Anokhian: Invasion

One

"How was school sweetheart?" My mother's smooth voice bloomed from the seat Infront of me.

"It was fine." I shrugged as I threw my backpack into the seat next to mine.

I didn't see the point of school. Sure, some thing's were learned but nothing truly important. School was just a place that minors went while their parents rushed away to work.

"What did you learn today?" My fathers strict brown eyes glanced at me through the rear view mirror.

He was insistent that I kept myself sharp. Educated and cleanly, so the same question came every week day. If I learned anything at all, it was to have an answer ready.

"I learned that people once killed each other over their moral standing on slavery. Mr. Bell is teaching us the main reasons for the civil war." It burned a hole in me to think that the country I love and live in was a part of something so sinister. Although how could it surprise me. The Government does a horrible job at representing it's people's true values and morals. They twist words to their advantage and cause chaos, making people abandon their morals out of anger and hatred for anyone who has a different opinion.

"An unfortunate time in our history." My father spoke like a trained professional, like it meant nothing to him. What could I expect. He's been desensitized by the core.

"Unfortunate?" I gaped. He quickly noticed my defense, his greying eyebrows turned in.

"That's not what I meant. There are far worse things that have happened, that continue to happen. That's why I joined the core." He held mother's hand swiping his thumb across her fingers.

He loved my mother more than anything. But me? Well I knew better than to continue. He's made his point and didn't like to be argued with. He expects to be shown respect, like a true colonel. Only I'm not just another soldier in his battalion, regardless of what he thinks.. I'm his daughter. A father should value his childs opinions but mine mean little to him.

"How about you mom. Dissect anything interesting lately?" She knew I was being facetious.

She too was involved in the core. She started as a nurse and worked her way up to the head of the biological intelligence sector. My father had the core pay her way through eight long years of collage to get her where she is today.

"That's classified information. If I told you, I'd have to kill you." She snickered before gasping and reaching out for my fathers arm.

I leaned my head in toward the front windshield in an effort to see what the fuss was about. Silence befell us as we watched the huge ship descend from the sky. Smoke filled the highway as driver's screeched to a stop. People jumped out of their cars to watch the steel colored pillar as it came closer to the city.

"Dad.." I whispered, hoping he had an answer. But he didn't. He seemed just as stunned as the rest of us, his eyes never leaving the object hovering in the sky.

For a brief moment everything around me was quiet, like a pause button was pressed on my entire life. Then chaos started. Lightbulbs burst and cars were unable to start, left in the middle of the highway like a true apocalypse. People we're running and screaming like the world was going to end.

I was pulled up into a core humvee by my father, his fingers snapped in my face to gain my attention. Suddenly the weight of everything fell into my chest and I began to feel the urgency of the situation. My eyes focused from the blur that clouded around me.

"Viv, I need you to pay attention!" My dad grabbed the sides of my head and held firmly as he yelled his orders. I  stared into his eyes, watching the way he held his emotions back, cold and robotic.

"I'm needed at the main operating base. You and your mother will be taken to the barracks where you'll be placed in temporary S-I-P until we figure out what's going on." The truck rushed down the concrete highway, passing disabled cars and frightened people.

"Come here honey, everything's going to be just fine." My mother's empty words did little to comfort me as she pulled my head under her chin, holding me like I was still five years old.

The truck rolled into the barracks and my mother and I were escorted to a small underground bunker too shelter in place while my father was rushed to the main operating base.

"Mom." I tried getting her attention as she scuffled around the bunker deep in thought. There was two soldiers stationed inside the bunker for our protection.

"What's going on?" I interrogated the both of them. They exchanged looks before giving me a  straight lipped answer.

"That's classified." The one on my right answered.

"Classified my ass. Is this an invasion? Are those aliens or another failed experiment on the governments behalf?" I made no effort to hide my hate for the government.

"Viviana!" My mother scolded be fort Benning so bold.

It wasn't like me to say those kinds of things out loud but tensions were high and it didn't feel like having a filter mattered right now.

I walked down the isle of the bunker too the small steel coffee table and took the tablet from it, if the core wouldn't tell me what was going on then I'd find out myself.