Slowly opening my eyes, a bright light floods in through my cracked eyelids from above me. Moaning in pain, I quickly shut my eyes and throw my hand in front of my face to ward off the searing light. ‘That pain…it couldn’t have just been a headache.’ Gingerly touching my head, I traced my fingers all around it probing for any blood or remnants of pain. ‘I had better not make a habit of this whole blacking out because of extreme pain business. I hate experiencing unnecessary pain.’
“Get up, human.” A cold and emotionless deep voice rang throughout my mind.
My eyes shot open and I scrambled to my feet. Looking around myself, I’m confused because I have no clue where I am.
I’m all alone in a completely white space with black blobs intermittently floating in empty space close by as well as far away. The room seems to have no form whatsoever and the space stretches on infinitely in every direction.
‘Where’d that voice come from? Is this a dream?’
“This is not a dream, human” The cold voice once again spoke and this time I deduced that the sound was coming from the confines of my own mind.
‘What? You can hear-…’
“Your thoughts. Yes, human. Do not take this dream of yours lightly lest you be the first of your pathetically weak race to die…although you might not be so weak anymore if you can make it to your awakening…” the voice trailed off and all was silent for a few moments.
At this point, I’m confused and scared. ‘What? Awakening? How is any of this even real? Isn’t this all in my own head? I don’t understand.’
“Of course this is all going on in your head, but why should that make any of this less real?” The voice once again responded to my thoughts. Before I could question the voice once again with my stray thoughts, it began to speak, “Human, you have been chosen as one who will enter the tower. I was sent here to make sure there would be no misunderstandings about the mark on your body since the survival of your world depends on all who are marked showing themselves at the towers in one week. If even one of you fails to show yourselves, then we will eradicate the entire human race. This planet will become one of the conquered and serve as a display of strength for the other candidate planets.”
Once he’d said I was marked on my body I started panicking and began patting myself down and looking all over. This was the moment I realized that I was stark naked. Covering my private area, I glanced over the rest of me and finding nothing out of the ordinary I said, “There’s nothing on my body. You guys must’ve gotten me mixed up with someone else…”
“We do not make mistakes, human!” The voice boomed at me in anger. “You have been chosen and if you do not enter the tower…do not blame us for being merciless.” I felt something tug at my head painfully and I was almost instantly swallowed by the blackness again.
………………..
Waking up, I instantly sat up and smacked my head against something hard. Before I could see what I hit, I heard a girl crying and realized I’d just smacked heads with my little baby sister who’d been worriedly watching over me from the side of the couch. Looking down to the ground, I saw her clutching her head and bawling her eyes out.
‘Shit.’ I thought as I bent down to pick up my sister. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. It’ll be okay.” Rocking her back and forth as I held her close, it only took a few seconds for my mom and dad to show themselves and by then she’d considerably calmed down. After handing my sister off to my mom, I breathed a sigh of relief and then noticed that my parents were looking at me expectantly. ‘They must want to know what happened…’
Looking back at my parents, I take a deep breath and tell them everything that just happened while I was passed out.
They stood there, mouths open wide. Unsure of what to say to me. After a few moments of thinking, I looked them in the eye and said, “Dad…mom…don’t worry. I’m going. ”
I had thought about it all already. That disastrous night. Seeing my mother’s tears after waking up from my coma. Seeing my whole family again…a fire was lit in my eyes. ‘I will protect them no matter what. To do that, I have to go to the tower. I don’t know what’s going to happen there, but I’ll go and protect everyone.’ My parents looked like they wanted to say something, but I continued speaking, “I’ll go pack now and leave tomorrow morning. You guys don’t have to worry about anything. The world isn’t ending on my account.”
With that said, I walked back to my room and looked around. I had yet to unpack the things my mom had sent back from my dorm room at UChicago. ‘Hmmmm this might take the whole night…’
………………..
About five minutes later I was lying in bed thinking about all the things I would need. What makes the whole process ridiculously tough is that I didn’t know what I’d be going into the tower for or what would happen in there. Thinking about the bloody night when it had all started, I highly doubted that the tower would be like some five star hotel and I’d be better off buying survival gear.
Doing what any sensible person would do, I drove to the nearest Walmart and decided to spend all the saved money I had on anything that would help me survive the tower. At that point, I had tried thinking of anything related to survival in my brain and came up empty. ‘Damn, school didn’t teach me anything important!’ I angrily thought. After silently crying for never going camping all the times my dad had asked me to, I grabbed a shopping cart and approached a balding middle-aged guy who was restocking things around all the camping supplies.
“Excuse me, would you mind helping me out?” He turned to look at me and nodded with a smile on his face. “Uhhhh so I’m going camping…in a dangerous area...with my family…I need help finding stuff for survival. Like camping and hiking stuff.” He looked at me obviously perplexed at what I’d said.
“Uhhhh sure, kid. Just follow me and I’ll point out some things I’d grab.” He replied and began moving off.
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About fifteen minutes later, my shopping cart was filled with a Patagonia 35 liter backpack, a ridiculously expensive sleeping bag that the guy had told me I could attach to the bottom of my backpack, a 100 foot long nylon rope which could be wrapped up and also tied to my backpack’s front side, flint and steel, two lighters in case that didn’t work, a compass, a first aid kit, a whistle, binoculars, two solar powered flashlights, bug spray, a pair of black combat boots, a compact hatchet, and even though the middle-aged guy questioned my intentions, an eighteen inch long machete I’d seen was also tossed in there.
“Yeah, this is good…now, don’t take me wrong, but uh you wouldn’t happen to have some sort of bulletproof vest or anything would you?” Laughing nervously I looked at him from the corner of my eyes gauging his reaction.
The man stiffened a little and then he said, “Well, I sure as hell wouldn’t want to go camping with your family, but yeah we’ve got some strike vests-”
“Do you have it in black?” I hurriedly asked. He nodded and set off down the aisle. Ten minutes later he was ringing me up.
“Hey, thanks so much for helping me out. You’re literally a lifesaver.” I said while smiling toward the guy.
“Always happy to help. Your total will be $759.06”
My jaw dropped. ‘Damn, that’s more half of my money!’ Reluctantly handing over my debit card, he grasped it and tried to take it from my hand, but my hand wouldn’t let go. The guy frowned and tugged harder on it. This time I let it go and a single tear began forming in my right eye. ‘Bear with it, Alex. It’s just money, not your life. Can I even use money after this?’
………………..
Making it back to my house at nearly 10 p.m. I hauled everything back into my room and onto the bed. Grabbing the machete, I slowly unsheathed it and marveled in all its glory. ‘It’s beautiful.’ After admiring the blade for a couple seconds I used it to open the boxes from school. Going through my stuff, I settled on taking out my winter coat, five pairs each of dark blue jeans, long wool socks, briefs, and dark shirts then I threw them into the largest pocket. Along with these regular clothes, I tossed a black beanie and leather gloves into a side pocket just in case. With only my clothes in the bag, half of the space was already used up. I then tossed my toiletries and shower stuff into the same side pocket as the beanie and gloves. ‘Okay, now for all the other stuff I bought.’
I tied the sleeping bag and rope onto the pack like the guy at Walmart had told me and threw everything except for the machete and compact hatchet into the other side pocket of the pack. ‘Alright, now food and water.’ After explaining to my parents, who were still up worried about me, that I’d need food and water, they just wordlessly nodded. I took about fifteen bottles of water and thirty granola bars and tossed it into the pack which was now nearly full.
‘I think that’ll do’ and after much tossing and turning, I finally fell asleep.
………………..
Waking up, I showered, brushed my teeth, and got dressed in my black strike vest which went under a dark blue shirt as well as some blue jeans and my new black combat boots. Deciding it would be best to put my machete and hatchet into the pack for now, I did that and, slinging my heavy pack onto my back, moved towards the living room.
It was about seven in the morning, but my parents were sitting on the couch with sad looks on their faces as if they’d been there the whole night. I took a seat on a couch near them while shrugging my pack off my shoulders. “I’m packed and ready to go. Oh, and I pulled out some gas money already…I know it’s not much, but you guys should use the rest of my money for whatever. I know you guys have been tight on money since the move.” As I spoke, I pulled my card out of my wallet and put it on the living room table.
Looking back towards my parents, I saw that they looked even sadder compared to before I sat down. And after a couple uncomfortable seconds of silence, my dad finally decided to speak.
“Son…do you know what you’re getting yourself into? We don’t want you rushing anywhere dangerous because before everything else, you’re our son. We love you, Alex. You, better than your mom and I, know how dangerous those aliens can be...ever since that day everything changed. You can’t want to hop right back into that…I don’t want you running in there and getting hurt. If any of us are going to die, then let it be as a family.” Tears were running down my parents’ faces and I stared at them in shock.
“Dad…mom…I haven’t told you, but…that night…I led everyone who was alive in that dorm to their deaths…if I’d known the monsters were only there for a short period of time, then I wouldn’t have urged everyone to fight back with me. I feel nothing but guilt and I’ve been trying to think of a way to make it right ever since I woke up. You think I want to go in there? I don’t. But I will. To protect you two, the little ones, and to make up for my past failure. Me being chosen…it’s nothing but retribution for that night. I love you mom and dad.” They looked up at me with tears in their eyes. I moved over to them and hugged them. “Let the little ones know that I love them and that I’m sorry I couldn’t be home with them longer than I was.”
I stepped out of the hug and tears threatened to spill from my eyes. Taking a deep breath, I wiped my eyes clear and grabbing my bag, threw it over my shoulders once more and walked over to the closet next to the front door. Opening the closet, I smiled and grabbed my leather jacket.
‘This feels right.’ I inwardly laughed to myself and then I turned back to my parents and saw their serious expressions.
The smile on my face faltered and my gray eyes instead shone with determination.
“I’m coming back.” And then, I stepped out the front door closing it behind me.