Nameless and unknowable, it was left in plain sight but only visible from the corner of the eye, this object of sounds, tastes and scents that defied description which was birthed when the universe was still in short pants and whose retrieval was now critical if the human race had any chance of survival against the extraterrestrial attackers.

They were young and willing to take ridiculous risks because life had not as yet knocked them on their collective asses enough for them to become disillusioned. They were filled with a strong desire to produce online content and talented enough to come up with original material. The only thing that eluded them was the coveted title of influencer.

One day, while marathoning their way through Alien, Jaws, Jurassic Park and Pitch Black, the team decided they were going to stage their own “monster in the house” movie by breaking into an abandoned government facility and pretending it was Area 51.

It was a brilliant idea and everything went to plan when they live streamed their shoot and shortly thereafter quadrupled their viewership. The only fly in the ointment was that none of them lived to see it. It turned out that although it was not Area 51, the government facility was actually another secret site that conducted torture and experiments on extraterrestrial lifeforms and the ghosts of these aliens were seeking revenge against all mankind and their latest victims came gift-wrapped.

It was all coming to an end. The asteroid struck Earth like a match and set the world ablaze. While all their neighbors made futile attempts at outrunning the apocalypse, the Glomb family decided to watch their daughter, Gigi’s, favorite movie on Blu-ray in the living room that was bathed in the warm red light of the flames that licked their apartment building.

The one thing Chaddeus knew from experience was the only thing lonelier than being a writer was being a writer with writer’s block, when the characters inside your mind stop speaking to you.

Fictional characters interacting with each other while the mind was idle formed these creative bubbles where ordinary situations weaved and evolved into something new and wonderful; plot germs to be sown as far and wide as possible as soon as they emerged. But his characters grew silent which meant his stories lost their ability to fly into the productive chaos of the ever-expanding frontier of creativity.

Set adrift in his lonely mental avoid, Chaddeus contemplated giving it all up and resigning himself to an existence as one of the content-consuming mundanes…when he was hit with a streak of story brilliance like a bolt out of the blue.

A tremendous amount of Earth’s resources went into constructing the Interstellar Drive which was designed to propel humans to the very edge of the ever-expanding universe.

The hope was to find a compatible planet in its infancy so that humankind could begin again and avoid the mistakes that placed their homeworld in its deathbed.

But as Astronaut Anton Pascoe explored the planet at the end of the universe, he stumbled upon a sign that suggested someone had beaten him to the punch.

Prudence Periwinkle was inked-up grotesquely beautiful entropy in high heels. Born to be chaotic, she embodied every single thing that was wrong with the world, so how could Howard have not fallen head over heels for her?

He had always been a sucker for a bad girl.

It was only one light, left on in the den when the Mays family went to bed after a tiring day constructing the corrugated metal Anderson Shelter in their back garden. When the air raid sirens sounded and the rest of the neighborhood followed blackout procedures, the forgotten light served as a beacon for the Messerschmitts.

Odette fell for him because he was a poker prodigy but as Dwight’s luck faded, so did his wife. Soon she was more ghost than woman, a trick of the sunlight that drifted silently away at the waxing of the moon in the black marble night sky.

“Is this your first kiss?”

“Why?”

“Because I do it like nobody else,” she said matter-of-factly as she ushered me to a cushioned chair. “So, if this is your first time, we’ll need to be blindfolded.”

“Wait, is this some kind of kink thing?”

“Not exactly…but kind of. You’ve heard of the third eye, right?”

“The spiritual gate that leads to the inner realms and spaces of higher consciousness?”

She nodded. “Well, I’ve discovered a fourth eye that can only be opened through the unification of two souls. When I kiss you I’ll damn sure open your third eye and when the fourth one opens, reality as you know it will slip from under your feet and you’re likely to experience some nausea and I can’t run the risk of you vomiting in my mouth.”

She kissed me and her breath was like a predatory flower, its sickly-sweet vapors made me so cold the marrow in my bones chattered. Her tongue felt like a misshapen creature, dead but still moving, as I wriggled to free myself from the muscular organ burrowing inside my mouth.