Project: Humanity.

"Now, can you tell me exactly where you were when the abduction happened?"

"Well, I guess I'd have to say I was at home, asleep in my bed. But, when I woke up, I wasn't in my bed, but in a spaceship!"

"Really? Can you tell us what this spaceship looked like?"

"I don't right remember it all, ye see, I was so terrified that I couldn't take in all the detail... But, I remember it was dark and big---"

I shook my head as the voices coming from the television set droned on and on about people who had been 'abducted by aliens', trying to block out the noise. I just couldn't understand what my little brother saw in all those sci-fi and fantasy stories he was always watching on TV. Sadly, there was a special on extra-terrestrial beings showing and Evan had had his eyes glued to the screen for the past three hours, possibly reducing his brain further into mush.

I tried to continue doing my homework, but my concentration was shot, I just couldn’t focus. The TV was annoying me.

“Evan!” I practically yelled, slamming my hand on the table in annoyance. “Could you turn that infernal racket off for five minutes?”

His mop of brown curls bounced as he turned to face me with a glare of his own.

“You could always just go upstairs!”

“Upstairs doesn’t have a computer!”

“Well, it’s not my fault we can’t afford two!”

“Well, I’m pretty sure we had two computers before you were born…” I muttered under my breath.

“What?”

"Nothing," I answered quickly. I tapped the pencil against the hard wood desk for a moment before finally just giving up on the assignment all together. It was a report for an advanced science class I was taking, but it wasn't due until next week and I was mostly finished. Closing my binder I looked at the clock.

It read five thirty three.

“Mom should be home by now.”

“Did you know this guy from California actually found a real space ship once?” He asked, completely ignoring the fact that I had spoken. I scowled and rolled my eyes.

“And I bet he doesn’t even have a picture of it, does he?”

“Yes he does!” Evan exclaimed, jumping and pointing to the screen.

“Funny how it looks just like a blurry pie pan…”

“Oh what do you know!’ He sat back down in a huff, dark curls obscuring his vision so that he had to brush them away to see his show. "One day, aliens are coming AJ. And I don't know about you, but I'm gonna be ready!"

"Then I'll point them to your room so you can have a...tea party or something." I snickered and changed the subject before he could yell at me for the remark. "Mom should be home by now, shouldn't she?"

"It's only five thirty."

"Yes, but it's a Friday. She usually gets home before normal."

Evan grinned.

"I know what happened to her..."

"What? Did she call? You should have told me."

"No, she didn't call..."

"Then what?"

"She's not home, because..." His voice dropped to a whisper as he ducked behind the couch. Honestly, that boy could be so odd at times. I leaned in to hear him.

"She was...ABDUCTED BY ALIENS!"

He lunged at me in an attempt to scare me and sadly it worked. I shrieked, jumped back, and it was all a chain reaction from there. My foot snagged behind my other one, making me stumble. I tried to grip the table for support so my butt wouldn't crack into the linoleum, but it still was covered in papers I had been using earlier. My hand slipped on the paper and I landed on the floor in a heap of papers and red hair. The breath was knocked out of me and I could only lay there, gagging, while my brother's high laughter reached my pale ears for the next few seconds. It cut off abruptly as the door could be heard opening with a loud creek.

"Sorry I'm late kids!" Came the familiar voice of our mother. "I was held up at work-- Oh my, what happened here!"

I looked up to see the form of my mother step into view, upside down due to my current position. Dark curls so similar to Evan's flicked into her worried blue eyes, though I saw a hint of humor as well, as she looked over the scene of me under pile of papers, hair fanned out beside me. Only having just gotten my breath back, I couldn't speak and Evan, the conniving little munchkin that he was, ran over with a look of pure (feigned) innocence.

"She's fine mom!" He said before I could speak. "She just fell and I was coming over to help her."

He offered a hand to me, his eyes pleading not to give him away. No way! He was always blaming me for things he did and getting me in trouble, I was so not going to...

Damn it! I lost my resolve the second he turned on the puppy-eyes! Evan was conniving, cunning, crafty and down right evil o the core, but if it wasn't for those big brown eyes of his, I doubt he'd ever be able to get out of all the trouble he leads himself into. I sighed. I was such a pushover...

"Yeah, mom, I just fell," I lied, taking his hand and standing upright. I made a dramatic show of brushing myself off to show I wasn't harmed in any way. Her eyes still looked at us suspiciously. I'm pretty sure mom knows of her son's evil side, but she could never pin point it exactly. Right now, she wasn't buying it. "You know how much of a klutz I am! " I said again trying to convince her.

I don't think she truly believed that I had fallen on my own, considering I am actually rather well-poised, but she seemed to have something else on her mind so she brushed the incident away with a wave of her hand.

"Right, anyways...Sorry I'm late kids. I was held up with this one patient..."

My mom has one of the coolest jobs ever, in my opinion. She works as a doctor in a hospital, but not just doctor. She gets to deal with the people on the mentally ill ward. Think how cool it is on career day to say your mother gets to work with psychos? That's probably one reason I enjoy science and psychology, I'd been in and out of the insanity ward since I was three (in a non-schizoid way).

Evan grinned, eager to get a change in topic. "Was it like the one guy that thought he was a duck? He was so cool!"

Mom laughed at the memory of Mr. Duck. He always insisted on being called that, though I think his name was Herman... She shook her head and said,

"No, this is nothing like him, God forbid. This one is just a boy... probably about your age actually." She directed this part at me.

"Why do you say 'probably'?" I questioned. "Can't you ask his parents, or look up a file like usual?"

She shook her head sadly. "That's the thing. We know nothing about him. The poor dear seems to have a case of severe amnesia- He doesn't even speak! We try to communicate, but he just stares, like he hears but doesn't quite get it. I think he's been in an accident, because when we found him he had a head wound and a few other bad injuries. We feel it's the head injury that has done it though."

"That's awful..." I said; Evan smiled and exclaimed, "Cool! We could train him to be a dog or something!"

"Evan!" Mother and I exclaimed at the same time.

"What? He could play fetch and everything! Or do my math tests..."

"Dogs don't get math."

"This one would."

"That's insane!"

"Nuh-uh! Besides, you've always wanted a poodle!"

"You need to be in the psych-ward, not him."

"You're jealous you didn't think of it first!"

"What makes you think you'll ever even get to meet him?"

"Well, actually..." Mom finally cut in, after watching our fight with amusement. She clasped her hands before and took on a straight face. Oh no, this was the look she used when ever she was about to diagnose someone with some life altering disease, the one that said "you are officially screwed, but don't turn the water works on here, I just had my carpets shampooed". We were in for it...

"You see, since we can't find this boys family... Well, I think it'd be better if we kept him under a closer watch and stayed with us for a while."

"Cool!" Evan shouted at the same time I went, "What!"

"Mother, he could be some psycho, bent on killing people for all we know!" I objected.

"I know!" Evan beamed. "Isn't it so coooool!"

"I thought you might feel this way, sweetie." Said my mom sypathatically, "But, he does seem real harmless. And it won't be for long. Please just think about it."

I paused for moment, then sighed. Did I really have a choice in the matter anyway? I still felt like putting my two cents in either way.

"So, why can't he just stay at the the hospital with all the others?"

"Well, we haven't had a case like this in a long time and feel it would be better to keep him in a familiar environment, in case we can jog his memory. Plus, everyone else has family members to visit them.."

"So...you had all this decided before you even got here, huh?"

"...Pretty much."

"When will he get here?"

She smiled at me. "Tomorrow! Thanks for understanding!"

I sighed again, knowing I'd be fighting a losing battle to press any further.

"Where are we going to keep him anyways?" Asked Evan. "I can build a killer dog house..."

"We are not turning him into a dog, Evan!"

"Sheesh, I was kidding!" He put his hands up in defense. Mom just sighed.

"Could you please just clean out the guest bedroom for me? And pick out some old clothes of yours, he'll need to borrow them some before we can buy his own. I think they'd fit."

I snickered as Evan groaned about the extra chores he'd been assigned and snuck out before I could be drafted into anything else Mom could cook up. Upstairs I put my things away, mind lingering on what Evan had said earlier.

One day, aliens are coming AJ.

Pssh, yeah right. I knew aliens didn't exist.

Looking back on it today, I couldn't have been more wrong.