A Different Path

Movement Towards

It's been a while since the apocalypse began and ships began raining from the sky. People and families separated some dragged to their unknown fate and others killed on the spot. The survivors herd together in groups each with their own special name given to them by the government. This one specifically being the 2nd Massachusetts or the 2nd Mass for short.
In the 2nd Mass the people have tried to regain a since of normalcy, not many getting it. Those who were fit and able joined the armed forces and protected us from the dangers of the outside.
My dad ,Tom, had become the second to our leader Captain Weaver. Those who didn't want to, or were to young, to join the militia were used to help the growing population of the 2nd mass. Some prepared or cooked food, some washed clothes, and the kids went to makeshift school.
When the aliens ,or skitters as we call them, first came some thought they were friendly. They didn't attack right away so that made when they did all the more terrifying. The initial wave is believed to have wiped out most of humanity, my mother included, but that didn't stop them from taking the rest. Any kids that were found by the skitters were not killed but taken. At first many thought it was to kill them elsewhere or sacrifice them to some weird alien being that was going to come wipe out the rest of us. To some that would have been better. Mothers weeped at the sight of their children being used as slaves.
Some couldn't take the sight of it and either killed their child or themselves in their grief.
The children however had no desire to leave their new enslavement. That was because the parasite on their back made them believe they didn't want to leave. Known to us as the harness, the parasite is believed to be a weapon designed by the skitters in order to forcefully enslave all the young of humanity and make them forcefully comply to their every command. It worked. The children march around like soldiers doing whatever the skitters want. By looking at them though you can tell that they aren't all there. Some have described it similarly to PTSD's thousand yard stare, they say the children no longer have any thoughts of their own. Of course I wouldn't know this seeing that I have never had a harness stuck to my back.
My life compared to other 19 year olds would be considered hell. While some were figuring out where to go to college I was now hiding and fearing for my life. Crouched behind a hill, I sat. My heart pounding in my chest as hundreds of aliens and humans passed by. After a failed supply run a few days ago I was sent out with a group to see if there were any skitters coming closer to our camp. That would be a resounding yes , but I couldn't tell anyone because I was stuck with my back stuck to the side of a hill. I knew I had to be fast to warn the others of the danger ,but I also knew they weren't heading straight for the camp. More towards the inner city was where they were going and we were safer on the outside of it. This however didn't stop my partner from flipping into his stomach to get a closer look at the huge lot of aliens.
His name was Mike and he was a slightly taller black man. He was with me on this supply run and as they crossed in front of us he shook his head.
"They're heading towards the city. Away from us but still in the way of our supply runs" he whispered I think mostly to himself.
" Well our last supply run didn't go to well even without these new reinforcements" I whispered back to him. It really hadn't gone well. We lost 5 men and all the food we were trying to recover from a neighborhood. The men were shot down by mechs, giant two legged mechanical robots with cheat codes. They had a auto lock system and once you were in its crosshairs you were dead as evident by the now deceased 5 men. There were quite a few of them passing beside us as well, we could tell not only by the shaking ground ,but the unmistakeable noise all of them made, a lower pitched hum that could increase in volume at any time it felt threatened.
We were silent as they passed still scared of being caught. Then something happened. Mikes brown eyes widened and his goatee covered chin dropped. Looking at his face and his now stock still body I slowly and quietly turned into my stomach as well. At first I didn't see anything different. Skitters crawling around in their six legs, harnessed kids walking in straight lines on all sides of them, and mechs guarding them all.
Then I saw it. A boy who looked remarkably like Mike. He has fuzzy brown hair that was sticking every which way into a kind of afro. His brown eyes looked just like mikes along with the shape and size of his nose. The only true differences between the 2 were their hair and size.
Mike looked on the verge of tears as the boy passed right by us not sparring a second glance towards the obviously distraught father.
"That's Rick" he said quietly. "That's my boy" And the held back tears dropped in complete and utter silence.