I was on a flight that was getting ready to takeoff, trying to assure my Mom over the phone that everything would be fine despite a crash that had happened recently with the same airline. The plane was actually transparent so we could see the sky as we began to takeoff, and then just as I reassured her that everything was fine and went to say my goodbyes before I lost my cell signal, it happened.
The crash was quick, and surprisingly without injury.
One minute we were looking up at the blue sky and the next we were back on the ground, a group of maybe twenty passengers trying to shuffle our way away from the wreckage – which was still falling from the sky – as quickly as possible.
I had been flying with the twins, so somebody soon called me over to a stroller that they had been pushing and showed me that the babies had survived ok, and told me to call right away to let everyone know that we were ok…
When my Mom answered the phone the second time, I could hear the news playing in the background and she was mostly in shock. I simply told her, “Yes, we were on the plane that just crashed. The babies are ok. I’m with a group of survivors and we’re trying to find shelter.”
I don’t think I heard a single word from the other end of the phone before I had to hang-up so that we could keep moving.
The accident had happened over downtown, so there was lots of debris and it was vital that we find someplace safe, however the more time that passed and the darker the sky got, I think we all started to get the feeling that something else was wrong here.
Pausing to sit and rest on a few park benches, we all talked about what had happened and that’s when a few people commented that they’d seen something flying towards the plane moments before we crashed. Considering the idea that whatever happened had somehow been deliberate, we pressed on and talked about heading to my apartment on the other side of town to take cover, though we never actually made it that far.
Disappearing into a tunnel that ran through one of the tall buildings, we began coming across other people that were also running. One man was very cautious and immediately pulled his gun on us, though his itchy trigger finger soon confirmed that it was actually empty and we were safe as we left him behind and ran in the opposite direction.
Inside an abandoned shopping mall, we came upon a stage that was setup for a rock band – instruments and all – so very much at random, one of the guys in our party jumped on stage and started belting out some old tune. Several of us soon joined in at a brief attempt to blow off some steam, with myself grabbing a guitar from an Elvis dummy that had been on the stage, and we played and made all sorts of noise until one of them finally appeared…
It took on a recognizable shape – one of a giant Bill Cosby, but made out of Legos – and its strength was quickly confirmed as it threw members of the audience around like nothing until I approached it … guitar still in hand … and saw it cringe as it heard the music that we were playing.
It reached out to grab the guitar from me, but then my other bandmates appeared over my shoulder and our collective music knocked it back. Then taking the offensive, we all swarmed it until it was nothing more than a pile of red and orange bricks.
Realizing that we might’ve stumbled onto a key to fight whatever these invaders were, we turned and headed back towards the city, walking carefully along the edge of the chaos until we came across sort of a makeshift hospital up in one of the tall towers. Thinking it would be safer for the babies, we went inside and found a small medical crew treating some people who had been injured, and left the twins in a soft-looking room away from all of the chaos.
This was also our first chance to catch up on what the rest of the world was seeing, and we watched as the news described the attack that was currently underway. Strange, blob-like creatures – in all colors and sizes, that could take the shape of just about anything – were falling from the sky.
A dozen of them had taken out a passenger jet trying to takeoff…
So far, resistance had been futile and the military was organizing their own attacks, but nothing had been successful … except for the strange reaction that we had just seen in the mall.
As we attempted to communicate this finding with anyone of authority, somehow the aliens knew and began to swarm the building we were in – entering through ducts and vents, and some even transferring themselves through the walls.
We fought back as many as we could before deciding that it was time to leave for higher ground, however as we ran down the corridor in retreat, I noticed that one of the babies had somehow been infected by one of the green blobs.
He otherwise seemed ok, so we just kept going.
Back outside again, we were destined to come up with a solution to defeat these invaders because the military’s attempts seemed ineffective at best, and through brainstorming several of us finally determined that it wasn’t the music, per se, that had quelled the beast, but our enthusiasm for the music that had disrupted its destruction, which is why we came to the conclusion that being in Florida, our best bet was to mobilize Disney’s cast members to put on their biggest smiles and win our alien invaders over with impeccable kindness in order to stand a chance at defeating these monsters.
The dream faded with a phone call to Disney devising a plan to have their cast members deliver pies to the enemy…
This game was probably one of my favorite space shooters growing up.
