I’m writing this in the present year, but this isn’t my time. I’m from a dark and terrible future, but I’ve
been given the chance to write this warning to you. I’m hoping it will help you save survive
what’s coming. First a little about me, I’m from the south born and raised. Due to some complicated family drama I ended up the twenty-four year old guardian of my younger sister Teri who was fourteen in 2033, right before…well I’ll get to that soon enough. But either way, the two of us lived in a small house on the outskirts of a tiny town off the beaten path. I worked hard back then to take
care of my sister while she focused on her school. It was an OK life if rough at times. We couldn’t have known what was coming no one could. They were coming.
I know it sounds unbelievable, but it happened or will happen I should say. Aliens invaded every corner of the planet and world war three began overnight. Of course, it didn’t go well for us
humans. In the space of about a month, the narrative of, “We’ll send these aliens back from where they came from,” collapsed and humanity ended up in a losing running battle as the aliens’ robot armies overran city after city, country after country. One morning, a couple of weeks into it my sister and I were eating at the kitchen table. The schools had been closed even though the battles were going down on the other side of the state. We both saw the news on our screens, but I tried
telling my little sister everything was going to be OK, although even back then I didn’t believe it.
The planet was divided into free land and occupied zones the latter run by the aliens. No one knew what went on in the zones since no reports or news got out of them, but even then I knew it couldn’t be anything good. I had no idea how right I was, but I would find out.
Our family homestead ended up behind enemy lines. I decided we’d hunker down and see how things went. I don’t know what I thought was going to happen no one was going to save us at least not yet. Unfortunately, as our supplies dwindled and the fighting got closer I told my sister we needed to make a run for it. We didn’t make it. After being captured by some drone scouts while trekking through the wilderness we ended up in an empty field outside of a burning city in a mob of thousands of people.
The aliens divided us humans up into groups and then loaded those groups into trucks. A drone pulled my sister away from me. I started a scene to keep her with me, but all I had to show for it was a mark on my cheek.
Next I ended up in the back of a windowless truck. Light peeked in through the canvas at the back allowing us ragged prisoners to look at each other, but no one dared speak a word. The brakes squealed, some people fell out of their seats from the force. The tension in the back thickened until the gray canvas parted revealing the front of an elongated beige alien head its beady red eyes examining us. He swept aside the canvas cover and several drones were around him. The alien spoke
in a series of harsh snarls and growls, which I later found out amounted to their language. The wild swings and gestures with his long skeletal arms gave us the message to get out as soon as
possible. This alien was freakishly tall at least nine feet about average for their species. He had beige colored skin and a freakishly long head with sunken red eyes and big teeth jutting out of its mouth. I hopped out and joined the group forming in the grass on the side of the road. Another guy hesitated at the sight of the drop. The alien grabbed his arm and yanked him off. The man landed with a thud and then floundered in the dirt as the thing screeched at him. The drones hovered around my group. One of them said to us in a deep voice, “The meat will finish the journey on foot.”
The skies above were gray as we trudged towards our destination off in the distance. Chain link fences hanging on wooden poles surrounding drab metal buildings. This was one of dozens of the aliens’ camps spread across the planet. We passed another truck in front of the one we got here in. Smoke bellowed out from under the hood as robots climbed all over it. Closer to the gate some commotion erupted. One guy made a break for it. There was a huge field to the right and at the end of it a forest. There was no way he was going to make it on foot. “Halt meat! Halt!” a drone said holding up a metal hand. Our group waited to see if the man would get his freedom. One of the aliens screeched and stepped away from the caravan. The man raced across the wide field. The
alien raised its weapon. One of his friends colored a pale shade of white got behind him and watched from over his shoulder. The runner closed in on the tree line. The gun fired. He dropped in the mud a few feet from his destination. The alien lifted its gun in triumph. His pale friend put a hand on his shoulder and opened his mouth into what I guess was a smile. We got moving again. I passed through the gates into the yard as eyes from the watch towers bore down on me and my fellow prisoners. There was no tour we went straight into the building in front of us. The smell hit
me first, blood and other fluids hung in the air as a permanent musk that burned my nose and eyes. The screams of humans and the thumping of heavy machinery in the distant parts of the building
mixed together and assaulted my ears. I didn’t see anything that day. The drones herded us into an enclosed area completely walled off and lit with the same low red lighting as the rest of the place.
In the middle of room were pens made of sharp wire reaching up towards the ceiling. Ten or so of us squeezed into one pen and the doors closed behind us and were tied off with heavy chains. For weeks, although it felt like months (it was hard to keep track) most of my time was spent there. My days consisted of waking up surrounded by ten random people, being escorted through the maze of hallways to the feeding area, and ending up back where we started. Sometimes the same pen sometimes a different one and usually with a new group of faces. The aliens feed as blue slop,
which tasted bad and I would later learn had a very undesirable ingredient.
For a month this was my life until the big night.
I sat on the cold floor with a sea of legs around me (it was my turn to sit) and then the heavy
doors at the front of the room creaked slowly. The aliens didn’t bother us at night one of our few comforts so thoughts of fear and worry erupted in my mind. Clamoring traveled my way from the pens closer to the door. I pushed my way to the wires so I could face the hallway. Figures in the dark moved around the cages. A bearded man in fatigues holding a rifle approached, “Keep it down, we’re here to bust you out,” he said in a harsh whisper. Another man came over with huge bolt cutters. The chain clasped around the door fell with a metallic thud. I went with the flow as we all spilled out into the area around the cages. Our rescuers were part of a resistance group and one of them ordered us to stay put. No one argued. Some of the resistance members went to work on the other locks while others remained in the growing crowd of escapees. Among these armed saviors I spotted a familiar face one I never thought I’d see again. “Kyle!” I said wading through the crowd toward the tall muscular man armed to the teeth. He wore the same discount vigilante outfit like when I first met him the longest month before. I should have mentioned this earlier, but about a month before the aliens arrived, this guy Lew Kyle saved me and my sister from being mugged in a parking lot. He
said he was an intergalactic vigilante or something. I thought he was crazy. Back then, I didn’t think
aliens existed. Boy was I wrong. In my defense Kyle passed as human if an extremely athletic one. He glared at me with squinted eyes, but then they widened with recognition, “Oh hey dork, good
to see you. I thought you’d be dead by now.” “Wait, why would I be dead?” I said. “Well you know, between the global war, Mad Max savages, and being put on the alien’s menu, it was a distinct
possibility.”
“There are Mad Max savages?” “Not anymore,” he said tapping his massive gun. “I thought you said you were leaving the planet?” “I was until the aliens made getting off a bit of a mess so I fell in with these guys. They’re not the best soldiers, but don’t worry stick close to me and I’ll get you out alive.” He shoved me aside and fired into the rafters. Bullets clanged as they ricocheted off metal. A second later the limp mechanical body of a drone hung over the railing of a catwalk above us. Several of my fellow prisoners got off the ground removing their hands from their ears, while other remained crouched. A resistance member glared at the man holding the machine gun.
“Think they heard that?” Kyle said. Alarms blared and the lights came on. “Well,” Kyle said while pulling something out of his vest, “Since our covers’ blown might us well do this.” “What’s that?” I asked. “You’ll see, but first let’s get out of here.”
The group of soldiers led us out of the holding room and into the hall. I stuck close to the mighty Kyle confident he’d keep his word. Halfway on our trip the walls shook as a huge explosion roared in the distance in the direction of the front gate. “What was that?” I said resuming my pace. Kyle smiled, “Nothing, I just rammed a truck loaded with explosives through the front door.”
The group turned down a hall I hadn’t visited before. There were two doors at the end. “Get ready to run,” Kyle said. Resistance members shoved the gates open. Prisoners flowed out the narrow exit and then scattered. I was in the middle of the crowd, but even in the dim moonlight one quick glance let me know we had come out the side exit meaning the vast field the unfortunate runner tried to cross the day I arrived lay between all of us and the fence along the woods. A floodlight light pierced the darkness and lit up a gaggle of ragged people running across the field of dead grass. I traced
the searching beam to one of the guard towers. More spotlights lit up the field coming from all sides of us. The dozen or more spotlights lit up the hundreds of human sweeping the field. Some guy tumbled beside me and I saw he had a weird dart sticking out of his back. He contorted on the ground as everyone ran around him. No one had time to help the wounded. My trigger happy friend halted and I followed his lead. He fired in the direction of a building to our left. Aliens, drones, and spotlights congregated on its roof. His gunfire added to the deafening chaos and more resistance fighters joined the chorus of gunfire. Bullets whizzed by, hundreds of voices screamed, alarms wailed, and electro darts flew through the night sky in blue streaks.
“Keep going! I’m right behind you!” He shouted at the top of his lungs his gun going off the whole time. I raced to catch up with the front of the group. I was still a good way from the fence by the
woods, but I saw soldiers milled around a hole in the fence through which my fellow captives streamed through. They worked under a spotlight until it vanished probably hit by a bullet. Either way, I had gotten a quick glance of the way to freedom. Though, it wouldn’t be my way. Bullets ripped through the crowd of people to my right. Dirt kicked up, people dropped and either flailed on the ground screaming or else lay still. Resistance soldiers rushed past me. A few seconds later the gunfire
intensified and then died. I spared a glanced in their direction. One of the roaming lights passed over a pile of mangled bodies. “Kyle! If we don’t take out that technical we’re blown!” A man said to the vigilante or at least that’s what he told me. I was going the opposite direction when Kyle got his mission. I didn’t get much further though. I felt a sharp pain in my back like someone stabbed me with a giant needle. I tumbled as electricity flowed through my entire body. My muscles wouldn’t obey me so I was left on the ground as legs stomped past me. I couldn’t see well from the angle I landed in, but I could hear just fine. “Hounds! The Hounds!” Someone shouted. I rolled over with a struggle and something drew my attention. I craned my neck and saw the huge figure of Kyle a short distance away. Two soldiers had their arms wrapped around him. They were practically pulling him
off the battlefield. “I’ll come back for you! I promise!”
He left my limited field of vision and soon the steady stream of running legs dwindled and then ended. One of the hounds followed them with all eight of its legs thundering along the ground.
Its body was coated in silver fur and it was the size of a small elephant. A wave of drones and aliens
followed the beast. They surged across the field of trampled grass to continue the pursuit into the woods. I wouldn’t see it any of it; my part in the night’s events was over. Except for one
last thing…
One of the aliens halted next to me. He towered over me more than usual and we shared glances. He carried a weird baton in one hand with blue sparks flying off it. The thing jabbed me in the stomach as I lay there helpless. I cried out, but he responded by driving the weapon deeper into my flesh. I stayed there on the ground starring at the grinning face of the alien lit up by the blue light of the prod.
This is getting long. I’ll continue in another post, but for now watch the skies.