Nora sat at her desk, completely absorbed in her work, when Marcos walked in.

“Hi, gorgeous,” he said as he sat down across from her. “Did you notice what happened?”

“What happened?” she asked, worried by the dramatic tone he’d used.

“The flashing lights I could see disappeared,” he explained, awed. “But other lights started to appear.”

Nora let out a long sigh and rubbed her eyes; then she decided to give full attention to his friend, since the subject he’d brought up was more interesting than her tasks.

“I stopped seeing them, too,” she confessed. “I also noticed an intense light spreading across part of the sky.”

Marcos gave...