No one would recognize the place now. The land that had once been laden with trees was bare – not even a single baby sycamore was left. The grass had once been green – now, even the grass on the other side wasn’t green. If you looked at the place it wouldn’t look like a piece of countryside in Louisiana. It would look like a war torn piece of land – but then, in a way, it was.

I remember whispering to myself at night: “He’s dead, He’s gone. I’ll never see him again.” And nothing happened. Sure, he wasn’t the first one to disappear; but the others, well, I hoped – I knew – that they were old enough to take care of themselves. Todd was only nine – and he was dead. Yet I didn’t realize it. How can you come to terms with someone being dead until you see living – or dead actually – proof? It took me a week to realize how small the house was without him, to realize that without him I was most likely the only person living within a twenty mile radius. I can’t believe that only a few years before I was complaining on how small our house was.

I remember living with my parents, in a nice apartment in the city. My mom had been beautiful, with bright curly red hair that went down to her hips. Then she was diagnosed with cancer and by the time she was finished with chemotherapy all her beautiful locks had fallen out. And she still died seven months later. My bastard of a father then took off, deserting me on the doorsteps of my aunt and uncle’s house. Three days after the anniversary of my mother’s death was when this whole mess began.

How do you describe this without seeming crazy? How can I even begin? Well, first of all this isn’t normal. Okay, so war isn’t normal either…but this is extreme. There are no boundaries – no allies and no enemies – a whole new meaning to “all for one and one for all.” This so-called war isn’t only with the United States – in fact it isn’t even with only this world. I don’t really understand what happened; I don’t think any of us do. But you have to realize that it’s something big when everyone starts disappearing, when all the TV’s and radio’s no longer work, and when…when you’re all alone. Humans tend to be paranoid – of everything. I think that’s why we fired at them. Yeah, them…aliens….still can’t get used to that word. In fact now, I’m sure it’s politically incorrect. But let me tell you, they didn’t go silently – they fought back.

I was in the barn milking one of our last cows. Most of them my cousins killed – It would have been cruel just to let them live. I had left the door open – out of habit mostly and… who can be so paranoid as to expect disaster from an open door? I heard the door squeak but passed it off as the wind swinging the door. But then I felt something, the feeling of someone staring at me. I could feel that there was something standing behind me. I could have been imagining things – except for the fact that I heard breathing. I wasn’t sure whether to jump for joy or to cower in fear. I hadn’t heard a human’s voice in so long I was afraid I was going to start talking to myself or some inanimate objects or perhaps, even a cow. I turned around half-expecting nothing to be there, only to find that I was imagining things. But of course, he was standing there – and I knew it was one of…them. I don’t know how to describe how I knew – I just did. He was staring at me, his face expressionless. His eyes were a steel grey, almost empty. I can not tell you how fast my heart was beating – in fact I swear if it started beating any faster it wouldn’t be beating. I stared back at him, waiting for him to do something. Like wave his arms around and say a few magical words, or leave a silver handprint on me like in an episode of Roswell. He finally looked up, making eye contact with me and I reacted. Before he could do anything else, I grabbed a shovel that lay against the wall and pushed it against his chest. Now that I think about it, it was a stupid thing to do. How would I know that he, being what he was, couldn’t kill me with a blink of an eye? What if by acting aggressive I made him want to kill me even more? But what happened next I never would have expected.

“…Help…please…” He murmured and for a moment a vibrant flash of fear captured his face. I’m sorry to say that I didn’t put down the shovel. I didn’t say anything or ask anything. I didn’t even wait to see if he would elaborate on why he needed help. Instead, I hit him with the shovel.