A Celebration of Life happens every year on Monuth. At least it has until maybe this year. |
Sky Explosions A single hand uses its thumb and middle finger to cause a small fire between them after they are clicked. That fire remains on the tip of the finger as it touches the bottom of that Sky Explosion. Only a little bit of that fire remains on it. Then it circles it until it reaches the bottom of that Sky Explosion. A flame comes out the bottom of it to shoot it up toward the ceiling there. As that arrow soars toward that ceiling, small sparks come out of those flames to land on the other Sky Explosives below it. As the first one hits the ceiling to explode into multicolored light sparks, the other Sky Explosives start heading toward it too. Within only a few seconds the whole building is flaming with one explosion after another. Using the thumb once again, the finger flame is put out. Then the owner of that hand starts running. Their hand movement and the sounds coming from their feet say that is what they are doing. Just outside that building, those feet and hands stop. In the distance, a loud wailing sound can be heard getting closer to them. Those feet start to run again. Only now they are doing it in the opposite direction of that wailing sound. ## Law Enforcer Nonic watches as the explosions continue within the building in front of him as flames shoot out through broken glass windows, the roof of it, and through new holes on the sides of it. “This is the worse series of explosions yet,” says Nonic. Just then Nonic hears footsteps behind him and turns toward Law Enforcer Violinna. After seeing her, Nonic looks up at a large flat square metal object as it goes past them to stop over the flames below it. Once there, water starts coming out from beneath it in small clear balls to quickly get rid of all the flames there. “How many Sky Explosions were in that building?” Nonic asks Violinna. “About a million of them,” answers Violinna. “We won’t know for sure until after we check it out.” Nonic takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly. “Why didn’t Water Protection stop this from happening too?” “We don’t know that yet,” answers Violinna. “But it’s most likely for the same reason it has been happening all over Monuth for the last couple of months. Someone or a group of Monuths are causing it to happen.” ## Suddenly, Nonic stops walking down a thin walking area in front of several rows of small monitors with another Law Enforcer sitting behind them. “We have a very big problem. Over the last two Monuths, Sky Explosions Creation buildings all over Monuth have been attacked. And almost every one of their Sky Explosions has been destroyed.” “With only a few days left before our Celebration of Life, there is a very good chance that we won’t be able to celebrate our victory over our other human-alien invaders almost one hundred years ago this year,” says Nonic. “At least not the Sky Explosions part of it.” Nonic takes a deep breath and lets it out very, very slowly. “There have been sixty-four Sky Explosions creation buildings destroyed within these two months. And we still don’t know who or why they are doing them, or where they are going to do it next.” “The only good thing about these explosions is that no one has gotten hurt or worse because of them,” says Nonic. “And I want to stop them before anyone does.” ## After putting his hands into fists, Nonic points his thumbs at the large monitor behind him. At the sixty-four small black dots on it flashing numbers in sequence: twelve, thirteen, fourteen, etc. Only those numbers are all over the image that’s on that monitor. “Look at those numbers,” says Nonic. “Tell me what they have in common other than the explosions.” “They don’t have anything else in common,” says Law Enforcer Coyia. Sitting low behind a monitor toward the back of that room. So, low that Nonic can’t see her. “And those numbers are popping up all over the image of Monuth.” Nonic smiles as he tries to see who has spoken to him. “You are correct. But why are they doing that?” “To stop anyone from finding out who they are,” says Law Enforcer Pleu. Pleu is sitting behind a small monitor almost right in front of Nonic. “If we can’t find them, then we can’t stop them.” “Why are we still doing this?” Violinna asks. “We have been doing this for almost six hours.” Nonic looks at Violinna. “Because Pleu is also right. We can’t stop them if we don’t know where they are going to attack next.” ## A clothed head peeks around the edge of a window to see what is inside that building. What he sees are a lot of Monuths. “There are about a thousand of them working in there,” says the head. A few seconds after that the head continues. “I agree with you. We do need to start killing some Monuths.” The window starts getting smaller as the head steps away from it. Then the head stops. A single Sky Explosion is pointed at that window. The click of a thumb with the middle finger creates a flame that is used on the Sky Explosion. When the flame gets to the bottom of that Sky Explosion it is used against that building. An explosion happens just after that Sky Explosion enters that building. Followed by several other explosions a few seconds later. Screams can be heard. Now flames are shooting out from some broken windows, the sidewalls that the head can see, and the roof. Within a minute that building is one big flame. There are no more Sky Explosions come from inside of it. And there isn’t any screaming either. The clothed head starts to walk away. Then they start running when there are sounds of some Monuths heading toward them in the opposite direction. #### “I have just been contacted,” says Nonic. “There have been three more attacks against our Sky Explosion creation buildings.” Nonic is standing in front of a large monitor again. Only this one has an image of Monuth with only about fifty small black dots on it. And only three of them have numbers flashing. “As you can see these three happened quite a bit of distance from each other,” continues Nonic. “And since they all happened within the same hour, we are looking for a group who is doing this.” Nonic takes another deep breath before he continues. “I also have something to tell you that I don’t want to do. But I must. Not only were there three attacks, but this time all three had Monuths within them. We don’t know how many there were yet. But we do know it’s several thousand.” “Since we haven’t been able to stop them by finding them or figuring out what is going to be attacked next, it has been decided that we need to come up with another way to stop them. Does anything have any thoughts on how we can do that?” Nonic asks. ## Standing behind the small monitors at the back of that room, Nonic stares at the large one in front of them. “We have the remaining Sky Explosions creation buildings being monitored thirty/eight.” “With only a day away from our Celebration of Life, whoever is behind these attacks may not try anymore. But if they do, we will stop them,” continues Nonic. “Not only do we have every remaining Sky Explosions creation buildings monitored, but we also have Law Enforcers near them. Just in case whoever is behind these attacks tries another one,” says Nonic. Nonic starts walking behind those small monitors. “Keep monitoring them. As soon as you see someone who shouldn’t be there tell us about it,” Almost instantly four Law Enforcers stand up and shout that they have someone. Nonic walks to the front of that room. He taps every button on the control panel under that large monitor. All four Sky Explosions creation buildings appear on that monitor. “I will contact the local Law Enforcers,” says Nonic. But it looks like we are already too late to stop these attacks, though.” ## Nonic and twenty-four other Law Enforcers are walking around what is left of one of the Sky Explosions creation buildings. They are spread out to look for anything that may help them find out who is behind these attacks. “At least no one was here when it happened either,” says Nonic. “I’m not so sure about that,” says Law Enforce Kailn. “I think I just saw something over there.” Kailn points in that direction. Nonic and the others there run over to where Kailn is pointing. At first, they don’t see anything. Then it’s Violinna who points to a moving piece of clothing that can barely be seen. They quickly start pulling away everything that is covering that clothing to reveal a male there. “I think we may have found one of our attackers,” says Nonic. “Is he dead?” Pleu checks him out. “He’s still alive. But I don’t think that he will be for too much longer. At least not with one of his hearts.” “WHAT,” shouts Nonic. “The ones who have been attacking our Sky Explosions creation buildings have been the humans who tried to invade us almost a hundred years ago.” ## “Tell me who else has been helping you to destroy our Sky Explosions creation buildings,” says Nonic angrily as he leans over a table with his palms flat on it and his face within an inch from the male human invader. “Why are you destroying them?” Hiannum looks at him with a big smile on his face. “I’m not going to tell you anything except my name and where I’m from. My name is Hiannum. And I’m from the planet of Junin.” “We know where you are from,” says Nonic angrily. “What we want to know now is why you have returned? And why you are destroying our Sky Explosions creation buildings?” “Because you shouldn’t be celebrating anything,” says Hiannum. “You didn’t stop us from getting what we wanted from this planet. We got it from another one. So, we left Monuth. Now we are back because you have something else that we need.” Hiannum glances at the other Monuths in there. “When we saw what you were about to do, we decided to stop you. That is why we have been destroying your Sky Explosions.” ## Nonic started laughing. “Do you know why we have been talking to you for the last eight hours?” Nonic asks. “It’s because while we were talking all the rest of you Junins were found and killed,” says Nonic smiling. “Once we knew it was you destroying our Sky Explosions, it wasn’t too hard to find those who were helping you.” Hiannum looks at Nonic with a big smile on his face. “You think that you have stopped us again. But you haven’t.” “We were sent here to see how much you have advanced since the last time we were here,” continues Hiannum. “To see if you were a threat to us coming back.” “Now that we know that you aren’t a threat, we were planning on coming back here in a few months. But when we found out about your celebration, we decided to do it now. Our Attack Ships should be here at any time.” Nonic never stopped smiling. “We know all about your Attack Ships.” “You haven’t been destroying our Sky Explosions or killing anyone,” says Nonic. “We just let you think that you have while we created a few billion of them on our orbiting planet. When your Attack Ships get here, they will all be destroyed because of our Celebration of Life. After all, our Sky Explosions aren’t just for show. They can also be used to destroy your Attack Ships.” Word Count = 1,995 |