Prologue
October 13.
I'll never forget the date that it all started because it was her birthday. The first one that I'd spent without her in five years.
I was sitting in my dark living room, the shades drawn, a bottle of Jack clutched in my fist, the TV playing an infomercial for some kind of kitchen gadget that made salad tossing a thing of the past. I watched the plastic green gadget spin and spin and spin, like my head felt like it was doing as I lost track of time and reality, drowning my sorrows beneath the alcohol.
When the door bell rang, I almost didn't answer it at all.
I stumbled to the door, almost spilling the Jack onto the floor. I pulled open the door, expecting to find Kevin, checking up on me again. "I'm fine, I've told you this a thousand times if I've told you once," I growled as the sunlight streamed into the room - sunlight which I hadn't looked at for about a week, blinding white, searing my retinas. "I don't need you to worry about ---" my eyes had adjusted and they focused slowly, "-- me," I finished lamely, the anger melted from me as my stomach dropped out of me, as my heart stopped beating, as my breath escaped my lungs. I stared, dumbfounded.
She was standing there, plain as day, wearing that red and yellow polka-dotted dress. Her hair hung down past her shoulders, past her breasts, touching her mid-waist. She had the clearest, crispest blue eyes.
"Nick Carter."
Her voice was even, tone flat. She stared at me, and if it had not been for a slightly cocked eyebrow I wouldn't have known that she'd been asking a question.
"Of course I am," I whispered, "You know that."
She stepped forward quickly into the foyer of my house, pushing me aside. "Quickly," she said, her voice rising in panic, "Enable your defensive protective shields," she said. She slammed the door and spun the lock. "Now."
"My what?" I blinked. I looked at the bottle of Jack.
I made a mental note to ask AJ about vivid hallucinations as a side effect of alcoholism.
"Your defensive protective force fields? Your shields?" she said, voice climbing in irritation.
"I don't have defensive protective whoosey-whatties," I said, "What are you talking about?"
She was peering through a window to the right of the door, nervously twitching as she looked out. "Your ship is in trouble," she said, "They're coming for you. You need to put up your defensive protective force fields," she said, "And arm every man, woman, and child on your planet to prepare for war," she added.
"War? What?"
She turned around, met me straight in the eyes. "I came here to warn you."
"But -- you're dead," I argued.
She shook her head. "No. You only thought so."
Whitenoise by Pengi
