Your best friend!

As the footsteps grow closer, you can hear the accompanying snorts and snuffles that you've grown used to. A moment later, your mother's 13 year old pug, Cinna, comes waddling around the corner and looks up to you expectantly. His greeting used to be accompanied by a gruff bark, but lately the old dog had gotten quieter. You suspect that part of it is old age and part of it is due to the loss of his owner.

Around the same time that you had broken up with Trina, your parents had gotten into a car accident. Caused by bad weather, the accident had taken both of your parents. You inherited their house by the lake, complete with small hobby farm, and now you live alone in the large empty farmhouse with one elderly (and gassy) pug as your sole company.

"All right, Cinna. I'm up. Breakfast is on it's way." After pulling on a pair of baggy shorts and a t-shirt, you make your to the kitchen and fill the dog bowl before making yourself some coffee and toast with jam. As Cinna has his face buried in his bowl, you walk out to the rear porch and look out at the back yard, enjoying the warm morning weather.

Your parents had left you the farmhouse you had grown up in, two stories tall and with far too much room for just yourself. In the backyard, there is a long expanse of green lawn with a few trees randomly planted around the area. The East and West edges of the property border acres of dense forest. To the east edge of the lawn, there is a small red barn and a few fenced in pens for the chickens. Your mother had loved animals and had passed the tradition onto you, but you weren't sure what you would do when the pets she had bought passed away. Still, it was nice having fresh eggs in constant supply. Beside the barn is a small vegetable garden and supply shed for tools. At the end of the lawn, the property meets up with the shore of Lake Wannabang and your parents had installed a small dock for diving or tying the canoe to. Your closest neighbors are a retired couple living about a mile down the road, and across the lake, over the dense trees on the distant opposite shoreline, you can see the antenna towers of the small military base housed there.

The remote location and well stocked cupboard meant that it has been a week since you'd last seen another person in the flesh and you actually preferred it that way right now. Since the break up with Trina and your parents' accident, you have been quite isolated, keeping up with your work as a graphic artist in the small studio you'd set up in a spare bedroom, and only visiting town when you needed groceries or supplies for the animals.

Looking out across the lake again, you gaze at the antennas of the military base again, remembering the odd incident last week.

*********************************************

It was late last Tuesday evening, and you had been sitting on a log by the fire pit, close to the shoreline. You were alone, watching the fireflies and stars, while Cinna was snoring peacefully, back in the farmhouse. The first thing you noticed was the sudden silence as the constant drone of chirping crickets went quiet, leaving only the crackling of the fire. It was strange enough to cause you to get up from your seat and glance around the yard, or at least as far as the glow of the fire let you see. You didn't see anything out of the normal in the yard, but your attention was quickly drawn back to the lake. A rumbling noise, like someone shaking a huge piece of sheet metal echoed across the water, growing to a window rattling *BWOMMMMMMM* before you finally had to cover your ears. A second later, there was a pulse of translucent blue light that spread out across the lake, emanating near the lights of the military base antenna.

The next thing that you remember was waking up on the lawn the next morning. You didn't seem to be any worse for the wear, besides your clothes being damp with morning dew, but still made an appointment with your doctor just in case. He'd checked your eyes, asked if you were having any headaches or seizures, and then given you a clean bill of health before sending you home. There hadn't been any mention of an incident in the local paper and multiple calls to the military base had produced just as much information. Now, you half-wondered if you had imagined the entire episode.

*********************************************

With your toast and coffee finished, you set your dirty dishes in the sink and head out to the barn to feed the chickens. Your partner in crime waddles behind you, with his tail wagging happily, now that his belly is full.

As you approach the barn, you hear an odd rustling noise coming from behind it. You'd had a problem with rabbits getting through the garden fence earlier this Spring and you suspect that they have snuck in again.

Keeping close to the side of the barn, you quietly move to the corner to take a peek at your garden. You glance back to see your brave guard dog, Cinna, has occupied himself with taking a bathroom break by one of the trees.