"So let me get this straight. You decided to rescue an extraterrestrial lifeform from a crash, just because he looked cute and innocent?" 

"What?" I protest, and I look away when Adam Kavinsky looks right into my eyes like the weird little nerd that he was. "You wouldn't abandon an adorable puppy in a house fire, would you?" 

"You can't be serious..." Adam hisses through his teeth, and then he pinches the bridge of his nose. "You don't even know if he's friendly or if he's going to zap our faces off while we sleep! Haven't you ever heard of a Loris?"

"Hey... How the hell do you know my aunt's name?" I question.

"I'm not talking about your goddamn aunt, Kevin! A Loris is an extremely poisonous animal that's super adorable!" Adam yells, "We could be dealing with something lethal here!" He gestures animatedly towards Blue-Boy as we argue, who was examining a pack of Butterfinger BB's that I had tossed at him to keep him entertained. So far, it seemed to be working, he was totally preoccupied with the tasty treat.

"Wow, I for sure thought you'd be into this stuff," I say, "I rescued an actual space alien for you, Kavinsky. I gave you my toxic little heart and shit, and the very next day you gave it away."

"You're a clown, Kevin Quinn. A dirty clown asshole!"

"Whatever, Scooter," I light up a Marlboro in the middle of the aisle because I was a boss like that. "Blueberry's harmless. He's nothing but a big baby. Look, I'll show you. Check this out..." 

I go over to Blue-Boy and I get right in his face. "Boogah-Boogah!" I shout as loud as I can, but instead of freaking out, he hauls back and decks me as hard as he can.

I mean, he completely pulverizes my face with his alien fist, spittle, and my cigarette flying out and everything.

"Oh, shit! Shit!" I reel back, hollering in pain, and hold my throbbing nose, which I was pretty sure was already broken in ten different places. "You Gonzo-looking mother fucker! You hit me!"

The alien gapes at me like I was speaking French out of my ass.

"Why are you like this?" Adam demands, "Why can't you act like a civil human being?" 

"What are you talking about?" I answer, my voice nasally where I pinch my nose and tilt my head back to keep it from bleeding out. "I saved a poor little alien Baby from a crash. I rescued him from Walmart! What else do you want me to do? Bottle feed him?"

"I want you to help take responsibility for him because he needs us to survive!" Adam shouts, and then he storms over to me, getting in my face. He had these super long eyelashes that made his eyes look all soft and pretty around the edges, so it was hard to look at him for too long. "What's your problem, Kevin? You've been beating up on kids weaker than you since middle school! Are you sick in the head?" 

"That's what you're mad about?" I scoff, "I don't have to explain myself to you." We were arguing like an old married couple at this point, only we weren't married. If we had been, I probably would have gone nuts by now.

"Just forget it!" Adam snaps back, "I'll just take the alien home and figure out what to do with him."

"That's fine by me," I say, and then I shrug like it's no big deal, "Have fun taking care of Baby."

"We're not calling him Baby! That's condescending and frankly quite insulting, especially considering the fact that he's intergalactic and probably years older than us!" 

"Oh, pipe down, Kavinsky. It's a temporary name until we figure out what to call him," I look over to where Baby's supposed to be standing, and I see an empty spot for the second time tonight.

Oh. Crap.

My eyes open wide when I see the little guy far off in the distance, talking to something small and white with a glowing antenna on top of its head. Then Adam and I kind of freeze from where we're standing, because we both see it at the same time.

"Is that...um.." Adam hesitates, sounding unsure. "Am I seeing things or is he talking to a chicken?" He questions. 

"No way. I'm seeing it too!" I rub my eyes hard and blink a few times, but the image doesn't go away. It's a real chicken, randomly standing in the middle of Walmart talking to Alien Boy. It had white feathers, a red comb on top of its head, and a bobbing antenna poking out from the back of its head. 

But just when things can't get any weirder, they do. 

Baby points to us from where he stands and the chicken turns around and it looks right at me before starting over, an angry look on its expression.

"Adam! Dude!" I grab onto his arm and I shake him, "It's coming right towards us! Do something!"

"Breathe, Kevin! Breathe!" Adam urges me, and he holds onto me just as tight like we're two scared little girls. "I think we're about to make secondary contact!"

Kill me now.

The chicken saunters up to us, and Baby follows closely behind, looking timid and a little scared. His hands are folded and his shoulders are hunched slightly. 

"Excuse me?" The chicken squawks at us, and it stands like an old woman, wings on its hips. "Are you the simplistic Earthlings who saved and terrorized His Royal Majesty, Virgin Prince Bahz Bahiy Udeen?"

"He's a Prince?" Adam and I chorus at the same time, shocked.

"He's not just any Prince," The chicken replies snidely, "He's The Prince of Stars. The prized son of one of the greatest leaders known in the entire galaxy! In fact, if you were on our planet right now, the royal guards would cut off your heads immediately for viewing his exposed face."

"Hold up a second!" I shove my way forward, causing Adam to stumble back. "Why does Baby need a chicken to translate for him if he's so royal?" I demand. "And where the hell did you come from, Cluck Norris?"

The chicken rolls his beady eyes as if I'd just asked a stupid question. "I'm Prince Bahz's protector, Haresh. I followed him when he fled our planet. Unfortunately, my vessel crash-landed on a nearby chicken farm in the middle of nowhere and I was wounded. The only DNA that I could absorb was from the inferior animals that you have wandering about."

"Can you believe this?" Adam whispers, and he grabs onto my arm. "We're actually looking at a talking chicken!"

"Well, I'm never looking at KFC straight again," I mumble back.

"The Prince's translator broke during the crash," The chicken continues to explain to us, oblivious to our conversation. "I may be able to fix it with the right parts so that you may communicate with one another."

Baby goes to scoop the chicken up from the floor and cuddles him, then shoots us a timid little smile. 

I feel like punching something. Hard. But before I can figure out what that is, I hear a crackle and I see the two Walmart employees from earlier appear down the aisle. Only this time, they're not alone. Two cops are following them around, and they're looking and pointing right at us.

"Adam! We gotta go!" I hiss at him, and Adam takes notice of the cops, his face paling in an instant.

"Ah!" The chicken sighs, "These must be more helpful humans coming to assist Prince Bahz! What a lovely planet!" 

"Hey!" One of the cop's barks at us, and he reaches for a tazer on his hip, "Stay the hell where you are!"

"Everyone, run for the doors!" I scream, and Adam grabs Baby by the arm and hauls him along as we tear back across the store, towards the exit. And it's at this point that I realized that my life was never going to be the same. And that loneliness that I had felt earlier? It had taken a backseat. Kevin Quinn was becoming something more, my life finally meant something.