Alien Makes Cameo at Game of Hide-and-Seek at Lake Merritt in Oakland

Photo by Ellie Bozmarova

This story is a fiction piece, and it was created from my imagination.

On Friday, March 19, a group of two thousand people decided to play hide-and-seek at Lake Merritt in Oakland—with out-of-this-world results.

The day was beautiful: cloudy in the morning then sunny in the afternoon, with big, fluffy clouds crowding the sky’s edges. People could even see the campanile from parts of Oakland.

It was relatively quiet for such a beautiful day, likely due to current events in the Bay Area, and likely due to everyone now crowding into gyms, which are finally open.

The Meeting Place: Lake Merritt

The group’s intention was to break the Guiness Book of Records record for most people playing, a record previously held by a bunch of people in Cambridge, UK.

Lake Merritt used to be a dangerous place, including by today’s standards.

Those fairy lights were off.

The playground was non-existent.

The piano at that giant gazebo was haunted and played by an angry, lonely ghost wearing a tall top hat.

And there certainly weren’t any people running or walking with friends, unless they were disposing of something in the lake.

But this past Friday, a group decided to try something that had never been done before.

They wanted to have fun at the lake en masse. Where previously the lake has been a site of protests and moments of grieving in large groups, one Meetup group decided to take a moment to make running away from strangers in Oakland fun and exciting.

The Game

“We didn’t see it coming at all,” said Max Mulshmimmer, a local comedian and improv superstar. “We’d taken every precaution to make this event safe for people of all ages, but I just…” Mulshmimmer then broke into tears, refusing to continue the interview.

The game started at approximately 5 pm. Two thousand people gathered at the north end of the lake and waited for the ringleader to announce, “GO!” on their giant megaphone.

The game was simple. The ringleader would find as many people as possible. The participants wore white T-shirts with bright orange bandanas around their heads.

When the ringleader got tired, he would tag someone else to begin tagging.

“It started out as a really exciting day,” said Mulshmimmer’s partner Slondy. “We were thrilled for the opportunity to hide from strangers, as usual, but with more incentive.

They didn’t see it coming.

Nobody did.

The Incident

Approximately twenty minutes into the game, a bone-chilling scream could be heard all over the lake. It was a goat, which sometimes sounds like a human scream. It’s very scary.

Nearly four hundred people had already been found. They’d been hiding in bushes, in tents (technically cheating, because no one wants to disturb someone’s home).

They’d been hiding at the library, in trash cans, at the Mudlab, the new coffee shop that’s replaced Perch.

Some people had even been hiding in the lake itself, with garbage covering their heads as camouflage.

“It was impossible to find some folks, and the game effectively ended after the incident,” said original ringleader Kandy Rice.

The goat in question really had been screaming, because it was on a leash held by local big-wig, Ronald Rumblewimble. “I am a big-wig, it’s true,” Rumblewimble said, rubbing his hand over his voluptuous belly.

“But I had nothing to do with this incident. My goat was just walking by screaming when the incident took place. I’m innocent, and so’s my pet goat.”

Fair enough. But what happened, and who did it, and where, and how is it possible to be so far down in this fictional article without actually reporting any fictional details about the fictional event in question?

“It was aliens,” said one participant. “I saw a green man driving a Tesla, which then floated up into the air. Only…”

The participant, who asked not to be named, hesitated. She didn’t want to share anymore, but her friends nudged her. “Do it for the guy,” they said. They didn’t know the guy’s name.

She’d noticed the Tesla and green man—“call it an alien, please,” she interrupted us to say—was because she’d been trying to meet her Bumble date at the hide-and-seek game.

A pretty strange place to meet up with a date, but okay.

“I saw him there, and we waved, and the car arrived. It was a cinnamon-red car and there he was, the frightening giant-headed alien person.”

The next thing that happened is too strange for word.

The alien man opened the passenger door. Hypnotized, this hide-and-seek-er’s date entered the car. He looked out the window, blank-faced.

He nodded weakly.

Then, the car ascended into the sky.

Before she could say anything to alert her friends, lightning forked through the sky, blinding her.

The car disappeared.

Where did it go?

She’d fallen to the ground just as a group of runners entered the path before her.

She screamed and one of them, started, fell into the lake.

As the runner fell into the lake, they accidentally hit a duck, which flew into a boat’s propeller, which clogged the boat’s propeller, which led to the duck flying back out completely unscathed.

The Surprise

Hours later, after the magical game of hide-and-seek ended, the car was recovered. The young participant’s Bumble date was completely unscathed, like the duck and the goat.

But the alien was not.

They recovered the alien in the lake as the sun set. He glowed like a radioactive sun. His black eyes were lidless and startlingly blank. But he was alive.

So there you have it. We’ve found an alien, who appears to have taken a tumble from his flying car.

Are tIs this the same alien who infiltrated the sideshow in East Oakland a few weeks ago? Only time will tell.

Also, the group didn’t beat the Guiness World Record, because too many people got distracted and wandered off with their phones and Pokemon Go’s, or passed out with their masks on. Next time!

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