"That was… one hell of a luck…" Billy said, as he was still panting really hard.
"No kidding…" I responded to him, as I bent and breathed deeply while I also had my eyes closed.
Little by little, the sight before my eyes slowly began to focus to the insides of the big house. If I had to say to myself, it would probably be more accurate to call the big house a mansion instead, although it was rather small for a mansion. I immediately noticed that most of the mansion's structures were built out of wood, especially the floor, walls, ceilings, stairs. Even many of the furniture there such as tables, chairs, and bookshelves were also made out of wood.
"At least this house has a nice fireplace inside it…" Billy said, as he pointed towards the fireplace right across the stairs which was located on the right corner from where we had come in.
Shortly after we had completely regained our stamina again, the two of us then walked slowly towards each of the furniture, before we stopped right in front of the fireplace, and wondered if we should light it or not. My concern was should the other aliens noticed that there was smoke coming out from the mansion chimney, they would notice our presence inside.
Billy's concern however, was that we should try to dry ourselves first since we could not be sure if we would get any other opportunity later on. Since he also mentioned that the mist formed after rain could camouflage the smoke, I decided to agree in lighting the fireplace. I also then remembered that once the mist formed, it would be much colder and thus some sort of a warming would be necessary.
'KA-CHLUCK'
I was absolutely jumped upon hearing that sound, especially as it was pretty much familiar to my ears and reminded me of a lever action type weapon, Winchester M1887. Just as I turned around, I had all the things that I had assumed to be true. It was the sight of the earlier young lady, holding the lever action shotgun with at least still one round chambered inside after she had levered it.
Well to be more precise, she was pointing the shotgun right at us, most likely since she was not sure if she had just saved good men, or men with evil intents. I could not blame her at all though, since I would also probably at least thinking of the same thing if I were her.
"Thank you for letting us in. I can assure you, that we are not bad guys…" I talked to her, as I lifted both my hands after I gently let down my submachine gun.
"Kami disini atas utusan Kopassus dan Angkatan Laut Amerika," Billy said to her., "tapi… sebagian besar harus mundur karena diserang alien juga… seperti kalian…" as he tried to explain that we were under direct orders from the Special Command Forces and the U.S. Navy to investigate the assault that took place at the village.
It was a relieve for me that he did not mention any single thing regarding E.X.T.I.R.T, as it would most likely only heightened her suspicion towards us. Then again, I also still had my doubts that the organization had been completed and officially established at that time. Not long after that, she began to slowly lower her shotgun and showed a less threatening face.
"Thank you very much…" I said, as I could also begin to lower my arms and stretched my right hand towards her. "My name is Travis. Thank you so much for letting us in, and saving us from our deaths earlier…"
"Jessica…" she said slowly while she shook my hand, although still not calmly, "You are welcome, Travis…"
The young lady was most likely to be in her early 20s, with a little bit slim body but nevertheless also seemed to be pretty much shaped up. Just by looking at her face, she was probably a mixed Chinese-Javanese-Balinese since she had a little bit of golden brown skin, a pointed noise, but a rather slanted and dark brown colored eyes.
Strangely enough, I found her features to be alluring. She wore a long sleeve purple t-shirt, with what seemed to be a cross necklace on her neck, as well as a slim jeans and a gray low top boots. Since her forehead only reached my nose, I would say she was somewhere at 5'4".
"Billy… terima kasih sekali lagi…" Billy introduced himself to her as he also stretched his right hand and thanked her.
At that very moment, I noticed that the young lady's eyes began to lighten up, as if she was delighted about something just as Billy had introduced himself. I was also nearly forgot to feel more relieved that she was able to understand English.
"Billy… Mubarak…? Sorry, kamu Billy Mubarak?" she asked him at a more delighted tone and brighter face, making sure about his full name.
"Iya… betul…" Billy responded to her, with some confusion shown in his face as it was drawn by a little bit of frowning. "Ada ap-"
"Ini gue, Bill! Jessica Evangelia! Ingat gak?" the young lady replied to him, then with a completely bright smile on her face as she told him her full name.
"Oh! Astaga! Iya iya, gue inget! Arkeolog UI angkatan 2029!" Billy answered to her, as he remembered that she was from University of Indonesia with Archeology major batch 2029.
Apparently, they were of same batch in the university but different major back when they were in their campus days. As the delighted mood suddenly filled the atmosphere around us, she briefly hugged him as they told me that it had been two years since they had seen each other.
Back then, they were able to get close quickly since they were both accelerated high school students who managed to enter the university at the age of 17, who had happened to meet for the first time during the re-registration process. Since then, they were frequently involved in organizational activities which further strengthened their friendship. However, after both of them graduated, they had to walk a different path since Billy chose to serve in the country's Army and Jessica decided to take her fast track master's degree since she wanted to be an archeologist.
As she had finished telling her background to me, she helped in lighting up the fireplace. I asked her if it was actually safe to let out smoke to the outside, to which she responded that she had lit the fireplace twice after rain had stopped before when she had been forced to shelter herself alone inside the mansion and there were no aliens that attempted to barge into the mansion so far. It indicated that they perhaps indeed were unable to tell the differences between smoke and fog.
With her saying that she had no choice but to hide inside the mansion, I asked even further as to what she was doing at the village in the first place. Billy also asked if it had anything to do with her role as a junior archeologist. Jessica fell silent for a short moment, staring at the slowly dancing flame inside the fireplace before she began to explain why she was there and how she managed to survive before meeting us.
She began by telling us that she was to assist an archeology team that was going to investigate few possible prehistoric sites several kilometers away from the village. They had arrived two days before, and had just in the middle of investigation at the first site on the next day when suddenly few members of the team were attacked by an unseen force. At first there were only two injured, but then it slowly rose to four, and then five until the moment when almost half of the team had been seriously injured.
Panicked, they decided to retreat back to the mansion, the place where they had been permitted to stay for some while by the village elder. They rushed back to the mansion, leaving most of their tools at the first site so that they had as less weight as possible on their backs while they were escaping from the attack. However, just as they had arrived back to the village, they were put to a complete shock as the village was also in fact, under the very same attack and on a bigger and more severe scale instead.
The archeology team leader told everyone to rush to the mansion, but to no avail since everyone was already too panicked in the first place and most them rushing towards the exit of the village. It was then when she had the sudden idea to record everything that she could, and posted it on her social media.
One of the members of the team also proceeded to do the same by using the higher resolution camera but instead of posting it on his social media he sent it directly to one of his acquaintances in the military. However just as he had recorded for less than one minute, the unseen force attacked him, and that time it was a fatal attack, killing him instantly in the process. Witnessing the slaughter right before her eyes, she rushed towards the mansion alone while she hurriedly put her phone inside her pocket again.
"So you and that member were the ones who had sent the footages…" I said to her.
"Thank God those recordings did manage to get noticed by military officials…" she responded to me.
She then continued by saying that as soon as she had arrived back inside the mansion, she was put into a dilemma whether or not to barricade the door. On one hand, if she were to block any other people outside, she had a very high doubts that she would be able to withstand alone inside the mansion as she completely had no idea as to when the attack would stop. On the other hand, should she did not block the door the unseen force could barge in and found her.
Since she could not determine it yet, she tried to recall anything that she could do for the time being. She then recalled that the village elder had mentioned the whole archeology team that he had stashed a firearm inside the mansion, for the purpose of scaring away the small monkeys that tend to steal their harvests. Rushing towards every single room inside the mansion, she finally found it being hung at what most probably seemed to be the village elder's bedroom, together with three boxes of bullets.
It was a huge relieve for her when she realized that the firearm was a lever action shotgun, and all the more that it was the very same model of what her late grandfather had. Since she had few experiences in using the firearm for sports back in her early teenage years, she had very little to no problems at all in loading and using the shotgun. It was also then when she decided that she would let anyone enter the mansion, since she knew for sure that she could defend herself.
Unfortunately for her, she also quickly noticed that by the time she was back right before the mansion door, she could no longer hear the screaming sounds of the people from outside, finally realizing that either they had all escaped the village, or the worst case scenario, slaughtered by the unseen force. She was desperate to at least take a peek at what might be happening outside, yet she was also too scared if the unseen force might notice her presence inside the mansion while she peeked out.
Thus, she was technically caged inside the mansion for the rest of that day. On the bright side however, she found out that the mansion was quite stocked on food supplies, about roughly one week worth and it put her a little more at ease. As the night fell, she had some trouble putting herself to sleep as the thoughts of the unseen force suddenly barging in and attacking her still filled her minds.
The next day, she was awakened due to loud banging sounds coming from outside the mansion, and about at the location of where the water tank was. As she rushed to the second floor to see what it was from the window, she was really surprised to see that there were two people desperately fighting off grotesque-looking flying creatures. The two people were none other than Billy, and I, and the very thing that shocked her the most was the fact that the creatures were actually the unseen force that had caused the attack at the day before, and that if they were soaked with water they could be seen.
At that time, she finally mustered up her courage, and slowly opened the nearest door to the balcony and aimed her shotgun towards the direction in front of us. Almost immediately after, a couple of the creatures attacked both of us and were just about to kill us, she forced herself to aim and opened fire at the two creatures, ultimately saving the two of us. As she was still filled with a scared feeling, she had to slowly went down the stairs and pointed her shotgun at us when we were about to light the fireplace.
"Tapi untungnya elu ga kenapa kenapa, Jess." Billy said to her, relieved that she had made it out in one piece.
"Iya sih…" Jessica agreed.
With Jessica finally finished explaining, she then asked the two of us about any suggestions on what to do next. Billy suggested that we should warm ourselves more if we were to go outside again since it would be misty and much colder by then while I suggested that we were to wait until the mist had subsided just in case the aliens had the same thermal sensing capability like they had back three years ago. She then told me that the village elder had informed her it would usually take about two hours on average before the mist would subside. In the end, all of us decided to stay for the next two hours.
Billy then continued by saying that we would proceed to the next planned destination, which was roughly about three kilometers northwest of the village. Almost immediately, Jessica blurted out that the destination was very near to where the first site was, since the first site was exactly three and a half kilometers northwest of the village.
Realizing that there could be some sort of other clues that might be able to be obtained, I suggested that we were to go to the first site after we were finished at the next planned destination. The two of them agreed, and thus we waited for the next two hours inside the mansion as I looked at my watch which showed the current time of 02.11 p.m. I also began to wonder if somehow the prehistoric sites might be the very thing that attracted the aliens to come and invade us again…