Earth to Me

The 2014 semester began.

Me and Tegan hauled our way back to our dorms for another half a year, already anticipating spring break between the winter and spring semesters, and of course we rang in the newness by grabbing dinner with Murray. He seemed just as jaded as we were to the idea of having to exert effort during the day, but he never really minded learning since it always stuck with him. Lucky guy.

Mick messaged me over Facenook one night a few days after the party, saying that the band would resolve to be in bed by midnight every night so that we’d all be asleep at the same time for when we’d eventually dream together. I relayed the message to Chuck and Riley, and for once, neither of them fought – Chuck agreed to it, and Riley just said “ok that’s fine.” Baby steps…

The year began with a whimper, overwhelming us in syllabi and homework before financial aid even kicked in. Murray dove right into his textbooks at night, studying while I slept and sticking to his promise that he’d watch over me in case anything funny happened in my dreams.

I swallowed all my thoughts of letting him sit in my bed, crushing them into a nothingness that didn’t seem to go away. So like I do with any other situation that won’t stop bugging me, I just ignored it.

And on the second Sunday of the year, it happened.

I treated it just as any other night. I snuggled up under the covers in my PJs, eager for some shut-eye before a stressful day of classes would wipe me out again, and just a few minutes after saying goodnight to Murray, I was knocked out into dreamland.

As soon as I opened my eyes and saw stars, I knew that something odd was going to happen. Mom was floating in front of me, her face sweet and smiling in the same way you would smile as a greeting, and then she motioned behind me.

Slowly, I turned my head around as the zero gravity twisted my whole body with it, and there were three other people already among us – Chance, Mick, and Chuck, looking anxious in their pajamas just like me.

“Dude,” Chance gasped, “you just, like, appeared outta thin air…”

“He was the first to get here,” Mom explained, nodding towards the guitarist. “And then Chuck showed up, and then…I’m sorry, what was your name?”

“Mick,” Mick nodded, still easygoing but a little unnerved from what I could tell. “I, uh…this is really weird, I’m not gonna lie.”

I laughed nervously. It was actually happening – the guardians were coming up to share the dream that haunted me endlessly, and it still hadn’t completely hit me yet.

“Riley should be here soonish,” Chuck mumbled, checking his watch without realizing that he didn’t have a watch on him in space.

Mick nodded, adding, “Yeah, I don’t wanna know what Andy and Anthony are doing right now, but I’m sure they’ll be here at some point.”

Right as he said that, somebody was materializing next to me. It was like pixels formulating pictures and sharpening on a computer screen, and judging from the fact that this person was a head shorter than me, I almost immediately knew who it was – Tegan.

She blinked a few times, squinting around her, and then she looked over at me and smiled. “Hey, man, is this…are we…”

Before I could answer her, my mom spoke up in her accented celestial voice, holding her arms out. “Tegan! I have not seen you in years, mija!”

Tegan whipped her head in front of us to meet eyes with my mother, someone she also hadn’t seen since she was barely four years old, and she just gasped, stammering to try to find the right words to fill the void.

“Oh my God,” she finally whispered, “Mrs. Olayos…I…”

“Welcome to the universe, sweetheart,” Mom smiled, gesturing all around us. “And this goes for all of you, and when the others show up, it goes for them, too.”

“So you already introduced yourself to them?” I asked her, referring to Mick, Chance, and Chuck.

“Yup, she did that as soon as we got out here,” Mick answered.

There wasn’t enough time for more idle chitchat before somebody else began to materialize, this time between Tegan and Chance. Muscular legs, an old Lawrence Arms shirt, dark skin, and a hazy face, it was Riley, and it definitely took him a few minutes to realize what was going on. He darted his eyes around between the six of us, and then he just went, “Ohhhhh.”

Mom couldn’t fit in an introduction before the seventh guardian showed up; Andy pixilated within the hubbub and looked awake from the getgo, eyes wide. He looked us over and jerked back when he saw my mom sparkling in stars, but then he grinned and said, “Well, what do you know? It finally happened!”

I smiled at him, so glad that nothing had gone wrong yet. “Yep, we’re, uh…we’re here.”

“Anthony’ll be here in a few minutes. He always falls asleep after I do.” Andy paused, but then he went beet-red. “I…just realized we’re the last people here. I’m sure you don’t want an explanation for that.”

“No, go on, I’d love to hear about you guys fucking,” Riley rolled his eyes.

“Do you realize where we are?! Have some decency!” Chuck covered, punching his arm.

Mom and I exchanged a look of embarrassment. Yes, mother, these were my friends on Earth…it was like we didn’t skip a beat and there was no fifteen-year gap without direct contact.

“I think the more important part here is that we’re, like, finally meeting Oshie’s mom after he’s told us about his dreams with her,” Mick spoke up above the argument, raising his arms while still so short.

My mom smiled sweetly at the drummer, folding her hands in front of her, and she calmly said, “I am glad I have finally met all of you, while we’re waiting for Anthony to come. I have watched you handle the chaos two years ago in such a wonderful way, and I am proud of Oshie for being a part of it.”

I wanted to say, “Mom, don’t embarrass me,” but how cliché would that be?

Speak of the devil – Anthony finally wavered in, static fuzz bringing him into our mutual dream world while the rest of us watched him materialize. Shifting the hair out of his face, he looked around in wonder before settling on my mom, gawking for a moment.

“Hello,” Mom said, finality in her voice, “and I guess I should properly introduce myself to all of you now that we’re all here. I am Valencia Alvear Olayos Padilla. I am Oshie’s mother, and I am the one who has been told to tell you everything.”

Everybody was silent. I didn’t look at their faces, but I’m sure they were almost as shocked as I was when I first found myself floating in a spacey dreamland.

“The most important thing that you must know is that there is danger looming a few lightyears away.” She sighed, looking down below her endless dress and our finite feet. “It will not become a major problem for a few more Earth months, but it does require thought. The same planet that tried to destroy multiple planets two years ago – they are at it again. This time, they are going to try to take down different areas at the roots. They will fight through portals in order to nip us all in the buds.”

We were no strangers to weird explanations like that, though it was still off-putting to hear such a jumble of mumbo-jumbo.

“This group of planets – all of the ones in your solar system, along with many others such as Daltia – we are teaming the guardians together in order to fight them when they appear at our gate. Without the gate, we cannot travel between galaxies and areas, and destroying the gates would destroy space and time itself. We would die, to make it simple.”

Andy was the one to interject. “When is it gonna happen?”

Mom pressed her lips together. “We are not sure, but it will not be for a few more months. They are still battling deeper within the universe, and it will be a while before they reach us.”

“Are you gonna keep me posted?” I asked quietly, already halfway knowing that she would never let me down. I just wanted to make sure.

She beamed and said, “Of course, mijo. I will keep in touch with you during the months leading up to it. And I expect you to keep your friends updated as well.”

I blushed; I considered them all my friends, but to hear her say it was a little embarrassing, like if your parents barged in on you playing video games and brought snacks. I was nineteen – even if I hated that fact, it was still so weird to think of myself as an adult.

“He’s been awesome with that, by the way,” Mick added, raising a finger and smiling at me.

“I’m glad,” Mom said.

“Okay, since nobody else is gonna say it, I guess I will,” Riley sighed. “I figured since Oshie’s a dreamboat, his parents had to be pretty attractive, but you are so pretty.”

Mom threw her head back and laughed her butt off, while Tegan glared daggers at him. “Don’t hit on his mom!”

“I can’t tell if he was hitting on Oshie or his mom, to be honest,” Anthony mumbled.

Mom held her arms out, palms up, and she smiled warmly at the eight of us. She blinked, stardust falling from her eyes, the stars in her hair twinkling in a way that I never got used to. “I’m glad Earth is in such good hands. You will make a good team, and Oshie will be a great leader.”

I wanted to bury myself to keep the eyes from pointing at me. “I’m not the leader.”

“It makes sense,” Tegan shrugged. “We all got hit with lightning, but you ended up with it as your power. I’m surprised we didn’t see it before, actually.”

“You will do fine when it is your turn to go alone,” Mom assured me, putting her hand on my shoulder.

“Like I said before, we’re gonna do as much work as we can,” Andy said enthusiastically, cracking his knuckles. “So when you have to go in by yourself, you’ll have as much energy as possible.”

“There will be massive attacks from creatures that they use as their primary line of offense,” Mom explained, sighing a bit. “That is when the whole group of guardians will defend. Then, once they are done, the leaders will go through the portal and wipe out the danger in its purest form. I have no doubt in my mind that you all will do a wonderful job.”

How could she just blindly assume that we were experts? Sometimes I thought two years ago was a fluke and that I was still in a hospital bed in downtown Chicago. She saw me grow up and flounder around, trying to find myself. If she thought I was as good as she hyped me up to be, the last thing I wanted to do was break her down.

I gulped down a glob of spit that had lodged itself in my throat, and I realized that I had been staring below the whole time she said it. She squeezed my shoulder in her mighty hand, and I looked back up; her big hazel eyes crinkled around the edges when she smiled.

“Well,” she spoke, her voice barely above a whisper, “that is all I have for you all tonight. I will see you when we gather for the fight. Oshie will tell you anything important.”

That was it? That’s what I was so nervous about? It ended up being next to nothing. Other than a more specific idea of what was to come and the fact that everybody else met my mother in our dreams, we had hardly eaten up half an hour. I’m sure I looked a little lost.

“It was nice meeting you, Mrs. Olayos,” Mick smiled.

A few of the others copied him and said the same thing, and she responded the same way – “And the same to you.”

“Now, I will send you all back to sleep, and you should wake up feeling a little more well-rested than usual,” she whispered, tossing some stray hair over her shoulder.

She lowered her arms, and I watched as everybody else’s eyes drooped shut. Bit by bit, they disintegrated into space, flying back to their beds for a knockout slumber, but I was the last to fall. I caught sight of my mom, and she had mouthed out, “Te amo, mijo,” just as I drifted off.

I didn’t know when I would see her again, but as I dreamt of alternate universes with folding buildings and cats walking upright, I thought of her. I slept soundly, maybe the soundest of my whole life, and I woke up feeling unusually recharged on a Monday. Not a single ache in my bone, not one throb in my head. Even the papercuts lining my fingers didn’t sting.

And I sat up on my bed, catching Murray’s attention. He flashed a smile and closed the book he was reading, leaning back onto his pillow. “Did you sleep well?”

“Yeah,” I nodded. “Everyone else met my mom.”

He sat up again, staring at me quizzically. “It happened?”

Unable to keep from smirking, I said, “Yup. They all met her.”

“Man, I wanna meet her,” he said lazily, sounding sleepy. “Not – not…that sounds weird. But, like…the pictures I saw in your house. She looks just like you. I bet she acts like you, too.”

I bit my lip. “I wish you could meet her, too.”

Murray climbed down from his bed just to give me a hug, and it wasn’t the last one I’d be getting that day. When I saw Tegan as we met up to go to class together, it was the first thing she did, and she was even a little misty-eyed.

And to think, just a few years ago, I literally had just one friend. Now I felt like the most popular person alive, knowing that people promised to have my back. I didn’t know if they could live up to that promise, but when I spoke with them, I knew that each and every one of them meant it. It wasn’t my choice to show them something so intimate, a person who had been taken from me at such a young age, and the respect with which they treated the situation was amazing. It was just what I needed.

I could get through this. I’d gone through worse, after all.