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The desert is empty.
It goes and goes, miles and miles of rocks and dry bushes, reddish earth, burning sun above.
It looks like an alien planet, Miko thinks every time she ventures outside the town’s borders.
She is excited. The desert is the best thing in the entire town.
Miko didn’t expect her American trip to be so boring. The town is small but it isn’t one of those small American towns that have dark secrets. There are no murders, no werewolves, no mysteries to solve. Jasper is plain and boring and Miko soon has enough of this.
But, there is the desert.
It is easy to roam around the town imagining the desert is an alien planet and Miko is the brave astronaut who crash-landed and now needs to survive in the hostile environment. There must be some monsters hiding underground and, hopefully, Miko will find first signs of alien civilization soon. She will be careful because she will not know if the aliens are friendly or not – in the end, she will befriend some of them, some of them will be her enemies. Miko will have multiple adventures and…
This is just her imagination and soon this daydreaming makes her sad. It only reminds her of how boring her real life is. It was boring in Tokyo, countless duties and after school activities, her parents thought would be good for her development. It is boring now, in this forgotten town. Miko might close her eyes and imagine her adventures in space, but, in the end, she returns to boring reality.
She has enough.
She sneaks out of the class, goes to the desert again. It is her only friend – the American kids are boring too. She explores. This is her substitute for an adventure.
There is a road in the desert. It seems to lead into the middle of nowhere. No vehicles use it and it’s surface is cracked, there is an old barrier, broken. There was also a plate with some information, but someone tore it out. Maybe it pointed out where the road went: Miko has no idea. She wants to see, but it seems like a long, long way. She won’t be able to walk so far. She needs a plan.
The plan turns out to be petty theft. One of the boys at the school has a bike. He uses it to travel the same boring path every day: his home, school, MacDonald's, where he works, home again. Miko doesn’t even think, where she takes his bike. She needs to adjust the height of the saddle, but in the end, it works well. She can ride and conquer the desert and see where the unused road leads.
She is not disappointed. There is a massive rock in the middle of nowhere and a huge metal door, shut. Military area, no trespassing, the signs tell. There are several radiation symbols placed around, but, Miko thinks, if the area was indeed radioactive, she would be told. If there was something inside this base, there will be guards and military vehicles, and everyone would know that and warn the kids not to go there. If someone guarded the place, they would intercept Miko already.
She stays in front of the rock and huge metal door and smiles, and her imagination spins scenario after scenario. But even without imagined stories: isn’t that exciting? She wants inside, she wants to explore, maybe, the base is not as empty, as the absence of military would suggest, maybe she will find something inside. And even if not: this is worth searching.
She looks at the sky above. It’s getting late. Not that Miko cares for her host family to be upset, but no explorer ventures for such an adventure unprepared. Miko needs more time and supplies. She intends to spend inside the base more than one day.
Next morning the boy, whose bike Miko stole is upset. Miko doesn’t care. She still needs the bike, she will return it later.
She gathers supplies: water, food, sleeping bag, rope, flashlight, pocket knife. She checks if her cellphone battery is full and memory empty and she says the host family she is going to a sleepover. The host family is, naturally, delighted, that Miko has some friends.
Miko leaves early, backpack strapped on the stolen bike, pink hair hidden under a cap – getting overheated is serious business and she is going to spend much time in the sun.
She arrives at the base before noon. She searches for the entrance and to her delight the security on the door is so old, that she can open a side door using a hairpin lockpick.
Inside of the base is dark and cold. Miko takes out her flashlight. She enters a dark tunnel, sniffs the air, listens carefully. Nothing is hiding in the darkness, nothing tries to catch the curious girl and the girl is disappointed by the fact. She hopes, all the time, she will find something…
She explores. The base is empty, only echoes fill the corridors, empty room, the central chamber that was probably designed as a silo, maybe for nuclear missiles? She has no idea. This must have been built during the cold war, she thinks. It probably doesn’t have any strategical meaning now.
She makes photos. She spends all day inside and in the evening she unrolls the sleeping bag inside the large silo. Above her head, the ceiling is hidden in the darkness. Miko falls asleep inside the old base and she dreams.
There are aliens in her dreams. They use the base as their hideout. They came to Earth because of a long, long war that destroyed their planet. There are several humans who know the secret and Miko is one of them. She might be still a child, but she is brave and resourceful enough to follow the aliens on their adventures. They are her friends and she is happy.
When she opens her eyes in the morning she is disoriented. Was it the dream? Was it a reality? She lies inside an old nuclear base, but she is alone. A moment ago a familiar voice called her name. Her alien friend was here, a moment ago…
No, he was not. He doesn’t exist and had never existed. There are no aliens in Jasper, Nevada, they aren’t hiding here and they aren’t Miko’s friends. The world is as boring as it used to be.
The base is amazing, but the emptiness makes Miko hurt.
She gathers her things, returns to the town. Leaves the bike in front of the owner’s house.
She decides never to return to the base.
She hurts.
There are no aliens and the universe is dark and empty as is the base.
The rest of Miko’s exchange is as boring, as it could be and Miko is actually happy to return to Tokyo.
Over the next few years, she sometimes thinks about the dream she had. It was so vivid as if it happened, but then it started to fade quickly.
She knows that in the dreams she saw her aliens, she knew their names, every detail of the species they were. Now? She cannot recall a thing, except for the feelings, except for the burning emptiness the dream left.
There are no aliens.
There are aliens and they came to Earth. Miko learns about them at the same moment, the whole world does. She watches the news with disbelief and the feeling of anger and longing fills her. She knows, it is irrational to be angry, that many other young people are probably as disappointed as she is because they dreamed of meeting aliens too… But there it is anger. The aliens came, only not to Miko Nakadai. They were not where they were supposed to be.
The world changes in Miko’s eyes. The aliens brought their war to Earth. They brought their deadly technology. They brought countless disasters. They are feared and hated.
What Miko feels is that her life doesn’t look as it was supposed to be and that she needs to change that.