Chapter 4: Digital Nightmares and a Metallic Boom
Joey returned from therapy feeling a bit lighter, as always happened after unburdening himself to Dr. Helena, but the unease about the strange figure at the bus stop still lingered.
At home, he found silence. His mother was probably resting or shopping, and his father, to his relief, was nowhere in sight.
Léo hadn't returned from college yet.
He took refuge in his room, the sanctuary where reality felt less oppressive and his need for security could be met.
He turned on his computer, the screen illuminating his pale face.
On impulse, driven by a need to analyze and collect data on the unsettling things he'd witnessed, he started searching the internet for "people in strange clothes appearing out of nowhere" and "reports of disoriented individuals in public."
The results were a mix of local news about Lyra the elf in the park – already going viral with shaky photos and videos under headlines like "Cosplayer Woman Causes Commotion" or "Mysterious Visitor Surprises Residents" – and countless conspiracy theories, UFO videos, and discussion forums about unexplained phenomena.
Normally, Joey, who trusted facts over emotions, would dismiss much of it as fantasy, but after what he'd seen, and the flash in the garden, a seed of doubt had been planted in his usually logical mind.
He read about Lyra, the description matching the kind of disorientation he himself had felt upon seeing the hooded man.
He felt a pang of empathy for her; being lost and scared in a hostile environment was something he knew all too well, that feeling of being an outsider looking in.
He often felt that something was missing in his own life, a sense of belonging Lyra clearly lacked in this new, strange place.
His father came home noisily, his powerful voice echoing down the hallway, complaining about traffic or work.
Joey quickly minimized the browser tabs, his heart racing.
He didn't want to have to explain his "useless research," a term his own inner critic readily supplied, anticipating his father's disapproval.
Confrontation was something he studiously avoided to maintain his peace of mind.
Meanwhile, a few blocks away, on a busy commercial avenue, the afternoon was abruptly interrupted by a deafening metallic boom, followed by a shower of sparks and a brief power outage in several blocks.
People rushed out of stores, frightened.
In the middle of the street, where moments before there was only asphalt, now lay a sort of metallic pod, smoking and dented, about two meters long.
The pod's doors hissed open pneumatically, revealing a middle-aged man wearing a tight, dark-blue jumpsuit, covered in soot, with a cracked visor over one eye.
He coughed, looking around with an expression of pure shock and disbelief, muttering something in a language full of clicks and whistles.
In his hands, he clutched a damaged device emitting erratic beeps.
"By the rings of Cygnus Prime! Where... where in the blazes am I?" he babbled to himself, his voice muffled by what remained of his helmet.
This was Zylar, a spaceship engineer from a solar system light-years away, who had been on a test flight when a malfunction in his warp drive hurled him across space-time.
Chaos erupted. Sirens began to wail in the distance.
People screamed, some filmed with their cell phones, others fled.
Zylar tried to stand, his legs trembling, completely unaware that he wasn't just the only confused one there; he was the cause of the confusion.
Joey, in his room, heard the distant sirens. To him, it was just another noise from the big city, another reminder of the chaotic world outside from which he tried to shield himself, a world so different from the one he longed for, free of wars and malice.
He couldn't imagine that the metallic echo some neighbors would later comment on was intrinsically linked to his research and his dreams of a different world.
The invisible threads connecting these events were growing taut, and Joey's encounter with these travelers from other universes was only a matter of time.
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