The room cooled and faded. Audrey lay down on the sofa, feeling very tired. She wanted to sleep, even though she had woken up a couple of hours ago.
“Oh,” Audrey blew a stream of air through her pursed lips.
Thoughts wandered and couldn’t find themselves or Audrey in her and Jean-Pierre’s flat. They hung in the air like weightless dust and just like that, uselessly filling the void. Audrey remembered talking to her mother and Jean-Pierre’s mother.
His mother was crying. Not sobbing, but somehow quiet and sad. Audrey thought that Madame Julie was ready for those tears, they were kept in a safe place, somewhere very close. And then she realized that Jean-Pierre’s mother was not mourning her son, but pitying her. “I’ll call you back,” Audrey replied to this compassion.
Audrey’s mother didn’t cry, she was quiet for a while, said a few comforting words, and then shattered the fragile hope with a simple question, “What will you do next?” Audrey felt cold and hard at those words. There was a challenge in that question, but she wasn’t ready to face it. “What will I do next?” Audrey repeated to herself with tears in her eyes.
“Nothing next,” she blurted out aloud.
She cried, but after a minute the tears dissolved into a viscous and formless sadness.
The phone rang and Audrey wearily reached for it. “Bernard Bajolet” was written on the screen. Audrey imagined the conversation and pressed her lips together.
“Yes,” she answered.
“Audrey!” a joyful voice came through the speakerphone. “Audrey! He’s alive!”
Audrey froze. She felt the shivers run down her body again. She looked out the window, hopefully. The sky was covered in clouds, but somewhere out there the sun was shining.
Van stopped shouting and landed beside the earthlings. He bowed again in front of the frozen wall of fire. The beam was blazing with energy, but stood still a few meters away from the terrified aliens. No heat could be felt, but a kind of radiation showered everyone from head to toe.
Doctor Capri was only now able to open his eyes, closed by fear. He looked up at the frozen column of fire and noticed something slowly descending towards them from the upper level. Dr Capri pointed an object:
“Look.”
Seconds later, the travelers saw the smooth bottom of the flying vehicle, which was slowly approaching the surface and reflecting the entire company in a mirror-golden belly.