→ my name is lana snyder and this is my story on what happened at the end of the world. we were invaded and it was a mass instinctive event. but somehow i was one of the survivors.
- the 5th wave
→ started : 12/22/22 - finished : 3/17/23
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at 0900 the entire battalion musters in the yard, creating a sea of blue jumpsuits headed by the top four squads in their crisp new fatigues. over a thousand recruits standing in perfect formation, facing east, the direction of new beginnings, toward the speakers' platform erected the day before. flags snap in the icy breeze, but we don't feel the cold. we are lit from within by a fire hotter than the one that turned tank into ash. the brass of central command moves down the first line—the winning line—shaking our hands and congratulating us for a job well done. then a personal word of gratitude from the drill instructors. we've all been dreaming of what to say to reznik when he shakes our hands. mine was: thanks for the pain you son of a bitch, or thanks for being worse than high school itself. maybe even: i hope the others come and snap your neck.
there're a couple of short speeches by officers we've never seen before. then the supreme commander is introduced and the troops go crazy, waving our hats, pumping our fists. our cheers echo off the buildings encircling the yard, making the roar twice as loud and us seem twice as many. commander vosch raises his hand very slowly and deliberately to his forehead, and it's as if he hit a switch: the noise cuts off as we raise our own hands in salute. i can hear quiet snuffling all around me. it's too much. after what brought us here and what we went through here, after all the blood and death and fire, after being shown the ugly mirror of the past through wonderland and facing the uglier truth of the future in the execution room, after months of brutal training that pushed some of us past the point of no return, we have arrived. we have survived the death of our childhood. we are soldiers now, maybe the last soldiers who will ever fight, the earths final and only hope, united as one in the spirit of vengeance.
i think about everything, from the beginning. i was just some girl no one really liked, no one really noticed. the girl forcing herself to puke up every meal just to be smaller. then look at myself in the mirror like i was the ugliest girl after all of it. a girl who took care of her siblings because her parents were never home. a girl who seeked comfort in her grandparents who died.
the day the plane crashed sending that girl in shock, no words. the earthquake, the tsunami. losing that girls mom. then losing that girls second mom to the red tsunami. almost being on the brink of death because of the red tsunami. surviving. going to a camp. almost got rescued. death. running. shot. loving. raped. stabbed. killed. wake up. relive it. killed her brother.
lana snyder was dead. she had been for a long time. and i let her slip out for nugget, teacup, and zombie. why? i don't know. nugget; the past. teacup; reminds me of amélie. zombie; a heart. but i broke every rule that was needed to survive.
lana and dove are two different people, but with the same past.
