Meg was reaching her limit of allowable ridiculousness. She knew that her sister could be a bit single-minded when it came to aliens, but this was seriously a new level of lack of awareness for her. Tuning out her sisters way too detailed presentation, she took some time to study their.. unexpected guest.

If he truly was an alien, his looks certainly didn’t portray that at all. Look, Meg was ok with aliens looking identical to humans in sci-fi movies, it was hard to come up with new and practical designs for stuff like that. But that was movies, in real life she would expect aliens to, well, look alien. What was the point of having evolved on a whole other planet in a whole other part of space if you were just going to look as if you had done all that on Earth. It felt like too much of a disappointing coincidence, but she wasn’t exactly the alien “expert” here. No, she was just an average science fiction enjoyer. An average enjoyer who was going to be very disappointed if it turned out that all aliens were just human look alikes.

Honestly, the most “alien” part of this guys appearance was the weird scarf he was wearing. Well, that and the fact that every second Meg spent in his presence filled her with the most anxiety she had ever experienced, which was saying a lot for her. It was similar to the feeling she had at the top of the basement stairs, an all consuming sense of wrongness that made her want to get as far away from the source as possible. Unfortunately, the source seemed to be this strange guy her sister was obsessed with.

It was odd how dedicated this kid was to convincing them he was an alien. Vaguely, in the back of her mind, Meg wondered if maybe hitting him with her bat had given him some kind of brain damage, and that was the reason he now truly believed himself to be an alien. She didn’t think she had hit him hard enough to do permanent damage like that, but she also had never purposefully hit someone with a baseball bat before, so what did she know really. If she had done serious damage, then she felt a bit bad about how she had been treating him, after all it can’t be easy to earnestly believe something to be true about yourself just to have the person who made you believe it act like you are lying.

I should probably call this guy an ambulance now that I think about it she thought, before remembering that she was the one responsible for hurting him, which would make that hospital visit extremely awkward and possibly end in her getting into serious trouble.

But is my peaceful life really worth protecting over the treatment of a possibly serious injury? The more she contemplated this situation, the more conflicted she felt about her own morality. Was she really debating on whether or not she should get someone treatment for a potential injury? Really?

I mean, he doesn’t seem all that injured. Like, he isn’t disoriented or bleeding or any of that stuff. Looking him over as closely as she could without making it obvious that’s what she was doing, Meg tried to see if his condition necessitated a trip to the hospital. And it was true, he wasn’t showing any signs of injury. No blood, no visible pain, no disorientation, nothing. He was, in fact, extremely engaged with the presentation that her sister was still doing, nodding along and occasionally asking a question here or there. It was strange. Surely he should at the very least be in a little bit of pain, he was hit with a bat directly in the head.

I can’t believe I’m actually entertaining this, but maybe he really is an alien. What human being can just bounce back from that. She felt stupid just having that thought, but it was starting to feel like the only reasonable option here. Which was insane.

“And that’s my personal favorite place to spend time at, mostly because it’s across the street from the observatory.” Meg tuned back in to.. whatever this “Earth presentation” Abby was doing had turned into. Somehow, Seth still seemed extremely interested in what she was saying, despite it being mostly entirely useless knowledge to someone who supposedly wasn’t from Earth.

Wait, why is Abby giving a presentation? Wasn’t this supposed to be an interrogation? Meg mentally slapped herself for allowing this situation to derail so much.

“Abby,” She interrupted, waiting for a second to make sure she had her sister’s attention, “Weren’t we supposed to be, I don’t know, interrogating this guy?”

“Ah, well, we did?”

“You asked one question.”

“And I got an answer.” Meg was going to strangle her. “Besides, all I wanted to know was if he was an alien or not, what else would we possibly ask?”

“Hmmm, how about who are you? Where did you come from? What is it you want? Why are you here? You know, the standard questions you would typically ask someone when you’re interrogating them?”

“Oh..” Abby looked down, a dejected expression on her face. “Sorry, I guess I just got excited. I’ve been working on this presentation for a long time.”

“Well, I certainly enjoyed it,” Seth decided to take that moment to remind them of his presence, quickly irritating Meg in the process, “But, your um, sister, here is correct. As much fun as I am having, this is not the way to interrogate someone.”

“I see, well, then should we put this on pause and go back to interrogating?” Abby asked, moving to turn off her projector. Meg sighed at how fast the situation changed once again, this night was exhausting and it was barely 9:00. Their mom was supposed to be home by 9:30, so they didn’t have a lot of time to get this mess sorted out. Speed interrogation it is then she thought, moving to stand next to her sister in front of their “alien” guest.