Kevin was having fun on the swing. Getting higher and higher, the little boy was throwing his legs back and forth, and an innocent smile of amusement was growing bigger and bigger on his face.
It was a cloudy, windy November afternoon, that he was spending in this park with his mother. The large grassy area, surrounded by trees, hedges and a hiking trail leading to a forest, was arranged with benches and child's plays. Two squirrels were running along the waving branches of the trees, making some yellow leafs fall.
Kevin's mother was sitting on a nearby bench, reading a book. "The life of an independent woman" by Suzan Void. A very serious book, in which a cashier describes her tough everyday life, although it was filled with a number of witty anecdotes. Busy with her reading, the woman was not paying attention to her child, barely considering his joyful cries.
The autumn wind was blowing through the trees, the only noise covering its whistle being Kevin's "weeeee"s on the swing.
Not making a single sound, a bright light briefly appeared a few hundred meters in front of them. The mother wasn't disturbed, but the little Kevin raised his head, caught by the phenomenon.
The swing slowed down, and finally stopped, going back to its usual position. Kevin didn't move. His eyes were focused on a white, translucent sphere of light, that had spawned right at the exit of the forest in front of him, where the bright light had flashed. It was big, at least one hundred meters high, and it was getting closer, slowly.
Kevin jumped off the swing and stared at the light. His face was not showing any fear at all, only curiosity. His o-shaped mouth moved, forming a faint "whoa", then turned into a smile. He narrowed his eyes to perceive more details, while the sphere of light was getting closer. There was some kind of light, a pure white blur, shining from the center of the sphere, embracing the insides of the form. The thickness of the fog prevented Kevin from seeing anything; the edges of the great form, on the opposite, were much clearer. If there was something inside, it would have to be near the border to see or to be seen outside.
Then he saw them.
His eyes widened. There was a compact crowd inside of that giant ball, walking together in one direction. Kevin's eyebrows almost met his hair, and his smile turned into a big grin, he giggled, and bounced without any sort of concern in their direction. He was sure he could make friends with them. He sort of knew them already, and he knew that they would cheerfully welcome him in their group, and then they'd have fun together. They would eat cakes, sing, have parties, and...
*THUD*
Kevin just got stopped in this tracks by the thick layer of white light that materialized the sphere's borders. Too busy picturing their meeting, the boy had run into it, not considering whether the sphere was solid or not. Well, now he knew.
It was as solid as heavy glass, and it hurt. Then again, he was still smiling, staring with wide, sparkling eyes at the closest being in his field of view. The said being was staring back, but at the boy's hands specifically. Both were so looking at each other, agape.
Kevin opened his mouth and tried to shout something to his new acquaintance. Nothing comprehensible came out, as his mouth was still sticked to the barrier. His action only resulted in spreading some fog onto the force field.
The being he was yelling at backed a little, uneasy with the boy's cheerful yet quite loud tone, as if a big spider was climbing on its leg. It shook its head, and closed its eyes, focusing.
The little boy felt like he was getting higher, lighter, like floating in the air. He stopped smiling when he also noticed some kind of green, blurry glow around him. The surprise left his expression, and he laughed.
He suddenly was propelled away, as if a giant, invisible hand had thrown him like a frisbee. He spent his time in midair wondering what was happening, and eventually realized that he was being rejected when he loudly hit the ground. A small cloud of dust formed due to the violence of the crash.
He felt a sharp pain in his arm and his back. He didn't cry, though. He was too stunned to do anything. Even if his body was hurting, the physical pain was nothing compared to how he felt in his heart.
Kevin's mother had raised her head, looking for her child as soon as she had heard the loud landing on the ground. When she looked towards her son, laying in dirt, she dropped her book and ran to him, panicked.
"Kevin!" she said, kneeling besides her son. "Kevin, sweetheart, what happened? Are you alright?"
She rubbed the dust off his clothes, looking at him. She watched his arm. It was covered with dirt, and bleeding a little. But what shocked her was how unfitting the angle of his arm was. As she realized, she screamed: "Oh my god Kevin, your arm is broken! What did you-"
"Mom," said Kevin softly.
The mother's mouth remained open, but she didn't say anything. Something was wrong, her child had fallen violently, got his arm broken, but he wasn't crying in pain like any other child would do. Instead, he was sitting still, staring in front of him. What could catch his attention to the point he'd forget his pain?
She looked in the direction of his glance.
"What..."
One of these beings that were in the sphere of light was now outside, walking to them, never taking its eyes away from the boy. Its frowning face wasn't showing anything but disgust, and one could easily read the hatred in its large, narrowed purple eyes.
It stopped walking when they were a few steps away from each other. They stared at each other for only a few seconds, but it felt like an eternity. The wind had stopped blowing, and the nature went completely silent. The only thing that broke that silence was the creepy creaking of the metallic links of the swing, still slowly balancing due to the inertia.
The little boy started sobbing.
"Why did you throw me away?" he asked desperately.
The being frowned even more. A purple light started glowing near its forehead.
"What are you..?" asked the mother. "You look like... but it's not... you're not real..."
The purple glow became a bright light. It was like pure energy being concentrated.
"Mom..." whined Kevin.
The purple light was now turning into an energy ball that danced like a purple fireball.
"Unicorns on TV were nice... why isn't this one nice..." sobbed the boy.
The purple fireball grew bigger, and was as tall as the woman.
"I wish I knew, sweetheart." She tightly hugged her son.
The lavender unicorn made a quick movement with her head, and the fireball moved at full speed towards the boy and his mother.
"I really wish I knew..."
She didn't even wince when the fireball exploded on contact with the two human beings.
The next second, where Kevin and his mother were sitting, there was nothing left but burned ashes.
