Matthew had just gotten to bed off an overnight shift at work. Exhausted, he roused slightly and looked at his phone. He hadn’t even been given a chance for an hour of sleep. Confused at where the voice was coming from, he responded, “Who is there?”
Alexander excitedly burst into Matthew’s bedroom. With the blackout curtains down, it was fairly dark, but light spilled into the room from the door. “It is me, Xander. We need to talk.”
Matthew had become used to his cousin finding a way into the building, and didn’t give it much of a second thought. “Why are you here?” Rubbing his eyes, Matthew could see that Alexander was nearly electric in attitude, as though he was going to jump out of his skin. “I really hope this is important, man. I just got to bed.”
“It is important. Life changing even!”
It took a great deal of effort for Matthew to pull himself up out of bed. His pajama pants sat loose at his hips, and his over-sized undershirt dangled away from his body. After two minutes of slowly preparing himself, Matthew took a deep breath, exhaled slowly, and stood up.
Walking into his living room, Alexander was already by the balcony doors. With a big grin on his face, he continued, “So, remember all the time we’ve spent watching science fiction shows, and playing video games? It might end up coming in handy!”
Alexander could see that his cousin wasn’t very interested. He realized that he sounded a little like an insane person ranting and raving at someone who just wanted to go to sleep, but Alexander couldn’t wait for his cousin to get eight hours of sleep before sharing his secret. It wasn’t as though time was of the essence or anything quite so contrived. It was just the excitement of sharing an amazing revelation with someone he trusted.
“I have a space ship!”
Matthew rubbed his eyes again, and then gave a quizzical look towards his cousin. Shuffling slowly in a circle, and looking back towards his bed, he waved with one arm at Alexander. “Okay, that’s great. I’m going back to be.”
The disbelief frustrated Alexander slightly, but would he really believed him if their situations were reversed? He knew he would have to provide proof if anyone was ever going to believe him. Thinking about the ship, and his cousin and himself being transported to it, he felt a familiar tingling.
As his vision faded, he could hear Matthew shout out, “What the…” But before he could finish his thought, they were side by side on the bridge of the Resurrection.
Alexander looked at his cousin. If his jaw could have dropped to the floor, it would have. It hung as low as it could go as Matthew slowly looked around at his surroundings. While the ship interior was fairly underwhelming, the sheer fact that he wasn’t in his bedroom had him astonished.
“Okay, what did you do to me? Where am I?”
Alexander laughed slightly as Matthew regained his composure. “You are on my ship, the Resurrection. Welcome aboard.”
“Are we in space?”
The front of the room went translucent and Alexander pointed towards it. “Actually, we are just a few feet from your balcony.”
Matthew looked out in wonder, and then turned to his cousin. His feelings were mixed about the situation he now found himself in, and while his brain was sorting out everything, he realized he had been teleported. Matthew hauled off and hit his cousin in the shoulder. “What the hell, man! You teleported me like twenty feet? You have seen all the dangers of teleportation on T.V. shows. Why couldn’t you just have showed me the ship and opened the door or something?”
Taken back by the reaction, Alexander continued to laugh. “This ship is nothing like what you’ve seen on television before. Besides there isn’t a door, only a small service hatch that isn’t fun to go through.”
“How did you find this thing?”
Alexander went over the events of the previous night in great detail. He didn’t want to leave anything out, even the more embarrassing parts relating to feeling sick. Talking a million miles a minute, it was as though they weren’t even in the ship any longer, and Alexander felt more like he was talking about a television show than his own life. It still hadn’t completely sunk in.
Turning a slight green of envy, Matthew listened intently. “Wait, you let the ship put something in your brain?”
