Of Broken Hearts and Crashed Spaceships

        “We’re counting on you,” Zenyr recalled the words that followed her from her home world as she looked at the world before her.

It was very much unlike her world. Where hers had beautiful green trees with pink leaves that turned golden during autumn, this one had green leaves.

“Observation one. The trees in this world seem to have green leaves. The reason is yet to be known.” Zenyr lifted her communication device on her hand to her mouth and spoke in perfect English.

As many may have guessed, Zenyr was not a human, despite her humanoid shape. She was what many would call an alien, and this is her story.

…..

“I got rejected.” Bradley Mason muttered as he walked back home.

Just a few hours earlier, Bradley had gone on his midterm break and gotten his heart broken. Before he regales you with his tale of heartbreak and love, he would like to do a quick introduction for our dear viewers.

“Can you stop dubbing over my thoughts, Jason?” Bradley looked at the person currently narrating in a somber tone and said harshly.

“Sorry but it’s a best friend’s duty to always pick on the other friend when they are feeling down.” A tanned youth with dirty blonde hair grinned as he bumped Bradley’s shoulder with an unnecessary amount of force.

“Sorry about him. I told him we should give you some space but monkeys don’t understand human speech.” A girl who would have passed for a vampire said as she held Jason’s ear and started drawing on it.

“Ow! Ow! Don’t do that.” Jason yelped and turned to the girl with a hurt expression.

“Amelia, done for the day?” Bradley turned to look at her and asked.

“No. But my friend had his first heartbreak so I decided to take a day off. Besides, they may not be as good as me but my juniors can handle it.” Amelia said in a dry tone and let go of Jason and reached out to Bradley.

“You okay?” She said as she cupped his cheeks and Bradley forced a smile and nodded.

“Hey! How come you aren’t that nice to me?” Jason held his ear as he complained with a pout.

“Shut it Lancaster. We both know you’d get a big head the moment anyone treats you nicely.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“I didn’t say the ‘we’ referred to me and you.”

“Ouch. But grammatically speaking, you technically meant me.”

“And physiologically speaking, I’m about to hit you.”

“Try it.”

“You do remember that I have mastered several martial arts, right?”

“And you know I’m a star player on the soccer team with a build to match.”

Bradley watched as his two best friends bickered and smiled softly.

“Guys, you don’t have to worry about me. I’m fine.” He interrupted them and said.

“I see.” Jason simply spoke and wrapped Bradley in a tight hug.

“In case you ever feel down, call us. Any of us. And we’ll be there.” Jason said and Bradley nodded and they separated.

“Thanks. Both of you.” Bradley parted with them after some goodbyes and once again, he was alone.

“Haah…” Bradley kept up a calm façade when his friends were present but dropped it.

Bradley didn’t connect with people easily. Which was unexpected because everyone else in his family, even down to his grandparents were social butterflies.

And to top it all off, his expressions didn’t show properly on his face. Sometimes, no matter how happy or excited he got, his face would still remain blank, giving others the impression, he was coldhearted.

People came, left and disappointed him. After a while, he just stopped trying. If people thought of him as coldhearted, it meant they’d keep their distance which worked out for him perfectly

When he entered high school, he joined the library committee to avoid people. Which was where he met her, Penelope.

It was most definitely not love at first sight. In fact, he thought little to nothing of her and just treated her how he treated most people – keeping his distance.

Penelope was an interesting person. The word others would use to describe her was geeky and an airhead but to Bradley, she was one of the few people who could predict what he was thinking.

Perhaps that was what attracted him to her. Perhaps what he wanted was someone who could understand him perfectly. And perhaps, that person could become his special someone.

Little by little, his feelings grew and after a week of preparation, he made the decision to confess his feelings to her.

“I’m… sorry. I can’t return your feelings.”

When he heard that, he was shocked. Before that, he thought he would be fine and mentally prepared himself for both acceptance and rejection. But deep inside, he was expecting a yes from her.

“I’m such an idiot.” He sighed and looked around him. He had arrived at a park that marked the halfway point between home and school.

Numerous emotions were tangled in his chest. Sadness, guilt, frustration, regret and a couple others. He planned to deal with them the way he always did: by stuffing it deep down in a place they would never come out of ever again.

He originally planned to walk past the park but a nostalgic swing caught his eye and he veered off and arrived before it.

“It’s dusty.” He muttered and removed a rag from his bag and gently cleaned the swing. In his life, the swing probably had more screen time than his family during the early years of his life.

‘It’s been a while. Guess I can play with it for a while.’ He reasoned and sat on the swing and slowly rocked his body back and forth.

After a while, it actually started to become fun and he let out a rare giggle and looked at the evening sky.

“It’s beautiful.” He whispered, entranced by its beauty when he spotted a small, speeding star appeared in the sky.

‘Wait, a star!?’ a speeding star at this time of the day could only mean one thing. Spotting a shooting star would be lucky, so long as you’re not in its impact range. Which, Bradley just happened to be in.

“Shit!” he cursed as the star expanded and slammed into the ground before him and everything went blank.

……

“Oxygen levels in this world are just slightly above ours. The exact percentage would be sent during the data transfer. Due to their dependence on carbon fuel, the CO2 concentration is well above average but nothing that we can’t resolve.” Zenyr reported as she flew above humanity’s cities with an astonishing speed.

She was hundred percent sure she would have shown up on their radar if not for the fact that her world had cloaking tech that was literally beyond this world.

“All in all, the atmosphere is very similar to ours with only slight differences here and there. I’ll compile an official observation as soon as I find somewhere to stay.” Zenyr hit the stop button on her smartwatch and took a look outside her pod.

“Change to autopilot.” She said and let go of the steering wheel and slowly drifted off to sleep. The gravity here was higher than her world’s so she was exhausted.

She didn’t know how long she was asleep but a loud bang and the feeling of gravity taking a hold of her woke her up.

‘What happened?’ She opened her eyes and her pod was roughly split in half with charred edges. Looking outside, she saw a stormy weather and put together what happened.

‘I was struck by lightning. But the autopilot system should have detected it beforehand, so why?’ Zenyr thought as she unbuckled her seatbelt and stretched out her right hand.

Her smartwatch glowed as a plasma-like rope shot forward and caught the other half of the pod and stuck to it.

“Grr!” Zenyr grunted and pulled it towards her and started patching it up with the rope.

“There we go.” She said as she finished and returned to navigating the pod.

“Damn it, all systems are down. Did it fry the backup batteries too?” Zenyr hit the control board and tapped on her watch.

“Activate emergency protocols.” She said and was encased in a blue orb and she shut her eyes immediately.

‘Time to pray it actually works.’ She thought as she rapidly approached the ground.