The man's name was Harold Harper, and as he stood there in silence, wrapping his head around the words of the strange soldier in front of him, he considered the fact that he was in a dream.
Only for a moment, however. He turned to look back at his wife for a brief moment, his gaze conveying all of his innermost thoughts to her.
She looked back from the passenger seat to see their two sleeping kids - a son and a daughter, both not older than ten, and then glanced back at her husband, reciprocating his communication.
Klein looked at the alien and cleared his throat.
"Ahem. If I may kindly ask, what're you guys going to do now?", Klein stood a little straighter in a confident warrior-like manner.
He remained oblivious to the fact that any attempts to display any kind of reliability went out of the window the moment he had asked for directions to a library in a tattered military outfit soaked in blood.
Harold looked at the disheveled soldier and responded.
"Not sure, could you at least tell us more about what happened?"
"Ah, of course, I can", Klein's eyes lit up, eager to share his story, "So, we found ourselves in a destroyed town with a white castle and strange carriages. I met my ali- I mean - my army comrades pretty early."
Klein paused and swallowed his saliva, attempting to moisturize his parched throat.
"Then, a metal - I mean - a plane fell from the sky, but a ma- I mean- wizard with a long beard managed to save it, and not too long later monsters arrived and blew up a gas station."
Klein paused for dramatic effect, enjoying the changes in the alien's expression as he truthfully recounted the events.
"The flames were incredible, and a lot of us died there..." Klein had fumbled with his words but was proud nonetheless of his accurate description of his recent experiences.
Though, the more Klein spoke, the paler Harold's face became. He would ordinarily dismiss such a man and his stories as a mental or psychiatric condition, but in these current circumstances...
They sounded like the truth.
"I-I'm sorry, could I have a moment with my wife?" Harold stuttered, then weakly walked back to his car without awaiting a response.
"Sure! Take your time!" Klein raised his voice slightly with a friendly smile and waved at the man, his wife, and their sleeping children.
"Ha, yup. Definitely outdid myself this time. They totally believe I'm an alien warrior" Klein patted himself on the back.
"Good job, Klein, good job." He began whistling the second verse of 'Ol' great Clover' as he skipped back to his prized APC, wondering if there was anything he could find inside.
-----
"He has a mental condition"
That was the first thing Harold said to his wife when he returned to the driver's seat of his car.
"What did he say?" His wife, Amelia, placed her hand on his, calming him down significantly.
He recounted his conversation with the strange soldier to his wife, and then he asked her, "What do you think?"
"Perhaps psychosis. Maybe a sequela of PTSD. I wouldn't know until I conduct a thorough assessment..." Amelia spoke gently, observing the young man whistling to himself as he inspected his vehicle not far away.
"What do you think we should do? It didn't seem like he was lying, but, at the same time, he could be recounting hallucinations. I would think that myself if we weren't in our current situation..." Harold spoke with some hesitance in his tone, unclear on what to think.
"It's rather tricky. We might be safer with him, we might not... I don't think we'd be comfortable having him near our children either." Amelia spoke slowly and with great consideration.
'That's just the kind of woman she is' Harold smiled to himself and thought, falling in love again with his incredible life-long partner.
She had always had a magical calming effect on his mind and spirit.
Perhaps that was the temperament required of a good psychiatrist.
"So should we go our separate ways?" Harold spoke, but then thought of something and spoke again "Maybe we should travel together but keep our distance... We seem to be going in similar directions anyway..." Harold couldn't help but have his intuition as a detective flare up.
He suspected they would need the strange soldier on the upcoming trip.
'Call it a baseless hunch, but...'
He felt it would be wiser to travel with him.
---
Meanwhile, Klein had found a spare uniform, some water, a box with what seemed to be a roll of bandages, scissors, a bottle of some sort, and some strange things he hadn't seen before.
"Soldier, Sir?" A voice came from outside the vehicle, and Klein responded as the roll of bandages unfurled itself.
"Yeah, what is it?" He looked outside, then cast [Soul-link] before responding as he attempted to grab the fallen strip of stretchy cloth, unintentionally entangling them between his hands.
"Could we travel together? It's getting pretty late soon, so we should hurry to find a place to stay..."
Klein's ears perked up as he threw the bandages away from him and smiled with gratification. Being with aliens meant he would learn new things about them.
"Of course. Don't worry about it, let's go together. Oh, I'm Klein by the way"
"... Harold"
---
The two vehicles drove side by side as the sun began to set.
As the darkness deepened, Klein stared off into the distance on his left, towards what seemed to be a horse stable and a barn in the middle of a golden wheat field.
He then gazed deeply in front of him.
'Sight' He cast the spell silently.
His sight penetrated the incoming miles and sighed.
The concrete road stopped abruptly not too far away before it encountered a river passing perpendicularly across it.
Beyond the river stood a forest. Some of its varied trees seemed to have experienced winter, while some of them were in the full bloom of spring.
He thought for a while, then asked from across his window as he slowed down.
"Would you mind sleeping in a barn?"
He was met with silence, as the wind continued to blow, and the engines continued to growl.
"... Why?" Amelia asked, her window adjacent to the APC.
Needless to say, they were confused by the soldier's question.
"Hmm... you'll see in a moment," Klein said with a comforting smile. He wanted to appear reliable.
It did take a while for Harold and Amelia to see the same sight that Klein had, but when they did, their confusion deepened upon seeing that otherworldly view, and also vanished upon recalling Klein's inquiry.
Harold and Amelia looked at each other, finding comfort in their joined hands, and slowly nodded at Klein.
"Well, let's go then!" Klein led the two away from the oddly shaped river and towards the barn that he had seen earlier.
They parked their vehicles by the field, opting to walk the remainder.
Swish.
The wheat swayed, and two moons began to greet the night sky. One of them offered the blue glow of midnight, and the other gave crimson light.
The couple looked up as they walked, Harold carrying their drowsy daughter, Amelia carrying their drowsy son.
"Honey..."
"Yeah, we're seeing the same. You haven't gone insane, dear"
Klein walked, as he also glanced up in awe.
'Aliens...' he thought.
They gradually made it to the vicinity of the barn and made out some sounds from within.
Those sounds weren't neighs...