Minutes later, as the last of the trumpet blast echoed across the valley, a shadow peeked its head above the surface of Tyson Lake. It stared out across the water, disoriented, unsure if it was swimming in a sea of stars. Long, spider-like fingers dragged across the surface, creating ripples in the water that disturbed the reflection of the stars and moon overhead. The shadow could breathe here through its skin and mouth-lining, but everything else felt wrong. It looked up into the heavens. The familiar planets and stars were gone, as was the gaseous purple nebula that served as a constant and comforting marker in the sky. The magnetic fields were all wrong, too. And it felt so light here, like floating.
The shadow easily leaped from the water, using only its legs to propel it, and landed silently on a small patch of land. So much lighter here, and warmer. Strange plants rustled in the night breeze. The shadow reached out with one of its four fingers and touched a leaf, leaving behind a trail of green light. Time to plant. It made a soft clicking sound in its throat as small black scales began to unfurl down the lengths of its arms, like a bird opening its feathers. Slowly, lights began to float out from underneath those scales like small phosphorescent dandelion seeds—little blue and green lights that caught the breeze and began to float lazily across the lake.
The shadow watched and listened as the lights skimmed across the water’s surface. Some lazily descended into the water, where their lights were extinguished. Other lights spun around each other, darting and bouncing off one another, like birds playing. A few made a direct line to the far shore, where they landed on the ground to form a straight line of light that pulsed in the distance. A signal to follow. The shadow leaped into the water and headed to the far shore, barely making a sound.