Ulyana

A microfiction inspired by a photo I once took

Ulyana peered into the mouth of the conduit using the special X-ray camera the university hospital had loaned her investigatory team. It didn't provide many details — even the crosshairs built-in as a focusing aid were blurry.

But she didn't think she wanted to see the details anyway; if the report she'd read was even roughly accurate, what those boys had seen crawling out of this pipe last night had no place on Earth — not even here on the grounds of this godforsaken 1960s-era nuclear power facility which the Soviets had simply driven away from, in the middle of a night over 30 years ago…