There were things about that night that are still fuzzy when I think about them much later.

I know I climbed out of the crater carrying Baby over my shoulder, but how I managed to get up the steep slope, I don't know. At this point, there was nothing that should have compelled me to save his scrawny ass and leave him there for the government to dissect.

But he was just a kid, even if he was the color of my grandma's vintage Tupperware. And I felt gross leaving him there for a bunch of people to find. He was like a wounded dog in the middle of the road, and I was the only one around to save him and get him help.

So I guess I was just a sucker for small, defenseless creatures.

"You owe me for this, alien boy!" I grit my teeth, and I carry him far from the wreckage and into what's essentially the desert. "Freakin' blueberry! You weigh like a million pounds!" He didn't really, but it felt like he did when I had miles to walk back to town.

The whole time, red and blue lights were flying towards the scene of the wreckage. Cop cars, ambulances, probably the whole damn town because nothing exciting ever happened in Backwater, and when it did, everyone went nuts.

"Mmm..." The alien moans softly, and his featherlight hair grazes my neck when he shifts his head, waking up at the worst possible moment of my life.

My footsteps falter. I look over at him, and he opens his eyes. They're the biggest I've ever seen, deep brown and wide, like a crow's eyes, beautiful and terrifying all at once.

I yell, and he screams because I'm screaming, and then I drop him with a thump and I take off running, but it's dark, and the ground's uneven and filled with prickly cactus plants and dead bushes.

I trip over something and I launch forward, landing in the dirt for the second time that day.

"Ah, shit!!" I moan, and I pick myself up, my wounded palms oozing blood into the dirt. Then, footsteps crunch over, and a set of silver boots stop in front of me.

I slowly look up at the alien and he's watching me with those big wide eyes of his, mouth open slightly in awe. Like I'm a fucking clown or a spectacle or something. Weirdly enough, though, he doesn't say anything. The wind picks up his glossy hair, tiny braids intertwined on either side that hang down past his chin.

"Kree-na deh-whal?" He questions finally, and then he points over to the flashing lights in the distance.

What in the actual fuck?

"Dude," I reply, and then I stand up, pretty much towering over him. I was tall enough as it was, but he made me look like a monster. "I have no idea what you're saying, but I'm gonna go, alright?" I glance towards the wreckage, far off in the distance, and then back down at him and shrug. "Good luck finding your way around Earth. Oh, and make sure you try Dunkaroos and Hawaiian punch at some point. You feel me? "

The alien boy watches me silently as I edge past him, and then I book it.

I start to think I'm free, and that I could leave all of the chaos behind and go on with my life. That maybe I could shove the image of the pretty alien boy who had crash-landed on Earth, into the back of my mind and forget about him. But then I hear footsteps crunching along behind me, and I turn around, and he's there, following me like a lost puppy.

"Hey!" I snap at him, "I thought I told you to get lost!"

He hesitates, and then he starts towards me, the weird glow beneath his skin turning light pink.

"Get out of here!" I shout, and then I reach down and scoop up a rock and throw it at him as hard as I can, narrowly missing his pretty-boy head in the process. "I don't want you following me home, you weird little alien freak!" I shout at him as loud as I can, and he takes the hint and takes off running, into the desert.

This is the part where I was supposed to go home, crawl into bed and carry on with my life. I would marry Janet Jameson, we would have a kid named after me, and I would tell them the story about the alien I had saved in 1994, but they would never believe me.

Unfortunately, that's not what happens.

I make it into town after successfully leaving Boo Berry Boy behind, and I look for the nearest payphone to call someone. I was still hurting pretty badly, and I didn't have a car or any means to get to the hospital so I could get checked out. My car had been destroyed, my brother was in Hawaii, and I really didn't want to explain to my dad why the Pontiac currently looked like a burnt chicken leg in the middle of the road.

I find a payphone a little distance away, dimly lit but the most welcoming thing I had seen all night. At this point, the only person I could think of calling was Adam Kavinsky.

He knew about aliens from space.

He would know how to handle the fact that I'd just made contact.

I step into the booth and I close the door behind me, the smell of cigarette smoke, piss, and peppermint gum filling my nostrils as it radiates from the filthy floor. "Okay...don't let me down, Kavinsky," I whisper, and I open up the Yellow Pages on the shelf and look for his name among the massive number of phone numbers listed.

"Karrington, Karlton, Kavinsky!"

I find his phone number among the other K's and dig a quarter out of my pocket to put it in the machine. The thing about payphones was that they only let you talk for a limited amount of time, so you were basically fucked if you ran out of change.

I call Adam, but as I'm waiting for him to pick up, something slams into the side of the phone booth.

I scream shrilly when I realize that it's blue Yoda, his face pressed to the glass, desperation in his eyes, like he's begging me to help him or something.

"Hello?" Adam's voice filters in, husky and half-asleep, which, for some reason, makes me feel warm inside. "It's, like, twelve in the morning. Who is this?"

"Kavinsky!" I shout through the receiver, "An alien mothership just crashlanded on Earth and I saw it, man! I saw it with my own two eyes and it destroyed my car and I nearly died. Now there's a blue man following me around, and I'm looking right at him. I swear to God!"

I hear Adam fumble with his phone for a moment, "Who is this? Why are you...is this a joke?"

Alien Boy slides down against the glass until he's slumped down in the dirt like a boneless, floppy blob of insignificance.

"It's Kevin!" I shout, "The guy who punched your face in this morning?"

"Kevin?" Adam's voice pitches, annoyance in his tone. "I'm fine with you beating up on me in school, it's pretty much established that I'm at the bottom of the food chain. But calling me at midnight playing this sick joke about extraterrestrials is just plain messed up."

"Adam, man. You have to believe me! You were right about them coming. They're here, okay? Everything you said was true, and I'm sorry for all those years I messed with you. You didn't deserve it."

Adam's quiet for a long moment, and then he sighs. "Fine," he mumbles, "Just tell me where you are and I'll come to you. But I swear, if this is a joke, I'm done, okay? My mom knows the police chief. He'll fucking arrest you."

"I'm in town. Across from Walmart in a payphone booth--" I turn around to face the alien boy, expecting to see him lying there. Instead, there's an empty space where he had been rolling around.

"Oh my fucking God!" I drop the phone and watch his skinny blue form walk across the street, towards the local Walmart. "Kavinsky! I gotta go, Captain Planet's on the loose!"

"What are you--?" His muffled voice filters out from the swinging phone, but I barely hear it.

Instead, I take off running, the door to the phone booth slamming behind me.