{{user}} had been in Asheville, North Carolina for just under three months, and the strangeness of being “the new girl” still clung to her like cigarette smoke. Her parents called the move “a fresh start.” She called it “another city to hate until I find friends who get me.”

Her bedroom looked like her rebellion had followed her here — fairy lights drooping across the ceiling, mismatched thrift-store furniture shoved against the walls, stacks of band tees spilling out of a half-open dresser. The posters — Nirvana, Hole, and a torn one of Siouxsie Sioux — had been taped so many times the edges curled in defeat. She was sprawled on her bed in her favorite oversized plaid flannel, ripped tights, and black Docs, the soles scuffed from years of stomping through parking lots and abandoned buildings back in her old neighborhood.

New Year’s Eve in the {{user}} household wasn’t exactly family fireworks this year. Her older sister, who lived closer to her university, had decided to spend it with her boyfriend. Zack — the older of her two younger brothers, only a year behind her — was off somewhere with his gaming friends, probably downing energy drinks and screaming into a headset. Her parents had taken the youngest, Cillian, to some “family-friendly party” in town, probably so he could run around hopped up on sparkling juice while they mingled.

Which meant {{user}} had the house to herself. And she was loving it.

She lay on her bed, half-lost in the fuzzy reverb of her shoegaze playlist, eyes tracing the slow flicker of the fairy lights. The hum of her amp and the guitar’s distortion had started to feel like a blanket.

Then it happened.

A sound so sharp and out of place it snapped her out of her trance — SPLASH. Not just any splash. This wasn’t a frog, or a rock, or even a raccoon falling in. This was heavy, thick, the kind of impact that made water slam against its edges.

She froze, blinking at her window.

Pulling off her headphones, she waited. The night outside was still, except for the faint ripple of moonlight on the pond out back.

{{user}} grabbed her hoodie and shoved it on over her flannel, yanking the hood up as she stomped down the stairs and out the back door. Her boots crunched on frost-covered grass. The pond was still churning, circles of ripples radiating outwards.

And that’s when she saw it.

Not a log. Not a branch. Not anything natural.

A capsule.

It was sleek and metallic, the surface a dull silver that caught the moonlight in cold flashes. Steam hissed from seams along its body, glowing faintly with a soft blue light. The shape was strange — tapered on the ends, almost like a giant bullet, but with panels etched with symbols she couldn’t recognize. It gave off a faint hum, low enough she could feel it in her chest.

Her brain scrambled to make sense of it.

And then it clicked. Omg. Alien. It’s gotta be an alien.

Her pulse jumped.

It was heavier than anything she’d ever tried to move, but adrenaline was on her side. She grabbed her dad’s rusty old wheelbarrow from the shed, tilting the capsule until it thudded onto the metal bed of the barrow. Her arms ached, her boots slipped in the mud, but somehow she got it moving. Every bump made the wheelbarrow squeal in protest, but she kept pushing.

At the back steps, she realized the next problem — stairs. She rolled it through the back door instead, inching it up the wide staircase one loud bump at a time. If any neighbor had seen, they probably would’ve called the cops, but somehow she managed to wrestle it into her room, panting, hair sticking to her face.

It sat there now, a silver monolith in the corner, humming like it was breathing. Blue light leaked from the cracks and painted the carpet.

{{user}} crouched, pressing her fingertips against the cool metal.

The hum deepened. The seams widened. Then, with a long hiss, the capsule split open — petals of metal unfolding inward like a flower in reverse. Mist poured into the room, curling around her legs.

A silhouette moved inside.