Note: This was originally a one-act play written for my college screenwriting course. I have made some changes and reworked it into a short story because I struggled in screenwriting. I always wanted to give more information rather than just the dialog.
It was the first night in our new college dorm. Freshman. Being in a new place, in a new town, in a new school is always hard, but at least I had my best friend in the entire world with me. My name is Jane Dalton and I was my high school’s outcast. I was the weird girl who sits in the back of class drawing stars on her jeans and no one really pays much attention to her. But, I got lucky, I had Sara. I still do.
Sara was the dreamer. The artistic girl with big ambitions and smarter than anyone else, even if she didn’t always show it. We were 18 and living alone for the first time although many other students were experiencing something similar, our experience is nothing like theirs.
I was sitting on the bed, the one on the left, pushed up against the wall. Sara was across from me trying to hang her poster just right. I glanced up and out the window. Something shiny and a bright tan steaked past.
“Did you see that?” I asked Sara.
“No.” She responded looking over after pressing in the final thumbtack. “What was it?”
“I don’t know.” I told her. “It was shiny and tan right past the window.”
“Oh, come on.” Sara laughed. “You’re just nervous about tomorrow and seeing things. Let’s get some sleep.”
“No. I swear I’m not. It was huge and shiny yellow. It was moving fast too!” I responded moving to the window. Sara, curious but still apprehensive, moves to the window with me.
“Oh, my word! What is it?” Sara says gasping as the shiny thing streaks past again.
“I told you.” I said. “I’m not crazy.” I told her peering out into the darkness. “What do we do? Call 911? Campus security? Who could deal with this?” I ask in rapid succession.
“I have no idea.” Sara says. “Let’s follow it and see where it’s going. Then at least we can report it properly.”
“Okay…” I answer slowly. “But, if it eats us I won’t be held responsible.”
I move away from the window and grab the keys to the room. Sara stops to put on her shoes and we both leave the room locking the door behind us. We follow the shiny shape for a while. Suddenly I hear a door open and close the light disappearing into it.
Sara screams. “This is our room. It came for us. We chased it right back to our room. To us!”
“Who are you? What do you want?” I ask shakily.
“I want what I have always wanted. To be free.” A soft, rough voice responds.
“How can you be free?” Sara asks. She seems a bit less nervous, but still alert.
“By escaping this planet. I want to go home. I do not belong here. You…” the voice says. We can hear it moving closer until a bit of yellowish light points at Sara. “…have my home. It is small and blue. It shimmers like the ocean.”
“My pendant!” Sara gasps, clutching at the small ocean pendant her mother had gifted to her at graduation a few months ago.
“Yes.” The voice responds getting a bit rougher. “It is my ship. My way home.” “Please help me.” The voice begins to beg. “If I stay here much longer I fear I will evaporate. I cannot sustain form in this environment.”
Sara hesitates, clutching the pendant tighter in her hand.
“Just give it the pendant, Sara! We can’t kill it!” I yell out breathless. “Hurting an innocent is below us.”
“How do we know it’s innocent.” Sara asks.
“It hasn’t tried to hurt us yet. It just wants to go home.” I answer.
“Fine. Take it!” Sara says, ripping the chain from her neck and stretching out her hand offering the pendant.
“Thank you!” the voice gasps as the pendant falls into a ball of yellow light. “Now I may return to my home in the sky. May you always be blessed in my brightness, for I am the sun.” The glow brightens, and the ball gets larger and larger engulfing the pendant. “Be aware…” the voice continues. “Momentous changes await you both. Believe in yourselves. Always!”
The light disappears, as the sun begins to rise in the window.
I can’t breathe. “Oh my!” I say shocked. “We met the Sun! Like the sun in half human form or something.”
“I know.” Sara says. Her face scrunches up in thought. “I can’t wait to see what it meant.” She pauses. “I think I feel hope.”
I look up at her face and we both grin. Then, Sara laughs out loud. Life is shining brightly before us and I, for one, can’t wait to see how we conquer the world.
