IN the starry night, the moon was shining on the clear sky and a cool wind was blowing in the cold night — an awesome sight.

I was sitting on the chair by my window sill. My mum came and asked me to sleep but I didn’t want to as I just love watching the night sky. I was thinking what would the galaxies look like and what could be there. I was very curious about all the galaxies and cosmos stuff.

Suddenly, a bright red shining ray from the stars came down like lightening and struck the backyard of our garden. I was stunned and couldn’t guess what it could be. Horrified as well as inquisitive, I jumped off the window and went right towards the glow of red light.

There was a deep hole with something shining in the middle of it. It looked like an alien ship, the kind we see in sci-fi movies. I was curious so I went near it. Smoke was coming out but before I could touch it, the spaceship opened by itself. More smoke came out and a disgusting smell too.

I tried hard to see what was behind the smoke, there definitely was something. It emerged slowly, some figure with a hood covering the head; it was not more than two feet high, but just then I saw its legs — I cried out of fear as they were seven. And there were four arms too!

I was horrified as it started to come near me. I tried to run but I seem to have been frozen where I stood.

“Hello, Earthling!” it said.

At first, I thought it might be a prank by some neighbourhood children but when the creature took off its hood — I fainted. When I opened my eyes, I saw 20 eyes looking at me with interest. Twenty 20 eyes in one face and four mouths with every single one of them dripping saliva ... eww! I wanted to die at the very moment but nothing was happening except that I was getting closer to this scary creature.

It said, “Don’t be afraid, I am a good alien, I am here to live for some time and will leave without bothering you. I will be your friend till then.”

How could I let an alien stay with me! But there seemed to be some sincerity in its tone that calmed me down and I took it to my room. I later found out that the alien was a female who had come from her planet only to spend some quality time here on Earth and wanted to see how we humans lived here.

We became great friends in a couple of days. I was enjoying my time with her and she was also getting accustomed to our way of living. She was actually enjoying everyday things, and would hide under my bed when I was not in the room or my mum or dad came in. So life was fun with her.

One day, she said she was leaving as she had received a message that her parents needed her. That night we both quietly went out into the backyard and took out her spaceship from where we had hidden it. As she was leaving, she turned to say goodbye and placed a weird silver cube in my hand. She then ran and sat in her spaceship and looked at me for the last time. The door closed automatically; the spaceship flew straight up in the sky and was gone in a few moments.

I was sad and felt lonely, then I opened my palm and saw the cube. Just when I touched it, a recorded message started, “I’m sorry for leaving you in such a hurry. My family and my planet are in danger, I have to protect them because I am the princess and possess many powers. So only I can save my family and my planet. Someday we may just meet again, one cool starry night. Goodbye sweet friend.”

I felt my vision blur, my eyes had turned watery.