My Book: Chapter 1

As soon as I woke up, I knew it was going to be a long day.  The sun was blinding and the heat that had built up inside my car throughout the morning was unbearable.  How could it be so hot already?  I stepped out of the car to stretch my stiff legs and, immediately, felt a warm breeze blowing through the desert.  God, I hated having to sleep in my car, especially in the desert and halfway through July, but it was the only safe place I could find.  Since the invasion, I’ve worked hard to keep a low profile.  My name is Nicole Dean and I, for the moment anyways, am human.

                The aliens arrived when I was fifteen.  The funny thing is, no one even knew that they had come.  The thing about the invaders is that, they insert themselves into the back of a human’s neck, and take control over the host body.  You would think that we would have noticed something strange about the people that were first taken over, but they acted totally normal.  People still went to school, parties, and work.  They looked, spoke, and acted the same way the human hosts had before the invasion.  Humans would go to a party or a neighbour’s house and parasites from another planet would leave.  That was three years ago.  Now, I am the only person still human…that I know of anyways.

                As I walked around, I kept an eye out for anything that might have followed me.  I didn’t think they had, but my paranoia is what kept me alive all those years.  After a few minutes, I still hadn’t seen anything, or anyone for that matter, so I headed back towards my car for some water.  That was when I saw him.  Just out of the corner of my left eye, there was a figure, and it was headed straight for me.  Shit! I thought.  How did I not notice him??  I knew that if I didn’t act fast, I would be caught and I couldn’t let that happen…not again.  So I did what I always did in a situation like this: I ran.  I raced back to my car and, when I looked back, I saw that he had started to run as well, and he was gaining on me.  I jumped into my Civic and slammed the door shut, locking it in the process.  I tried to start my car, but the keys were gone.  I always kept them in the ignition.  “What?” I exclaimed, “Did they fall…”  As I started to search the floor for them, I heard a voice.

“Looking for something?”

I froze, my eyes widening.  The voice was coming from right next to me!  I whipped my head around and saw that there was a man—not a man, a parasite—sitting in the passenger seat of my car.  This was not the one that I had been running from. 

“We’ve been watching you” he said.  I backed away from him as quickly as I could, slamming my head against the driver’s side window.  As I fumbled with the lock, the door opened from the outside and I fell, right into the arms of the parasite I had originally been running from.  He lifted me to my feet and, before I could escape, twisted my arm so far behind my back, I thought it might break.  I gasped out loud in pain.  The second one got out of my car and chuckled.

“That was easier than I thought it would be.  Next time, Zeke, we’re going to have to go after one a bit tougher.” 

Zeke laughed and slightly loosened his grip on my arm.  I used this to my advantage.  As the second alien walked towards me I twisted myself out of Zeke’s grip and did the last thing they would expect; I ran towards my attacker.  His surprise allowed me enough time to grab onto his shoulders and thrust my knee upwards, incapacitating him.  Before I could turn towards the other one, it grabbed me from behind and picked me off of the ground.  I thrashed around and tried to get one of my kicks to connect with him, but to no avail.  “Whoa,” he chuckled, “We’ve got ourselves a feisty one!”  

The second parasite stood up, groaning in pain.  “Come on man.”  It’s voice was full of venom.  “Let’s get her to Ben.”

“Aren’t you forgetting something?”  Zeke asked the other man.  When all he received was a confused look, Zeke continued.  “I know you’re new to this, Joe, but you can’t keep forgetting about the eyes.  It’s the only way you can know for sure!”

I froze as a chill ran through my body.  The parasites would know for sure that I was human once they saw that my eyes didn’t reflect light like a mirror.  And once they knew I was human I didn’t stand a chance.  I struggled to get away from them even harder.  “No, no, no, NO!!”  I cried, “Not again!” 

“Dude, hold her still!” Joe yelled.  Zeke adjusted himself so that one arm was holding me above the ground and the other was around my neck, cutting off my air supply.  I tried to keep my eyes shut, but the pain was too much.  They flew open and a light was shone into them.  I knew it was over.  The two men gasped and I was released.  I fell into a crouch and gasped for air, catching my breath.

“She’s human!”

“But, how is that possible?”

“We have to show the others.”

“Listen kid—“ Zeke started.  Fat chance…

“Don’t bother telling her,” Joe interrupted.  “Just show her!”  He shone the flashlight into his own eyes and I saw that the light didn’t reflect off of them.  “We’re human too, see?”

But there was no way I was going to stick around.  I jumped up and ran as far away from them as I could.  I had learned early on that the parasites lie.

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“Come on Nikki!” my brother called.  “We’re leaving!”

“Coming, Leo!”  I yelled back.  I finished brushing my hair and ran out of the house.  “Why are we going to Mr. and Mrs. Chase’s house again?”  I asked my parents. 

“Because they absolutely insisted that we come for dinner.”  My mom turned to me.  “I just couldn’t refuse.”

I sighed.  I wanted to spend the night in and play board games, like we always did on Saturdays.  Here we were though, walking over to the neighbours’ house.  No one ever did what I wanted to do.

We rang the doorbell and, almost immediately, Mrs. Chase answered it.  “We’re so glad you could make it tonight” She exclaimed as we walked into her house.

Dinner was insanely boring.  My parents, the Chases, and Sarah (my older sister) talked about the up-incoming voting, while Leo and Katie (my younger sister) played with their food.  The food wasn’t even that great.  Afterwards, the Chases decided to show everyone the upstairs of their house.  Great, I thought.  This night just keeps getting better and better.  I stayed behind for a few minutes, pretending to finish eating, as the rest of the family followed them up the stairs.  I really didn’t want to have to get a tour of the house, but, it had been, like, twenty minutes.  What could be taking them so long?  I went up the stairs, made a left, and screamed.

There was my family, face down on the floor, with the Chase’s and a bunch of random people—who I had never seen before—cutting their necks open!  I turned to flee, but someone grabbed me from behind.  The last thing I saw were my parents, and then everything went black.

************

I wiped a tear out of my eye as I ran.  They lie, I thought.  They always lie.