Encounter

C went along the worn dirt road that soon shrunk and became just wide enough to fit his car. Driving slowly, he fiddled around with the car's radio, trying to activate it somehow. He finally got the radio to turn on, but it simply blurted out loud, unsettling static. C quickly shut it off; he had neither the time nor stamina in his head to tune it. An immense pain suddenly erupted in C's stomach, causing him to immediately stop the car. He reached into his backpack and looked for the first-aid supplies. The when he found the supplies, however, the pain had mysteriously vanished. C was puzzled, but took this opportunity to quickly continue driving. As he drove, the branches of nearby trees pelted the car's windows, creating a less than comfortable ride that only worsened his headache.

C drove down the dirt path for about ten minutes, carefully avoiding trees and loose foliage. He made it to a larger dirt path, just about wide enough for another car to fit into, when he heard a noise that sounded uncomfortably similar to the alarm-like calls from the creature chasing him in the city. He started to drive faster, then was soon almost pushing the car to its limit. C heard the underbrush to the left of him shaking rapidly. Whatever was chasing him was as fast as his car, which the speed-o-meter clocked in at just over 50 miles per hour.

C then heard a loud crash to his right. He glanced over and saw one of the creatures from earlier. Having a much closer look, C saw that its body was almost entirely jet-black in color, save for a patch of light blue that appeared to be its eyes. Despite being a tripod, the creature had no trouble keeping up with the fully-accelerated car; in fact, it was going faster and gaining distance on him. The creature to C's left jumped out of the foliage, and closed in on the car. Before they could do anything, however, something made them distance themselves from the vehicle. When C understood what, it was far too late; another, larger one of the creatures slammed down on the hood of the car before momentarily flipping it over.

C's vision was blurred as he saw the apparent shapes approach the damaged vehicle; each with a distinct blueish glow. The shapes went towards the car, but quickly darted after a brief search. C's perception whittled slowly as he lost consciousness.

C woke up suspended in a large, spacious room. The walls of the room were seemingly metal, but had an odd, reddish glow to them. C had a wave of fear overtake him when he realized: he was captured. He tried to move, but was kept down by an unseeable force. C struggled to get up, until the force started to rotate him. C was suddenly face-to-face with an alien monstrosity. The creature had a large globular shape that only had a visible mouth, lined with sharp teeth. The creature was attached to a large metal mesh, which appeared to fit from the back of its head around the rest of its body. Attached were two long, disproportionate arms that came out from holes in the metal. It appeared to be floating towards him, using the same unknown force that lifted C to keep itself airborne.

The stick-like hands of the abomination wrapped around C, holding him in place. The look of the creature alone was enough to frighten C. He noticed that another piece of metal came out from where its left eye would have been, and a long part of it looped around to the edge of its mouth. The chunk of metal near its eye started to glow. C then became even more terrified when a loud, booming voice came from the creature; not from its mouth, but rather from the metallic apparatus. The voice spoke an alien language that C could not understand. The creature's mouth grew more snarled as the voice continued to speak. The voice itself grew more loud and angered as it spoke. After a few minutes, the creature abruptly stopped speaking and let C out of its grip. C looked down, as he plunged into a dark, endless void.

C shook himself awake, and was then confused by the sudden change in scenery. He was in a small wooden room, laying on a cotton bed. He almost moved, when he noticed someone standing next to him. He hesitated to look for a moment, but his eyesight was met by a girl who appeared to be around 20 years old. Oddly, only one thing came to C's mind: "F". C wondered; the letter, or a word that started with it? His thought was interrupted by the girl, who noticed that his eyes were open.

"Oh, oh, you're finally awake! Did you sleep well?"

She quickly walked around the bed, the back of which was adjacent to the wall; starting from the right side, to the front, and finally to the left side, where she was closer to C.

"Are you feeling okay?"

C tried to process what was happening. He finally managed to speak.

"Are you… F?" He asked.

C suddenly felt odd for asking such a question, but was taken by surprise at the answer.

"Of course I am!" F said, before getting a sarcastic hint to her voice, "Are you a wizard?"

Before C could respond, F quietly corrected herself, carrying on the sarcastic tone.

"No, no you're not; you're a mage."

Three beeps came from outside the room. F quickly excused herself from the room, leaving C by himself to catch up on what was going on. C stumbled out of the bed, almost falling over and grabbing the side of the bed when he felt a sharp pain again. He stood there for a while, and the pain dissipated. He paused, and proceeded to stumble out of the room, entering a living room of some sort. On the left of the living room was a small kitchen, where F was taking something out of an oven.

"You seem quite, err - happy for the situation, don't you?" C spoke, "I mean- you seem very… familiar with me. Did we meet somewhere before?"

F paused, with a puzzled expression, before appearing to finally remember something.

"Oh, I see."

"Well, I don't mean it in a-"

"Don't worry about it too much." F said, before putting a plate of meat on a table. "Here, I made something for you."

C examined the odd dish. It had a strange yellowish-tint in it.

"What is it?" C asked.

F stopped for a moment, before reassuring herself.

"It's chicken." She finally answered.

C investigated the chicken. It had a putrid, sour smell, unlike most of the chicken plates that he had in the city. His stomach started to growl, so he decided to eat it against his better judgment. He grabbed a fork and a plate, and took a small chunk out from the meal. Looking closely at it, he eventually worked up the courage to put it in his mouth. It was the most sour thing he had tasted in his life.

"It's very sour." he managed to choke.

"Come on, just swallow it."

C had to choose whether to swallow or not, taking about a minute to resolve the choice at hand. He decided to swallow it, assuming that if it were drugged, then the amount that he would ingest would not be enough to affect him fully. He also assumed that the after-taste would be better. It was not.

"Howd's it taste?" F asked with an odd grin on her face.

C sat on his chair for a while, before he was able to talk again, "That wasn't chicken was it…"

"Well, it was actually an alien that I decided to cook before you woke up." F admitted, "If honesty makes you feel better…"

C slowly put his head down on the table, before managing to mutter, "I'm going to need a moment…"

After a while, F walked in again and noticed that C was still sitting down.

"A-are you feeling better?" she nervously asked, "You've been sitting there for 'bout half an hour."

"Well, I have been thinking…" C responded, "About this whole situation. About the - I think they're aliens. Are they just here, or are they all around the planet?"

"To keep my honesty from earlier, I also have no idea" F claimed, "I just found you passed out in the forest and brought you here. And that's basically what I know since I left town."

"What about those aliens? The ones with the pointy legs and arms, and are about eight feet tall?"

"Don't know about those. They weren't there back when I found you."

C wondered for a few seconds, then asked, "How long was I out?"

"I dunno. I found you passed out and I saw no trace of anything nearby, so I brought you here. A few days passed, so I thought you'd be hungry when you woke up." F motioned to the plate in front of C, "So I made you that."

"Thanks." C said in a flat tone.

"But those aliens you mentioned-"

F was interrupted by a loud crash outside of the building.

Both of them were silent for a while, and C was the first one to get up to investigate. F followed shortly afterwards. They both went outside, with only the full moon illuminating the nearby area, and saw a large missile-shaped object embedded into the ground a few feet away from the entrance. C went forward to look closer, but the back half suddenly sprang open. A small creature crawled out of it, causing C to back up.

The creature was about two feet in length, half of which was its tail, and had loose, bumpy skin, like that of a toad. It had three pairs of legs, each of which were thick and ended in hooked digits. Its mouth, or what appeared to be its mouth, was covered by a long row of curved spikes, which themselves had small thorns protruding out of them. Its oddly long tail ended in a "U"-shaped claw of some sort, which opened and closed as it examined its surroundings.

The creature took notice of C, and started to crawl towards him. C noticed several more emerging from the missile-like object, which he now knew was a container of some sort.

"What is that?" C quickly asked.

"That's the thing you ate earlier!" F shouted.

Barely having time to react to the statement, C grabbed the creature mid-air as it leaped towards him. Its tail reached for C's neck, and the tail's end split opened, revealing small tentacles that retracted out of a hole in the middle. C threw the creature on the floor and stomped on it. Its shell was thick, giving it the feel of a large arthropod. The shell cracked underneath C's weight, and blood spurted out, being an uncannily earthen color of red. C shook at the sight of it, before grabbing F's arm and running back inside.

C slammed the door shut before the creatures could run inside, and he leaned against the door. C was trying to catch his breath, when F spoke up.

"Nice fighting." she complimented, "Good thing your reaction was as fast as it was."

"Yeah…" C said between heavy breaths, "I was a police officer before… all of this."

C finally calmed down, and sat down near the door.

"Those things can't go through the door, right?"

"I don't think so." F reassured.

A couple minutes passed by, before C finally spoke.

"What the hell were those things." He said to himself.

"Those creatures outside…"

F put her ear on the door for a moment, listening intently.

"They're gone…" F continued, "Anyways; those creatures are what I simply call 'Parasites.'"

"Parasites? How, at that size?" C asked.

"Well, they aren't like normal parasites. No; these ones are much more… 'hardcore' shall we say. They're really dangerous. They don't just feed off of you. You saw those tentacle thingamajigs, right?"

C nodded in reply.

"Those things are what they use to stab into the back of your neck." F motioned near the back of her head, "They stab into the cerebellum, I think. The back part of your brain. And they take control of your muscles. From there, you're a walking puppet, basically."

"So, like the fungus that-"

"Exactly like that." F replied, cutting off C again, "Except you are still fully conscious and feel the parasite moving inside your brain. And… well… killing other people and stuff, you'll see that too."

"That's awful." C paused for a brief moment, "But… err, how do you know this?"

"I saw it first hand. I had to run away, so I ended up here." F said with a low voice.

"I'm sorry that you had to experience that." C sympathized, "Uh, were any of your friends there?"

"No, thankfully. But I don't know where any of them are." F said, "I was out and away from any of them when those things appeared."

F paused for a moment. A few more seconds passed, and F suddenly had her normal tone back, "But, I didn't just run; I went and stomped down a lot of them. Like you did earlier."

C was amused at the sudden change in mood, despite the current situation.

"Oh, I just remembered!" C said, having a sudden memory surge, "There is a base east from the river near Albany. Maybe some of your friends or family are there?"

"Well, hopefully not." F responded, "Earlier I saw… the reaper heading in that direction."

"Reaper?"

"I heard a few soldiers calling it by that name," F explained, "The reaper; a large alien… Quadrupedal… Cannon for a head… err, had sticks for feet."

"You mean, the big one, about forty feet, that was in the city?"

"Yes, that one. I saw that it took a couple of rockets from the soldiers sent there, and it just shrugged them off!"

"It- That thing took a couple of rockets?"

"And it packs a massive punch: it took down the building behind them in a single shot. I think some other buildings as well, but I was already leaving by that point." F tried to think, "There might be some heavier weaponry that the military will use on it, hopefully one that won't reach us out here. But until then, I wouldn't go anywhere near that thing."

C thought for a moment.

"I'm going to find a way to help them, then." C decided.

"You're going to go out there and fight that thing?" F said, being shocked by C's sudden decision, "After what I just told you?"

"I'll find the military first. Then I'll try and fight that thing"

"I know you're brave, but that's just foolhardy. That thing took rockets. How would we do anything against it that the military can't? Just let them deal with it."

"You could stay here, where its safe. But I'm not going to let the rest of humanity struggle on their own." C stated, "Yes, I retired from being a police officer, but that doesn't mean I'm just going to sit back and watch others fight a fight that determines my fate. Even if these aliens are indestructible, even if we have no chance at fighting back, I won't go out in a whisper. I won't let humanity go down in a whisper. Not as long as I still draw breath."

The mini-speech made a small smirk appear on F's face.

"Fine then, I'll go with you." F said, impressed at C's courage, "First, let me pack up."

C peeked out of the front door, carefully examining the field outside the house. The parasites were no where in sight. He exited the door, armed with a spare baton that was left inside the house. F shortly followed with her backpack on, carrying a worn baseball bat.

"You sure you don't want the bat?" F asked as they left the door.

"Quiet down." C warned, "Those things could still be here."

The two of them quickly ran through the field in front of the house and made it into the forest.