Our world had been dark for a long time.
It had been months since our small supply of back up generators had died, and longer still since any power line anywhere buzzed with life. Now, the only source of light came from small, cramped fires that were always a risk because with fire came smoke, and with smoke came the Others. So fire was something we only used when we needed; when we had to send off our dead.
Daylight was too dangerous. In the daylight, the chance of being seen was to great. So during the day we slept and we planned. Only when we were protected by darkness would we move; darkness was our friend and ally. I was used to darkness. Comfortable with it. It was my constant companion during this long trek through hell.
So when I say I was plunged into the the most absolute darkness I had ever known, you will understand my full meaning.
I wasn't afraid. No. In that moment I was simply thankful to be breathing. No one ever knew what happened if you are taken, because no one ever returned if they were.
I tried to absorb my surroundings. So far, I knew that you are manhandled through a maze of corridors, while blindfolded, and then deposited in a very dark cell. It also seemed to be very small; my breath was echoing off the walls.
Feeling around with my hands, I discovered the ground was concrete, and there was a blanket folded up along the side of one brick wall. I couldn't tell how tall the room was, the height of the walls extended beyond my reach. The door was steel and cold beneath my skin. It felt heavy and was very likely impenetrable. I couldn't even feel the space where the door ended and the floor began.
My wandering fingers followed the crease in the floor, and stopped when they reached the final wall. At first I couldn't tell what it was- I just knew that it was certainly not brick. It was cool and perfectly smooth, devoid of any imperfection. Like glass.
I sat back down, staring at where I knew the wall was, event though I couldn't see it. I could barely find it within myself to be curious as to why I would be in a room with one glass wall. It seemed nonsensical to me, but then, these were Others we were talking about. What they did rarely, if ever, made sense. This is one of the reasons fighting them was so difficult, and why I had been caught in the first place.
It had been some time since it had started, the fighting. The fighting back. I vaguely wondered if the experience desensitized me to feeling anything other than the fierce need to protect my kind and the mad desire to kill those who I needed to protect my kind from. Curiosity simply wasn't in my emotional repertoire anymore. I couldn't even feel sadness. I knew I should. I was captured by the enemy which, in all likelihood would lead to my eventual death. I would never see my remaining friends again.
The corners of my lips twitched bitterly. Not even the thought of my rag tag group of comrades could shake the emotional barricade that I had built long ago. Something as small and insignificant as sadness wouldn't harm it.
Sad. Such a small, inadequate word to describe the demise of the human race. It had all been so sudden, one hardly had time to feel anything besides shock, if one had time to feel anything at all. One night, I went to sleep, a graduate student finishing her final semester of school, and the next day I woke to find the world was nearly in ruin.
They had come that night and methodically eliminated each and every governmental official and building with such ease and precision that I'm sure the president himself didn't know the world itself was falling down around his ears- until it did.
I haven't seen it myself, but I have heard that DC is the new Chernobyl.
I used to watch movies about what used to be called alien invasions. I thought it would be exciting and romantic to fight the good fight and help humanity prevail against whatever extraterrestrial was threatening our species. I thought it would be fun, exciting. I thought I would leap at the chance to join a resistance group, be the Kate Brewster to another man's John Conner, and help save the world.
At least I had some tiny shred of self awareness. I lept at the chance to hurt these Others, what were once called aliens, but now that sounds to mild to be in any way accurate. But I did not do so for adventure. I did so to survive.
Because having your whole world-literally here, whole world, not a metaphor- be destroyed? It was incomprehensible. I still can't wrap my head around it. Sometimes I still feel my pocket, thinking there will be a cell phone there to check. Thinking maybe my mom or dad called to say hi, or my boyfriend , Alex, had sent a text of love and encouragement. Maybe a fellow classmate sent me a link to help study for the next big exam; I should thank her.
No. There is no phone. And there are definitely no calls.
Because all of those people are dead.
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