“Why isn’t this working!?” My dad groaned loudly as he tried to get the lighter to work. He clicked the lighter over and over again, frustration carved wrinkles onto his forehead.

The night had completely darkened the world around our small campground. The sun rested in the depths of its slumber now. Luminous petals of silver traced the bright constellations in the night sky. Thin streaks of moonlight slipped into my father’s umber hair like spider string. Leaning into the unlit fire pit, aggression stoked in his movements. Tense back and biting words as he tried to get a spark of red flame.

So far he’d gone through a packet of matches, a lighter and about a half box of matches too trying to get a spark of fire onto the campfire. Nothing was working.

“Honey, it’s fine.” She rubbed his shoulder, “Maybe we just need to find more wood, wood that can catch fire better.” I could see small puffs of white air slipping out from my mother’s heavy sigh.

“We’ve already done that like three times.” Evelyn grumbled as she dug the end of the stick into the dirt around her. The marshmallow bag had been opened next to her. I had seen her sneak a few when mom and dad’s backs were turned.

I thought humans liked camping. But now, all three of them had tired eyes and sullen faces. Often my father was angry, but tonight it seemed frustration hung low in the air like a dense fog that swirled around their sitting frames.

“We’ll just have the fire tomorrow night.” My dad said, rising from his log. His shoulders were downturned which sent sparks into me. We needed a fire.

Evelyn and Mom followed suit. Fire was an integral component to the human camping experience. I had seen flurries of photos of cooking s’mores or hot dogs over an open flame. A fire was necessary. I needed the fog to leave. The photos I had seen online were becoming blurry as they faded away as a possibility.

Once the members of my family had their backs to me in retreat I let out a hefty breath. And with that breath came a momentary stream of molten light and heat from my eyes. Like lasers it dug into the bone of the wood. In a second; the campfire was ablaze. The fire roared in the reflection of my face, I could feel its reaching fingers near me.

Smoke curling into the black sky. The world swirled around me for a few moments after. I had not used my lasers since I was a young child. They were powerful and destructive and should be nowhere near my family.

I turned towards the tent and yelled, “Dad! Dad! You did it! I guess it just needed a little time.” His smile widened and returned to the fire pit. Mom and Evelyn trailing behind him, their steps crunching the leaves beneath their feet.

No more tense backs and fogs of frustration. The crackling fire breathed warmth and energy into them. Instead of eating them one by one, Evelyn began making smores for everyone. Dad polished off a few beers and my mother recited stories from when she went camping as a child.

“Joanna and I were stoking the fire just like your father did.” My dad rolled his eyes as she got into the main part of the story. I’m sure he’d probably heard it one hundred times before. But Evelyn and I hadn’t, so we leaned into her words. “Liam, her husband, was grabbing snacks from the car and from the tree line I saw two beady eyes. They stuck out even in the dead of night because of the way the fire’s light caught them. Joanna and I stood still for what felt like forever, just watching to see what it was and if it will move. But it didn’t, and when Liam finally returned I tore my eyes away for just a second. When I looked back, it was gone.”

“Did you ever figure out what it was?” Evelyn shoved down another smore and wiped the edges of her mouth with her sweater.

“Never did. But I can still imagine the eyes perfectly.” Twinkling ashes soared through the smoke.

Soon, we retreated to the tent. It crinkled as I stepped onto the plastic. Laying in my clean bed, I stared up at the tent ceiling. Evelyn fell asleep as soon as her head hit the pillow. I could hear her shallow breaths turn deep the longer the night treaded on.

When the morning and sun awoke like a fire I decided to take another walk in the woods. I liked how the leaves danced in the air, they spun like ballerinas. Drifting from the orange sky and down to the grass below.

The immense forest, the leaves, the moss, the birds as they chirped. Waiting for their mother’s to return to the nest.

But all my attention was on it as it crouched in the low meadow. Skin blue like bright skies. The alien held a small grouping of flowers as it picked them. Its seven fingers daintily holding the ivory, constellation-blue and lilac flowers.

The world became red. A vermillion tint curling over my gaze. And so like a spark or an ember catching fire, I jumped at the thing. I lunged at it, its flowers falling and dispersing over the meadow grass.

It matched my strength and speed like no one on this Earth. Even more than Jack Bailey. So I pushed myself. Running at it faster. My punches that scarcely missing it, dug craters into the green Earth below.

It fought me like a rabid animal; scrambling with flying hands. Swinging at it over and over and over until swung with such force that it threw me out of the meadow and through thick trees. Trees that felt like fell like dominoes as my body decimated the structure.

I fought to catch the swirling vermillion anger in my chest. I heaved like an animal. My rounded back looking more like a predator than I felt.

I had let it loose. I had let it run from my fingertips.