It's the Winterfest again, it seems a lifetime has passed since the last time we celebrated it... The children can't wait to unwrap their presents, they've been talking about it for weeks.
The felines still seem upset instead. Mango, you too? Really?
Luna at this point is just trying to ignore the scared cats around the house. Usually, she just sit at the kitchen table to watch some cartoons on TV.
Wait, watching cartoons on TV... Actually, this makes me wonder. What if...
Thinking about it, Luna always switches on the TV every time she walks into the kitchen. What if the cats were just upset because of the loud cartoons gingles, and not for her presence? I couldn't fully blame the cats for that either, some of those songs really pierce through one's ears...
For the moment, I tried to tell Luna to turn down the volume a bit, just to test my hypothesis. She immediately accepted, she wants to make peace with the cats after all. In addition, she also found it as a funny experiment on felines behaviour.
To have some more fun during Winterfest morning, and distract the children a bit before allowing them to unwrap their presents, I decided to decorate a Christmas tree with them.
I think this is the first time I decorate a tree for Winterfest, when I was little we weren't used to having any real celebration. This is a fun novelty for me, we should do it again the next year! I begin to understand why Sylvia cares so much about this festivity.
After decorating the tree up to its tip, we sat down at the table for a great lunch. Sylvia had been cooking her famous roasted ham for all the morning, and seemed very proud of the result.
At that point it was impossible to hold back the kids anymore, the time for unwrapping the present had come.
We took hours for wrapping them carefully, but in a few seconds a messy pile of paper and ribbon was on the ground. Hopefully, they will appreciate the effort, at least.
Milo didn't seem very satisfied with his gift... I don't understand, we got him the latest video game, the one all children want! (Or, at the very least, this is what the owner of the videogames store told me).
In the evening, we also received a visit from Father Winter. Needless to say, the children immediately took the opportunity to ask him for other gifts.
The next day, I returned to the lab to continue my research. I was able to upgrade my simray, the new function I introduced is able to put anyone to sleep for a few hours. This sounds a bit scary, I would rather not use it... But, on the other hand, it is hard to predict what we could need to contrast the aliens, eventually.
My second achievement of this week sounds definitively more appealing to me: I managed to improve the lab's satellite dish to help us to spot the disguised aliens.
Under the effect of that signal, the aliens begin to glow slightly, and they also appear to be completely unaware of it. This way, we were able to count that there are exactly 15 aliens disguised as humans in our lab, and we also spotted a couple more walking around here.
So, at this point, I've been able to put together a device that makes people sleep on command and a signal that seems to specifically affect aliens... What could I do if I could put the two together, I wonder?
Returning home, I noticed that Mango is no longer a puppy anymore, and now also she is identical to Nacho and Taco. To distinguish her, Sylvia gave her a yellow collar.
Walking into the kitchen, I found Luna and Milo sitting at the table, both focusing on their homework. They both have top marks at school, did you know, my dear diary? We are very proud of them.
So I walked up the stairs, to reach Sylvia. We are often talking when I return back from work these days, she really wants to understand aliens better, and to help us find a solution to their treat.
Sylvia: ... I wanted to ask you something.
Stuart: What kind of thing?
Sylvia: What do you think will happen to Luna when she gets older?
Stuart : (cautious) At the lab we're not sure yet, at the moment the first alien born on Earth is about 17 years old.
Sylvia: Do you think the aliens are waiting until they become adults before doing something?
Stuart: Well... We suspect that's the case, yes.
The aliens' tactic seemed to be based on the exploitation of some of the inhabitants of the colonized planet, who were coerced to raise their children in secret, while they waited for the best moment for doing their next move.
But which could their next move be? Would the little aliens be forced to join the rest of their species, to leave the families they grew up with, and to turn against us? This was the main fear of all the families in our situation, the more time passed the more it was evident that kids like Luna just grew, behaved and thought the way we do. Their alien nature didn't make us love them any less, and we didn't want anything bad happening to them.
But, on the other hand, we couldn't trust the older aliens, the ones who control our lab and abducted us. Their modus operandi is quite clear at this point, it is evident that they must have a very precise plan in mind.
How can we find it out? And will be able to stop it? All this uncertainty is very frustrating and stressful to us, all we can do is continue to work, and hope for the best.
Do you have any brilliant ideas in mind, my dear diary? It would certainly be very useful, at this point...
I can see why Stuart is worried – I’m worried about Luna, too. The kid is very much a part of their family but they did place her there deliberately. It could be as “innocent” as just having her there to grow sympathy for aliens so they could one day walk around in the open without their disguise, or something. But they are so dodgy and sketchy that I can’t help but be suspicious. I hope they won’t try and take her away. That would be horrible.
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