Lucy would have been the first person on Earth to admit she wasn't really a normal girl. She wasn't as attractive as some girls. She wasn't ugly by any stretch. Curly brown hair to her shoulders, her glasses (because she kept forgetting to buy new contacts) framing her face, and the rather simple clothing she chose to wear made her a rather plain young woman.

She'd never expected she'd be, as far as she knew, the first person on Earth to ever meet real live aliens.

She'd also never expected to be unable to move.

She'd been driving past when she saw the light, and the curious nineteen year old had pulled over to the side and went to investigate. What she had found was the glowing disc, lights of all colours blinking on the sides. She had stared in awe for a few moments, pinching herself.

And then something had opened and two creatures that resembled half-snake, half-humans emerged. They were green and scaly, with writhing tentacle like "hair", for want of a better word. Their eyes were red, but they did not carry obvious weapons,  but wore mirror-shine silver... breastplates. And golden bracelets.

And she had been frozen in place. Her whole body stiffened, began to cool, leaving her staring forward.

Her next surprise was to begin to understand the creatures.

"...I was certain there was a native creature out here, Commander!" One said.

The alien sounded female, and her accent was local. Lucy could not fathom why, but was slowly convinced she was having an insane dream.

"Well, shout something, the translator microbes have spread out throughout the area. The natives will understand you. And for goodness sake this time say you come in peace..."

The commander also sounded female, and local.

"Yes, Commander." The second of the creatures said, with another local, female, accent.

"Come out puny resident of... OW!" The first began, cut off by a quick slap around the back of her head.

"Idiot! You heard the Commander! She's in no mood for your joking around!"

The first one seemed to whine for a moment, but then her glowing gaze seemed to spot Lucy.

If she wasn't already frozen mysteriously, she would have probably froze in fear.

"Eh? What's that?"

The two creatures slithered over, and Lucy desperately tried to move or speak, but nothing happened.

And then she saw a strange sight. In the mirror-shine breastplates, a statue wearing a green t-shirt, a faded denim jacket, and a short grey skirt fluttering a little in the wind (or possibly exhaust from the ship) over black bike shorts. Alabaster orbs stared out from behind a pair of glasses.

Lucy wanted to scream. That was no statue! That was HER!

"Curious... It seems to be an effigy of some sort. What species class were the natives?" The second creature pondered.

"...They were simian in nature I believe. Bipedal. This would appear to be a figure of the native creatures.  Commander, could the sensors have detected this and mistaken the shape?" First replied, and asked.

"No, they can't have. The translators registered a connection to a lifeform... Wait... Sensors no longer pick it up and the microbes are sending an error message. Our sensors may have a problem..."

"I see. Well, shall we log the effigy?" The second wondered.

"It cannot hurt..." The Commander ordered.

First then raised her hand, and a small light came from her bracelet. It bathed Lucy's stone form for a moment.

"...Curious. The effigy seems to be wearing cloth over its form. Scans indicate below the clothing it is unusually detailed - possible representations of accurate reproductive and waste excretion orifices are detected as well as detailed weaning glands. We'd probably need more knowledge of natives themselves to confirm it but... It's as if it was just a native made of stone."

The second frowned.

"...Scan it for technology."

First nodded.

"...Strange. It seems to have a communications device in the pocket of that blue garment. And... Well, it looks almost as if it has translator microbes attached to it."

Second pondered, then her eyes widened.

"...Commander, have our people landed on this planet before?"

"I'll check the records... Ah, yes. Roughly a thousand cycles ago. Around two thousand local cycles. The reports then indicated they had landed in what they thought was a large settlement, but all they found was a number of effigies. They suspected the settlement and the effigies had been built by natives who lived below the surface as an offering to their gods."

"...Can you compare any records of the effigies to this one here, ma'am?"

"Certainly. Hm, some similarities... I'll try to load some of the... data..."

Lucy did not like that pause, or being referred to as an effigy.

"... The microbes seemed to latch onto the effigies then as well, but they were altered to not latch onto anything that wasn't moving as a result. They shouldn't have connected to this figure."

The first had wide eyes too.

"...Unless the microbes have reacted and transformed the native into stone!"

Lucy was stunned, to say the least. She only understood them because she was stone?!

"...Abort the mission. Return to the ship, I'm disengaging the microbes for now... "

The creatures retreated, and then there was a faint humming noise. Lucy felt herself grow warm, and then she blinked.

She blinked.

She stared through normal eyes at her once-more flesh hands, and whooped in joy... Then remembered the ship. She looked at it.

She blinked again.

She ran back to her car...