From the Stars

There are times when I want to rip the locket from around my neck, and let it fall never to be seen again. The silver, heart-shaped pendant is a constant reminder of what I lost, and yet it is a comfort. When the pain becomes too much I grip the charm close to my heart, squeeze my eyes shut, and will the world to go back to the way it was. A year ago I was celebrating my college graduation, and subsequent engagement to the love of my life. I was happy-go-lucky, but that changed all too quickly.

We had no warning, no indication as to what was to come. It seemed like one minute the man I loved was proposing on bended knee, and the next the sky was falling. Of course the sky hadn’t actually fallen, but during those terrifying moments, that’s what it seemed like. In reality we were bombed, a surprise attack much like Pearl Harbor, but entirely different.

The entire country had been obliterated in a matter of seconds. The terrified shrieks of the people around me, my mother’s shrill cry as she watched my father detonate, the crushing realization that this was the end, and the deafening silence that came with being alone. These memories are what drive sleep away, but what haunts me the most? Being prepared to die, and being the only one that didn’t.

I was alone and completely and utterly in the dark. Not just about what had happened, but literally.

I was blind.

During the chaos, as the bombs fell into the earth creating graves for those who had fallen, I ran. I did not know where I was going, or what I was going to do, only that I had to run. As I rushed to find some semblance of a shelter, an explosion went off behind me. I could feel the heat wash over me, so hot it was as if the sun were trying to swallow me whole. Shrapnel blasted forth, and embedded itself into my head. The last thing I remembered was praying that Heaven is real.

I will never truly know how long I was drifting in the peaceful sea of unconsciousness, but as far as I am concerned it wasn’t long enough. When I came to, I could feel wires and tubes sticking out of my body, and I couldn’t figure out why my eyes wouldn’t open.

Someone must have realized I was awake, because soon after I had surfaced from unconsciousness, a cool hand was running over me. The person was checking my wires and humming softly.

“Why can’t I open my eyes?” I had asked, my groggy voice sounding foreign.

“They are open.” Replied the owner of the hand.

“No, they can’t be. Everything is dark.”

The hand suddenly disappeared and I could hear footsteps bounding away. I tried to turn my head in the direction I heard the footsteps go, but it was too heavy. I felt as though my head was no longer mine, that it was instead a bowling ball that someone had attached to my body.

“Hello, dear.” Said a new voice.

I was unable to place either of the voices I’d heard to a man or a woman. The words just blended together to make a sound, and it tickled my brain.

“Why can’t I open my eyes?” I asked again.

A sigh escaped the newcomer.

“Please help me open my eyes!” I pleaded.

“Your eyes are open, dear.” Began the voice patiently, “You have sustained a head injury, you have quite the gash on the back of your head. This has caused blindness that may be temporary or could be permanent. We have no way of knowing.”

Fear caused ice to coat my veins, and shooting pains to invade my stomach. I felt as though the air had been ripped from my lungs.

“Help me! Do something, please! Where are my parents? Where is Gavin?”

There was no response, and the next thing I knew there was a sharp pinch in my arm and I was once again drifting away into another world.

The next time I awoke, it was to find that someone had forced a tube down my nose and into my stomach. My nose was sore, and I tried to bring my hand up to rub it, but it wouldn’t move. I realized with startling clarity that I could not move a single part of my body. I could not even blink my eyes, which is why I thought they had been closed the last time.

“Subject thirty-six is a female of the species. She has an injury to the head that has caused what we hope is temporary blindness. She will be of no use to us blind, so we must constantly monitor her for signs of improvement.” Yet another monotonous voice said.

Subject thirty-six?

Female of the species?

This time when I tried to ask a question, my mouth would not open. My brain buzzed with anxiety. What the hell was going on here? Where was I, and where was my family? Why had they not come for me yet?

For the next few weeks, I was in and out of consciousness. I could never tell when I was awake or asleep because the things I heard while awake could not have been reality. From what I had gathered, we had been attacked and a new regime had taken over. I was unable to decipher who had made the hit, all I did know was that the entire country was no longer what it once was. Now, the population was a third of what it had been, and it was getting smaller every day. I had learned that I no longer had a family, that the bombs had buried them in deep graves.

Six weeks after my injury I screamed out of fear and joy when I realized that I could see. I was startled by the glaring fluorescent lights. After being in the dark so long, I had never expected to open my eyes and have results.

A face came into view and I quickly shrank back, as well as I could being stuck in a bed. The man in front of me had the face of my eighth grade math teacher Mr. Potter. I knew for a fact that Mr. Potter was not a doctor, nor did he have any desire to become one. He was a lean, balding man who collected cats, and retired to Florida every summer to visit his sister. So why was he here?

“Hello, Thirty-six. How are you, dear?”

“Mr. Potter? W-What is going on?”

“Oh, dear one,” he chuckled, "I am Solarius, not the man you knew. I have merely adopted his appearance. I am afraid my true form would be too much for someone in your condition. Come with me.”

Solarius hoists me up off the bed, and into a wheelchair. He slides behind me and begins pushing me down a long hallway. The end of the hallway is lined with large floor to ceiling Plexiglas windows. Solarius stops when we reach them, and I can not contain the gasp that falls from my lips.

The world as I knew it is no longer. As far as I can see there is destruction and I know it goes beyond what is in my line of sight. The roads are nothing more than heaps of rubble, bridges lay in shambles, the ground is scorched and dead, and the air is thick with acrid smoke from the bombs. I don’t see any cars, only hunks of melted metal. I see people, so small they look like ants, scurry by every so often, but for the most part the outside world is silent.

I can’t stop the tears from rolling down my cheeks at the sight. Who would do this to us? Who would take the lives of so many strangers, and for what?

For the land? It is now destroyed.

For the power? There is no one left to rule.

“We are Creaturae Siderum. Creatures of the Stars. We came here to study you. We had to destroy most of the planet to be able to secure it.”

A painful thrum begins in my temples, and I carefully crane my neck towards Solarius.

“What are you talking about?”

“I am not from this planet, neither are my cohorts. We have come to study humans up close. We have been watching Earth from afar for thousands of years, and we decided we wanted to run tests on the human body, and study social interactions.”

I lift my hand to my arm and weakly pinch myself. Though it was not hard, it was enough to let me know that I was awake.

“So, for lack of a better term, you are an alien?” I ask dumbfounded.

“For lack of a better term, yes.” He answers with a grin.

My head is spinning, and I lean forward to place my head between my knees hoping that will stop the dizziness. As I lean, something slides off my chest and dangles around my neck. I reach up and gingerly touch the silver heart that is attached to a chain that circles my throat.

I slowly bring my arms up and unclasp the necklace. I let the heart slip down into the palm of my hand. I slide my finger over the words ‘Owner Of My Heart”, which are etched in sterling silver. As I clutch the heart in the palm of my hand, the one in my chest stops beating.

Gavin had given this to me for graduation. He had slipped it around my neck, and then promised to give me something even better later. That would be the ring that is no longer on my finger.

I hear the click of a pen and look up to see Solarius writing on a notepad. I look at him in befuddlement, until he brings his gaze back to mine. He gives a sheepish grin before explaining himself.

“Sorry, I was just noting that you appear to be expressing grief over the loss of your mate.”

I shakily shoot to my feet and attempt to attack the Thing in front of me, but out of nowhere, another one comes up and roughly pushes me back in the chair.

“Don’t be angry, Thirty-six.” Solarius clucks. “We are going to rehabilitate you, and send you off on your way with a tracking device, much like you humans do with animals.”

“I am not an animal. I am a human being. A human woman, mourning the loss of her fiancé and her family. I am in mourning because you took them from me, and now you want to study me? Run tests on me?” I growl out.

“To me, you are an animal. I have been wanting to study humans up close and personal for some time now, and I will do anything to get that privilege. And I have.”

Solarius walks away, and the other Creature of the Stars wheels me away to a wing of the hospital that houses thirty-five other humans, who are in varying states of injury and illness. All together there are forty of us, but the other four are not yet well enough to be sent here.

One year later, and we were set free. The forty of us were all that survived the bombings in our town, but during the year we were held captive men and women paired off with one another, and a new generation is beginning. Having nowhere else to go, we caravan across what was once the state of Illinois, searching for more like us.

Even as my belly grows round from my new lover’s child, I sometimes clasp my locket in my hand, and remember what once was.