The Night That Never Ended

A year ago, today, marks the beginning of the end. I remember being awakened by a thunderous crash, something I’ve never heard before. A military helicopter had crashed down into a fiery explosion on the street below, right outside my bedroom window. My apartment building shook to the core like an earthquake. I remember my heart pounding in my chest, my ears ringing from the blast. It took me a few minutes to fully grasp the level of danger I was in. I immediately jumped out of bed and crawled towards the window to see what had happened. That damned window, it was like looking into a picture frame of hell on earth. I stood up to a crouched position just below the windowsill and looked out into the blaze trying to make sense of what just happened. At first, I couldn’t see them, but I could hear their crafts hovering above. Next thing I know the air force had arrived in the city. As jets blasted by overhead, I looked up and saw them for the first time. An unknown alien force with unparalleled technology and weaponry the world has never seen. It was in that very moment, I knew, the end of days had begun.

After the initial shock of the chaos, I knew we needed to move. I needed to protect my family. In a panic I gathered them in the living room and gave specific instruction to pack important items and food immediately. I gave them 5 minutes. I gathered whatever essential items I could get a hold of. A few clothes, some bottles of water, a personal pocketknife and a flashlight. Looking back now I recognize that city living really puts you in a state of vulnerability. If I had any clue, we could ever be attacked, I would have fortified my walls and stocked up on automatic weapons and cases of supplies and ammunition. But living in New York City, in the constant work grind, you barely have a minute to power down from the work week, and when you do, the work cycle starts all over again. I just never considered a war in the city could ever be a possibility. Regardless here we were smacked in a life-threatening situation with no gear, no training or preparation, and I knew it wouldn’t be enough for what we were up against.

For my family’s safety, my first instinct was to hike to a relative’s place in a safer neighborhood and hunker down. I had an uncle who lived in Queens, and I decided to take my family across the bridge to get there. A decision I’ve come to regret with all my heart. Our first steps out of the building were the most frightening. The noise never seemed to end. People screaming in a shuffle throughout the street, the helicopter fuel still burning, echoes of gun fire in the distance, all aimed at our new adversary. A tapestry of chaos, and in the center, the greatest loves of my life. I told my wife and daughter to cover their ears as we darted out to the left side of the building away from the crash. Even being feet away you could feel the heat of the blaze. We ran as fast as we could but no matter how far we got, it seemed to make no difference. The sound of fighting surrounded us. Our apartment was in the upper east side, and it was over twenty blocks to the 59th St. bridge. Under normal conditions, it would have been a nice walk, but instead it was a death march.

By the time we made it to the bridge things started to calm down. It seemed the attack was concentrated in uptown Manhattan, at least for the time being. Crossing that bridge was probably the most afraid I’ve ever been. The thought of not knowing when one of these alien ships could virtually appear out of nowhere to attack us was constantly eating at my mind. It only fueled me to keep moving and make sure my family was safe and secure. Taking our first steps in Queens I had a sigh of relief. Like the feeling as a kid when you are finally a safe distance away from the bullies who tried to beat you up just a few hours ago. We were finally away from the chaos, but now came the new challenge of walking a few miles to reach my uncle’s home.

Somehow despite that relief from making it out of the city, the night remained eerily still and quiet as we walked. It made me unsettled. At first, I felt grateful and lucky to have survived the attack with minimal injury. I felt blessed. A few hours later when we arrived at the house, no one answered the door. On our way over I had tried my uncle on the phone several times to inform him about our arrival with no response. I slammed on the front door in hopes that he was just asleep and not hurt. Again, no response. The house seemed empty. I went to the back door, used the flashlight to break the glass, squeezed my arm in and unlocked it. After entering, I quickly paced through the house in search of any family, calling out to my uncle, but there was no one home.

From this point I decided it was time settle down and try to rest and recover for the night. After settling my family down, I stayed awake watching the skies for any kind of activity. For hours nothing happened. Occasional helicopters flew overhead bringing in more soldiers into the ongoing battle in the city. This whole time, our new enemies had been attacking us in a new way no one could have foreseen. Around 7:30am I noticed the sky hadn’t changed any color yet. By that time the sun would have already risen. I had been so exhausted by then I paid no mind to it and started to close my eyes. By 9 am I woke up again and found my wife and daughter resting peacefully. I kissed them both on the forehead and shifted my daughter into a more comfortable position. As I placed a sweater over her, I noticed she had been wearing the small silver heart shaped locket I gave her when she was seven years old. I almost had forgotten that I gave it to her. Inside was a picture of our family together. A gift for her birthday to remember her younger brother who passed away to heart failure earlier that year. I had hoped it would serve as a reminder to her of how strong our love is for our family and through that love for one another, we could get through any difficulty.

When I looked outside again it was still dark out and nothing but silence. I felt in my core something was off, I just couldn’t understand what. As if from nowhere portals began opening in the sky above with neon ships slowly descending towards the earth. It looked like an art installation of coordinated drones in the sky. If only it was that harmless. I decided to step outside onto the backyard and get a closer look at what was happening. I noticed the ships remained suspended in mid air perfectly still. In all my life I had never seen anything capable of defying physics this way and was able to hold itself up with no thrusters or engines, just lights and silence. Those next few moments were terrifying as I locked my eyes onto the ships, and they hovered right above us watching. I ran back inside and woke up my wife and made sure she knew we were in danger and needed to run. As I am telling her, I heard heavy objects hitting the ground outside. As I go to investigate, to my surprise metal objects were falling from the ships. I was shocked my uncles home was not being vaporized by a plasma weapon like the ones that were used in the city. Instead the ships were calmly dropping polished ores of metals. They appeared to be polished gold and silver rocks. I couldn't understand what this meant. Were they offering gifts? Could this mean peace between the species? I collected a few pieces just to make sure they were real and couldn't hurt us. By all appearances they were safe to hold. Suddenly I felt the urge to start collecting as many of them as I could. It was as if I entered a dream state where my actions were no longer my own.

My wife called out to me to leave them alone but I couldn't. The aliens had been warping my mind and compelled me to gather them. Moments after collecting a few, on my way back to the house the ores activated and opened up. They seemed to magnetically attach themselves to the earth and began to pulse with a faded blue light. As I struggled to walk my way back into the house, I could feel the metals pulling me back outside towards them. I used all the power I had to just get a grasp on the door frame to hold on and stabilize myself. Within seconds the metals began pulsing faster and the gravity began to shift. I felt my legs being elevated into the air as I held on for dear life. My wife and daughter ran towards me screaming in fear that I would be dragged away. I yelled for them to stay back. Suddenly their eyes changed into a blackish gray hue and they began moving towards the metals. The started to walk towards me and then past me as if they were drones. Gravity shifters were pulling my wife in first then my daughter. My wife slipped right by me and was suspended feet into the air in a flash. I grabbed my daughter as tightly as I could with one arm hoping they would not pry her from my grasp, I was wrong. With all my strength I grabbed onto her and we were both lifted into the air. As we spun around in a cyclone, I grabbed onto her bag and happened to reach her locket as she was pulled out of my hands. Somehow I just dropped from mid air as the metals closed back up and floated back towards the ships and disappeared.

It has been one year since those events took place and I lost my family. Everyday I look at her locket and see my family and what we used to be. The fire for vengeance burns in my soul and I will not rest until I find them. After fighting these things for a year, we learned that they are harvesting people for their minds or rather their consciousness. Its what fuels their technology. They create these so called "Night Storms" which put people in a trance state which allows them to pull them up without resistance while the military forces are distracted fighting the larger alien ships. Rumors are that the people taken may still be alive since they need them alive to use them as resources. I have to fight harder than I ever have to make sure I never get caught again in a night storm. The world as it is now is a hollow shell of what it used to be. Abandoned streets and buildings that were once bustling with people. The few of us who have survived are banding together in hopes of forming a strategy to fight back. For now I can only pray that I will see my family again one day.