“ONE.”

Exflibberaguil nearly didn’t hear Countdown over the rushing of wind. He’d had muted all other warnings, but somehow Countdown had been tampered with, and he was unable to shut her off.

“Yes, I know!” he screamed, partially because he was annoyed and afraid, and partially because screaming was the only way he could be heard. Not that there was anyone, of course, who could hear him anyway other than himself. Countdown was a SLIM, a speech-less interactive machine, meaning that she could only be used through buttons.

“Would you want to hear the seconds?”

“NO! For the love of Milky Way, NO!” Exflibberaguil screamed this too, but only because screaming was fun.

The loss of the wing fragment greatly impacted the ship’s stability. The ship had been designed for resistance to laser beams, missiles, and other weapons, but not brute force! Even the Yolos were more sophisticated than that!

Why did Driew need so many satellites anyway? Shouldn’t they know enough about the planet they live on?

Exflibberaguil could now see the mountains and rivers in close detail. He was pretty sure that what he was looking at was no more than one state. Clouds rushed past the windows.

Sweat poured down in buckets. Exflibberaguil hoped he wouldn’t need to change his helmet from perspiration. He wouldn’t have time for that nonsense.

The velocity of the ship was making his gut sink. Down, down, down it went. Exflibberaguil supposed this was what falling into a black hole was like, before he reminded himself that falling into black holes also required spaghettification, an unpleasant infinite stretching that almost certainly would resolve in death.

“Half a minute.”

Exflibberaguil no longer had the energy to scream. Of all things Mustela could be, why wouldn’t they have an extra hand? Or two? Or a hundred? How in the world did these ships operate before auto land?

His fingers moved across the dashboard. His helmet kept his ears from popping, but the toucan was having trouble with the sudden increase in gravity.

“Quarter a minute.”

Exflibberaguil could see the houses, the roads, the cars—which were going so fast.

“Ten.”

The world was enlarging itself like a magnifying glass. It wouldn’t have been so frightening if the ship wasn’t in a nose-dive.

“Nine.”

Exflibberaguil tried to calm himself. The nose-dive could be easily changed with a single lever.

“Eight.”

Exflibberaguil yanked at the lever, but the ship wouldn’t budge. A red warning flashed across a screen. There wasn’t enough fuel left for such a dramatic change in direction.

“Seven.”

Exflibberaguil stared blankly at the screen. No, there must be some other way! His eyes ran across the row of switches, his pulse quickening. There must be something that could help.

“Six.”

He pulled at the lever again, and the warned flashed once more. He could see—was that…

“Five.”

He could see a bright yellow ‘M’. His coordinates matched with building. He was heading straight for it.

“Four.”

So this is how he would die. Pathetic.

“Three.”

Exflibberaguil let go of the lever, completely defeated. His sudden realization that death would be upon him had made him feel completely helpless.

“Two.”

It occurred to him that he needed Box to be able to get out of the safe in order to deliver the message. He scanned the row of buttons for the one that unlocked the safe.

“One.”

Exflibberaguil reached for a large red button. At least it would all be Box’s fault.

“Zero. Fuel is now completely depleted.”

And silence at once.

SOMETHING MADE A SOUND.

Nick fell, her heart quickening, before realizing it was just her phone. She picked it up.

“Hello?”

“Marine, is it you?”

“Oh, hi Mom!” Nick said, “When will you come home? Tomorrow, I remember?”

“Er, as a matter of fact, there were some complications. I’ll be back by Wednesday.”

“Wednesday?”

“That’s right. Are you all right? You didn’t pick up the home phone.”

“Oh, right,” Nick’s years of practiced allowed her to easily come up with an excuse. “I was at Ms. Wooddell’s.”

“I rang her up too.”

“Yes, I remember that. Her telephone rang, and I wanted to pick up, but Ms. Wooddell wouldn’t allow me to. Said I might get electrocuted. You know how she is around phones.”

“Oh, thank goodness. You’re all right then?”

Nick didn’t hesitate. “Yeah, I’m fine.”

“Ok. Be safe!”

“Yeah, Mom. Bye.”

The call ended.

Nick sighed. Her mom always had complications. On the bright side, that would mean Nick could get away with coming home late. She was certain nothing was happening tonight. The sky and clouds looked as gloomy as always.

She tapped around aimlessly at her phone, sorting through browser tabs. She should be getting home now. It was nearly midnight, and she didn’t want to fall asleep in class.

Her finger lingered on Conspearisee.com.

With nothing to lose, she tapped on it.

After Nick had agreed to the terms and conditions, the website simply had a large chat box, and a small button to click back to the terms and conditions. Today, however, there was a large message across the website, with a font size of at least one hundred.

It read, “ARRIVING THIS SUNDAY, DRIEW DAYS.”

Nick smiled to herself. This person was stubborn. He went through all this trouble for an inside joke? This prank had to be pulled by someone rich, who was homeschooled and had all this time to fix this prank up. It was rather sad, Nick thought. Didn’t he have something better to do?

Oh well. People were weirdos,

Suddenly, she was reminded of a dream she had the other day. She been a scientist, looking at dolphins in a tank, when Nick had a sudden revelation that dolphins were called ‘dolphins’ because they had ‘dull fins’. Then Nick had realized she was a dolphin, and had felt herself become a whole lot smarter.

Then Nick woke up, and was frustrated to find she had become stupid again.

Nick shook her head. Why was she thinking of these things now? What good does it do? And why was she reminded of the dream?

It made no sense.

Nick sighed. She was getting tired. She needed to go home.

Then the sound came.

A humming noise that doubled in decibels every second. A light shone from McDonalds. Nick turned to look.

Then she fell to the floor.

TIMOTHY SIGHED

He knew he had got his hopes up for nothing. Nothing was going to happen tonight.

He had already come to hate the smell of greasy burgers and fries.

“Hey,” he said to other worker, a high school female, “can you cover for me?”

“Why? What are you going to do?”

Timothy realized that “getting a breath of fresh air” would not be the sort of excuse a McDonalds worker would use. “Er,” he mumbled, his brain working to come up with an answer, “I, I just want to pop out and smoke a cigarette. Been a tough day.”

The girl raised an eyebrow.

“One dollar?” Timothy tried.

The girl shook her head.

“Five?”

The girl sighed. “I’ll cover.” Timothy slipped a five-dollar bill discreetly along the counter.

Timothy nearly gasped out loud when he stumbled outside. Even the dumpsters were more preferable to the inside of the building. He glanced up at the sign. It hadn’t changed yet.

Yet? It would never change, Timothy thought.

He gazed at the forest. Maybe the person who changed the sign was hiding in the forest. Timothy chuckled at himself. He felt like a child, fantasizing—

Wait—

He rubbed his eyes and squinted. No, there definitely was a light. Someone was in the forest. What was the light?

Oh. Of course. It was all to obvious. A phone. The light came from a phone.

Then what was the owner of the phone doing in the forest?

Well, it was obvious, wasn’t it? That person was waiting for Timothy to leave, so he or she would be able to change the sign.

Timothy stood in silence, looking at the person. The phone only offered so much light, but from the position of it, either the person was rather short and standing, or rather tall and sitting.

Timothy blinked. Well, he had seen the offender. What was he going to do about it? Catch the person? Take a picture? Do a victory dance? Was this why he got this horrible job at McDonalds? Just to see some person in the forest?

He should go back inside, and quit this job tomorrow.

Then the humming began, and a blinding light. Instinctively, Timothy shielded his eyes, wishing he had another hand to plug his other ear. It was too loud.

He glanced up at the sky, and instantly fainted.

AN EXPLOSION.

An explosion in the parking lot.

A bright flame erupted, and black ash fell on everything.

Within the wreckage wheeled a single figure,

It looked something like a cleaning robot. It was slightly dented, and rather dirty.

“Hello?” it said, “Is there someone conscious enough to help? And in case everyone in the ship is dead, it was my fault.”