The loud blasts of these laser guns are disorienting. The president’s soldiers dressed from head to toe in protective, futuristic armor surround the Mothership that arrived on our planet only hours ago. My eyes well with tears. I have to stay alert. I grab Rei by the scruff of her shirt and jerk her closer to me. Emily stays nestled behind me. The mothership’s large legs knock at least two dozen soldiers to the ground, and its enormous glowing red headlight at the front of its face shoots out an explosive blast. I take several steps backward, dragging Rei and Emily with me. Much of the landscape is set ablaze, and many civilians fall to the ground, burning alive. Quickly, I place my hands over Emily’s eyes. The whole thing is so nightmarish I can’t help wondering whether I’m dreaming. But I can’t think about anything right now except that I need to get the girls out of here and find mom and dad and Jessie. When the ship first arrived, we got separated. Jessie can manage on his own. He’s older and stronger than I am. Dad is less self sufficient, but if he has mom with him he’ll be okay. I can only hope that they managed to escape. The President will be sending more troops to fend off the ship, her holographic image assures all the surviving citizens. Then, she glitches out. There is screaming and blood and gore all around us. Suddenly, I feel my heartbeat getting slower and slower.

Emily looks up at me with tears in her eyes.

“Kylie?” she whimpers. “I want mom!” Rei turns around to face me too. Her brow furrows, and she wipes the tears from her cheeks.

“Are you okay, Kylie?” Rei asks. I gasp for breath.

“I, I don’t know,” I choke out. And then, my vision begins to blur. The world sways as I fall, and my head hits the rocky ground with a thud.







My eyes flutter open. I am sitting on the ground in a white room. Everything is white, the floor, the walls, the ceiling. Actually, I can’t see the ceiling, because when I try to move my neck, I feel like I am about to scream. I lay my head against the wall, but it stings, so I quickly remove it. Shifting slightly, I manage to tilt my head to look at the wall behind me. The spot where I laid my head is stroked with bright red blood. I look down at my hands and see that there are shackles on my wrists. I have no idea where I am, and I’m too exhausted to try to figure it out. Then, all of a sudden, it comes back. The mothership, the president sending in soldiers, getting separated from mom and dad, and Jessie. Shit! I look around frantically. Rei and Emily are nowhere to be seen. Even though my voice is hoarser than it has ever been before, I scream at the top of my lungs, “REI! EMILY!” I rasp this out at least ten times before taking a breath. My entire body is wracked with sobs. Tears stream down my face and drip off of my chin onto the floor. I sit in silence for a moment. I can’t wine my face because my hands are locked together. But then, I hear something. Footsteps! I force myself to stand up and see that the chain attached to my handcuffs is connected to the wall. And to the left of me, there is a large metal door.

“HELP! HELP ME! REI! EMILY! MOM! DAD! JESS! SOMEONE! HEEELP!” The footsteps get louder and louder. Then they stop. I get very quiet. I hear a click and the doorknob turns. Then, the door opens. I open my mouth and let out a scream. This is a slippery, slimy creature. A bald head with no eyes or nose, but a large smiling mouth with sharp fang-teeth. It looks like someone took a person, and flipped them inside out, then sent them on their way. I can see the veins outside of this creature’s skin. Bright blue. And the actual slime of the thing is a light shade of grey. When it “sees” me, or realizes I’m here, or however it senses me, it’s smile, impossibly, grows wider. Swallowing my courage, I look this thing in the…head, and say firmly, (though a little scratchy), “What are you? Where am I?” I have to choke back a gag when it slips its bright blue tongue, dripping with saliva, out of its mouth. Then, as if to say something, it screeches, piercingly loud. It nearly bursts my eardrums. This goes on for a solid minute. Then it quiets. After a moment, I try to take a step closer to inspect this thing, but I am stopped by the chain from my wrist shackles. “Ow!” I yell. The minute I say that, it begins to screech again, somehow louder and…angrier. Almost instantaneously, two other creatures appear beside it. They smile their disturbing, disgusting smile, and slither forward. That’s when I notice they have dripping squid-like tentacles. They move closer to me and I scream. I begin to sob, not knowing where I am or what happened to my family. They loom over me. One wraps its clammy tentacles around my arm, but I slip it out. Then I realize my arm is covered in yellowish-grey goop, matching the creature’s slime. To ensure I can’t slip away, it curls its feelers around my waist. I struggle, but without the use of my arms, there is little I can do. I kick the air around me, still shrieking. The other Slime Octopus unlocks my handcuffs and carries me out the door. The first one lets out a strange croaking which I can only imagine symbolizes laughing. Laughing at me. Mocking me. Well fuck that. I need to find my family. I kick and punch and scream, but there is nothing I can do. I must be on the Mothership, I think. They must have captured me after I passed out. I couldn’t protect the girls. When I finally accept that it is futile, I go limp and cease screaming. We are traveling down a long hallway, metallic material all around. I wonder where they’re taking me. It feels like hours, and my entire body is sore, but we finally reach our destination. There is a large silver door in front of us, and a small keypad on the door. The slime octopus on the right of me lifts up its feeler and types in a passcode. The door slides open. As we slide through, I notice that the tentacle left a remnant of slime on the keypad. And then the door closes behind us.