Family from Beyond the Stars, Ch. 1 (Patreon)

Chapter One: The Unluckiest Man on Earth

CH. 1Unluckiest Man on EarthThe ring of the phone startled the sleeping man awake.  He fumbled blearily, groping for the frantically buzzing and clarion calling device on his nightstand.  His fingers bumped into his alarm clock, his lamp, knocked his thick-rimmed glasses off, and finally closed on the object of his desires.  The hand retracted back into the thick covers before he slid the green icon open."Hello?" came a nasally, exhausted voice."Kenny!" answered an equally tired-sounding but enthusiastic man.  "She's here!""Who's here?" he asked, yawning."Emily, man!"His eyes furrowed in confusion, trying to remember anyone that he knew of by that name.  The list of women he knew by a first name basis was very small.  "Sorry, man, I don't know anyone named Emily."He heard the voice on the other end laughing.  "Bro, you wouldn't know her, she just arrived!  I'm a dad now!"He sat up immediately despite how groggy he still felt.  "What?" he croaked.  "No kidding?""Yeah, man!" crowed Austin.  "I'm sending you pictures now!"The phone buzzed and he put the call on speakerphone as a media attachment opened.  His eyes, blurry even at this distance, saw a chubby, pink-faced newborn, wrapped in swaddling cloth, resting on a padded table.  She looked furious at her emergence into a cold, unforgiving, and unfriendly world.  A nametag on the side of the table read "Emily Sheila Walton-Biggs.""Isn't she beautiful, man?" the phone asked, sounding tearful.Blinking his drowsiness away, he stared at the tiny bundle of joy still glaring at him from the screen.  Yet another face wholly unhappy to see him.  Despite this, he beamed.  "Of course she is," he replied earnestly.  "Wow...she's amazing...She looks like she has your eyes.""Thanks, dude!" Austin chuckled.  "You wanna come by and see her?"He checked the time.  "I can't..." he sighed.  "I have to work in two hours at Cadence Park.""At 2 o'clock at night?" Austin asked, sounding bewildered.  "Who did you piss off?""Nobody, it's just my job."  He grumbled but threw his covers off.  "Public parks don't clean themselves, you know.""I guess," Austin sighed heavily then.  "I can't believe it, man...I'm a dad.  These last nine months barely even seem real.  Aubrey was so brave...""Who's that on the phone?" called a woman's voice dimly."Kenny!" the other voice said proudly, sounding distant now.  "I was just telling him the good news.  Oh, hey, Ken!" Austin's voice returned to normal volume.  "You wanna Face-Time with her?""I'm...not exactly dressed," he retorted awkwardly, then sighed.  "Let me put on a shirt, okay?"  Austin agreed and he procured his least stained t-shirt, pulling it on over his greasy-feeling hair.  What he wouldn't give for a shower.  Hopefully, the landlord would send a plumber soon.  It had been a week now since the water stopped working, and he had been forced to get by with applications of his dwindling, dollar-store deodorant and hoping for rain, even if it made working in it miserable.  "Okay, I'm good," he replied, reaching down and putting on his coke-bottle lens glasses.The phone's screen went dark with a buffering symbol and his camera clicked on.  His own pasty, pale, stubbly, and unattractive face leaped into view as the video feed loaded.  It was pinched, slightly off-color from what his ethnicity's skin tone should have been, high-lighting his bloodshot brown eyes and stark cheekbones.  His short, untamed hair remained in the standard curly mess that it always stayed in for the most part.  God, how he hated how he looked.The screen lit up.  A tall, strong-framed, and attractive man's features came into focus.  He had bags under his blue eyes, although it didn't take away from his Caucasian handsomeness.  Austin always looked good, even after having a baby apparently.  Austin beamed at him, then winced.  "Dude, you look terrible," he joked."No, terrible just looks like me," he jested back in his usual manner.Austin laughed.  It was a healthy laugh.  The camera panned over to an absolutely beautiful woman in a hospital gown, resplendent as the day that Austin had mustered up the nerve to ask her out in junior high.  She was drained and wore no makeup.  Aubrey had never needed it.  He adored her; she had always been nice to him, even when so many of her friends hated when he was around.  Everyone hated it when he was around.  In her arms was the same wrapped baby.  It squealed when his goblin face came into view."Hello, precious!" he cooed immediately.  "Oh, you are the most beautiful, most gorgeous, sweetest little thing I've ever seen!"  Immediately, he started to get choked up with tears.Austin's huge fingers reached into view and lifted a teeny-tiny hand, waving it.  Emily just hiccupped and cried.  "Thank you vewy much!" Austin said, using his most high-pitched girly voice possible.  "My name is Emiwy!  It's nice to meet you, Uncle Kenny!""Oh no, don't make her sound like that," chastised Aubrey."Yeah!" Kenny joined in, grinning wider.  He immediately stopped when he remembered that he hadn't been able to brush his teeth much since the water went out.  "I bet she's gonna sound just like her mommy when she gets older.  Nothing like her big ol' dad."Austin leaned the phone back slightly and then joined the frame as well.  "Aww, aren't you nice!" he teased.  "We wish you could be here, dude!"He smiled back, but then a pang of bitterness couldn't help but poke its head up.  "I do too...I just uhh...I don't remember you saying anything about being pregnant."  He felt so guilty having to bring it up.Austin and Aubrey's faces froze.  They looked at one another, then the phone, and then back at each other again.  Austin leaned back up, taking the phone with him.  "What?" he asked, trying to sound like he was laughing it off.  "Nah, bro, I totally remember telling you!""Honey?" asked Aubrey, sounding upset.  "I don't think we did...""What?  Yeah, we did, I told him like six months ago!  At the bar!"He hung his head.  "You sure that wasn't Derrick?" he asked, rubbing at his gritty face.Austin's eyes went wide and his grin slowly slid off.  "Oh...oh crap.  Kenny, dude, I am so sorry!"He immediately lifted his hands, beaming again.  "No, no, no!" he said hurriedly, voice excited and happy again.  "You two were probably super busy!  What with your job, Aubrey having hers, and that thing with your mom?  Oh and your Uncle's merger going through, and your Dad's team winning the Super Bowl?"  He kept smiling through it all.  "Oh Aubrey," the camera panned to the new mother, who still looked upset.  "Did that package ever show up?"Aubrey smiled, although it looked very pained.  "Y-yes it did, thank you, Kenny," she muttered, then looked down at her newly born little girl.  The camera moved back to Austin, who looked equally abashed.He just smiled more at his best friend.  "I am so happy for you guys.  I wish I had known, so I could have gotten Emily something!"  He looked around.  His apartment was tiny, messy but not through lack of cleaning.  Appliances didn't work, some wall sockets caused shortages, and he had two weeks of laundry to get caught up on.  He wouldn't have had the extra money anyway.  He lived on cheap food and bottled water."We wouldn't have asked that of you..." Austin said, still sounding guilty.  "Did...your car ever get fixed?"He rolled his eyes, waving the question away.  "I like walking anyway.  Work isn't that far away.  That guy was probably just in a big hurry.""Running into your car from the front-end on a one-way street doesn't sound like just being in a hurry," grumbled Austin.  "You sure you don't need any help?""No way!" he laughed.  "You just had a baby!  You need to be spoiling her every chance that you get.  And I promise, Uncle Kenny the Garbage Man will make sure he takes a REALLY long shower before I come over.  I couldn't bear it if I smelled bad or got Aubrey's house dirty.""Okay man..." sighed Austin.  A sound from behind them came and Austin turned to look at the door to the hospital room."Look who's here?!" bellowed another voice.  "Uncle Derrick with presents for the baby!"Austin half-smiled before he glanced down at the phone.  "I'll let you go, man," he said, but then started as there was a disturbance.  Another face jerked into view, having grabbed the phone away from the new father.Derrick's round, bearded and curly-haired face was barely a few inches from the screen.  Kenny was to John Leguizamo or Kevin Sussman what Derrick was to Seth Rogan or Danny McBride.  "What's up, loser?!" guffawed Derrick.  "Austin just had a baby, where you at?!"  His voice was, as always, way louder than it needed to be."I'm at home?" he stated as if this was obvious.  "I have work in a few hours."Derrick clapped a big hand to his forehead where his hair was starting to recede.  "Right!  You didn't even know!  Ah man, bummer!  Oh well.  Later, dude!"  He heard Austin object right before the phone call ended and he stared at the dark screen.Kenny Sissom sighed and he plopped the phone down on his headboard.  He rubbed at his face beneath his thick glasses.  He needed a shave.  He needed coffee.  He looked around his shitty apartment.  He needed a lot of things.Standing up, he trudged over to his sink and tested the faucet.  It was still only a trickle before it cut off completely.  He sighed and turned it back off.  Might as well get ready.  He pulled on his coverall pants, dark blue, as well as the coat to go over his shirt.  He attached the neon-green safety vest, tucked his gloves into his pocket, secured his glasses with the safety cord so they couldn't fall off his face, and checked the time in his cracked wristwatch.  An hour or so to go.He opened his fridge and pulled out a couple of pieces of bread.  He munched on them dully, sticking one in his mouth and the other on his shoulder as he shoved his large, flat feet into his work boots.  He plucked up his keys, checked his mail, and grimaced at the overdue bills laying on his counter.  Yet another beautiful day in his humdrum life.He locked the door behind him, tucked his keys into his breast pocket, and started the long, nighttime walk to his workplace.  It was probably for the best that he had woken up when he did.  There wasn't any way he could be late, even if it took half an hour to walk to the office.***Forty-five minutes later***Kenny gasped and sagged against the door to the Sanitation Department building where he worked.  Things couldn't have gone worse.  He had nearly been run over by a cyclist, cussed at by Mrs. Grosserberg as she ranted from her third-story building since he looked like a vagrant (she actually used three less swear words today), and there had been construction on his main road two blocks back.  He opened the door and sighed.Wasserman was on duty tonight as the Shift Manager."You're late," grunted the portly and bald-headed man, his impressive gut shoved into a button-up shirt and slacks as he reclined at his desk, polished shoes propped up on the desk, and munching on a donut.  It had pink glaze on it with sprinkles.Kenny's stomach was too tired to even rumble in hunger.  "A-actually sir," he started to say.  "I'm still early, I just had some back luck~""Fifteen minutes early is on time," Wasserman snapped.  "Five minutes is late."  He jerked his thumb over his shoulder.  Some sprinkles fell to the tiled floor.  "Get your clipboard and walkie, then get out of here."  He glowered as the slight, hunched-over frame of Kenny slouched past him to the appropriate wall to clock in, grab his board, and then his gear.  "If you're late again tomorrow, I'll have management made aware that you're slacking off.""Yes sir," Kenny replied."I wonder if they can pay less than the nothing they're already giving you?" he teased.  He laughed then, a thick, raspy laugh that came from drinking beer on the job and smoking.  Kenny wished he still had money for cigarettes.  No better way to quit than being too poor.  He glared at him until Kenny begrudgingly joined in the laugh at his own expense.  "All right, get going."  He returned to munching on his donut and reading comics on his computer."Yes sir," Kenny responded again mechanically.  He grabbed a hardhat and work gloves from his bin and then left the building.  He slipped the white protective helmet over his curly hair, squashing it down around his face, tucked the gloves into his pocket, and began the long walk towards Cadence Park.***A while later***Kenny sighed as he inspected the latest recycling can.  Cigarette butts, beer bottles, newspaper, plastics.  He inserted the key into the door and opened it, pulling the entire can out and rummaging through.  He pulled the half-full garbage bag he had beside him nearer, pulling out various smelly or misplaced things and plopping them into the plastic bag before he shoved the can back in, relocked it, and hoisted the bag up onto his shoulder.  He had to go drop this off in the actual dumpster outside the park walls.  This was probably his third one so far.The only living soul at Cadence Park, Kenny made for a dejected sight to any who happened to be possibly passing by.  Not that there were any.  He lifted the dumpster lid and threw the bag inside.  A sound from his side made him glance behind the dumpster.  A raggedy man was curled up against the brick wall, huddling there for warmth or hiding from view.  His heart sank.  His least favorite part of the job."Uhh, hey sir?" he asked nervously.  He tapped on the dumpster.  "Sir?""Fuck off..." the man growled.  "Sleeping.""Yeah, except...this is city property?  I can't let you sleep here."  Kenny swallowed.  He recognized him.  "Alfred, you can't keep crashing here.  You'll get arrested."Dark, angry eyes glared up at him from beneath bushy brows and a thick, threadbare hood.  "I ain't here, and I ain't moving," he stated firmly.  "Only get arrested if some weasel rats on me.""Sir..." Kenny sighed.  "Look, there's a Homeless Shelter three blocks down the road.  They have food.""Not hungry.""Bathrooms?""Corner's good as any.""Beds?"The man grumbled.  "You ain't gonna leave me alone are you?"Kenny sighed again.  "No, sir, I can't.  It's my job.""Taking out the trash," the man snickered.  "Human trash.  Garbage man.  Middle of the night, how shitty is your life?"  There was a pause and then he began shuffling up and moving out from behind the can.  He smelled like garbage and booze."Pretty shitty sir," he replied.  He pointed down the street.  "Shelter's that way."The man's hand immediately held out.  "Spot me a twenty," he demanded.He put his hands out wide.  "I don't carry that much cash, Sir.""Spot me a ten," the man stated instead.  "You're the big man with a job."Rolling his eyes, Kenny reached into his back pocket.  He knew it wasn't a good idea, as he pulled out his ratty brown wallet, but he counted out a few bills and handed them over.The homeless man reached instead for his wallet.  "Thanks, I'll take it."Kenny shook his head.  "No.""Fuck you," Alfred growled and lunged for it.  Up close, he was a very big man, although admittedly Kenny was rather small and scrawny.  Bad diet would do that to you.  The huge hand closed on the wallet.  Kenny didn't let go.  They shuffled and grunted together before the man lashed out with a fist.Kenny ducked, and the man's hand instead hit his hardhat.  "Sir!" he squawked.  "Please, just take the money I have and go!"  He shook the other hand holding the bills wildly in front of himself.  Even through the helmet, his head was ringing, but he wasn’t going to let go of his wallet.  Something much more precious than his meager cash wasThe homeless man snarled, ringing out his hand.  A familiar whee-woop sounded suddenly, along with a flash of red and blue lights, and the man looked over his shoulder.  He bolted, snatching the bills from Kenny's fist and legging it down the street.Kenny sighed in relief.  He clutched his wallet to him.  There wasn't even any money left in it.  No credit cards.  Just a picture.  An old picture."You all right?" asked a dispassionate voice from nearby.  Kenny looked up to see a burly Police Officer standing just outside his open vehicle door."Y-yes I am, thank you, Officer!" Kenny called back in delight.  "Thank you very much!""He mug you?"Kenny shook his head.  It had stopped ringing.  "No, Officer."The man arched an eyebrow.  "You sure?  Might have been a trick of the light, but I thought I saw him swing at you."Kenny lied again.  "No, Officer, he just kind of stumbled.  Probably had a bad night, you know?""You know where he went?"  The man had one hand inside his vest pocket, clutching his notepad as if ready to pull it out.He shook his head.  "No, Sir," he replied.  "Never seen him before in my life.""All right," shrugged the Policeman and he climbed back into his car.  He waved.  "Have a good night."Kenny waved at him as he slowly drove away.  "Thanks, Officer!" he called.  "You too!"  He watched the cruiser rumble away down the street and he lowered his hand.  Thank god for that.  He sighed.  Maybe next time he should just let Alfred be.  It wasn't his business to help a guy like that.  He glanced at the dumpster, barely far enough away from the wall for anyone to squeeze into.  He could easily move it back to where it was supposed to be, deter any other would-be squatters desperate enough to hide behind a dumpster for sleep.  He just turned and went back inside the park.As he kept making his rounds, checking trash cans, cleaning up spills, and collecting litter, he pondered how his life had come to this.  He sagged down onto a polished, black metal bench and listened to the sounds of city life whisper in the background.  The only 'lunch' he had brought with him was a simple protein bar.  For some reason, he didn't have any appetite.  Even as crappy as his life was, it just felt nice to be outside at night.  He looked up at the stars.So distant, cold, twinkling.  They had always seemed so beautiful to him.  He saw the swirls of galaxies and constellations he barely remembered the names of.  He traced designs in the interconnecting dots of light up above.  He named planets he knew of.  He'd always wanted to be an astronaut.  His father had told him to aim for something more down-to-earth.  What more down-to-earth could there be than a sanitation worker?He thought of where his life could have been at this point.  What if Phoebe hadn't gotten sick?  What if he too had a family?  He pulled out his phone and opened the picture of Emily again.  He stared at the little bundle of cherubic life on the screen.  Somewhere deep inside him, a ripple grew as a bitter pebble dropped into the lake of loneliness that welled up inside of him.With his other hand, he pulled out his wallet, opening it up to the picture inside.  The faded, slightly dog-eared photograph stared back at him.  A pretty, very tall, skinny girl with red hair and blue eyes smiled at him from a tree branch.  She wore a red, polka-dotted shirt and blue jeans.  She was so beautiful.  She still had all her hair.  His vision blurred.  His cheeks felt wet.  Was it raining?He looked up but there were no clouds.  His cheeks were sodden and damp.  A drop fell onto his phone's screen and he wiped it away.  He bit his trembling bottom lip and looked at the little girl, the pretty woman in his wallet.  He tried to keep it together.  He had been trying so hard, for so long.  He broke.Kenny cried, sniffling, sputtering, coughing there on the park bench.  He wiped at his running nose with his sleeve, rubbing at his leaking eyes with a dirty hand.  His nails were dark from built-up grime."Please, god," he muttered abruptly.  He looked back up at the sky.  "You made...all of this possible."  He gestured at the city and park around him.  "You made the whole universe."  He looked right at the swirling nebulas so far above him.  "I just want a family of my own..." he whimpered, half-blubbering.  "Please.  I'm so alone...I'm the unluckiest man on earth.  Can't...can't just one thing go right for me?"No-one answered.  The stars twinkled.  The sounds of car horns, sirens, and other various city life blazed in the distance.  A tree rustled in the wind.  Nobody answered.  He thought about getting angry.  He thought about screaming, about ending it all.  The building across from the park was very tall.  He pondered it, having cleaned up around it a time or two.  The doors would be locked, but he knew the back door wouldn’t be…He look up at the distant rooftop, barely visible from here.  A single step off, and that would be it.  There wouldn’t be many who would mourn Kenneth Sissom, just another loser down on his luck.  Wouldn’t it be a relief to finally not have to worry about everything anymore?  No more crappy job, no more people looking down on him, neglecting him as something else than another human being.  It was horribly and terribly selfish, but when was the last time he had ever been that?  It was always worrying about others, their feelings, trying to take care of them even if he had no idea how or the ability to do so.Then, as it ever did whenever he considered something done just for him, another thought wormed its way into his head even as he grimly weighed the pros and cons of such a dark decision.  How terrible would he feel for the people who had to clean him up after?  Wasn’t Hodgins, the new guy, supposed to be starting soon in this area?  How crummy would it be for him to have to attend to a jumper on his first week, a coworker no less?  The kid was already bummed for having to be so far away from his loved ones two states over.  Would Kenny doing the unthinkable only drive him more down, convincing him of his hopeless prospects?Maybe it would convince him to leave the shit position immediately, he tried to argue, then sighed.  No.  With Kenny’s luck, even if he did it to try and spare Hodgins the same fate he had been enduring for so long, it would only depress the young man enough to potentially do the same.  Kenny couldn’t handle that kind of weight on his conscience, even dead.  Or maybe that was just something he told himself because he was too much of a coward to actually go through with it.  Did it truly matter?  Nothing about him mattered, to anyone.He wished he could just vanish.  Be gone.  That way he would trouble no one and his passing would go on as unremarkably as his entire life had been.Instead, he just checked the time, stowed his possessions, and got up.  Almost time to go.  One last lap around the park and he could go home for a few hours before his next shift started.  The Homeless Shelter always was at least happy to see him.  Volunteers were scarce and it was his way of giving back to the city.  He liked it.  Maybe he could see Alfred there, apologize.  He smiled, but he couldn't shake the splinter of cold sadness wedged inside of his heart.As he turned to go, he didn't see one star twinkle brighter than the others around it.  He didn't notice, as he was locking up all the garbage cans one last time, as it got steadily brighter and brighter.  He was walking to the entrance of the park when it grew as bright as a helicopter light.  He blinked at the sudden illumination right behind his feet, casting a huge shadow out in front of him across the side of the park wall.  He turned.A screaming fireball crashed from the sky and impacted the middle of the park.  The resulting explosion nearly deafened him.  Windows shattered, car alarms blazed, and he was thrown off his feet.  His ears were ringing.  He blearily lifted his head.  Smoke rose in a heavy column from the center of the park, rising up to the heavens like a tower of dark, insubstantial tendrils.  He coughed, dusting himself off from the dirt that had sprayed out all over the area.  He saw sputtering flames at the impact site.He should have run.  He should have just gotten up and left.  He should have taken the few spare coins he had left and run to a payphone to call the cops, let them know that something had just fallen out of the sky.  He should have done a lot of things.A wise man would not have warily approached the crater smashed into the park center, past stripped and blackened trees and warped metal benches and trashcans.  A wise man would not have, upon seeing the fifteen-foot sloping hole, blasted into the earth, have slid down the slightly glassy sides towards the strange, dark pod lodged in the ground.  A wise man most certainly would not have, upon seeing the crumpled panels of what resembled the doors to a bus, pried his grimy, gangly fingers into the gap and pried them open.Kenny coughed as another burst of smoke trailed up past him.  The interior of the weird pod fizzled and sparked.  He peered, wiping at his glasses to try and see anything through the fog.  Weird, sloping edges and curves of foreign architecture greeted his immediate view.  He saw flashing green and red lights, heard a droning buzz, felt the latent hum of some kind of energy slowly fading.  Something moved inside the pod as he clicked on his small, name tag-labeled company flashlight, turning the beam onto the source.Three shapes stirred at the far back, knocked from holsters.  They were big, almost as big as one of the trashcans from earlier, shaped roughly like...eggs?  Kenny's stomach tightened immediately.  He'd seen enough sci-fi films, those were definitely eggs.  He peered at them.  The tops quivered.  As the light passed over the shapes, he saw the blurry images of something moving inside of the eggs.  Everything within him screamed to run.  He did not need a face-hugger from Aliens to latch onto him and turn him into patient zero of a Xenomorph Armageddon.  People like him were always the first ones to die, the ones who couldn't just cut and run before things got to their worst.The eggs quivered more.  The tops slid open, like compartment doors, connected by strands of a weird viscous slime, as fluid as a machine.  He felt paralyzed, unable to move.  More flashing lights, slowly scaling down the panels until they disappeared, before glowing more brightly than ever but from within the eggs themselves.  Before his very eyes, the weird shapes in the still billowing fog stirred.  As one, three pairs of glowing eyes opened wide.  They were staring straight up at him.His legs gave out and he collapsed back from the alien pod in alarm and fear.  He tried to scream, but his vocal cords wouldn't work.  A pair of clawed hands rose above the edge of the crumpled doors.  Another pair, and another.  Three dark shapes looked down at him, laying stunned and terrified on the floor of the crater.  High-pitched chittering filled the air.  He scrambled, trying to get his fear under control, to get his feet to just move.  The trio of creatures climbed slowly up from the pod.  They moved like nothing he had ever seen, and his flashlight had fallen out of his reach.Flashing lights traveled up and down their bodies, highlighting where they were but not what they looked like.  He knew they had six limbs, what looked like two sets of arms, and a single pair of legs on a vaguely humanoid frame.  Even as he thought this, however, he saw that one, largest of the trio, physically wriggled and two slender tentacles suddenly extruded from the sloped back, waving around before fixing upon him.  They all chittered and growled.  One of them reached for him, emitting a sinister hissing sound of air from a series of green lights along what could only be a throat.  He saw flashing claws, heard the chittering sounds growing louder as it loomed right above him.Sanity seemed to snap back into usefulness once more, motor function, speech, and instinct returning all at once.  He screamed like a little girl with absolutely no shame for the volume or shrillness.  The thing screamed right back, equally startled.  All three mirrored the sound.  He crawled backward like a crab away from them as they seemed to cower before him.  He climbed up and out of the crater without missing a single beat, flopping down onto his ass and scrambling up onto his feet.  He was ready to run, eager to leave this crater, those aliens, those nightmare demons, far behind.  He neither wanted to be alien chow nor a government experiment for being the first contact.He was one step away from breaking into a full-body sprint born of terror when a new sound came to him.  It wasn't the growls or chittering, not a rasping snarl, or anything he had been expecting.  It was soft, and low, and sad.  They were whimpering.  He turned slowly around.  He licked his dry lips, his whole body shuddering.'Don't do it, Kenny', his brain tried to tell him furiously.  'Don't let them lure you in.  Maybe they like to impersonate wounded or scared creatures to lure in stupid prey like you!  Just run!'The whimpering continued, pitiful, terrified, and desperate.  He almost thought he heard sobbing.  As if the weird, alien creatures felt...abandoned.  His hands trembled as badly as they ever had, and for once not caused by his numerous health problems from malnutrition or his many idiosyncrasies.  He peered, warily, over the side of the pit.The three things were huddled together in a ball.  The one with tentacles was hugging its supposed siblings, holding them tightly against it while all three whined and cried pitifully.  They sniffled and chirruped.  His heart melted slowly.  No sadistic, calculating, or predatory creature could make sounds like that.  They sounded...like children.  Frightened, scared, lonely children.  Tears brimmed at his eyes and he sniffled.  Never before had he felt so much in common with things so very different than him.Their eyes as one swept up towards him at the sound he uttered.  They cowered down even further.  They were scared.  Scared he would hurt them.  Scared, like him."H-hey..." he said, voice soft and gentle.  They flinched again.  He set one foot on the rim of the crater, hands up.  "Hey...I'm sorry...I'm sorry for scaring you."  He inched further down the sides of the hole.  They retreated from him as far as they could, huddling against the pod.  He paused.He could see them shivering from here, even in the dark.  Their flashing lights were more rapid and frantic now, reds and oranges flickering in odd patterns along their spines.  All three of them had tails, long waving ones, but only the larger of the trio, who looked somehow more female than the others, had the tentacles.  Their heads, from what he could see were vaguely...feline, but not.  There was no way to describe them, as their features roughly ranged from leonine, to tiger, to cheetah.  Other than that, there was no doubt in his mind.  They were children.  Cubs?He smiled.  They recoiled more as his teeth showed and he quickly hid them.  They relaxed a little."I'm not gonna hurt you," he said hurriedly, keeping his hands open and visible.  "I'm really sorry for yelling.  You're scared, and I was too."  The bigger one, with tentacles, lifted its head and chirruped at him inquisitively.  He smiled more, without teeth.  "Yeah.  I'm not anymore though."  They all faced him now.  He inspected them from the distance he was maintaining.  "Are any of you hurt?"  They did not answer.He pondered what to do.  He swallowed, unsure.  They weren't trying to retreat from him more, but they certainly weren't trying to get closer."Are..." he tried again.  "Are you cold?" he rubbed his own arms, deliberately shivering.  All three shivered back.  He looked around but he had nothing to cover them up with.  "Are you hungry?" he asked, eyes brightening.  He reached into his pocket, pulling out the protein bar.  He showed it to them.  "Hungry?"  He made chewing motions at the plastic wrapper.The trio all growled softly.  They uncurled very cautiously from their ball.  The biggest of them advanced a few steps.  Its gait was almost like a monkey, leaning on its lower arms like an ape but keeping the other pair lifted.  The tentacles retracted back into its shoulder plates.  It sniffed at him.For some reason, he felt like it looked sort of like a female, but he wasn't sure why.  Maybe it was the eyes.  They were vivid and white, shaped like a cat's, but with dark, swirling galaxies for pupils.  Multiple bright spots swiveled and converged on him, forming brand new fascinating constellations.  She opened her jaws but no sound came out, although he did notice multiple rows of sharp teeth barely visible.  To his shock, a pair of vents opened at the throat, hissing softly before they closed.  They emitted the same green light as before.Kenny held out the protein bar.  At first, the little girl alien flinched back, but then advanced again more boldly.  A tentacle extended again and a series of claws revealed themselves at the tip.  Quick as lightning, the tentacle snagged the bar from his fingers and she retreated back to her 'brothers'.  They all crowded around the meager meal, splitting it equally and sharing it, wrapper and all.  He heard them chewing, making what he thought sounded like pleased noises.Another sound came to him then.  He looked up over the edge of the pit.  Sirens.  His eyes went wide.  Police.  The Police were coming.  He smiled.  "Oh good, the cops are coming," he murmured.  "They'll take you somewhere..."  He blinked.  What was he saying?  The Police weren't going to help these things.  They'd shoot them!  Or worse, they'd capture them and take them in for government testing!  They'd dissect the poor things.He whimpered softly, looking back at the trio of children.  He licked his lips again.  What was he supposed to do?  Abandon them?  He'd be arrested too if he was seen with them?  Wasn't his life shitty enough?  He saw them looking up at him again.  They all advanced now, but he didn't feel any fear.  They warily closed with him and he realized that they were all roughly the same size as a large feline, like a lynx or bobcat, maybe a medium sized dog, even with their bodies hunched over.  He suspected that if they stood on their hind legs like bipeds, they'd be much taller.  They circled him like dogs, sniffing and nudging at him.His hand lifted without thinking and the female immediately sniffed at his fingers.  A spark seemed to leap between the two of them, making his whole hand tingle for a second as if shocked by static electricity.  Those galaxial eyes went wide, stars swirling rapidly, and suddenly the girl cub was thrusting her head against his hand.  He started.  She was incredibly strong, pushing hard against him.  Her skull was covered in a series of rigid, plated scales, as well as incredibly smooth skin with just the barest brush of short, soft, and silken fur.  He hesitantly stroked it and a new sound came from her.  It sounded like...purring.  Her eyes drifted closed and she shoved her whole body against him.  She whimpered.The boys quickly sniffed more at him and he repeated the gesture.  Another pair of sparks.  Their eyes converged on him and suddenly they piled into him as their sister had.  Their purring droned in his ears, through his whole body like three Mustang engines rumbling at full tilt.  His arms lifted and without thinking, he wrapped them up in his embrace as naturally as if he were embracing newly found pets.  No.  Not pets.  Children.  Children who needed him.  Scared, lonely children.The sirens were getting louder.  He glanced behind him, seeing the lights were growing steadily closer.  His eyes grew flinty and sure.  He looked back down at the trio of cubs, rumbling against him happily.  "Listen kids," he told them, and all three looked up into his eyes.  "I need to take you somewhere safe.  We need to go.  Do you understand me?"  They cocked their heads to the side.  He sighed.  "Follow?" he asked, gesturing with his hands.  He struggled to his feet and at first they mewled and whined, worried he was leaving.  He took several steps and then turned back around, waving his hands at them.  "Follow!" he commanded, hoping they understood.They looked at him, to one another.  One looked back at the pod.  Their feline, fur-and-scale-covered faces growled and tittered, worried, nervous, and scared.  The girl bumped both of her smaller brothers with her head, purring.  They turned to face him as one.  She took a step after him.  Their faces held nothing but trust.  Trust in him.He smiled.  "Follow Daddy, okay?" he asked.  They seemed to nod, their bodies humming.  Their lights had changed to greens and blues, almost like happier colors, less frantic and more relaxed.  They understood.  He turned and began walking away from the park, hurriedly.  Behind him, he heard their paws lightly padding along the street.  He didn't care about calling into work to say that he was leaving.  He needed to get them somewhere safe.His only wish was that he had somewhere else to take them than his apartment.  But, any port will serve when a storm comes calling to your harbor.  He hoped he had the expression right.  He wasn't going to let anything bad happen to these kids.  His kids.  He looked up at the sky as he unlocked his apartment door and ushered all three children inside.A family."You have a weird sense of humor, God," he told the starry night.  "Thank you...I promise I'll protect them.  No one is going to take them away."  Lightning flashed in the sky far away.  It was like someone, something, acknowledged his promise.  He turned, shutting the door, and locking it behind him.***Somewhere, in the deep darkness of space***The warship hummed as it blazed through the slip in space-time. Stars and galaxies flashed by in a blur, swirling their myriad of colors all around the sword-like prow of that dark and menacing craft. The pilot narrowed its eyes as it gripped the controllers, as if through sheer will itself might make the vessel go faster. The tracking device beeped steadily upon its display screen. A soft ping predicated the reveal of their destination: a pitiful, green-and-blue planet. That was where the signal was coming from. The engines roared as more power was cycled into them, and the ship sped on faster. Soon...