ALICE
The day the Cryons came,the sky over New York City bled orange. I watched from my hotel window, listening to the TV news announcers' voices, caught in utter disbelief. This had to be a dream, right? This couldn't possibly be happening in real life. An elaborate hoax, maybe?
It didn't seem real until I caught sight of a group of F-20s racing through the sky in pursuit of a large spaceship spitting out a seemingly endless stream of smaller alien ships.
"Get them!" I cheered the jets on, but one by one, each was shot down, crashing into the buildings of one of the largest cities on Earth, creating towering infernos of orange flames shooting straight to the horizon. One crashed into a highrise only a few blocks from my hotel. The explosion was so great that it shook the floor under my feet, rattling my teeth.
I had no idea why I was spared. The jet could have just as easily crashed into the hotel. But it didn't. And neither did any of the hundreds of others that followed. Divine intervention? Fate?
At the time, I didn't care. I spent the next few days in the same hotel in a numb, frozen state, watching the fires die out under steady rain. Another heavenly intervention? I didn't think so. Why would any God extinguish the fires but allow them to happen in the first place? Thousands of people must have died within the first few days, probably hundreds of thousands, if not millions. It was a mind-boggling number. The phrase,a single death is a tragedy, a million deaths are a statistic,ran through my mind on repeat, but I had a hard time viewing millions of deaths as a statistic. Not while I was in the midst of it.
I was better off than many people. I had no loved ones to worry about, a fact I suppose I should’ve been thankful for. Still, the death toll was abstract and mind-numbing enough without even taking into account the alien invasion.
Aliens. I saw images of them on TV—while it was still working, which wasn't long at all, not even a day. They didn't look all that scary; they were tall and lean, hairless, with gray skin and large black eyes. Their bodies were covered by white-silver uniforms, and their blasters could kill or stun, depending on how they used them. That was all the information I was able to glean before the power cut out, taking the Wi-Fi with it. I still had some data reception on my phone and iPad, but it was slow, and both died after a few hours, like the rest of the electronics that couldn’t get charged.
From the last reports, I found out that the aliens were using drones to locate humans. The ones they discovered were either taken prisoner or killed. As far as I could tell with the limited data, though, they slaughtered indiscriminately. The aliens were just as likely to shoot a twenty-year-old woman and capture an eighty-year-old man as they were to do the opposite, which was almost more frightening than if they were just collecting one specific sort or kind. It showed how indifferent they were about us. How interchangeable we were to them—even in a herd of cattle, cowboys would pick a certain type.
After two days of hiding in my hotel room and living off the expensive snacks in the fridge, the water backing up in the bathroom made me realize I needed to leave.
The question was: leave to where? I was in New York City, thousands of miles from my home in Las Vegas—and what a blessing that was, as I had no desire to figure out how to live in the desert without air conditioning—a strange city currently being invaded by aliens!
I couldn’t stay, though, because not only was the sewer coming up through the pipes stinking to high heaven, but I wasn't about to start peeing into a corner of the room either. I was also down to one water bottle, a Snickers bar, and a bag of nuts. My laptop was as useless as my phone, but I had a few tools on me that I had brought to the conference to show off as my latest invention. I packed those things, as well as semi-clean socks, underwear, and a change of clothing, and made my way out of the room and into the dark hallway. The darkness I hadn't anticipated. Honestly, I hadn't anticipated a lot because my mind was still overwhelmed by the fact that aliens—aliens!—were invading Earth.
A neon green exit sign gave off enough illumination to get me to the staircase, and inside the stairwell, a few emergency lights were still working, so I didn’t break my neck as I made my way down.
The moment I opened the exit door to the outside, my senses were assaulted with the smell of burned rubber and flesh, death, decay, and the sound of screams and sirens. I couldn’t get past the sight of torched cars, people, and wrecked buildings. I tasted all of this on my tongue and wanted to gag. I was so overstimulated that, at first, the sight of three aliens stepping in front of me didn't even register. But the pain did—pain from their blaster shot brought me to my knees.
* * *
I woke with my arms tied behind my back and my face pressed against cold metal. The first thing I became conscious of was the throbbing pain in my head and the way my tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth.
A small cry to my right caught my attention, and I turned my head. I wasn't alone. There were others here with me, all bound, some conscious and hunkered on their knees, others lying on the ground like me.
A hard slap to my head was enough incentive for me to force myself to my knees and take in my surroundings. The strange walls, thealiens. My breath stuck in my throat. I was on my way to becoming astatistic. I was on an alien ship, being kidnapped byaliens. I began to hyperventilate; this couldn't be happening. Not to me. This just couldn't be real. It just couldn't.
I read somewhere that denial is the best defense, and for the following weeks— months?—that’s what I did. I retreated deep into myself. I denied the reality of having a translator inserted into my brain, denied that I was being kept like an animal. Like cattle, we were fed and watered, hosed off, and herded from one spot in the universe to another. I'm not sure how long my fugue lasted or when awareness of my fellow prisoners penetrated my mind—when their misery became as real to me as mine.
But it happened. I was still alive and breathing, and as long as that remained true, I had to believe there was hope. Maybe not hope to ever return to Earth, but hope to one day not have my arms bound behind my back. Hope that one day, I would be back in charge of my own destiny.
I had been strong enough to escape the destiny fate had predetermined for me once, and I would do so again. I hadn't turned into a drug addict like the rest of my family, althoughstatistically,I should have. I beat the odds, and I would do so again.
I just had to bide my time, be careful, keep my eyes open, and wait for the right moment. Most of all, I needed to stay alive.
I watched when the Cryons came and took some of us from the cells we were kept in. Mostly, they picked people at random, just like they had when abducting us, but now and then, they came just for women. Never just for men.
"Here, let me stuff this into your shirt," Ava, my designated relief partner, sidled up next to me. For the past I don't know how many days, Ava and I had been helping each other with the logistics of using the bathroom—a hole in the ground for our waste. It was hard to balance and aim when your arms were bound behind your back, and you had to get your pants down somehow.
She handed me a small bundle. Quizzically, I looked at her, and she pointed at her protruding stomach. Ava was heavily pregnant—she had been seven months along when she was taken, but like the rest of us, she’d lost track of time. It had been her sobs that ripped me from my stupor. They were so heart-wrenching, I’d moved over, closer to her. I'm not the nurturing type, but her pain was so raw that I couldn't help but feel for her. It might have been guilt that I was the only one here not mourning the loss of a loved one; whatever it was, I sidled up to her. Instantly, she scooted closer. We couldn't hug, but pushing our torsos against each other did awaken some humanity inside me and seemed to help her with her grief.
Ava had lost her entire family, and the only thing keeping her alive was the baby growing in her stomach, even though she wasn't sure why she bothered.
"He will be a prisoner just like me," she sniffed.
I had already decided to find a way out, but taking on the responsibility for another person or two was just the motivator I needed. In that moment, I vowed, "I'll get us out of here, Ava, I promise."
She was desperate enough to believe me.
Now, I turned so Ava could stuff the bundle under my shirt. "Why?" I wanted to know.
