Alien or Alian

Taid Halton might have only been half human, but the half that was alian was evidently enough to keep him from succumbing to the frigid possession of the Jupiterian.

Alian organs, much like their body temperatures, could withstand both the hot and the cold and could even survive being exposed to them in extreme cases — facts that were lamentably discovered too late. On top of freezing every fraction of Sid’s body inside out, the blob had also consumed all of his blood and dried out his organs, unlike Mr. Halton, who’s blood and organs it was only able to pick at through the resistance of his alian biology.

Within an hour of the Jupiterian taking control of him, Sidriel Corte had ‘unofficially’ died.

The funeral was held a week later in secret near the Knillimhyr Manor, a furtive evening of mourning among the Knillimhyr and Corte families, along with other informed residents of Elbel. It was Ozias’ first time seeing the entirety of both families all together, and he’d mistakenly thought the whole town had attended. Somehow though, Ozias could still make out a few familiar faces in the crowd: Taid and Tandy Halton stood together near the edge of the crowd, hip to hip with Taid’s arm draped around his wife’s shoulders to keep him steady; Pal blended in the center of the crowd, mimicking a lowered head and bleak silence, and occasionally stealing glances at both the Knillimhyrs and the Cortes.

Sid’s body was arranged gracefully inside an obsidian-tinted opened casket, embellished with dove-white abstract patterns. One by one, and every so often two by two, each Knillimhyr and each Corte stepped to the podium positioned at hand of the casket, to say a few words:

“He never wanted to travel up there himself, but nearly everyday he stuck around the lab encouraging the rest of us that did,” Lyza shared. Her voice was ragged with woe, and her lack of eye contact with the crowd and Dimitri keeping a rooted hand on her shoulder suggested she was trying as hard as she could to hold it all together.

“Loud and proud and knew how to liven up the mood,” Kaine mentioned. The smile he wore was solemnly nostalgic, but it was difficult for anyone to tell as he kept his head aimed up at the evenfall.

“Sidriel was quite playful at heart, but when you needed him to, he would step up and bring all his determination with him,” Nina affirmed. Her voice was strained and her cheeks were damp, but still she delivered her eulogy with the same steadfast dignity Ozias had seen on the news more than enough times.

“We didn’t always get along, but he was incredibly loyal. You could count on him to keep a promise,” Ezra confessed. His eyes, weighted with resolve, fluttered around the crowd as if he could ingrain his words into everyone’s memories.

“He was always by my side, even when I didn’t ask him to be…” Ethen whispered. It was the softest Ozias had ever heard his voice, and if it wasn’t for the microphone at the podium, no one probably would have been able to hear him at all.

Ozias didn’t take a turn at the podium. He realized that he wasn’t as much of a stranger to either family by now, but standing at the forefront to share a tribute of someone they’d all known for years, someone he had only really known himself for about two days, felt like an immense step that he didn’t feel like he had the right to take yet.

Instead, after the eulogies had concluded, he stole a moment away with Sid’s parents to share the last unforgettable memory he had of their son:

“He saved my life,” Ozias avowed. “Twice technically, and I’ll never forget that.”

Merrin and Fennik Corte were a long-legged and rotund pair, so there wasn’t much Ozias could do with his own underwhelming height when they drew him in and swathed him with their embrace.

Merrin trembled over Ozias’ shoulder as she blinked back her tears. “Thank you for saying that.”

Fennik unbridled a bout of frenzied head shakes and nods over Ozias’ other shoulder. “That’s my boy. He looked out for everyone.”

A few days ago, Ozias wouldn’t have believed that, even if it came from the ones who raised Sid themselves. Once upon a time he never would’ve guessed that under all that loudness and absurdity was someone so truehearted, someone he realized he was going to miss.

“Mr. Corte, Mrs. Corte.”

The desolate voice came from behind Ozias so he couldn’t see who had spoken, but he’d recognize it anywhere.

“Oh Ethen! Ezra!” Merrin and her husband unwrapped themselves from Ozias and steered over to surround the twins.

Ozias turned to observe the interchange of assuaging hugs and comforting words, and the look of anguish Ethen had on was unlike anything Ozias had ever seen of him. Ezra pulled away first leaving his brother and the Corte’s to continue their consolations, and ambled over to Ozias’ side. He didn’t stop when he got there, though, and gestured to Ozias to follow him. The two ended up at Sid’s opened casket, which still had a good deal of melancholic Knillimhyrs and Cortes lingering around it in mourning.

Ezra tried to say something, but after two attempts of opening his mouth and no words coming out, he gave up.

Ozias had witnessed his efforts, and, as if he could read Ezra’s mind, he whispered to him, “it’s not your fault either.”

Ezra gave a full-body wince, but he didn’t look at Ozias. He focused on Sid’s deceased figure, mentally apologizing to him anyway (since his words were still caught in his throat), and he hoped somehow that the apology would chase after Sid into whatever peaceful afterlife he’d ended up in.

Ozias slid a hand into Ezra’s, which delivered the final blow in alleviating his guilt, and the two watched, along with the rest of the familial crowd, as Sid’s casket was gently shut and subsequently carried off to be buried.

Another week after Sid’s funeral, Ethen called a meeting in Knillimhyr Manor’s living room inviting Nina, Ezra and Ozias. Ethen occupied one of the twin black velvet armchairs that faced the matching sofa, where Nina and Ezra sat with Ozias perched in the middle of them.

“What’s this about, darling?” Nina asked first. She was the first of the couch trio to notice the uncertain look taking over in Ethen’s eyes; it made her shift this way and that on the cushion with an equal amount of doubt.

“I’ve been wanting to talk to you all about this sooner, but you would probably just think I wasn’t in my right mind or something because of everything that happened with Sid,” Ethen started. His air of uncertainty seemed to wane, being replaced by the usual ‘relentless Ethen Knillimhyr’ mien. “Kain, Lyza and Dimitri are busy with their re-evaluations, so I’ll fill them in later.”

“Re-evaluations?” Ozias repeated. “For what?”

“Basically one long extensive check-up,” Ezra said with a few exasperated flicks of his wrist. “Everyone who comes back from a mission has to do one at some point before they can travel back up there, to make sure we’re physically and mentally okay. I was actually supposed to have one today too, but…” His face quirked with a peculiar blend of suspicion and reluctance as he looked at his brother.

“But, I thought I might possibly be saving you from the trouble of doing that...for good,” Ethen finished. He answered the look Ezra gave him with a smile Ozias could perhaps best described as ‘moderate’, and Nina shifted again as she too, regarded Ethen.

And Ezra stared at him as if he had just discovered that he had a twin brother. “Bro... you’re not seriously saying…?”

“Ethen…” Nina started, but didn’t finish. Now she was looking at Ethen like he just told her that he was her biological child.

Ozias’ eyes bounced from Knillimhyr to Knillimhyr to Knillimhyr, three times, before they settled on Ethen, and mildly goaded Ozias into at last asking, “what are you trying to say?”

“I want to join the team and go into space.” Maintaining his undistinguished smile, Ethen looked at a shocked Ozias; it was better than looking at the questioning stares from his mother and brother.

“But aren’t you still scared?” Ozias blurted. “Traveling straight into all that cold darkness...is that something you’re seriously ready to do?”

“Still scared?” Ethen repeated. His smile was gone, replaced with a fatally even-tempered thin line of his lips. “Who told you I was scared at all?” He dragged his stare to Ezra, who avoided it by casting a blameworthy look at his so-called friend.

Too guilt-ridden and petrified to say anything else, Ozias clamped his hands over his mouth and aimed his gaze at the knotted rug on the floor caressing the topmost of his soles. He was leaning away from Ezra and more to Nina’s side of the couch as well, but that was more of a subconscious effort to protect himself.

Nina seemed to recognize the potential danger Ozias was in as he shuffled closer, and wrapped an arm around his opposing shoulder, pulling him in the last few inches between them.

“Ozias makes quite the point though, Ethen,” Nina said. As she expected, her words intervened in their brewing quarrel, and she continued right as both of them had turned to look at her. “I still remember, clear as day, those nightmares you always had whenever your father shared stories of his travels.”

Ezra winced, but he had to hand it to his mother though, for bringing up something Ethen had made everyone promise long ago to never bring up ever again. Meanwhile, Ozias’ hands fell back to his lap as he gaped at Nina, startled by the news.

“You understand why I’m saying this after all this time, don’t you? Why Ozias said what he did in the first place?” Nina continued. Ethen just stared at her in unspoken vexation, but Nina was unfazed. “It’s because he cares about you — because I care about you, and your brother and everyone else involved in this business. So when you change your mind out of the blue to make such a decision — after carrying your fears after all this time-”

“It wasn’t always like that,” Ethen cut in. “I was scared back then, but I was also a kid. Fear comes easy when you’re a kid,” he glanced at Ezra giving him a significant look, “some more than others. Even my first football tryouts back in middle school were terrifying. But...with Sid, that feeling didn’t last long. Football became fun, and by high school it became more than just that. My ranking went up, my position changed, more people around school started to know me — wanted to know me. I started thinking football was it, my thing, and it didn’t matter if I never travelled to space.”

Ethen was still looking at Ezra when Ozias steered his gaze to study him. The guy he had hardly known for two years suddenly felt like a stranger he was intimately getting to know. “So when did it all change?” he asked Ethen. Both Nina and Ezra sent him staggering glances, but Ozias barely noticed.

“Junior year of high school,” Ethen went on; another momentous minute before he looked away from his brother. “It was launch day for the team, and everybody who knew about it was there to watch. I almost didn’t show up, though. I thought I would freak out or something as soon as I saw the shuttle, or someone dressed in a spacesuit. Sid chewed me out for it, told me I would regret not sending off my own brother.

“But when I got there I had regrets anyway...for myself. Seeing the team board the shuttle, the rocket taking off...I wasn’t scared anymore. I was...curious, actually. I wanted to be on that shuttle too, go into outer space, travel the solar system — all of it. I wanted that life all of a sudden, but I denied it for so long; pretended that it didn’t exist, focused on football and school. It didn’t seem right to try and have one.”

“Didn’t seem right to who?” Ezra questioned, tone accusatory.

“To you. You couldn’t go to school since you chose to train, but at least you still had all that to look forward to. It was your thing. And Dad. How could I make him proud when I backed away the first chance I got?”

There was a crack, more likely a hairline fracture, in Ethen’s voice as he spoke that Ozias wasn’t sure anyone else heard. Ozias glanced to his right at Ezra; he looked the way Ethen sounded, but he quickly swapped it out for something more livid.

“Ethen,” he said, and Ozias thought it sounded much more infuriated than Ezra looked. “What kind of bullshit is that?”

On Ozias’ left, Nina shifted yet again, like she wanted to say something, probably to censure Ezra for uttering pseudo profanity, but she stayed quiet and increased her grip around Ozias’ shoulder as she observed the twins.

Ezra continued, rather ruthlessly. “Your thing’ doesn’t mean it’s your only thing. I don’t own space travel just like you don’t own football. And Dad? You seriously think he’d be upset about that? That he’d think less of you for feeling a basic emotion over getting involved in something that can be dangerous? He’d be pissed if you never tried at all!”

“I know it’s stupid,” Ethen broke in before Ezra could go on. “I spent three years knowing it was stupid, but did nothing about it. I didn’t want everyone’s life to change suddenly because of me. Sid wasn’t interested in traveling up there, but I couldn’t leave him alone if I did choose to start training. And mom,” Nina went still but her body arched disheartened, “the mayor’s son just up and leaving school one day? What if people talked? What would that have meant for your job?”

“Ethen Ford Knillimhyr.”

It was clear to Ozias that Nina Knillimhyr had left all of her authoritative demeanor somewhere else and had shown up to this meeting, or confession or revelation or whatever it was turning into, with nothing but her motherly instincts, and he had to finally lean out of her personal space so he wouldn’t dilute her maternal aura.

“I don’t think I need to remind you of all people how sociable Sidriel was. Being alone would have been the very least of his troubles. Not to mention he would have supported you to the moon and back in whatever your choice was. And- Ethen, look at me,” she said when Ethen’s gaze strayed to the floor, “whether you choose school or space, or another path entirely, you focus on that. That is your responsibility, for all you kids — to choose and to live.”

She flashed a stern look at Ezra, letting him know this part was for his ears too. “You let the rest of us, the ones who have been in this business longer than you have, handle both what to say to people, and what people might say about any of us.”

Ethen nodded once, compliant. “I know.”

“You didn’t,” Nina countered, “but now you do.”

“I didn’t,” Ethen echoed, the words deplorable as they spilled from his mouth. “So I just kept the routine going: football, school, parties — anything normal, or whatever. It all became-”

“A distraction,” Ozias finished, joylessly recalling his first concrete conversation with the younger twin. Ethen nodded once more, and this time Ezra and Nina aimed their now doleful looks at him rather than Ozias.

“So you never talked to anyone about this? Sid maybe? Your best friend, formerly the nosiest person in Elbel?” Ezra asked, turning back to Ethen.

Ethen shook his head. “Not even Sid. But it wasn’t easy keeping a secret from him. I wouldn’t be surprised if he had already known at some point. But Sid’s gone now, and I shouldn’t have used him or anyone else as an excuse anyway.”

“You really want to do this? You know what you’ll have to give up if you start training,” Nina warned.

“I know,” Ethen said, “I’ve been prepared for a while now to step back from the game. And if it’s any consolation, bro,” he looked to Ezra, and then Ozias had caught a glimpse of coltish shifting from Ezra in his peripheral vision, “maybe we can switch places one last time? You can go to school without so much attention following you around.”

“What? Why would I go to school?” Ezra let out a precarious laugh, but otherwise managed to sustain mutual countenance.

“It’s what you want, right?”

“Who said I’d want to switch to school life?”

On impulse, Ozias retreated back into the sheltered nook of Nina’s arm as Ezra whirled at him, incurably gutted. “I didn’t tell him anything about that!” Ozias attested.

“Actually, it was Kaine who told me about how ‘into studying’ you were that day before the language theory exam,” Ethen said.

Ezra scowled. “What happened to minding his own business…Okay, maybe I’ve thought about going to school for real a couple times, but it’s not gonna be so simple to transition from one lifestyle to another.”

“But, we can do everything we can to make the change as seamless as possible,” Nina eagerly threw in. “You can even, dare I say, switch places with your brother for the time being. If it can prevent you from being bombarded and scrutinized by anyone, it’s a tactic I’m willing to go along with.”

“No,” Ezra interjected. His unexpected longing for genuineness must have been stapled to his forehead because Nina and Ethen watched him knowingly, as if they had secretly planned a vague stab at reverse psychology. But Ozias, thankfully, wore a different expression imbued with thoughtfulness and morale, and Ezra was sure then of the choice he wanted to make. “No more switching. I think I’d rather just be...Ezra.”