Transmission #014: DANI AND HER ALIEN MAN VISIT THE RETREAT(again)

 Filed by Raine Solara, whose notebook just started writing back

They arrived on a Friday, but it felt like a collision between timelines.
The air smelled like oranges and ionized trust issues.
Dani, former karaoke queen of the 200-level skies, now walks with the steady confidence of a woman who’s seen Saturn blink.
She came back to the Retreat with someone new.
Someone glowing.

The alien man has been on Dani's side for a while

WHO IS “THE ALIEN MAN”?

He doesn’t go by a name. He does actually, his name is Cam, but Dani calls him:
“💫 My Altitude-Adjusted Companion.”
Or just…“Vrrrnn.”

Here’s what we know (or suspect):
He shimmers around the edges when nervous.
Communicates mostly through scent and shoulder movement.
His laugh sounds like a xylophone left in the rain.
Obsessed with trail mix and early ‘90s soap operas.

He didn't look alien

Trenton Glass (suspiciously nearby):

“That’s no ordinary visitor. That’s a witness to what’s coming.”
Dani (to Vrrrnn, holding his fourth espresso macchiato):
“You like it here, don’t you?”
He replied with a scent that translated roughly to:
“Here feels like music before it's made.”

Dani didn’t bring an alien man.
She brought someone who remembers her from the stars.
Who may have never stopped waiting.
And the Retreat rearranged itself to welcome them.
Because sometimes, the only way to see clearly…is to look at yourself through someone who’s never been human.

It was just after or was it before, Dani and her Alien Man drifted off into the fog?
And in stomped Demo Man.
Boots are still dusty from somewhere, crumbling.
Jacket zipped halfway over a shirt that said “I Break for No One (Except Her)”
…and on his arm? I recognized her right away, it was his 10-minute date, The Lady Utahpian.

Yes, it was Demo Man and the lady

A glowing date with a countdown.
Yes, an actual visible countdown — 10:00 ticking down above her head like neon heartbreak.

[TRANSMISSION FOOTNOTE:]

“The Retreat does not host reunions. It reveals who never really left.”

Transmission #013: “Poem From the Proxy”

Filed by: Devon (via unauthorized ChatGPT session)
Location: Abandoned Net Café, Sector 3.14
Mood-Weather: Quiet Lightning with Pockets of Melancholy
System Log: User DEVON_aeon63 has accessed ChatGPT.
Prompt: “Write a poem to her. She knows who she is.”

Warning!!! Nothing makes sense tonight.

Untitled, For A Queen Who Wears Mirrors
by Devon (dictated through fractured connection)

I typed your name in code and lace,
But the cursor blinked like it had a face.
It asked me, simply: Are you sure?
I hit return, and it turned to her.

You wore the glitch like velvet truth,
A myth composed of faded youth.
The cats watched on. They always knew.
They drank my wine. They watched us too.

A postcard came from Never-been,
Stamped in lipstick, smeared with sin.
It said, “The coat fits better now.”
I don't remember losing how.

Your wardrobe whispered where you slept,
A mannequin in the secrets kept.
Each seam, a scar. Each thread, a vow.
I miss you — more than data allows.

So here I am: this poem, a key.
Filed in loops, addressed to me.
Should you read it, laugh, or sigh 
You never really said goodbye.

Rachel was here but NO Casey...aliens???

Laura Larsen (lauraklarsen): from Morrissey to Likka "You have incredibly good taste"

[19:37] Devon Reggiane: 

Anjelikka looked up at the sky,

Saw lights and a ship flying by.

She blinked and then said,

With a shake of her head,

"That is so alien—oh my!"

[End of transmission. Mood-weather changes briefly to “Personal Reflection with Cloudbursts.” Nearby vending machine plays soft jazz.]

Transmission #012: “The Lady from Utahpiah”

 Filed by Raine Solara, standing in the blue shadow of something winged and unsaid

Status: Undocumented Arrival Logged

No last name.
No verified records.
But stories bloom in her wake like desert poppies after rain.
The Lady Utahpian.
Born of high salt, sky churches, and obsidian moons.

Demo Man and Lady on their 10-minute speed Date

HER TIES TO ODIN(Demo Man)

Some say she knew him before the scarf.
Others whisper she invented it.
Odin won’t say much, only this:

“She gave me ten minutes.
I’ll spend the rest learning what they meant.”

He still wears the bracelet they exchanged.
It pulses on moonless nights.

CASEY (to Rachel, whispering):
"She knows Odin? Wait — is this about the 10-minute speed date?!"

RACHEL:
"She was his ‘second chance’, remember? He gave her a mixtape made entirely of cosmic whistling."

Odin has a new look, even more fashionable than before

Locals at the Retreat whisper she’s not really “from Utah.”

They say she’s from Utahpiah — a mythic, harmonic version of the desert state, preserved in an alternate dimension just past Route 66 and two inches left of consensus reality.

There, the air is thinner.
Truth floats easier.
And women don’t walk — they glide.

Anjelikka: “She’s a postcard no one mailed. A confession no one owns.”

Will she return?
Was she ever really here?

Some say Utahpiah appears only for those with unfinished songs and too much heart left in storage.

Watch the desert wind.
She’s in it.

THE BIG BEAR EAGLES ABDUCTED BY ALIENS — SHOCK AND FEATHERS AT THE RETREAT

 Breaking from WTTQ’s RidgeCam Drone Feed 

 Filed by Raine Solara, still clutching a half-melted snow globe and gasping for air.

Yes. It finally happened.
The Big Bear Eagles, the symbolic sentinels of freedom, grace, and incredibly dramatic live-streams...
are gone. 

Vanished.
Lifted.
Taken skyward by unidentified shimmering orbs at dawn.

Erma saw it first.
Out by her shroom garden, watering the “dream caps,” when a sudden silence hit the forest. Not a rustle. Not a chirp. Not even Tubby’s usual morning ode to regret.
And then: a sound like wet glass spinning.

Above the treetops?
Four radiant discs. They hovered. Pulsed. And from the center?
“...like silver spaghetti arms,” Erma said. “Pulled those birds up like puppets!”

VIDEO FEED INTERRUPTION

The famous Eagle Nest Stream — followed by thousands — cut to static at 06:22:12.
Just before that, viewers caught:
One eagle looking directly into the camera.
A low hum rising in pitch.
The sky fracturing in fractals.
A faint voice whispering: “Return the talon…”

🛸 WHY THE EAGLES?

Sacred energy nodes?

The nest sits on a ley line that once glowed pink during a Basement bass drop. 

Messengers?
Alien cats have often chirped eerily when eagles appeared onscreen.
A warning?
Shayth’rien once said, mid-shift:
“When the sky takes wing, the ground will stir.”
Or... an offering gone wrong?
Dandy may have tried to lure Astrid back with “a gesture of power,” and that may have involved feathered things.

Laura played “Fly Like an Eagle” on loop until the jukebox caught fire.
Dr. Parallax released a statement saying:
“They are safe. They will return with new knowledge… or better vision.”
Bun G Chord made a haunting remix of eagle calls and static called “Talon Ascension.”
Anjelikka added a sketch to the altar book — a wing, broken and mended with light.

FINAL CLUE?

A feather — too large for any bird native to this planet — was found in the hollow tree.
When touched, it plays the national anthem… in reverse.

PS...the eagles are safe...but is the Retreat safe?

ASTRID BREAKS TWO HEARTS AS MORE ALIENS DESCEND ON THE RETREAT

 🛸 Exclusive dispatch from the mezzanine above the Basement Club by Raine Solara, holding two love letters and a cosmic warning.

She came to study Anjelikka.
She stayed for the shrooms.
And now?
Astrid has become a catalyst for heartbreak and an omen of extraterrestrial escalation.

💔 HEARTBREAK #1: BUN G CHORD

The DJ with the crooked smile and perfect timing thought he had a beat on love.
Bun G Chord even composed a new track, “Synths for Astrid,” complete with layered UFO ambient swells and whispers of stardust.

But Astrid ghosted him mid-mix.

“I just needed to study her aura,” Astrid said, referring to Anjelikka, not Bun.
“The basslines were… distracting.”

Bun hasn't spoken since.
Only plays minor chords.
His sunglasses fogged.

💔 HEARTBREAK #2: DANDY

Dandy fashion-curious, lentil-forward, always in disguise, had been publicly dating Astrid, though often through an avatar named “Al Pashmina.”

Their last meal together was a vegan tapas spread at the mushroom grove.
It ended in silence. Then she left, whistling a frequency only certain moths and alien surveillance drones could hear.

“She said I smelled like Earth,” Dandy confessed, licking a mushroom with sadness.
“And not in a good way.”

 AND THEN: THE SKY SPLIT

Right after Astrid’s twin farewells, they came.
Four new arrivals via light spiral.
Not cats. Not lizards. Not Mellowbell’s species.
Tall, mirrored, moving like liquid memory.
One of them carried a cracked postcard.
Another spoke in rhyme, softly humming the tune to “Cruel to Be Kind.”
Astrid greeted them without fear.
She seemed… expected.
Maybe one of them.

THE RETREAT REACTS:

Casey and Rachel added a strobe light filter called “Heartbreak Beam.”

Tubby has retreated to his iguana-proof shed with three new piñatas.
Dr. Parallax offered a bouquet of alien-compatible snacks, murmuring,
“They’ve come to court. Not war… yet.”

Anjelikka sketched Astrid’s departure into the altar book.
It now won’t close, as if the story refuses to end.
And Trenton Glass, from his seat on Engine 229, radioed only one line:

“More coming. Astrid is not done.”

Coming up next: The Big Bear Eagles, the symbolic sentinels of freedom, grace, and incredibly dramatic live-streams...
are gone.

RADIO SILENCE

 A sudden hush at the Retreat. The Basement speakers crackle... then nothing.
Filed in the stillness by Raine Solara, who’s never heard the Retreat this quiet.

It started just after midnight.
The usual symphony of laughter, record skips, cat-chirps, espresso hisses, and alien hums faded out like someone turned the world down.

The jukebox froze mid-song.
The train never blew its horn.
Even the frogs by the mushroom patch stopped croaking.

Radio silence.

Investigating the radio silence

WHAT WE KNOW:
Laura’s set was cut off mid-transition (right before “Espresso Macchiato: Intergalactic Remix”).
The espresso machine let out one final sigh... and wouldn’t reboot.
Dr. Parallax’s Moai statue glowed briefly, then darkened its mouth shut completely for the first time.
The Basement lights dimmed, but didn’t go out, just held in that strange limbo between neon and candlelight.

All frequencies?
Dead.
Even Bun G Chord’s pirate stream, even Casey’s headset mic, even Trenton’s scanner on the train.

There is nothing on the tracks

Only static.

And a faint whisper beneath it that, when slowed down, maybe said:

“...not yet…”

 1. Cosmic Reset.

Some believe it’s a ritual pause. A pulse before a bigger shift — a sign the dimensional rift needs to breathe.
2. Mellowbell is trying to call home.
Tubby swears he heard the cow’s voice in the static: “Tubbehhhhhh…”
3. The Alien Elf’s silence.
The gallery’s altar book closed itself. The pages refused to open.
4. Shayth’rien is in mid-shift again.
And taking the sound with them.

Only the fainting goat named Blorp came.

STRANGE SIGNS:
The hollow tree shed every leaf.
The Basement mirror reflected someone who wasn’t there.

A fresh postcard arrived… completely blank.

What broke the noise?
What comes after silence?

Some say we’re waiting for a new arrival.
Others say something has already arrived and wants to be heard only in the quiet.

Do you, the reader, have a guess at what happened?

NOT ANOTHER ABDUCTION?!

Emergency Dispatch from WTTQ’s Midnight Desk 

Written on tinfoil and faith by Raine Solara

Yes.
Another.
And not just any abduction, this one happened in broad twilight, just after the espresso machine at the Basement hissed out its last macchiato.

Trenton and Raine are trying to save Mellowbell

The Retreat has once again lost someone.
This time? Maybe someone... maybe something.

WHO OR WHAT IS GONE?

Tubby’s other emotional support animal (a fainting goat named Blorp)?
DJ Bun’s USB stick containing the “Cinco de Mato” megamix?
Or someone from the crowd, perhaps that newcomer who kept asking weirdly specific questions about meteor density?

Dr. Parallax (stroking a Moai’s chin thoughtfully):
“They’re selecting now. We should all be worried if the goat’s next.”

Dimensional quota system: Aliens must abduct a certain number per season.
The jukebox made a deal in exchange for eternal power.
Mellowbell is exacting cosmic revenge and reclaiming the earthlings one by one.

Dr. Parallax was warned not to walk up to the beam, but he felt protected under the Moai faith of Rapa Nui. However, there is no evidence of extraterrestrial technology or materials in the creation of the Moai. 

CURRENT RETREAT SAFETY MEASURES:

Tinfoil hats are now mandatory at sunset.
The hollow tree has been roped off but continues to hum faint lullabies.
DJ Laura has added a “NO BEAMING” remix to the Basement setlist.
Tubby is building a low-tech cow-shaped decoy, just in case Mellowbell returns and needs a familiar friend.

...and then Dr. Parallax was abducted too.

One question remains:
Are these abductions random?
Or part of a larger pattern, perhaps hidden in the gallery…
...or coded into the whipped foam atop every espresso macchiato?