SILENT INVASION (book 1 - The Imagination Series)

PART I
Battle Training

Chapter 1

Something was wrong! Air was still. The house too quiet. Brady the neighbor’s obnoxious collie wasn’t barking outside.
Tim Madison rolled to the side of the bed and flicked on the table light. His desk, cluttered with astronomy magazines, math homework, and his eighth grade history book; the model airplane with the broken landing gear hanging by fishing line above his bed, his laptop computer, all looked normal. It was the walls. Ordinarily light-blue, they were red. He looked to the floor. The blue carpet had become black. Bright brown numbers on his digital clock beamed 6:15 A.M.
Weird, he thought.
He slipped from the sheets, stepped toward the door, and turned the handle slowly. Bedroom light threw his shadow across the hallway’s previously tan, now lime-green carpet. Formally white hallway walls were yellow.
“Greetings,” a low voice said.
Tim spun around. Fear soared up his spine. He tried to scream but a lungful of choked air came out. A creature a few feet taller than him, with a human body, beetle-like head, and claws instead of hands, stood wearing an all black jumpsuit.
“I will take you to our training facility where the Thispan Council arranged accommodations,” the creature said.
Tim’s heart banged against his chest. He backed against the wall and looked from side to side thinking which way to run. To his parent’s room? The bathroom? His muscles tensed. Should he bolt back into his own bedroom and slam the door shut?
“What?” he gasped. “Who are you?”
“I am Kiz,” the creature said. “The council sent me here because they have knowledge of dangerous events that will occur on your planet. I will teach you skills that most assures your success at preventing these events. This is your assignment.”
Tim gulped, pushing panic down. “I… I don’t understand.”
“You are the Earth’s galactic warrior. I will explain more once we are onboard the Skyru.”
“The what?”
“Our traveling device.”
Panic hit.
“I can’t leave!” Tim thought of excuses. “What about school? I… I have a math quiz today and a history test on Thursday!”
“Your universe will only age for one minute while you are away. However, we cannot remain in this state of near timelessness for an extended period. We must reach the end of your universe before the hole connecting our two dimensions closes.”
Tim’s mind whirled. So much farfetched information was coming at him at once he felt dizzy.
“This is impossible!” he stated.
“As you will learn,” Kiz replied. “Nothing is impossible.”
Kiz turned and stepped down the hallway. The impulsive for Tim to follow him was enormous, as if being pulled by an invisible string. He felt compelled to go. And he did; down the stairs, through the yellow foyer, to the blue front door. Kiz turned the handle. Hinges creaked.
“We are experiencing problems with the colorization adapter on the time-stopper,” Kiz said. “The Council believes its function was second in importance to the urgency of your assignment.”
Tim barely heard him; most of his attention was absorbed by the site of the bizarre landscape. The early-morning neighborhood was frozen in time and everything tinted with the wrong colors. Everywhere he looked was something different and astonishing. Brady was blue and stood silent for once in his life with his nose glued to the ground. A few feet away, a green sparrow hovered motionless in midair. Grass on the front lawn was red. Neighbors’ houses were pink and blue instead of their usual browns and grays. Leaves on the spruce tree across the street were orange and its trunk was yellow.
“Unbelievable!” Tim gasped.
Kiz headed down the driveway and onto the sidewalk. Tim followed, completely awestruck at his surroundings. They passed an orange squirrel suspended in mid-scamper and another reared back on its hind legs. Brown bees poised above silver daisies. Mountains of green clouds dotted a milky-white sky. Wild-colored cars sat motionless amid the morning congestion around the construction in the right lane of Watson Street.
Bang!
Sound like a cracking of the sky. A silver triangle about the size of a parking space and looking as thin as a pane of glass appeared overhead.
“What’s that?” Tim asked.
“The Skyru. Battle training begins now.”
Brilliant light flashed from the triangle’s underbelly and just like that, Tim found himself standing inside a wide, brightly lit, metal corridor that appeared to go on endlessly.
Kiz stepped forward. “Other galactic warriors are waiting for us in the main hall.”
“Others?” Tim’s belly swooned with uncertainty. He held out his hands and backed away slowly. “I… I don’t think I’m ready for this! I mean, a few minutes ago I was asleep in my bed, and now… I mean… I don’t even know what’s happening?”
“To tell you more at this time will jeopardize your assignment and everything the Council has worked toward. You must learn your battle skills in the appropriate order for your training to be most effective. The fate of your world, perhaps all worlds, rests on you.”

Chapter 2

Tim headed down the corridor in a daze, his heart beat so hard he was sure Kiz could hear it and see the arteries thumping in his neck. This situation struck him with awe and not knowing what waited ahead tinged that awe with a spike of fear.
They passed between two gold pillars and entered an enormous stadium. Thousands of strange beings stared at them from a massive tier of seats. Tim looked over the assembled group. These creatures were like nothing, and everything, he had ever imagined. One nearby form resembled a rose bush but had yellow, tulip-like flowers with bright blue eyes on the ends of translucent petals. And it was hardly the most exotic. Another individual appeared to be an oversized bacteria with large cilia waving on its outside. Another looked like a fish out of water except with a moose’s head. Some of the aliens could best be described as transfigured humans with hands where their heads should be and eyeballs on their elbows. Others were bizarre morphs of animal, human, and insect features: flies with arms, a caterpillar with horse-like legs, a moth with the ears of a rabbit. It looked to Tim like someone had taken animal parts out of various bins and put them back together at random.
“I… I don’t believe this,” he said. “What are these things?”
“Galactic warriors,” Kiz replied. “One galactic warrior chosen from each advanced civilization in this quadrant of the universe.”
“Can they understand me?”
“A universal translator is built into the Skyru. You will hear words in your own language as will the others in their own. Some receive information as sonar waves and others understand through scent and smell.”
Tim thought about this for a moment. “But you spoke English in my bedroom?”
“I have learned your language as part of the assignment.”
“The final galactic warrior has boarded,” a voice boomed, through an unseen loudspeaker. “Your assignments now continue. The next general assembly meeting will occur when we reach the final destination. Return to your rooms and await further instructions.”
The large crowd swelled toward the outlining corridors.
“Follow me,” Kiz said, and guided Tim into one of dozens of recessed openings.
They passed an amazing variety of life: a giant centipede shuffling along on several porpoise-like flippers, a snail with a ferret’s head leaving a trail of lime-green slime as it glided down the hallway, a bee that whipped a snake-like tail as it buzzed by.
A creature with a rhinoceros-like head attached to a lithe, cat-like body caught Tim’s attention. Spines ran down its back like teeth. A formidable horn poked from its snout. The rhino-cat stopped walking, turned, and focused its tiny black eye on Tim.
“Are you the galactic warrior from planet Earth?” it asked.
Tim’s throat clogged with nervousness. He cleared it. “I guess so.”
“I visited your world many time spans ago,” the rhino-cat said. “It is an acceptable planet for a brief period, but I would not want to live among your people. Impulsive carnivores like you have much to learn before you can be considered civilized. I hope Kiz can teach you to channel all that savagery. I’ve heard Earth is the first encounter.”
The rhino-cat snorted and ejected a wad of mucus that stuck to the wall like a piece of chewed gum. It continued tramping down the corridor, turned, and disappeared into a separate passageway.
Tim flashed Kiz a quizzical look. “What’s he mean first encounter?”
“Disregard his remarks. Blituars are an arrogant race who feels humans should not even be granted the privilege of having a galactic warrior.”
“Why?”
“Blituars evolved several thousands of years before humans. They made the same mistakes your species now make, somehow surviving planet-wide pollution, harsh famines, and dozens of catastrophic wars. They are now a peaceful race of explorers and somewhat hypocritically given their own tortuous path to becoming pacifists, they consider humans a violent, lower form of life.”
“Is the Blituar a galactic warrior?”
“Yes, but he isn’t nearly as important as you.”
“Why am I so important?”
“I cannot tell you at this time.”
Kiz stopped in front of a gold door encrusted with nine huge diamonds arranged like the Earth’s solar system with the third jewel from the center as the largest.
“This is your room,” Kiz said. “You are free to come and go as you please, but use caution if you choose to walk about the Skyru. Some representatives aren’t receptive toward humans. Battle training will commence when I return.”
Kiz walked away.
“Wait!” Tim called after him.
“Is there a problem?”
“How do I get inside?”
“Press the largest star-stone.”
Kiz disappeared into a side corridor. Tim raised his finger to touch the jewel. When he did, the door changed into a swirling, gray, curtain of mist.
“Computer on,” said a digital voice, startling him. “Please identify yourself.”
“I’m…uh, Tim. Tim Madison.”
“At last!” the computer rejoiced, its tone becoming thoroughly human. “I thought you were the Goron galactic warrior. The Goron has been trying to access your room since she came aboard. I assume she wanted to see what grass looks like. Gorons are curious creatures; they live their entire lives on a single ball of rock devoid of all vegetation. But never mind that information. Everything is prepared as described in your profile. Please enter.”
Tim hesitated. Was this a trap? He’d watched enough late-night horror flicks to know that if dangerous monsters were to attack him they usually lurked on the other side of such mysterious places.
“Your room is your sanctuary,” the computer assured him, as if sensing his concern. “There is no safer place for you.”
Still wary, Tim took a cautious step, and then another. He held his breath as he went through the warm, surprisingly dry mist, and emerged into his own yard with his house in front of him.

If you enjoyed this sample please purchase the book at all online retailers or at my blog. Thank you.
Neil Ostroff