“Daddy, what are those lights in the sky?” said Daphne, a five-year-old.

“They’re probably just spotlights from the movie theater,” her father said distractedly. It was late and Daphne was always asking so many questions.

“But I’ve never seen lights like that before,” she thought aloud as four lights zipped through the sky.

Her father, Will Jackson, walked over to the large bay window where Daphne was sitting. “There must be a movie premier,” he said. He tried to brush away his thoughts that the lights looked an awful lot like all those UFOs he’d seen on X-Files. There were four lights in a square shape that were moving in together and back out to a square. They had a silvery tinge in the cloudy night.

“Go to bed now,” Will said, looking at his phone. He was trying to figure if there was, for some reason, a movie premier in University Park, Maryland. There was not, he soon realized, a movie premier. Then what could they be! he thought. Maybe they’re searchlights, he tried to reassure himself. But then he took a look at the weird pyramid shaped house at the end of the street. He’d never been inside and the people who lived there never seemed to come out of the house.

“Amets, we have a problem,” said a little green man up inside one of the UFOs.

“What is it Placide?” groaned a very annoyed middle-aged lieutenant.

“We can’t seem to find the landing strip. There are so many small green patches and all these ‘houses’ look exactly the same,” Placide’s brow was furrowed and the architectural decisions of human beings confused him greatly.

“Those ‘small green patches’ are called lawns and it’s the only pyramid shaped house in the whole state how can you not find it?” Amets yawned, she was tired of the aliens obscure ways. “At least I’m retiring next month,” she mumbled to herself. Amets was human, but when she was a young girl she had been abducted by aliens. They persuaded her to help them with their journeys to earth. She trained with the young aliens at the ASA, Alien Spaceship Academy. She moved her way up in rank over the years and was now a lieutenant.

“I told you before that I am 212 and my eyesight is not very good anymore,” barked Placide while Amets snapped back to reality. ”Sometimes you forget that I raised and you should be thankful. You would have never been a lieutenant if it weren’t for me,” Placide said sternly.

“Uggggghhhh. Leokadia Hildr beam them down,” Amets didn’t feel like listening to Placide’s lectures right now. “Sometimes you forget that you would have never raised me if you hadn’t taken me away when I younger,” she said sarcastically.

“Right on it sir!” came the squeaky little voice of Leokadia Hildr. She was still training at the academy and was a little too enthusiastic for the lieutenant.

“Wait till the sky is clear,” came the annoyed voice of Lieutenant Amets Van Ballegooijen.

Daphne dreamed about the lights in the sky that night. She dreamed that the lights were spaceships and there were aliens inside. She flew the spaceship with help from the aliens. Then the spaceship crashed on the top of the pyramid shaped house and giant snakes started slithering out of the house. Then she woke up and ran out of her room. She hurled herself down the stairs as fast as she could and went out to see if the lights were still there. The lights were headed to the pyramid house at the end of the block! She clambered back upstairs to her parents room to tell them about the lights. “Mom! Dad! The lights are going to the triangle house down the street!”

“Shhh! Daphne I can assure you they’re just spotlights,” her mom whispered.

“No, come look! Their going to the house!” Daphne said excitedly.

“Alright I’ll come see,” said her mother entirely sure that her daughter was just having strange dreams but she knew that Daphne would never go back to sleep unless she went down to look at these lights. “See I told y-,” she stopped mid-sentence for there really were lights in the sky heading straight for the pyramid house at the end of the street. “Maybe I should go see if everything’s okay at that house,” said her mom, Heather.

“Mommy I want to come too!” Daphne almost screamed. She was so excited to figure out what was going on. “I saw it first!” she thought to herself.

“No, no Daphne. Go back to sleep,” Daphne was already snoring on the couch by the time she finished her sentence.

“Where is the giant squid mucus Amets? I travel 8,000 light years to see the human I raised from when she was four years old and you don’t even buy me edible food,” said Amets’s alien stepmonster, Mahvash.

“They don’t sell that kind of food on earth Mahvash,” Amets said, exasperated.

“Where did I leave my things? I can’t seem to find anything these days with my terrible eyesight,” muttered Placide.

“Right here Placide. Geez, you guys have aged since I last saw you,” Amets said, amazed at how old her stepparents were getting.

Ding! Dong! “I’ll answer the door!” squealed Leokadia Hildr.

“No I got it,” groaned Amets. “Remember Leo, aliens never answer the door.”

“Yes sir!” Leokadia Hildr was constantly hyper.

“Hello? Can I help you?” said an irritated Lieutenant Van Ballegooijen. She was looking at a middle-aged woman with dyed blonde hair, hot pink nail polish, and a cheap spray tan.

“Hi! I’m Heather Jackson. I live right next door. I’m sorry to bother you so early in the morning but I saw some strange light headed toward your house. I was wonder-,” she stopped mid sentence when she saw a figure in the background that seemed to be green. It appeared to have a really pointed chin and large eyes, also pointy. Its head was much wider than its body. And then there was another one, but this one had on eyeshadow and curlers in its bright blue hair. And there seemed to be one more, this one much smaller with its green hair in two pigtails. “Pardon my asking but what are those green creatures?” said Heather, sounding quite confused.

“Oh! Well, um. You see…” Amets was at a loss of what to say. The aliens were supposed to stay out of sight!

“You are feeling sleepy, very sleepy. Abba gooji blavah. There you go Lieutenant! She’ll never remember this at all!” said Leokadia Hildr, very excited to be able to help.

Heather was completely unprepared to be hypnotized and so she immediately keeled over on the floor. She was in a sleep state while they fixed her memory. They played the memory on a screen and changed it to seem normal.

“Wow,” said a stunned Lieutenant Van Ballegooijen. “That was actually really helpful. I think you earned yourself a Brigadier position.”

“Really?! Thanks Lieutenant!” Leokadia Hildr was over the moon.

“You’re very welcome.” Amets even seemed to have a little grin on her face.

“Alright. Alright. Enough mushy gushiness. Let’s wake up this human now before anything starts to look too strange. Where is she though? I can’t see a thing!” Placide hated it when things got sappy.

Heather didn’t know what was happening. It seemed like she was still in the pyramid house and the green creatures were crowding around her. But her senses were off so she couldn’t tell what was really happening. Everything looked fuzzy and she felt like she was deaf.

And then she woke up. She was back in her own room and she didn’t know what had happened. She remembered walking to the pyramid house. Then she talked to a woman who said she hadn’t seen the lights and everything was fine. Then she had walked home. But something about that memory felt wrong. “Oh well,” thought Heather. “It was three in the morning.”

The Jacksons and the aliens never interacted again. The Jacksons lived their normal, cookie cutter lives and never thought twice about the people in the pyramid house again. The aliens went back home to their own planet and Leokadia Hildr became a Brigadier Lieutenant. Amets retired in Maryland and was very happy there. Placide finally agreed to get contact lenses and can see very well now. And Daphne grew up and became an astronaut. She no longer has to dream about flying spaceships.