Written by: cayleighkennedy

SPARTA, WISCONSIN, USA

August 6, 10:43 PM

"Darien, truth or dare?"

"Why is it always me?" Darien asked across their makeshift circle. The four friends sat clustered beside the back tire of Jacob's truck.

"Truth or dare," Jacob repeated, wrapping an arm around Katherine.

"Dare."

Nova settled back into the grass next to Perch Lake and stared at the stars.

Her mother would've loved this: the night sky, the stars, the warm, humid breeze sweeping through the area. Her mother would've—

Chest aching, Nova sat up, her fingers automatically going to her collarbone. But there was nothing there.

And there never will be. The reminder made her eyes sting.

Around them, the summer air was sticky and humid in a way that hollowed out her chest. This weather, the water, it all felt familiar, even though it wasn't home. Instead, Sparta, Wisconsin, was closer to the border of Minnesota and where their families had evacuated to three days ago.

Three days. Nova glanced out over the water again. Three days since she'd left all her favorite places, her mother's favorite places, behind.

Her fingers found her collarbone again. I shouldn't have given it to Dad to hold. But she'd been so scared to lose it.

And now she'd lost it, anyway.

Jacob grinned. "I dare you to kiss Nova."

Nova jolted back to the present. What? Her gaze shot to Darien.

And Darien... only watched her. Wasn't he supposed to hesitate? Or put up a fight?

"Well, a dare is a dare." Darien wiped his hands on his sweatpants and stood. "Nova—"

Each of their phones lit up simultaneously. Nova's stomach dropped as a blue "24" appeared on the screen.

Midnight. Eastern Time.

They sat in silence, staring at their devices.

Nova sucked in a breath as, after thirty seconds, it finally disappeared.

Darien coughed. "Okay, group dare!"

"What?" Katherine and Jacob echoed. Nova bit back a smile.

"Group dare," Darien said again. "Come on."

"You're so—" Katherine cut herself off. "Whatever. Fine."

"Jacob?"

"Sure."

"Nova?"

Nova only shrugged.

"I dare us to go back towards the spaceship."

He said it so nonchalantly that for a moment, Nova thought she misheard.

"You want us to do what?" Jacob's arm fell off Katherine's shoulder as she leaned forward.

Back towards the spaceship. Maybe then Nova could—

Could she?

Hope lightened her chest.

Dizzying fear crashed in behind it.

"You always do this," Katherine told Darien. "Dares are supposed to be small. Something you can do right now."

"A dare is a dare." Darien crossed his arms over his chest. "Unless you're scared, Ms. Rule Follower."

Katherine all but growled at him. "You know what? I'm in."

"Jacob?"

Jacob jerked back at the glare Katherine shot him. He cleared his throat. "Um..."

"You have my back, don't you babe?" Katherine asked sweetly.

"Y-yes. Yes." Jacob worried a hand through his blonde hair. "I'm in."

"Excellent." Darien grinned. "Nova?"

"Don't push Nova," Katherine defended her. "If she doesn't want to go, she doesn't have—"

"I'll do it." Nova said.

Darien's white teeth flashed in the dark night. "Hell yeah, Nov." He raised a fist. She rolled her eyes and tapped her knuckles against his.

"I have a condition, though," Nova said. "If we get under it, we have to stop somewhere."

"Deal!" Darien grinned at her.

"This is stupid," Jacob said, leaning back against his truck tire.

"You agreed to the group dare," Darien reminded him.

"We thought you'd say something dumb like, 'I dare you to skinny dip in the lake'," Katherine changed her tone to mimic Darien. "Not go near the spaceship."

"Come on, you guys," Darien picked up a stone from the gravel beneath Josh's truck and launched it across the dark, stagnant lake. The stone hit the water with a dim splash. "This is the coolest thing to happen in our lifetime. Don't you want to say you got close to the ship?"

The hair on the back of Nova's neck stood as she glanced up at the wide craft expanding across the distant horizon. Even with how far they'd evacuated, she could still see the dark mass of the ship. Only when they'd made their way out of what people were now calling the Twilight Zone had she seen the stars again.

Their small group quieted.

"It's alright to be afraid," her mother's voice echoed in her mind. "But don't let the fear stop you from living your life."

Nova swallowed past the sudden ache in her throat. "When are we doing this?"

Darien shrugged. "Why not now?"

"Now?" Katherine ripped out a handful of grass and threw it in Darien's direction. "Are you kidding me?"

Darien glanced down at the tangled clump. "No. Better to do it before we think too hard about it, right?"

"How are we going to get there?" Nova asked.

Darien pointed at Jacob. "Jacob can drive us."

Jacob frowned at Darien. "Says who?"

"Come on, man, you have the most gas."

"Only enough to get us there, maybe!"

"There are a couple of gas stations I saw open on my way in," Darien said. "We can top you off and then fill a few extra gas cans just in case. I've got two in my trunk."

Jacob scoffed. "And who's paying for this gas? Have you seen the prices?"

"Don't worry, we'll figure it out." Darien stood, brushing off the back of his pants. "Let's go, kiddos."

"We're going to regret this, aren't we?" Katherine asked Nova under her breath as they all piled into Jacob's truck.

"Maybe," Nova replied.

***

MADISON, WISCONSIN, USA

August 7, 1:33 AM

Jacob drove them down I-90 towards Madison. Occasionally, they spotted the dim lights of bonfires among packed tents. Tent cities, the news had called them. On the other side of the highway, unrelenting traffic headed the opposite way, headlights illuminating the dark. Once or twice, they spotted small groups of people on foot—with nothing more than the road and brake lights to guide them.

All the cars on the other side made her stomach churn. They were one of very few people traveling towards the ship. Their truck stuck out on this side of the road.

This was a bad idea. It was. And yet... Nova's hand went to her collarbone. The ache in her chest grew.

Jacob swore low.

"What?" Katherine wrapped her arms around Jacob's headrest and leaned forward.

Nova glanced out the window behind them, expecting a cop car.

"You better pray we find gas soon," Jacob muttered.

"Are we almost out?" Darien asked.

"We're getting pretty damn close," Jacob replied. "I knew we should've stopped at that first station."

Nova crossed her fingers and tucked them under her legs. What if they got stuck on the side of the highway? What if they never made it?

She worried her lip. They couldn't run out of gas. She couldn't lose this opportunity to go back.

Please, please let us make it to the gas station.

"Look! There's a gas station at the next exit." Katherine pointed out the blue sign as it passed them.

"Yeah, in fifteen miles."

Silence coated the next ten minutes of their trip. For every moment that passed, Nova sent prayers up to anyone who would listen.

As they hit the exit, Jacob's truck rumbled onto a quiet one-lane road. Only the lights from the gas station a mile or so ahead advised of any sign of life. Soft curses filled the cab as the truck sputtered into the lot.

Nova frowned. The gas station's lights were on, but the attendant's station was boarded up. A large beige humvee sat in the back corner, just past the overhang. A soldier leaned against the front of the vehicle, smoke wafting from his cigarette and into the warm summer night. His gaze drilled into their truck as they pulled in.

"Are they... open?"

Jacob parked at the closest spot. "The pump is on."

"Looks like they're not taking cards," Darien pointed at the handwritten sign on the pump.

"Holy crap, look at the price! One hundred dollars a gallon?" Katherine said.

"My mom said this morning the stock market crashed," Jacob mumbled. "Bet that didn't help."

"Where are you going?" Katherine asked Darien as he snagged something from the center console and hopped out of the vehicle.

Darien jerked a thumb towards the store. "The lights are on. I'll pay for gas. And, of course, snacks."

Katherine rolled her eyes. "Oh, my—"

"I'll go with him," Nova offered.

"Be careful," Katherine cautioned.

Nova stepped out and smiled at the worry on her best friend's face. "I'll make sure Darien doesn't add B and E to his growing rap sheet."

"Knowing Darien, he'd think a rap sheet was a list of songs he could—"

Nova shut the door.

When Darien spotted her approaching, he grinned. "Nova Campbell, I didn't know you were a foodie."

"Foodie? No. Babysitter? Yes."

Darien snorted. "Mother-hen Katherine at it again, huh?"

Nova shrugged, brushing a bit of her long brown hair behind her shoulder. She'd left her favorite and very last hair tie in her father's sedan.

"I guess being captain of the poms team would teach you to mother everyone," Darien added.

Nova ignored that comment. Instead, she jerked her chin towards the store. "How are you going to get in?"

Darien pointed at the outline of the doors. "See the door handles? The glass is covered, but those doors still open."

"And you're going to...?"

Darien strode over to the doors and knocked hard on the wood.

After three loud knocks, Nova said, "They must not be—"

"What do you want?" A voice shouted through the wood.

Darien grinned at Nova. Then said, "We're here for gas."

"You got cash?"

Darien tugged a handful of bills from his pocket. "I do."

Nora raised a brow at the small stack.

"Don't ask," Darien mumbled to her. To the attendant, he said, "I've got more to cover the rest."

"Yeah? Like what?"

"Vape pen and spare pods," Darien told him. "But I want seven gallons for it."

With a loud click and a slight rattle, the door opened an inch. Darien held up the blue vape pen and a small box.

The attendant eyed it. "Four."

"Are you kidding? This thing alone is an entire pack of cigs. Five." Darien countered. "And this swiss army knife for another two gallons."

"Fine."

"I'll throw in this one too," Darien said, holding up another red vape pen. "For another five."

"I don't think we should give—" Nova cut herself off as Darien slid the cash and his bartered items through the crack in the door.

There was a pause. Then, "Alright. You're good."

The door locked.

"Wait!" Darien called through the wood. "Do you have any snacks?"

"Snacks?" A loud stream of curses erupted, then, "What kind?"

"Candy, pretzels, pop," Darien suggested. "We're not picky, sir."

A few minutes later, the door opened again. A plastic bag came out. "Here. Grab your gas and get out of here, kid."

Darien snatched it up. "Thanks, man."

Back in the truck, Darien whistled low at the contents. "Store guy really set us up." He held out a plastic-wrapped stick. "Beef Jerky?"

Nova took it, unwrapping it just as Jacob got back in the truck.

"Tanks' full," Jacob said a few minutes later. "Let's get going."

Back on the highway, Darien opened the window, letting the warm summer night air sweep in. Nova's hair whipped around, hitting her painfully in the face. She quickly collected it and tucked it under the collar of her shirt.

Darien twisted in the seat and smirked at all of them. "Come on, you guys, this is supposed to be fun!"

He fiddled with Jacob's phone, connecting it to the radio, and set it blasting. The heavy beat of drums and riffing guitar of a rock song shook the speakers.

Nova didn't recognize the song. Still, she took a breath, soaking in the loud music, the night air, and the feeling of being with her friends. For one blessed moment, she felt like a normal teenager again. As if in the last few days she hadn't had to pack everything she could in a duffle bag and abandon her home, her life, and everything she knew.

The closer they got, the more Nova's stomach churned. On the other side of the highway, traffic was at a crawl, horns honking, as people fled.

The sour taste of fear settled on her tongue. In the distance, the dark mass of the ship swallowed the sky, the red and blue lights underneath it expanding across the horizon.

Panic squeezed her lungs.

She could only see the edge. The rest of the ship disappeared into the distance.

Don't let that fear stop you from living your life.

Just outside of Madison, Jacob brought the truck to a stop. Ahead of them was a well-lit section of highway. Cones, white-topped tents, and various heavy military vehicles blocked their side of the roadway.

"Shit."

"It's fine," Darien said. "We'll just tell them we have to pick up a grandparent or something. They'll let us through."

Jacob turned down the music, the rock song barely a whisper over the speakers as they approached the bright, busy area.

The officer, a middle-aged woman in a beige uniform, tapped on the window. "Folks. I need licenses or forms of identification from each of you."

As they handed them over, the officer grunted. "Naperville. Seems you kids are headed back home."

"My grandma is still there," Darien told the officer, leaning towards the open window. His black hair drifted over his forehead. "My family is worried, so we volunteered to go back and get her."

The flat expression on the officer's face never moved. "Do your parents know about this?"

"Of course."

The walkie on the officer's hip activated as a static voice rattled off a status update. "Bit early in the morning to visit grandma," the officer pointed out.

"Gram wakes early," Darien supplied. A lie paired with an easy, confident smile. "We told her we'd be there by six to pick her up."

"You kids sure are brave." The walkie chirped again. The officer set her forearm on the window and leaned in. "Turn around now before I think harder about calling your parents. I have millions of people to evacuate, and I'm not wasting my time with a group of kids on a convoluted version of a joy-ride."

Shit.

Katherine leaned forward and pinched Jacob on the shoulder. "Turn around," she whispered.

Jacob cleared his throat. "We'll turn around. Thank you, officer."

The officer pointed at the emergency U-turn lane. "Head out that way."

***

MONONA, WISCONSIN, USA

August 7, 1:59 AM

"This is stupid, Darien!" Katherine hissed.

"It's not," Darien said. He slumped down further in his seat. "Jacob, lights off."

Jacob flipped off the headlights, sitting down further in his own chair.

Their truck ambled down a gravel back road a few miles from the military checkpoint.

"They can't put blocks on every road," Darien had said.

Darien had been right. The truck slowly crawled over the uneven gravel road. Nova held onto Katherine's arm as the two of them ducked down in the backseat. From here, the odds of anyone spotting them in the darkness were low.

Five minutes. They all held their breath as another car's headlights filled the truck cab. After it passed, Nova ran a sweaty hand over her jeans.

"Another car," Jacob warned them a few minutes later.

"Shit." Katherine scooted impossibly closer to Nova.

Every muscle in Nova's body locked up as gravel crunched under another passing vehicle's tires.

The other car slowed. Lights flashed.

"Shit, he flashed his brights at me."

"Don't stop," Darien ordered.

"Just go around him," Katherine said. "Wave and pretend nothing's wrong."

Jacob rolled down his window and kept his slow but steady speed. Nova did not know if he waved. She didn't dare move. Her hip and knees ached as another minute passed. Two minutes.

Finally, Jacob said, "I think we're good."

They rose from their seats with sighs and groans.

Nova leaned forward, scoping out the surrounding area. They were alone out here in the dark, quiet Midwest fields.

Darien scrolled through his maps app on his phone. "We can take the back roads from here and avoid the highways, just in case."

On the edge of the Twilight Zone, Darien rolled down his window again. They held their breath as they stared up at the ship above them.

Nova waited for her ears to pop or for weapons to be fired at them. But as they crossed back under the spaceship, nothing happened.

Nova exhaled an unsteady breath.

Darien cleared his throat. "Well, we're alive."

"Let's hope it stays that way," Jacob muttered, swerving to avoid a pothole.

"Nova, you never told us where you wanted to stop," Katherine said into the oddly quiet cabin. Now that they were actually under the spaceship, a building tension electrified the air. Like a kettle about to whistle.

"My place," Nova said. "I left something behind that I need to grab."

***

NAPERVILLE, ILLINOIS, USA

August 7, 4:38 AM

It took them three hours on twisted, uneven back roads until familiar landmarks appeared. All too soon, they drove down IL-59 towards Naperville. The streetlights and traffic lights were on, adding a layer of normalcy that felt eerie among the quiet, abandoned town.

"Do you see that?" Jacob pointed at a grocery store, its lights out. Glass from the front window was blown out, and carts were scattered across the parking lot.

Across the street, a bank was in similar condition. In big green letters, the word Aliens had been spray painted across the brick, with a vision of someone being beamed up into a U.F.O. next to it.

"They looted the businesses." Katherine pointed out her window. "Look, there's Celia's father's hardware store. It's all boarded up."

"There's my mom's chiropractor." Darien gestured out his own window to an office building with papers scattered across the parking lot.

At her apartment building, the entry door's window was also busted, with only the dark frame remaining. One hand at her collarbone, Nova used her key to open the door, wincing at the scrape of glass against the concrete.

"She can't go in alone," Katherine said behind her. "What if someone is in there?"

Nova wiped her hands on her jeans and glanced back. All three of her friends stood on the front step.

"Go ahead," Jacob said. "We'll keep an eye out."

She blew out a breath and attempted a smile. "Thanks."

Taking the wide, carpeted steps up, she stopped at the door labeled 2B.

When she turned her key, the lock twisted easily. Nova's heart stuttered at the broken wood along the doorframe.

No.

No.

She shoved the door open—

And walked into chaos.

Whoever ransacked their apartment had strewn their clothes over the off-white carpet in their living room. Her mother's favorite pots and pans dotted the linoleum tile in the kitchen. The drawers were open and upended; the coupons, twist ties, and pens from their junk drawer lined the floor and flooded the sink.

Heart in her throat, Nova raced down their tiny hallway to her parents' room, and froze at the sight before her. Her father's work ties hung over the lampshades. The bed sheets and mattress were ripped, with long slashes through the material. Her mother's shoes lined the walls, one of them resting next to the broken flat screen on her parents' dresser.

Her eyes ached as she moved woodenly through the room. "It's only been three days," she said, unevenly.

"Nova?" Katherine's gentle voice came from the open doorway.

"We were supposed to come back," she told Katherine. "Dad said we would come back."

But they couldn't come back. Not to this.

Nova's breath stuttered as she remembered the safe. They wouldn't've—

No. Nononono—

Nova shot towards her parent's closet, her sneakers catching on the lip of the carpet in the doorway. She stumbled, caught herself, and rooted through the pile of half-hung, half-discarded clothes and belts.

The safe, normally hidden behind her father's work shirts, was gone.

"Nova?" Katherine had followed her into the walk-in closet.

"It's not here," Nova's eyes scanned the rest of the closet, unseeing.

"What's not here?"

"The safe," Nova pushed aside jeans, baseball hats, and shoes. "My dad's safe is gone."

"He didn't take everything?" Katherine's voice was gentle.

"He did," Nova said. "But he couldn't find my mom's necklace. He said he accidentally left it." Her father had cried as he'd told her.

Hushed whispers came from the bedroom, but Nova didn't try to make sense of them. The world around her spiraled. They'd taken the safe with the necklace.

Her mother's favorite necklace. One of the few memories of her mother she could physically take with her. Gone.

She choked on a suppressed sob.

Hands on her shoulders had her straightening. "Come on, Nova."

Numbly, she returned to Jacob's truck. No one spoke as he maneuvered them through the familiar streets.

"I'm sorry, Nov," Darien eventually said.

***

NAPERVILLE, ILLINOIS, USA

August 7, 5:28 AM

Jacob parked by the football stadium of their high school. Big red banners lined the back of the bleachers. Near the street was a sign advertising the summer school program and another sign congratulating this year's graduates.

They got out, walking to the football field. The fake turf was stiff but soft beneath her sneakers.

Katherine and Jacob stopped on the metal bleachers, wrapped up in themselves.

Darien strolled to the center of the field. Nova followed him, her heart still a jagged mass in her chest. The air was cool and crisp around them—a bit of a breeze tickled the hair on Nova's neck.

"It would've been nice to graduate," Darien said eventually.

Nova said nothing. Instead, she laid on her back in the middle of the field, the artificial grass digging into the skin of her arms as she gazed up at the glowing blue twenty-four hovering in the sky below the alien craft. Darien settled down next to her. Neither spoke.

Then, finally, Darien murmured, "I'm sorry about what happened to your mom, Nova."

More times than not, those words seemed hollow—nothing more than what people felt they needed to say, rather than what they actually felt.

Darien, at least in this moment, felt them. She heard it in his tone. "Thanks."

"I'll never drink and drive," he promised her.

Nova resisted the urge to point out they might never get a chance to drink legally, let alone have the temptation to drink and drive. "Yeah," she said instead.

Silence. Then, "You're pretty brave, Nova Campbell."

At that, Nova raised an eyebrow, turning her head to Darien. He grinned next to her, his white teeth bright in the eerie dawn.

"You sit out of a lot of things," Darien said, staring back up at the spaceship. "Junior prom, homecoming, football games. I just—I don't want us to have regrets in our life, you know?"

"I don't think I'd have regretted staying away from the spaceship," she told him.

"Maybe not," he shrugged again. "I wanted to see you do something that scared you. I wanted to see you be brave. Just once."

Something in her chest gave an unsteady thump.

"What do we really have when that clock hits zero?" Darien asked.

"Our demise, probably."

He snorted. "Maybe." Then he turned to look at her again, and for the first time, she noted the way his dark eyes fit his face well. His nose was crooked, having been broken in a football practice. It suited him. As did his black hair.

"Will you have any regrets, Nov?" he asked. "When the timer stops?"

Nova blinked. Would she?

No. She wouldn't. She had come back to get her mother's necklace. Even if she hadn't been able to rescue it.

Don't let the fear stop you from living your life.

She hadn't. She hadn't let that fear win. For that, despite the danger the four of them put themselves in, her mother would have been proud.

"No," she told Darien. "I won't."

The words felt right. As true as they could be at this moment.

"You guys are missing it!" Katherine said as she and Jacob joined them. "Look!"

Darien and Nova sat up, looking in the direction Katherine pointed.

Below the edge of the ship, through a slight break above the trees, the golden yellow and molten orange beams of the sun climbed the horizon.

For a blissful moment, perhaps one of her last, Nova sat with her friends and watched the sunrise. 

<<<<< END >>>>>

Find more stories by cayleighkennedy on Wattpad.

Cayleigh G. Kennedy is a Wattpad Creator and Paid Stories/YONDER author who really needs to stop buying more tea than she can drink. With over 15+ million reads online, Cayleigh loves diving into new and exciting worlds filled with fantasy and the paranormal. Residing in Illinois, she spends her time with her three siblings and her cat who thinks 4 A.M. is a great time to party.