Scenario:Aliens
Create my version of this story
The aliens landed on Earth on a Tuesday.
I was in the library when the first ship came down, and I watched it happen through the window.
It was so surreal that I thought it was a movie at first, and then I thought it was a prank, and then I thought it was the end of the world.
I guess I was right about that last one.
The ship was huge, and it looked like a giant silver egg with lights all over it.
It hovered over the city for a few minutes, and then it started to descend.
I could see people running around outside, but I couldn’t hear anything from inside the library.
I guess they were too far away, or maybe they were just too quiet.
I don’t know why they were so calm; if I’d been out there with them, I would’ve been screaming my head off.
The ship landed in the middle of downtown, and then nothing happened for a long time.
I waited for something to come out of it—aliens or monsters or robots or whatever—but nothing did.
I waited for a few minutes, and then I started to get bored, so I went to the bathroom.
When I came back, there were soldiers marching down the street—lots and lots of them.
They had big guns, and they were moving in perfect lines, like ants coming to investigate a giant silver picnic basket.
I watched them for a while, and then I got bored again, so I went to read a book.
I’d just found a good one when there was a loud explosion, and I dropped it on the floor.
The library shook, and all the lights went out.
People started screaming outside, but I still couldn’t hear them.
I tried to go to the window, but I couldn’t see anything either; the glass was all fogged up.
I waited for a few minutes, and then I tried the front door, but it was locked.
I thought about hiding in the bathroom, but it didn’t make much sense; if the library was going to explode, I doubted that a few inches of cinderblock would be much help.
I decided that I’d be better off leaving the library altogether.
I grabbed my backpack and stuffed it with some water bottles and snacks and a few other things that seemed important: a first aid kit, a flashlight, a map of downtown, and my phone charger.
I thought about grabbing the book I’d been reading too—just in case I got bored later—but then I decided that it was probably best to travel light.
The front door popped open easily, and I stepped out into the library’s front room.
The lights were still out, but enough daylight was filtering in through the windows that I could see where I was going.
The first thing I noticed was how hot it was; there must have been a fire somewhere nearby.
The next thing I noticed was how bright it was; the whole city seemed to be glowing.
When I finally got to the window, all I could see was smoke.
The city didn’t look like itself at all anymore.
It looked like a war zone—a real one, not just something from a movie.
Buildings were burning, and cars were flipped over in the street.
There were even some pieces of metal lying in the road—bombs, I guess.
I could still hear people screaming, but they sounded far away, like they were on a different planet or something.
The last thing I noticed was my friend Jake, who was waiting for me on the front steps of the library like we’d planned.
He looked just as scared as I felt, but he was ready to go, with his own backpack slung over one shoulder and his hand resting on his gun holster.
We looked at each other for a second, and then he stepped aside, so that I could go first.
We caught Sana and Lazina with Mona
We had been running for what felt like hours, but it probably wasn’t even that long.
I guess time flies when you’re having fun, or maybe it just feels slow when you’re afraid for your life.
Either way, I was happy to have caught up with them at last; we needed to stick together if we wanted to survive whatever had happened out there in the city.”
I said when I reached him, and he nodded as he fell into step beside me.”
I said as we headed down the stairs together, keeping our voices low—not because we thought anyone would hear us, but because we didn’t want them to.”
He asked after a moment, and I shook my head.”
I took a deep breath as we reached the bottom of the stairs, and then I paused for a second before I opened the front door.”
It was still hot outside, hotter even than it had been in the library, and the air tasted like smoke.
The city was even more of a mess than it had been from the window, with buildings burning all over the place, and I could see people running around everywhere.
The soldiers were still marching toward downtown, but there were fewer of them than there had been before, and they looked like they were fighting, not just walking.
Some of them were even shooting guns.
The city was still glowing too, and I finally realized why: there was a second spaceship hovering over the city, even bigger than the first one.
It must have landed while I was still inside the library.
The front steps of the library were empty, which meant that the others must have left before us, or maybe after us—I wasn’t sure which.
All I knew for sure was that we had to keep going; this wasn’t safe, not by a long shot.
“Come on,” I said, turning back to Jake, who was waiting behind me.
He nodded again, and then we started walking down the street together.
I knew exactly where we were going too: the museum.
Mia was supposed to be meeting us there later that day; she was with her school group right now.
At least, I hoped she still was.
Jake was supposed to be meeting us there too; that was our backup plan in case anything went wrong with Mia’s group.
Which was just as well, because something had definitely gone wrong with Mia’s group.
The streets were a mess as we walked down them, with cars turned over and glass everywhere, and I could see soldiers moving around too—not in lines anymore, but in smaller groups, like they were trying to hide from something.
There were aliens out here too: not lots of them, like we’d seen from the newspaper office, but enough that we needed to be careful.
We saw some retreating soldiers too, which should have been good news I guess—but it didn’t really feel like it.
It felt more like we were running out of time.
The museum was only a few blocks away, so it didn’t take us long to get there, but it felt like an eternity.
There were more and more people on the streets as we got closer, and most of them were running now—not just the soldiers, but other people too, families and kids and everything.
Some of them were even hurt, and I could see why: the aliens were starting to come down into the streets now, walking around and shooting at anything that moved.
They looked like they were looking for something, like they were hunting.
I don’t know if they were or not.
I just know that we needed to keep moving.
The museum was right in front of us now, and I could see that the glass doors out front had been shattered, with pieces of it all over the ground.
That wasn’t good.
The steps were covered with rubble too, which wasn’t good either, because it meant there had been an explosion at some point.
But I couldn’t see Mia anywhere, or her school group.
I couldn’t see any of the students, or any teachers, or any chaperones.
The whole place was empty.
I had been hoping against hope that maybe they’d all gone inside, or maybe they’d all run away from the building, or something—but I could see now that they hadn’t.
The museum was a wreck.
But there was an alley down the side of the building—a narrow space, covered with fire escape stairs—and I could see a little bit of movement down there, something small and fast, darting around late the corner.
And then it was gone again.
My heart started pounding as I ran toward the alley, not even stopping to think about what I was doing.
“Mia!” I called as I ran, as loud as I could.
“Mia, where are you?”
And then there she was, running toward me from behind a fallen pillar at the mouth of the alley, her face streaked with dirt but otherwise unharmed.
She didn’t say anything when she saw me; she just ran into my arms and squeezed me as tight as she could.
I hugged her back, and then I hugged her some more, because she was here, and she was okay—and there was nothing else that mattered.
“It’s okay,” I told her, squeezing her tight.
“It’s okay now.You’re okay.I’ve got you.”