Molly reached the end of the hallway and nudged the door open with her shoulder. At least, that’s what Moriarty thought it was called. It may have been an elbow, he wasn’t sure.
The door creaked open and the sun streamed through.
Outside. Moriarty sighed.
His puny human arms were shaking. He thought it was what the humans called “being tired.” It was a weird feeling, and he didn’t like it.
He stepped through the door and out into the warmth of the sunlight; a familiar feeling. The sun beamed down on him and he smiled, only to be distracted by the sound of the door shutting behind him. On the door were big letters that spelled “NO ENTRANCE.” He thought this was a bad thing. He shrugged.
“Do you remember the dumpster code?” Molly asked, heading for a big green box behind a fence a few feet away.
Dumpster. The word didn’t register, and he wanted to ask, but instead he just said “No.”
“I think they just changed it, but I don’t remember what it is.” She looked at Moriarty, hands starting to shake more now. “Are they doing seasons or planets this month?”
“Planets?” Moriarty recognized that word as well.
“I think you’re right,” Molly said. She walked over to the fence and set her boxes on the ground. Moriarty wanted to do the same, but he wasn’t sure if he was supposed to, so he held onto them, his tiny, meat-covered bones still shaking. He watched Molly fiddle with something at the gate until he heard a clicking noise. Molly looked over her shoulder. “Got it!” She proclaimed. She picked up her boxes again, walked forward, and tossed them in the large green box. It must have been a dumpster. He simulated Molly’s movements and threw his boxes in as well. Molly dusted off her hands. Moriarty smiled and copied her.
He jumped when the door they had just come through swung back open. A group of people piled out. One of them was Jeff; the actual Jeff, not the alien-pretending-to-be-human Jeff. Not Moriarty. The real Jeff’s mustache seemed especially angry. The other people around him had shiny metal things pointed directly at Molly and Moriarty.
Molly put her hands straight into the air, so Moriarty did the same.
“There he is,” the real Jeff shouted. He pointed at Moriarty.
Moriarty started sweating again. Without thinking, he jumped into the dumpster.
Covered in paper waste and surrounded by the stench of rotting fruit corpses, Moriarty shed the confinements of his human skin and donned his blue, scaly, familiar flesh. He stretched his arms and legs like putting on a new pair of gloves, examined his stomach, and pushed his abdomen, where humans have their belly button. His torso twisted sideways and his legs tucked up into his body. His hairless, shiny head slid down into his neck like a turtle and his arms shrunk and disappeared to join his legs inside of his belly. He looked like a bag of flour wearing a motorcycle helmet.
The stomping and clanking of people and their shiny things surrounded the dumpster and he knew he didn’t have a choice. He counted backwards from glorg (“five” in English), and when he ran out of numbers, his body started shaking, slowly at first, then more quickly. After a few seconds, his body shot straight up into the air, and he shifted and angled himself toward the mountains he had seen earlier; he assumed he would be safe there.