Part 1: Meet a Couple of Aliens

1.1 Meet Bridget and Gwendolyn, a couple of aliens masquerading as pets.

____________________________________________________________

1.2 On their home planet Hissyfit, they lived a natural life without primates or problems.

___________________________________________________________

1.3 How then did Bridget and Gwendolyn come to find themselves on Earth, a planet teeming with primates?

Part 1: Dumb Luck

1.4 Dumb luck . . . and a Transportation Silo or TS, as the now-extinct primates of the planet Hissyfit used to call them.

_______________________________________________________________

1.5 You see, one day on their home planet Hissyfit, Bridget and Gwendolyn stumbled across an ancient TS, having no clue to its function.

__________________________________________________

1.6 Gwendolyn insists they go inside, which turns out to be a bad decision--the kind for which her species is well known.

Part 1: Why Are the Walls Glowing?

1.7 No sooner do they enter than the walls begin to glow.

______________________________________________________

1.8 Bridget and Gwendolyn huddle close in fear, dearly regretting their decision to investigate.

______________________________________________________

1.9 Now the wall squirms with spectral lights; the ground bulges with blinding orbs. Whatever is happening? Terrified, the two look at each other and then . . .

Part 1: Gwendolyn Times Three

1.10 Gwendolyn dissolves into two glowing eyes and Bridget evaporates into darkness.

______________________________________________________________

1.11 A burst of light and Gwendolyn—times three—tumbles through a gray-white sky.

__________________________________________________________

1.12 Already landed, Bridget watches from below on solid ground. “Please, please...land on all fours!”

Part 1: Vanishing in Time

1.13 Bridget watches as Gwendolyn—all three of her—vanishes into mid air. She gawks at an empty sky.

__________________________________________________________

1.14 A thunderous “cr-a-a-a-a-c-c-c-k” splits the air. Bridget looks into the tree overhead . . .

_________________________________________________________

1.15 . . . whose branches somehow shimmer like water, when a flash of yellow light fills the tree.

Part 1: The Aliens Have Landed

1.16 The blinding yellow flash fades into a form—“It’s you!” barks Bridget in relief.

____________________________________________________

1.17 “How did I get up here?” says Gwendolyn telepathically. “And where in the world our we?” She jumps down from the tree.

________________________________________________________

1.18 The pair huddles together. “This doesn’t look like Hissyfit to me,” says Bridget, apprehension tinting her thoughts yellow-brown. “But at least we got each other.”

Part II: Stranded in Strange Land

2.1  So the two aliens start their journey, heading who knows where. Cresting a hill, Bridget sees something startling below. “Now I know we’re not in Hissyfit.”

___________________________________________________________

2.2 Bounding up the crest, Gwendolyn sees their newest source for alarm: “Look at the size of that beetle!” she cries. “What kind of world have we fallen into?”

_______________________________________________________________

2.3 “I don’t know, but let’s get out of here,” Bridget says, barreling down a hillside. “I think I smell water.”