Takeoff on M. Night Shamalayn's "Signs"

            As if the exact hue carried any first and foremost significance, Graham breathed a prayer to the skies beyond in reparation of his failing to purchase the one that she did love best.  Or had.  The consistent exertion his legs had been initially vexed with, had ceased after several weeks of mounting the hillside.  Graham now could sprint, and this he did, his un-pale pink roses bobbing.  At the crest, his eyes instinctively moved to rivet upon her grave, and saw instead Gray Reddy.  The latter was all fright in an instant, arranged his features into that of an awkward smile, and made haste to flee the cemetery.  Graham exhaled deeply, and resumed his walk to his wife's rest.  His brow immediately contracted upon vision of a bouquet laid there.  Pale pink roses.  Poor man, Reddy must have been drenched in the most horrific submersions of guilt when he'd done that.  Ah well, the soft blue would pair rather pleasingly.
         
            Morgan tore off the porch the moment his father's vehicle entered his view.  In apprehensive tones, he let Graham be aware that she had been feeling very unwell.  Graham's internal anxiety meter spiked, and frivoled none in reaching the house.  It had only been one cycle of the sun since she'd vanished, and rendered the household extremely agitated.  At the light of the moon, she ended their emotion, Merill having opened the door to a blood stained creature, fatigued to the weariest degree, and in her arms, a new life robbed from the census of her planet, and given to Earth.  Now, the infant lay in repose, while she lay in much of the opposing state.  Head shunning the proper use of the sofa's headrest, she slumped against the side of it, huge eyes unopened.  Graham contrived to appease her ill nerves, with Bo as aide.  Water had been eternally banned as an edible option; they'd gained that knowledge rather difficultly, and simultaneously, fortunately.  Instead of an entire mouthful to help them learn the liquid's taboo properties, a single drop running off the glass had splashed her skin and promptly burned it.  Bo was all tears.  The ebony eyes now blinked, and her whisper of a reply signified the presence of consciousness.  Bo stroked her hand, so jade against her own paleness.  When in full and total satisfied apprehension of her wellness, the adults quit the alien, the two youngsters attending by her side.
            The dog sprang eagerly at the water projectile.  Morgan just as teasingly removed the water hose from his vicinity of bite.  Bo delightfully giggled at the spectacle, both her sibling and German Shepherd rendered drenched as the hose swerved here and there.  Then from within, their father beckoned them, cautioning against the neglect of leaving the tap open.  Morgan did indeed turn the brass knob, but failed to do the cycle in its entirety justice, and thus, as the two children ran home, a diminutive stream leaked upon the ground.
         
           
            The first half of the day had concluded, the night attended with a higher degree of fear.  Assurance of all being well and fine without their house, or the capability of it, retreated; any shadow that infiltrated their territory would be well endowed with the fortress of darkness.  All were converging tonight in Graham's sleeping quarters, and while only little Bo acknowledged it, this action served not only as a measure to ensure numerical safety and convenient grasp of the young ones, but to quell as well, deep, apprehensive fear, knowing that one did not lie companionless.  Cruelty in its most scrupulous characteristic, to be sure, but its sheep's clothing claimed it to be an extra degree of wariness in omitting the dog from the house, to ensue immediate notice in the event of any foreign intruder.  They now all lay in repose, Merill at Bo's side, and Graham with Morgan.
            The subconscious layer of the mind was aware that the little warm bundle its arm encircled had been removed, the body flopping the limb over in quest of a varied reclining position.  The conscious layer oozed some paces behind it, and when it came to share its counterpart's knowledge, shook the whole alertness force awake.  Merill fervently glanced about the room, observing that Morgan was still within its bounds, the brown haired head curled against his father's abdomen.  Merill sought the child out upon the porch swing.  To her uncle's gentle inquisition of her state of wellbeing, Bo related to him the intelligence of what her subconscious had done in more efficiently arousing her.  In the area that was supposedly one of pleasure or interesting strangeness, it had rebelled and instead turned ugly.  She, the alien, had been on her knees, reaching out to Bo in absolute terror, one arm fortressing her child under her.  Bo herself was hardly less in such an office, crying in desperation.  The mother's fear was followed suit by its source.  This new alien wrested the baby from her, she screaming in her native tongue.  Bo could not cease from weeping.  Merill's eyes had been dilating as he came to know of her dream.
            "They're coming", Bo gently breathed.  Yes, they are, he thought.  Merill had known, they all had, that it was an inevitable arrival.  The emotion of rivalry and concern of  self-threat, had stirred deeply in the emperor's breast.  Unborn, or otherwise, the heir to his throne would not exist to plant any unrest in the question of power.  Whether the mother perished with him was a trivial matter.  No nation could shelter her; his minions of espionage were ubiquitous.  With a small fleet of servants that had, in the refusal to quit her side, proved loyalty, she fled to Earth.  Royalty forced into exile, whose only sin was possessing a male, who, in her uncle's eyes, was merely a potential usurper.  But she knew that safety here possessed the same qualities as ice, fleeting and temporary.  He would be her personal bounty hunter, even to the extent of the universe.  Bo's dream had not prevaricated; he was indeed coming.
            As if some force were frustrated with the lack of responsive alertness the two had elicited, Merill underwent what Bo had, minus the degree of fright.  The emperor bore his little threat as tightly as the latter's maternal guardian had, for the exception of a very different motive.  His teeth were viciously bared in daring contempt, and proceeded to cloak the child in the toxic vapors that all his species possessed beneath the palm of the hand, and was only anything to infants.  The baby elicited blood-curdling cries, then choked to his so longed for demise.  The one rejoicing promptly removed from the world to exult in his assured establishment of reign.  Merill was already freaking out even in the instant he transitioned from sleep to the opposite.  With no subtlety or gentleness did he awaken his brother, and somewhat incoherently for his rapid breathing, made Graham aware of the premonition he and Bo had involuntarily witnessed.  Morgan and Bo were roused, and at Graham's insistence, the foursome wasted none in looking upon the welfare of the mother. 
            Graham would have probably gone further in his precautionary actions, and made all and one camp out in circular formation about her.  Yet this possibility was arrested by the very sudden insanity of the baby monitor.  Morgan gasped and hurled himself up the ascension to his father's room.  All but tripping over in a heap on the descent, he held the monitor in a daze.  Graham snatched it up, the frequency mounting to where the speakers pleaded for liberty.  The mother alien caught on exceedingly faster than her shelters did.  Springing to her feet, she caught up her infant and retreated to the haven between the sofa and wall.  Merill and Graham almost instinctively jerked their heads toward the other.  They just as quickly lowered their heads in the extreme explosion of light that pounded the night troposphere. 
            Bo shrieked, and was dragged to the floor by Morgan.  As if the Almighty's avenging sword had slit the very earth, the overwhelming affront of brilliancy rendered them prostrate for some time.  When it had abated to the endurable degree, all as one crept to the bay.  The cornfield bowed as one unworthy, crushed beneath the titanic extraterrestrial aircraft.  The sheer magnificence and power it advertised dropped Graham's mandible.  A piercing cry that seemed to define all that fear encompassed, arose from the mother.  Such a burden could hardly be constrained in her heaving chest, tears wetting her thin cheeks.  Graham whirled from the window, and ordered his children take her and lock themselves within the attic.  Complying instantly, the siblings helped her away. 
         

            Graham could not comprehend why they did not come for so long. His rifle had been cocked for over an half hour, and still no movement was denoted without.  The first footfall upon the wood boards instantly flooded and crashed his crystallized axons.  Merill shifted beside him, wielding the knife, as the steps continued in such a manner as to signify the first was not unattended.  As stealthily as he could realize his life rather sat upon silence, he crossed into the living room to the curtains, limbs in danger of collapsing upon each other in their shaking terror.  Three in sum grouped the porch.  Merill shoved the cloth over the exposed portion of pane, pupils wider than their Maker intended, mouth constricting.  Graham rolled his eyes; hadn't Merill once engaged in battlefield combat?  His very heart that slung into his throat paid penance for the assumption of his brother's overreaction.  Thunderous beating upon the door all but flung Merill back behind the kitchen partition.  Graham opened fire, bullets splintering an innocent door.  A short guttural noise ensued, seemingly of distress.  The steps vanished, only to announce the aliens' reappearance elsewhere.  Faintly did the men perceive some sort of scratching alongside the house, gradually ascending.  They were climbing the trellis!  In confirmation, glass shattered above.  Bo's scream reverberated even through the walls.
            With a drop and clang of rifle, Graham snatched it up again and pounded the stairs.  Blasting the doorknob at a vertical angle, he sent the door itself banging into the wall.  The mother crouched fetus like in a corner, Morgan shielding her with his thin body.  For all his very heroicness, the boy visibly shook.  Bo had resorted to pure hysteria.  In one fell swoop, the alien nearest her leapt for her throat, a twisted green claw retaining the muffled sobs, and with Bo in vice, raced past Merill.  Graham freaked, and flung himself down after his daughter.  Falling upon the stairs, he regained balance at the concluding step.  The delay had removed the unfortunate pair form his sight; however, Bo's horror expressed itself like a siren.  Graham had never been so crazed.  His rifle stood at the fatal ready, but for her blood, it was remote.  There was not a thing he could do.  All energy was channeled into pursuit; what he would precisely do if and when he halted the alien was hardly significant.  Graham put an Olympic medalist to shame.  As they rounded the house, the creature hit the ground sharp and abruptly.  Silence dominated for sparse moments, then the burning initiated.  Writhing and screaming aloud in torment, Graham was all amazement.  The garden hose had evidently been left to trickle, accumulating a widespread puddle upon the walkway.  His feet must have been seared on contact with the water.  The alien's very skin was seething away, becoming great patches of glistening red.  Bo had quit the use of high, frightened intonations, having blacked out.  Graham hurried her into his arms, and within the house, placed her in the bathtub and drew the curtain.
            When the emperor's minion fled with the little girl, Morgan had cried out and darted forward, relinquishing his office of guardianship.  One moved to capture him, the other toward his neglected charge.  As with Graham, Merill could not run the risk of injuring him, and instead let his knife loose upon the latter, diving in front of the mother.  Her would be assailant was loosing life's liquid when Graham charged the door.  The man had twisted the handle to its maximum potential, and literally dragged the hose through the house.  His hand gripped over the mouth of it hardly blockaded the jets.  Yelling toward Merill, he commanded him to fully fortress the mother alien.  Unrestrained blasts of her species' death spewed, mists rising over their expiring bodies.  Morgan fell hard upon the floor, drenched in bloody water, wholly unconscious. 
         

            In as much hysteria Bo had been, Graham grasped the unmoving life form.  Frenzied, he hugged Morgan to him, retrieved his rifle, and hasted downstairs.  The mother lay upon her side, hyperventilating.  A jewel was never held tighter than that fussing child.  Merill spent some moments kneeling beside her, and then aided her after his brother.  Graham was clutching his son, stretched out upon the sofa, head pressed to his, and weeping.  Merill could not correctly decipher his low whispering words.  All of the sudden, Bo emerged from the bathroom, visage sickly pale.  Climbing upon the cushions, she laid her fatigued frame upon her father's.  Morgan would not breathe, even after the supplement of his inhaler.  Six or seven frightful minutes passed.  Graham looked all that wildness could look.  He began to speak aloud in entreating tones, alternating fiercely to the asthma and beseeching to its victim.  The mother alien sat quietly, large eyes blinking.  Graham all at once swept Morgan up and out into the night air of the outside.  He laid him out on the porch floor, and yet after some time, his effort to provide better air was as fruitless as his tears.  Fingers placed tenderly upon Morgan's chest, and silently weeping, he looked up into the direction of someone he had long since so bitterly barricaded.  The child presently initiated breath, choking and sputtering water.  Merill eyes widened beneath his hands, resting on his forhead.  Graham gaspingly rejoiced, clutching Morgan to his shivering body.
              "Daddy, someone saved him, didn't they?", Bo looked up at Graham.  He placed her into his lap.
              "Yes...yes, darling... someone did save him."
         

            She had left with her attendants a fortnight ago.  Their parting, alien and human, was such a strange event.  The mother reiterated her gratitude twice and many times, the infant awake and burbling.  Torrents of wind the magnitude of a small scale hurricane arose, the majestic craft no longer bearing a refugee.  Her oppressor was long dead, his and his minions' bodies incinerated.  Like a blip in the sky, the metallic disk exited their view for eternity. 
         

            Morgan chased a laughing and shrieking Bo down the length of the sidewalk.  In clerical collar, Graham amusedly observed his children.  Church had concluded, and the family was destined toward the local luncheon.  Smiling, Graham lifted his eyes to see Reddy crossing the lane of vehicular travel towards them.  As hastily as he had their last chance encounter, the man made to hurry away.  Graham halted him, and inquired if he would not come and dine with them?  Reddy hesitantly, but nonetheless, acquiesced.  Merill bent and carried Bo upon his broad shoulders, her arms the wings of a plane, and his voice the engines of it.  Morgan laughed and skipped along ahead of them some ways down the walk.