So you think it's strange: about being abducted by aliens…what kind of mockery did I propose?
No, it's not a strange pitch: the story is true as I can recall it from memory. Well, of course, except for the parts I'd change or skip through for literary flair. You can say hearing it from a secondhand perspective is incredible, yes, to the point you'd question why you're sitting down to hear a senseless story.
From how I've been narrating insofar, I've witnessed the event but proving the claim shouldn't be possible.
First, I look far too young to be born somewhere beneath 1918 so I couldn't have watched someone be taken by a mysterious light.
And if that was true, what kind of creepy fellow would stalk a child throughout the years?
So, I'm somewhat of a bullshitter that's about to shackle you in her nonsense.
And it's unfair because you can't possibly take me on a duel.
You're not off the mark, I'll give you that.
All I can say is that I know because Mister Miller knows, so how about being swept by the flow?
Now that I've imposed myself into your pleasant mind, I would do all in my power to teach you many things about the world. I don't know how it feels to be robbed of education. Feels like a downside, but do speak when I'm being vague or too detailed that you're lost in the clutter.
I've never gotten into parenting myself, so this must be what it feels like.
Seance Miller was abducted by aliens, no more and no less.
Yeah, I know, the spectacle's like catching a curveball.
Least you expected from a story that seemed focused on magic, there's something foreign meshed in the tracks that it's strange.
Somehow, it doesn't belong there from both the scopes of realism─and fiction.
Take a flashlight and point it to the ground: the exact picture burned into your mind, that's exactly how it happened. Release the darkness, though. It's unneeded─all due to the time being dead noon, there weren't any shades nor the watchful eye of people.
He was dragged from the ground up as though gravity threw a tantrum, and he fell the opposite direction.
Without him having the chance to escape nor call for help, his fate was sealed to an odyssey spanning to the next century unimaginable for us.
I could easily mistake the light as an escape to the forsaken world I live in. Space odysseys take about an adventure to the grand cosmos.
Uninhibited by the physical laws of Earth, the imaginable planets I could walk into could be in the likeness of Narnia.
On a side note, it must be exciting, knowing there's a selection of different worlds you could hop into─and feign no responsibilities due to them not being your home planet.
Given the chance I could have escaped Earth, I would take the opportunity without a second thought. I'd leave everyone behind, friends and foes alike. Our vociferous Scoundrel opposed the escapist ideology, for which I'd stayed bitter about his decree until now, and chose to return home.
Worse yet, he would assume responsibility for the biggest risk factor in his life─and that's taking care of us.
Our timeline, the winter of the 2028th Calendar Year, out of the snowstormed North American continent blemished in whiteness.
Six years after the Great Magic War, and the perfect sixth year for magic as a commonplace substance dormant to anything and everything. You have all the countries plunged into chaos while they figure out how to handle their respective supernatural powers─whence New York City alone breaks into its crime rate to further burn the ecosystem alive. Clueless of Earth's wartorn history, the man beyond the stratosphere calmly smiled unbothered by the frigid clouds.
"Seems cold down there…" he murmured out of his conflicted mind.
Oh, by beyond the stratosphere, I didn't mean he floated there: he was in a vessel.
You thought of floating islands, no, those precedes the timeline.
No chunk of land floated in the human side, at least on record, until the next fifteen years. If you want to be above the clouds during the time, the most common option were passenger planes. Balloons are also provided, whence the voyage should be a serene or extreme adventure, depending on the weather condition. Passenger planes, although capable of traversing the airspace, weren't able to park in the skies anytime they wanted. Same goes with the balloon, an unstable vessel in every occasion that you'd perpetually be moving unless air itself disappeared from reality.
Introducing the magnanimous spacecraft, Avenging Avalon─or otherwise, Scoundrels Headquarters.
Hmm, I definitely can't give you better imagery on the Avenging Avalon. It's a spaceship in the likeness of a plane: a vehicle designed to fly in the vast emptiness of the horizon and beyond. The design is different from what you know, although I'm sorry I don't know how I'm supposed to specifically describe it without tagging Star-Lord's Milano.
Granted, you don't know─and shouldn't from how entertainment fell into the darkness.
Nothing more to do but actively leave the subject for another course.
Mister Miller stayed cozy at the cockpit, picking his alien chip cookies while looking down the blue planet.
Snap, and crunch─!
"Should I wait a little longer?" he imposed, supposing there are better times to
Someone scoffed from the intercom and said, "You can, but you're on your own."
"I'd be on my own otherwise…" Miller mumbled, tinged by little dejection. "Don't tell me, you're boycotting the Neighborhood because you're worried about your damned old friend?"
Miller received a deadpanning composed of the rejecting letters, "No."
Aside from the Avenging Avalon, there was a second spacecraft above him. Namely the Lightning Laputa─piloted by the sentient bear Thundrum, his escort from the secret organization, Neighborhood. Secret means the exact definition, so I can't spare what I know because I don't know anything about them. Only that they're outlaws entangled in a war across the cosmos.
Also, please pay little attention to the names for now.
I changed them because I can't speak their alien equivalents─although that's not the case at all.
Seance Miller and his cynical companion chilled in the blueness of the firmament, blemished by the bordering blackness.
"Ya' glad to be back in your old world?" In lieu of his heartlessness, Thundrum broke for a question─one he hadn't asked during the jump all the way from the Neighborhood base in the Sirius star system. "I never would have thought you longed for your old, junky home."
Junky home, meaning Earth and its low level of civilization both observed and told within the intertwined cosmic civilizations.
They freshly entered the planet without being traced by any space stations in existence. Admittedly, they were both disappointed not being checked through the customs. They carefully descended to see imperial armaments launched, but none of the intergalactic weapons they were trained to treat with animosity troubled them into asserting dominance. Although that's all food for thought.
If anything of that happened, they'd only surrender and explain the situation.
If being trafficked would be Earth's immediate solution, they were more than capable of escape: they would inadvertently cripple the entire weapon system before returning back to Neighborhood.
For them, the blue planet looked its most primitive.
Peaceful, as one would say, but that's a mishandled utopian perspective. Miller and Thundrum knew the state of civilization veered into chaos. People are scattered by their myriad of national sovereigns, and wars are being fought among themselves which hinders them breaking out to space.
Even then, Miller found the state enticing for his preferred slow life.
He was only nodding his head because he didn't want any arguments with Thundrum before they part ways.
Miller perked at the notion: a return to his old home after a myriad in the cosmos? He was happy to no longer be shackled by responsibility. He despised his work as an outlaw after all, being bossed around all the time by their myriad of nameless Gods. He took hopping from planets to planets as exciting as he could for himself, but that doesn't constitute hating on selfish commands. Freshly from last week, for thirty-nine years as converted to our time, he has been brandishing his wand nonstop that his perception of time broke: the war could have gone as long as it liked, he wouldn't care.
Then, it ended, causing contemplation in his heart and mind.
Of course, he's not at all thrilled knowing that the people in his parents and siblings were already dead by a large probability.
But if he could finally live in his natural course of life, he's more than prepared to land.
"I would have told you, but you were always drunk for six and half centurions until now. Besides, the decision was partly impulsive that I couldn't have told anyone." He smiled in the offset, and imparted his joke of a desired sentiment, "You'd have all objected, and it would take me half a centurion to finally leave!"
"Bahaha!" Thundrum laughed heavily at Miller's sound accusation. "Six and a half fighting a war we weren't supposed to fight in the first place, Meerkat's rum kept my sanity for days. You could've drowned yourself than be stupidly sentimental in a trash heap named after dirt!"
Miller knew he couldn't banter back and only said, "You're saying that but you're sober and sane right now, Thundrum."
"An engineer must keep himself sober when on the field!" Thundrum proudly declared, all shame broken for Miller who didn't understand work ethics.
"I'd be completely honest with you." Miller mulled. "I forgot you were an engineer."
"Yeah!" Thundrum cheered loudly. "Get on with it so I can shut your ship down."
"So you can return to Meerkat, yeah, you've never been a good friend."
"Yeah, do tell why, because the reason I'm drinking my heart out is because you're leaving the party." Our lovable sentient bear faked a cry─blasting miniscule effort to honor Miller's insignificance. "Boo!" he yelled in sarcasm, further accentuating the devilish notion.
But please, don't worry, it's exactly because they're friends that they could talk in such derision. I mean, I would have done the same if someone declared they were leaving without consulting the club first. The corrupting atmosphere should be blown away while keeping the protest.
"Heck, even if you're lying, you shouldn't be hitting the conscience there, drumbeat." Unabashed, Miller dropped down his chair─and activated stealth mode. "Alright, I'll be on it and live a normal Human life."
Herein, there wouldn't be any rectifications done: Thundrum failed to sway Miller back to Neighborhood, and that was fine altogether. We don't know what Thundrum felt there, most obviously, but Miller strongly pressed on the thought his grizzled friend wished him peace and happiness.
Miller searched for a safe place without trace of Human inhabitants. Thundrum followed from behind, navigating through the sights without batting them an eyeful. From forests to settlements, from mountains to cities, they searched around until a brash decision to drop down a barren ghost neighborhood in Lower Manhattan.
He said there'd be no point if he chose to isolate himself in the forest.
From experience as well, it was more likely for people to find foreign ships docked in the forest rather than where it's most populous. Color your storyteller intrigued, but I suppose there was a grain of truth into it being that I was the first person to find Avenging Avalon.
With his ship landing down, the voyage was done with─and he's undeniably home.
Thundrum deactivated his ship shortly after.
"I won't be returning to fix the ship for you, are we clear?"
That, and our lovable supporting bear left without exploring the lands nor assuming the curious sightseer in search of his mindless cousins.
Their friendship definitely didn't call for a sentimental farewell, but that was fine in and of itself.
Mister Miller looked at the sun as he took a moment to appreciate his return, and swayed his eyes to the deactivated Avenging Avalon. Looking back to what he left behind versus the one he took, he knew the ratio was a pint to an immeasurability. Yet, he chose to be in the furthest corner of the cosmos than rumble at the pinnacle of existence.
What would life offer ahead of him, he wondered─and also wandered─into the brighter field of the spectrum.