Letters

The tired limping boy, with one hand holding a pen, the other clenching his side, which was slowly bleeding out. With another explosion going off in the distance, the walls rocked and the ground quaked. The boy could only hope that ceiling would not crash on top of him. 

He scribbled his name on a handful of paper sheets. Then, in a hurried manner, the boy wrote his final words.

* * *

For whom this letter is found by, perhaps by a survivor or maybe another enemy soldier, it does not matter to me. Perhaps, maybe in the future if I do prevail, I may even find this. I am here to present my story of this era. These papers, keep them, document them. Let the remaining know how this happened and order them to never repeat what happened.

To start, how can I? Too many beginnings, but yet it all led to the same end. Did it come from the rioting uprising in the West? Or maybe the revolution in the Asias? The bombings of the Pacific? We may never know.

But from what I know, as a young teenager drafted to war at the age of fifteen. I promised not to tell my story, but I believe I must, so you can see through the eyes of a soldier. 

Naive and hungry, I too, like many foolish children of the day longed to join the fight, thinking back on it, it is truly confounding how we humans never seem to understand the consequences of our actions. 

I was drafted when I was thirteen years old, still in middle school. I was in algebra when metal cans were thrown into the classroom. In a few seconds I remembered the smoke that erupted from the strange cans, but nothing was more surprising than the masks. I reminisce about the masks, masked figures who emerged from the fog and began kidnapping students. One by one I watched gloved hands drag my classmates into the fog. 

One scream, then gone.

We weren’t the only class attacked, every class in the school, every school in the state, every building in the nation attacked.

As the smoke evaporated., I saw my class half empty. Half of the class vanished into thin air. 

Whilst the others were frozen, stuck in fear I’d assume, I raced out the door. My school was built on what was once an old wheat farm, but now the ground had crumbled and pieces of the ground were sticking up, though we had heard nothing. It was as if the crust of the ground had shattered. 

From the view of my eyes, other buildings were experiencing the same calamity. Mysterious fog entered by windows then as quickly as they entered, the fog was gone. I heard screams, some echoing from the school behind me, but most from the world around me.

Us as citizens were dancing in confusion to say the least. I thought it was a dream at first, or maybe some new weapon devised by the government went wrong, but in fact it was more simply to say: extraterrestrials. That is how the news explained on the television, short and simply, it was aliens, and the aliens had been kidnapping humans. Why? No known reason, all the news tells us is to stay at home, close the windows, and stay far away from any kind of fog. The kidnapping was just the first strike, to take us off our guard but we must not be deterred.

For a whole year, the world was under a lockdown to protect themselves from these unknown aliens. But during this time, a political conflict of words was going between the UN and the aliens. However, unfortunately for humanity, like most political discussions to end conflict, the talks did nothing more than fan the flames of ruthless battles to come.

I was fourteen when I was drafted out of my home by military soldiers. I was ordered to put on a vest and armor, much too big and heavy for me, though I complied. It’s not wise to go against a man with a semi-automatic. I was also handed a firearm and told to hop into a military truck. There were tens of them, all with teenagers packed in, barely with room to breathe.

With little training, if that’s what you could call it. How to load, reload, and fire a gun. That’s all that our commanders told us, before dropping us off at the battlefield. Our first and only mission, defend earth. And so, we blindly rushed through the traps laid upon by our extraterrestrial foes, explosions went off left and right. Scraps of metal went flying and lazers, something out of a sci-fi dream, were massive weapons of war, taking down soldiers one by one. I saw people that I grew up with, people that I knew, people that I thought as friends, they were all murdered by the hands of the aliens. At first, there were three million of us, spread all over the globe, now, as I write this, our troops have dwindled down to a pathetic hundred thousands, all the while, the alien armada only grows stronger and stronger. 

Through the battles and fights, I walked through piles of bodies, some young as me, maybe even younger. I shot down aliens and strange creatures who also desired to kill me. I never understand the emotional want to murder, until now. I have dragged my body through swamps and muddy dirt, carrying pounds of armor. And for what? To die? We fight these wars and battles, gunning aliens down before they see me, and till what end? When will this war stop? When every nation is gone? When every citizen on this planet is taken by the aliens? Or when the aliens blow us up? It’s these kinds of depressing questions that distract me from the pain. 

Now here we are, to the present, or at least for me. I’m now sheltered in a base carved in the middle of a mountain. I have not felt the sun on my face for a month, my face is pale, like a skeleton. My body is exhausted, barely with any strength to continue, and as I write this, my strength is slowly deteriorating. One of the alien soldiers hit me with some kind of laser, it grazed me, letting me survive, but that may have been a curse. The attack has left me wounded and infected, some kind of alien virus. Earth medicine won't cure it, only slow it, so basically I’m on borrowed time.

The base is secure for… now. I’ve heard rumors from gossiping soldiers that the walls holding back the aliens are slowly crumbling. Our safe shelter is close to being taken over by the aliens. With that in mind plus with this stupid virus, I’m positive I don’t have long. That's why I’m writing this letter now.

You wouldn’t know how it feels trapped in a cave while bombs are dropped over your head. It’s like the endless deep ringing from an alarm clock that won’t shut up. People have been worried, some have packed, ready for when the walls crumble to flee in the chaos, others have rallied for one last stand. I, on the other hand, have simply accepted my fate, preparing my will, not that it would be found, and gave my final wishes. I suppose I should conclude. 

Mother, I apologize if I wasn’t the son you wanted. I will always love you.

Father, I’m sorry for what I said and I forgive you for what you said. I think we can agree that we both said some things we regret.

Clarence, brother, friend, goodbye. Take care of mom and dad for me.

And last but not least, dear sister Rebecca, take care of Clarence, you always were really the smartest out of the three of us. 

Take care everyone.

Sincerely, Tom “Toto” Richwood

* * *

As the boy finished the last sentence, the cave walls were blown to bits. As the aliens came pouring in, the boy signed his signature on the letter before placing it onto the ground. Footsteps suddenly came from behind him and without turning the boy spoke.

Twenty shots. Twenty shots came from the alien, and the boy dropped to the ground. Yet the boy smiled, even as his life faded away, the boy smiled. 

The alien noticed the leaflets spilled over on the ground. Flakes of blood were splattered over but it was still readable. It picked up and read the letter, scanning it with its eyes. 

“Tom…” The alien’s voice was low and gravelly, deep as a bass, it placed the contents of the letter into its hyper-advanced memory and destroyed it. 

The alien had never read a personal letter before, yet it felt pity for the poor human it just murdered. The emotion of sympathy was alien to the alien. It wanted to know more, its curiosity was piqued by the story and it wished to learn more about these humans, before they were all wiped out. But then it heard a warning cry from its alien commander: “⏚⍜⋔⏚! ⏁⊑⟒ ⏁⏃⍀☌⟒⏁⌇ ⊑⏃⎐⟒ ⌰⏃⎍⋏☊⊑⟒⎅ ⏃⋏ ⏃⏁⍜⋔⟟☊ ⏚⍜⋔⏚!”

Suddenly, there was a flash and a loud siren. The air around the base shook and every alien began scrambling for the exit but it was too late. It already was dropped off by some human fighter planes. It soon was dropping through the air like a torpedo. In a few seconds just meters above the ground, its insides shattered and it created a giant explosion. It was like no other, it burned the aliens to a melted crisp, their armor was no match for the bomb.

The alien had survived, it had avoided the main blast by hiding in  the basements of a house inside the bunker. But how to get out of here without being seen? Human soldiers with radiation proof armor came crashing in, eliminating the aliens that were still alive, albeit slowly dying. The alien turned to see the body of Tom Richwood which was still there. From its eyes, it fired a laser, not to harm but to scan the body. After its completion, metamorphosis had begun. Slowly, the alien’s shape and size changed to what looked like Tom Richwood. The alien was no longer an alien, it had a new identity. It was now Tom Richwood.

Before it left the bunker, the alien spoke quietly to the body of the real Tom Richwood:

“I will continue your life human.” Then it left, joining the rest of human society.