploded.

​

The popping explosion was enough to make her jump back a full six feet. Pieces of debris erupted upward and then rained back down into the trees. Metal sizzled before disappearing into ash. Then the wind scattered the remains into the woods.

​

Laina could barely hear her own thoughts over the sound of her heart beating in her ears. Okay, what was the plausible explanation for that?

​

She stared off into the sky as sirens wailed in the distance, the cold now completely forgotten.