by Lewis, Anna
“No,” Mr. Jones shot back firmly. “Definitely not!”
“Why?” Johnny whined, starting to cry. “Why are you doing this? Why can’t I see my mommy? I need to know what she says…”
Before he could even get the rest of his sentence out, Mr. Jones obliterated him in a massive flame ball, leaving only ashes behind.
The same happened to other children, as they began to cry too, finally realizing that this wasn’t a game. Talia was scared and very upset, but her life preservation kicked in and all she wanted to do was survive. She ducked under her desk and curled herself up into a ball while the chaos went on around her.
People fought, people died, and Talia remained put.
Just as the weird, shape-shifting people were about to leave, one of them leaned down to face her. For a split second, Talia’s heart raced and her mouth ran dry with fear. The thing cocked its head, looking at her, and just at the moment Talia became convinced that she was going to end up a spot of ash too, the figure zipped away, leaving her completely alone.
Bonnie – it had to be. Her friend had saved her life. Maybe some of their bond had been true after all…
Of all the horror that had surrounded her, of all the awful things that came afterwards, Talia would always remember her friend and the fact that she risked herself to let her live.
Chapter 2
Talia wrestled the alien interloper, using her size to knock him down. She clawed at him with her fingers, then punched him with her elbow.
“You’ll die, you scum!” she cried. The alien struggled back, but Talia had been in this position before, many times. She was confident.
Talia was pretty sure that it was her birthday. Somewhere along the line she had lost track of days, but she definitely felt like it could have been. If so, that made her eighteen years old, which she was pretty certain would be the type of birthday that she should have been celebrating with a big party with all of her friends, but of course the world wasn’t like that. Not anymore.
Now she was spending her days by herself, fighting off aliens, and wondering how different things would be if her life was normal, if the aliens hadn't invaded Earth. She still didn’t fully understand why this race – the Ec’dua, they called themselves – felt the need to take over the planet in such a horrendous fashion, but to be honest she didn’t really care.
All she did was fight… fight for her survival. Like her fight against this alien, whose neck she now held tightly in her strong, battle-hardened hands, and whose face showed that he was running out of oxygen.
Okay, so the aliens had proven time and time again that their technology was much better than humans, which meant they had some seriously amazing weapons, but if you could get them one on one, in hand-to-hand combat, they were quite a bit easier to defeat.
Especially for Talia, who had grown up in the war. She had quickly become a badass fighter, defending herself in the best way that she could.
When she raced home that dreaded day, when she was only six and the entire world had turned on its feet, she found her mother dead and there was absolutely no sign of her father – that was the day that she’d learned that she was truly alone. She never did discover what had become of her dad. She simply focused on what needed to be done to keep her alive.
Bonnie had lied to her, betrayed her, and although she had allowed her to live, she still felt like she could no longer trust anyone. She was alone. As time passed, she realized she was going to stay alone. She got used to it.
It didn’t help that it was really difficult to tell if the shape shifting Ec’dua race were humans or not, when they were playing that role. How could she trust any human, when they might be an alien? The only one she could really trust was herself.
She felt the life leave the alien’s body. She’d beaten him. “Go to hell,” she muttered to herself as the alien melted beneath her. That’s what happened when they died.
It was frustrating to her to know that the human race could easily win this war, if it wasn’t for their technology… that was the one thing she had no idea how to overcome. Of course it was amazing that the human race had managed to keep on going for so many years. But the war was exhausting, and Talia just wasn’t sure how long they could continue.
The fight over, Talia slumped onto a nearby rock to rest. But she did not have long. While still catching her breath, she suddenly found herself surrounded… which was the absolute last thing that she needed.
“Ugh,” she groaned, getting back up, trying to find it within herself to keep on going.
“Well, well, well,” one of the aliens said. He had mostly a stereotypical handsome human guy look about him… all except for his eyes that had the intense blackness that seemed to be their natural look. “Aren’t you a sight for sore eyes?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Talia growled back, not having time for the mind games.
“You…” He trawled his eyes up and down her body, making her feel a little vulnerable and exposed. She guessed that he was obviously trying to disarm her emotionally, and she hated to think that it might actually be working. She hadn't built up her thick walls for nothing!
“What?” she demanded.
“You really are something else… it’s a shame that you’re human. If you were a shape shifter like us, I would be all over you. I like my women with a little more meat on them.”
“Don’t be so disgusting,” she yelled angrily, wanting him to get off her back. “You’re just doing all this to toy with me. Will you just get on with whatever it is that you have planned?”
“You know that you’re outnumbered, right?” he drawled at her, a smirk playing on his lips.
She glanced around, thinking that they obviously didn’t realize how tough she was, and that she would have no trouble taking down all four of them.
“Oh, this isn’t it!” The alien laughed loudly and happily. “Take a look around.”
Then she glanced up and spotted hundreds of them appearing, as if from every angle.
What was she going to do now?
Chapter 3
“Okay, so what do you want from me?” Talia asked, trying to keep the wobble out of her voice. “What’s the point of all this?” She waved her arms around, trying to act like she wasn’t as bothered as she really was. “What do you want with me?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” said the alien. He started to circle her, ramping up the intimidation. “Maybe we just stumbled across you by mistake, or maybe we picked you on purpose, does it really matter?”
“Of course it does.” She suddenly sensed that the longer she could keep this guy talking, the more time she would have had to make a plan in her mind. Although she was certain that there was no way out of this one. She’d never ever in her entire life found herself in such a bad position before.
By the time Talia started to hear about refugee camps that the humans had set up, in the knowledge that they would be safer together, she had her guard too far up even to consider going to one. She was too self-reliant and far too untrusting to even think about going near anyone else.
But right now she felt like she could have really used some other humans around her. She should have let down her wall and allowed herself to grow a bond with other people. She shouldn’t have been so determined to be alone. Now when she really needed backup, she had no one to turn to, and she felt it.
She was going to die alone, and no one would even know. That was the worst part of it all. Her death wouldn’t be a great loss to the world, there wouldn’t be anyone to mourn her, and that was actually really sad.
She completely lost her cool and her gaze started to flicker everywhere, desperately looking for an escape. She wanted to die with dignity, to hold her head up high, but it seemed like that was never going to happen.
She needed to live, to keep on going. She couldn’t die like this. She didn’t want to depart having never had an impact on the planet, but it looked like she was going to.
Then she spotted
a flash of light, and in an instant everything around her faded, then went black.
Chapter 4
By the time Talia came back around, she was locked in what was very clearly a cell. Her brain was still foggy, and she didn’t fully feel like herself, which was clearly down to whatever damn alien technology had been used on her to make her unconscious.
“Ungh,” she groaned, forcing herself into a sitting position, despite the pain radiating through her body. Her head hurt, her body pulsated with agony, but what she really needed was to find out what was going on.
“Where am I?” she gasped, not recognizing her surroundings at all. “What’s going on?”
The room was dark, but she could see a light emanating from the other end, meaning that if there was an escape from this place, she would find it there.
She stood up and staggered across the cold, damp ground, forcing herself to move when her body was clearly too fatigued to do so. As she got to the bars, she could see a room filled with things that were completely unrecognizable to her. She had to be in the lair of the aliens. Right bang smack in the middle of danger.
How had she allowed that to happen? What an idiot she’d been!
“What’s going on?” she repeated to the alien, who was in his natural form. “Why am I here? Why aren’t you killing me? What do you want me for?”
But he said nothing. He simply remained standing there, staring at the wall, as if she didn’t exist. That angered her more than anything. She wanted to be acknowledged, to be heard. She wanted answers and she was God damn sure that she was going to get them.
“Why have you locked me up here!?” she yelled loudly. Then, almost as if she’d been heard by someone else, another alien entered the room too, though this one was in a human’s form. Talia ran her eyes over the sculpted, muscular form that this alien had taken, feeling a weird flutter in her heart even though she knew it wasn’t real. That didn’t matter, there was something about him… maybe this would be the kind of man she would be after had the world been a normal place. In that moment, it certainly felt like he would be her type!
She pleaded to the newcomer. “Will you tell me what’s happening?” She felt better about this one – if he was acting human, then maybe he would be more willing to speak to her. “Please just tell me why I’m here,” she begged, trying to allow her emotions to flow out through her eyes. “I think I at least deserve to know that much.”
“They need your DNA,” he said, turning to her. She had expected much more of a battle than that. “They need a lot of DNA from your species to be able to work out a way to defeat them.”
“What do you mean?” she gasped, mostly just for something to say. She hadn't been expecting that statement at all, and she needed some way to get her head around it. “Aren’t you guys winning anyway? Why do you need more from us? That just seems crazy.”
He paused thoughtfully for a second, before handing her a tray of very delicious looking food. For someone who lived on the road and on her own, eating whatever she could get her hands on, the smell of the meal was almost too tempting. But she had to keep her guard up, she knew that much. She couldn’t just eat something from the aliens. It could be poisoned, or anything. She had to be sensible. She didn’t want to lose her life just because she was too damn hungry to resist eating.
But… did it have to smell so amazing? Did it have to make her mouth salivate so intensely?
“It’s beef stew,” he reassured her, sitting by her cage. “It’s good, and only filled with the best ingredients.” He took a bite, just to prove it to her that it was okay, but that still wasn’t enough to convince her – it could still kill her even if it didn’t kill him. How naïve did he think she was?
Then she watched intently as he turned to the other alien and made a dismissive gesture, sending him away. “It’s very nutritious for humans, and we really need you at top peak. I can assure you that it’s very good for you, and that it won’t harm you in anyway. If you’re hurt, they won’t be able to extract your DNA – you are important, you’re needed, so you won’t be harmed.”
She stared into his eyes, spotting an honesty there. She had not put any faith into anyone since she was a child, yet for some reason she inexplicably felt like she could here. She had the intuition that she wasn’t being lied to.
Soon the temptation became too much, and her body almost completely took over her mind. She groaned in pleasure as the delicious food fell past her lips as she realized just how good it was. She wasn’t even quite sure when she’d made the decision to eat it, just that all of a sudden it was happening, and she had no control over it.
“Did you make this?” she asked in surprise. He had to have, this wasn’t exactly the sort of food you found wild – it had somehow been cooked in an oven, which was amazing in a world that no longer had electricity. Clearly the alien race had a way to make amenities work without power stations. She couldn’t help but wonder if she might even be able to get a hot shower… she’d spent such a long time bathing in rivers and lakes that the thought of hot water running over her was almost like something in her imagination.
“During my years playing as a human, I actually learned how to cook quite well,” said the alien. He smiled at her, warming her up inside. “I’m glad it’s to your standards. I’m happy to be able to make your experience a little more pleasant. Now, to answer your other question, for years and years our race has been taking over planets, just like this one, trying to find the optimum atmosphere for us to survive in.”
“But why?” Talia pushed, fascinated to finally get at least some of the answers that had been plaguing her for years. She’d never understood anything about this war, and she couldn’t wait to finally have some knowledge – maybe if she ever got the hell out of here, she could use that knowledge to help her survive better!
“We’ve been doing it for a very long time now; centuries in your Earth time. I don’t know the exact reason we do it, only that we do it,” he said with a shrug. “I have heard that we destroyed our own planet a long time ago, but I have also heard that our overlords at the time simply got bored. Rumor also has it that we actually lost our own world during a war. Perhaps I’ll never know the full truth. Everyone who knew is now long gone themselves, as are the records. The only life I’ve ever known is not having a homeworld, trying to find somewhere to settle.”
“So why haven’t you found one yet?” Talia snapped back unhappily. “Why are you here? Why have none of the other planets been good enough?”
“Some of us have settled in other places,” he admitted. “Our race is now scattered all over the galaxy, but most of us want something better. Earth however has everything that we need. It’s the right temperature for us, it has the right amenities, and you humans have built it up well too, so it really is optimum for us.”
“So why do it in the way you did?” she insisted, needing to know. “Why did you pretend that you were humans for so long? And why wasn’t that enough?”
“For a lot of us it was,” he told her, shocking her to the core. “A lot of us wanted to continue living in that way, content to blend in and continue living among you, but those in charge decided that our technology was now developed enough and that we knew the humans well enough to strike against you when we did.” He sighed deeply, shaking his head, suggesting that he was one of the ones who didn’t want this after all. “What they hadn't realized was how strong the human race was, how little they’d actually figured out. We have never been in a war for this long, and I’m honestly not sure if we’re going to win. You humans seem to outwit us at every turn.”
At this comment, Talia couldn’t help but grin back at him. He might have been the enemy, the one that she’d been fighting for all this time, but in a weird way she felt a similar affinity with him in the way she had Bonnie. It was almost as if she didn’t know how to connect with humans, and that she had more in common with the Ec’dua. It wasn’t a comfortable thought, but it seemed to be much too true.
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br /> She also felt a bolt of happiness at the prospect of winning. She didn’t want the humans to have fought for so long, just to lose. That didn’t feel right to her. She wanted to be victorious, to reclaim the planet, even if it meant that she wouldn’t be around to see it. She might die in this alien prison, but as long as she knew that the humans were going to win, it wouldn’t feel like such a waste after all.
“I appreciate that you need my DNA,” she said. She decided to try and reason with this guy, wondering if there might actually be a way for her to get out after all. If she could, then she definitely would. Especially if the fighting was going to come to a head soon enough – that was something that she certainly wanted to be involved in! “But this isn’t the sort of place that I should be. I don’t do well with being cooped up. All I know is fighting. I think that you would be much better off letting me go.”
“I know Talia,” he said, in a way that was much too reassuring. “But I have no authority. I’m sorry. I know that this isn’t an environment that suits you, and I appreciate that you want to get out of here. Believe me when I say that I would like that for you too. But it really isn’t up to me. I have a rank and a title, but there are plenty of people above me that would have my head for setting you free. You have the much-needed DNA of a very strong person, so you must stay here.”
“Wait, how do you know my name?” she gasped out angrily, focusing only on that part. “How is that fair? I don’t know yours!”
“Mind reading is just one of the skills that we have… only it doesn’t always work. It only works when there is a bond there.”
“I see,” she said. She thought it through for a second, realizing that in a way that made a lot of sense. There had been times when Bonnie seemed to know what she was thinking, even when it made no sense to what was going on around them. She concentrated so much on that part, that it didn’t hit her that he had just suggested that they actually had a bond too.
