It was early Saturday morning, the main street of the town was lonely, just one or two late-night people sitting on the sidewalks. Five friends walk towards the mountain, Marcia, Eduardo, Juan, Mercedes and Miguel. They go slowly, they are not in a hurry, they just hope to find something different, something that will amaze them.
The night before they had seen a meteorite fall near the fire control tower and the Indio cave, which is 10 kilometers from the town and 1000 meters above sea level. They saw the news on the internet, and nobody seems to give importance to it, as if it was something very common, and it is, but they are young people passionate about the stars and everything that has to do with the universe attracts them, so they decided to investigate.
"It's cold in the morning, last night my mother had to give me a tea of lemon grass, chamomile and honey because I had a cold, she almost didn't let me come". Eduardo wipes his nose with a handkerchief and adjusts his wool hat knitted over his frizzy hair.
"Oh my friend, your thing is already a mania, I think you are a hypochondriac, you always have something, if it is not the nose that drips mucus, it is the scratchy throat or that hateful cough with that annoying sound at every moment"
"Hahaha leave it Miguel, you're always bothering he", Marcia, with her long brown hair tied in a ponytail and a blue scarf covering her long neck, smiles as she turns to see Eduardo's annoyed face.
"I'm not bothering him, I'm just telling him the truth, let's see if he realizes it and stops complaining about his health". His tall and corpulent body bends down to pick up from the ground a stone that catches his attention because of its grayish color, he looks at it with curiosity, it has a shine, and he puts it in his pocket.
"Well friends let's leave Eduardo's health for another time, we are already arriving at the entrance of the park, and we have to take the shortcut, so we don't run into any park rangers who will bother us with their questions". Juan, short and thin, carries a big backpack on his back, with his photography equipment, his notebook and some bottles with solutions to identify minerals, he loves chemistry, and he is not going to miss this opportunity if they find some remains of the meteorite, to do some tests.
"Let's walk, let's not waste time". Mercedes gets into the vegetation and begins to climb a dirt path, holding on to the plants, it is a little difficult, because it has rained and there is mud, but she is very determined and strong, her friends say she is not afraid of anything, she grew up on a farm helping her parents and brothers in the work of cultivation and in raising sheep, which she had to carry many times, that made her develop a great musculature ... .
The boys continue walking one after the other, Miguel stays last, protecting Marcia, who finds it a little difficult to follow the others. They reach an esplanade where they hear the sound of water between the stones.
"We are already close to the river," said Miguel, "let's get there so we can cool off a bit, because we still have a ways to go".
They all agreed. The river descended between large rocks and the vegetation was lusher, ferns and epiphytes hung from the trees. They sat down to cool off and listened to a sound in the leaf litter. Marcia jumped up.
"It's a snake!" Her eyes were staring at the snake.
The animal moved quickly and got lost in the forest.
"Hahaha Marcia, that snake was more scared than you", Jose opened his backpack and took out his camera. "We missed taking a good video, but just in case it comes back, I'm prepared".
"Don't make fun Jose, I don't think it's funny, you know I'm afraid of them". Marcia sits down and as she sits down she notices a glow through the fabric of Miguel's pants pocket.
"Miguel, what's that you have in your pocket?, look, it's shining".
"Like you caught a firefly", Eduardo approaches with curiosity.
Miguel reaches into his pocket and pulls out the gray stone that he had put away a few moments ago, and when he did so, it glowed with a blue and green glow.
They all stood admiring the beauty that Miguel had in the palm of his hand.
Jose approached and took it, instantly the light changed to a yellow color.
That's strange, I don't know a mineral that can emit that glow. Let's do some tests and say that he took out of his backpack a brown box that contained some vials and some droppers.
He placed the stone that had stopped glowing in a porcelain saucer and added a drop of a sulfuric acid solution
As the drop of acid fell on the rock, it emitted a glowing red color and a blue light pierced the vegetation. At the same time Marcia clutched her head in her hands and started screaming
"Don't go on!, you're hurting her, leave her alone".
Mercedes approaches José and takes the stone out of his hands.
"But what's wrong with them, it's just a stone, it has no life", Jose stares at them while he keeps the bottle with the acid.
Eduardo looks at the beam of blue light still emitting from the rock and says to his friends.
"Open your mind Jose, we know that there are many mysteries in the universe and why not believe that this stone has life. I think it is giving a signal, it is a warning, we must follow it.
They all agreed, they had a great curiosity to know what was happening, they left the river and continued up the mountain, following the light and as they did so they found pieces of similar rocks on the road, as if they were footprints. They were taking them and keeping them in Marcia's pants pocket, it seemed that they had an affinity for her, for their light became fainter and of a pink color, as if they were reassuring.
Very close to the place where they had reported the fall of the supposed meteorite, the young people found the cave, they entered through it and saw a large amount of gray rocks and realized that nothing had fallen in that place, but quite the contrary, they had emitted a very strong beam of light from the earth into space and that was what they saw. Things are not always what they seem.
These apparent rocks were alive and all at the same time surrounded the five young men with a purple light, and told them how they arrived on the planet thousands of years ago.
"Our world collapsed due to violence among the inhabitants and the human-like survivors changed to the form we have now and here we have remained quiet, unnoticed and adapted to the conditions of the planet. We communicate through color. But these conditions have been changing and the high concentrations of carbon dioxide are affecting us and we have to leave. We just want to continue living in rock form and we are gathering to look for another place to go and that is the reason for the light you have seen leaving the planet, we are exploring possible worlds."
The five friends came out of that cave amazed at what they had seen and heard.
"And they let us go, they trusted us", Miguel could not get over his amazement.
"They know we won't hurt them, I could feel it, and so could you, right Mercedes?"
"Yes Marcia and it was something so extraordinary to be able to listen to them".
"Not even in my dreams did I imagine that this could happen to us", Jose with his scientific mind had had a very close encounter with beings from another world.
Eduardo felt very well after this day and never again did his friends hear him complain about his health.
Here is my story for The Ink Well Fiction Prompt #110, thank you very much for reading
Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)