franceslievens | The Landing, part 5

“Mum? Mummy?” Kenneth scrambled up onto his knees. The blackness that followed the explosion of the LEGO™ spaceship had receded and left the living room in an eerie light. All outside sounds were gone: no more cars, no more sirens, no more children whining in front of the window of the toy shop across the street.
“I’m deaf,” Kenneth thought. “The insides of my ears are pierced by the loud noise and now I’m deaf. This thing can happen when you shout into another kid’s ear.”
On hands and knees he crawled across the carpet, looking for his mother. He couldn’t see her and being deaf, he couldn’t hear her either. “Mum?” he called out. His voice sounded strangely loud in the silence. He wasn’t deaf then – it was just a quiet that had come over the world and swallowed every possible sound. He discovered his mother on the carpet in front of the couch. She was lying face down and not moving.
“Mummy! Wake up!” Kenneth tried to rouse her, but she stayed immobile. Clutched in her right hand she held the strange Bionicle™. In an instant Kenneth thought he saw the thing struggle actively against his mother’s grip, trying to get free. He shook it off as a delusion caused by fear. At school he had learned what to do in case of emergency: Go to the nearest phone and dial 112. Overcoming his initial anxiety he straightened up and walked over to the kitchen to pick up the receiver of the telephone. Glancing at the clock hanging on the opposite wall, he noticed the big hand had ceased to go round. Kenneth turned around to look at the clock on the microwave oven. Stunned he let the receiver drop to the floor: The familiar flickering of the digital clock had stopped as well, as had the hands on his kiddie wrist watch.
“Whatever is going on here, it has something to do with that creature in Mummy’s hand,” Kenneth thought. Back in the living room, he gently opened his mother’s hand. The thing didn’t hesitate to react and zoomed off, hurling itself through a window.

“Frag!”
Kenneth turned around, looking for the source of the yell. His mother never let him use words like this. She kept telling him “Language, Kenneth!” He shouldn’t have used swear words when she wasn’t listening either. It was probably what had gotten him into this mess.
“Frag again!” There they were: Six tiny figures standing on the carpet next to his mother’s potted plants. Their faces were dirty, and their clothes torn in places. They looked like toy soldiers that had survived a playing session in the sandbox. The only difference was they moved and talked all by themselves.
“You let our ride escape, son,” the burliest of them said.
“Did I do something wrong? I… err… I didn’t mean to…” Kenneth mumbled. Grave faces answered his questions. “Did something bad happen?”
This time the leader of the group spoke. He wasn’t the tallest, but his posture and voice radiated authority. “To tell you the truth kiddo, that ship is on a suicide mission. If we are unable to intercept it and convince it to abort, it’ll end up destroying that woman there. Probably taking your world with it.”