I was jolted out of my sleep to the rumbling of my house, it felt like the earth was opening up underneath it. That’s exactly what was happening.

My wife and I are now both looking at each other completely confused and utterly scared.

I’m frozen and can’t move. It feels like my body is limp and glued to the mattress.

Jess! Jess! Jessica!!! My wife is yelling my name, I hear her but can’t move. She eventually just yanks my arm forcing me back into reality.

I click back into the moment and we both start scrambling for our phones, car keys and backpacks in the closet.

We packed them about a week ago in fear of the inevitable day. The day they told us would happen and we’d have to survive our way out of it.

This was the government’s way of punishing us for revolting against them. We’d already had so much bloodshed from the protesting and citizens attacking politicians.

We’d all been betrayed. Our government had sold us into bondage with an otherworldly being.

I watched my boss get mounted to a wall in the middle of Canyon Civic Center. Blood dripping from the half of his torso that was left of him.

I watched as his insides begin to fall to the ground, staining the wall behind him with blood and chunks of him. I fought the urge to puke, they used him as an example. Our own damn government killed their own.

The horror and disgust on everyone’s face, next thing you know we’re all running for our lives. Our own leader turned the army into a killing squad instead of protecting us.

I break out of my mind and remember we’re scrambling to get out of our house. The sirens are blaring through closed windows. It sounds like we’re standing right next to them.

Riley come on let’s go, let’s get the fuck out of here! Come on!

Riley and I start running downstairs, we barely can catch our footing as our staircase begins to give way from the intensity of the rumble.

We hear distant explosions from outside, I’m dreading the idea of being out there.

Watch out! I yell at Riley, warning her of a chunk of ceiling that’s falling when we reach the bottom of the stairs. She narrowly misses it.

After an obstacle course of falling household items and pieces of our ceiling we make it out the front door.

The rumbling that jolted us out of our sleep, was coming from a giant ship. It was coming from within the earth.

I couldn’t describe or decipher what we were seeing, but I’d never seen anything like this.

It was big, I mean like miles wide. It was completely black almost like a giant rock like shape. No perfect edges, not sleek or advanced looking. If anything it looked ancient and worn out covered with grief and grime.

Me and Riley went headed to where we knew our car would be. We noticed that every car on the block had been picked up and tossed throughout the neighborhood.

We looked at each other, dread filling our eyes because we knew what was coming next if we didn’t run and fast.

We start running, headed towards the meet up point where we’ll meet Jestin and Chloe. After that we have to get to the rest of the group that’s 6 miles from there.

I’m hoping they didn’t lose their car, shit I’m hoping they’re still alive.

We’re running for about a quarter mile and have about a half mile left to run. I look to my left and see the bloody torn up bodies of a elderly couple. It looks like some kind of animal tore them to shreds.

From what I seen they both had their necks ripped and torn up. Heads literally hanging on by what I’m assuming are muscle. I’m no doctor but nobody would’ve survived that old or young.

The rumbling is still quaking underneath our feet, all I can hear is the humming of the ship, the screams of those dying, and our soles hitting the ground.

We finally make it to the rendezvous with Jestin and Chloe, thank goodness they’re okay.I can see the fear and relief on their faces when they seen us.

We exchange quick hugs. Me and Riley throw our bags in the backseat with us and climb in the car.

We begin our journey to meeting the others, hoping that everyone else is okay. At best all I can do is pray and I’m not a religious person at all.

I can’t help but turn around and watch that giant ship still making its way out of the soil of our earth. I quiver and feel sorry for Mother Earth, she didn’t ask for this.

By our fourth mile out, the ship has made it a few hundred feet into the sky. There are smaller drone like creatures beginning to fly out of it. I see them picking up people who are running and trying to hide.

They’re impaling them with what I assumed were their legs. The horrendous cries and yells of people we hear through the halfway open car windows.

I struggle at the sight of bodies falling back to the ground, the crunch of their bones seem to vibrate against my ear drums.

Watch out! I hear Chloe scream at Jestin to avoid a slew of bodies plummeting all around us.

Jestin is swerving the best he can to avoid the bodies that are falling from the sky. It starts feeling like a mound of speed bumps as it gets harder to avoid the bodies on the ground.

Blood is beginning to stain the streets, windows of the car are turning red from streaks of blood. I feel like the sky is crying blood as the world around us is crumbling.

Jestin swerves one last good time, but this time he looses control of the wheel. Before everything goes dark we hit a giant trucking container.

I awaken, wincing from pain I felt shooting through my body. I look over for Riley, grabbing at her to see if she responds to me.

Riley? Jestin? Chloe? I call everyone’s name hoping for responses.

I hear Riley and Chloe, but Jestin is still silent. I start trying to unbuckle myself but my body feels like shit. I feel all over myself but I don’t see or feel any blood, nothing feels broken so I think my body is in shock.

I get to Riley who has a gash on her forehead but other than that she seems just shooken up. Chloe is frantically shaking Jestin who just seems limp at the wheel. Airbags couldve knocked him out from the impact, I’m just hoping continually for the best.

The sounds of death are still loud and surrounding us outside of the car.

Jestin baby wake up! Please! Chloe pleads with him.

I slowly get on my knees and lean into the front of the car to check on Jestin. I don’t feel a pulse, his body feels slightly cold to the touch.

I reach around on the driver side of his seat to see if I can lean his seat back. Before I reach the lever I feel wetness flood my hand. I freak out internally because I knew that hope I had is now gone.

Something had impaled Jestin from the impact of the crash. It felt like a piece of the car door crushed him. I look up over to Chloe who can see the sorrow in my face, the ultimate look of dread.

She instantly bursts into tears, and I look at Riley who’s already grabbing Chloe to hug her. Tears well up in my eyes because Jestin was my closest friend, like an annoying older brother. I feel like he tried to save us, trying hard to get us out of here. Now it’s up to us to honor him.

After a few moments of pain, tears, silence and covering Jestin’s body we gather everything and begin to run.

Chloe’s leg was pretty banged up but she didn’t let it slow her down. We’d take breaks where we could that seemed safe. I looked behind us, the ship I had been distracted from was now sitting idle in the sky.

The earths rumbling stopped , but screams and destruction still filled the atmosphere. The sounds of the drone like creatures are a mixture between a hum and a chitter.

We constantly have to run then hide, run then hide, run then hide, trying to avoid another loss in our team.

Hiding from the creatures, avoiding the explosions, avoiding bodies from the sky and on the ground.

We have about half a mile left, it seems like forever we’ve been running and trying to survive.

We hear the chittering and humming of a creature, its nearby but we can’t see it. Next thing we know, Chloe is picked up from the ground.

She’s screaming, thrashing, trying to get away from this thing. Her body is impaled in different areas, her arms, her legs, her back. I remember me and Riley packed a few flare guns.

I pull my backpack to the front of my body and pull the flare gun out never losing my stamina as I ran.

I see Riley to my right and we both nod at each other in hopes this saves Chloe’s life.

I aim, I know Riley is guiding me so I don’t run into anything.

I shoot the flare off and it hits the creature, it lets off a screech that’s almost deafening. You see it withdraw its legs from Chloe’s body. She falls to the ground, we break some of the impact.

Chloe! We both say as we’re holding her body in our laps. She’s heavy breathing and tears are falling from her soft gray eyes.

Riley nudges my arm showing me her blood stained hands. Chloe had been impaled so many times we didn’t even know how bad it was. We knew she was going to die and she knew it too.

“Promise me you both will live. Promise me you’ll get revenge on everyone who did this to us. Live for Jestin, live for me, live for everyone.”

We both nod and say yes. We make promises that we don’t even know if we’ll make it down the street long enough to fulfill.

We just knew we couldn’t let her last breath go in vain. We both hugged her bloodied tortured body and kissed her forehead. We told her we loved her and how sorry we were.

After pulling her body off to a alleyway, me and Riley take a brief moment.

I look at Riley, and pull her in for a hug. We exchange a few I love you’s and head back to the main street.

This was our life now. This was what our government degraded our lives too. This was the day we all would remember.