Invincible

Chapter 1 - Our World

We live in a world where we are no longer the apex predator. Something else came down and took that title. There was so much bloodshed, so much war. Now Asia, Africa, North America and Half of Europe are uninhabitable. At least for humans. The new things live there. Us humans are confined to the Southern Hemisphere.

The new things are at least 10 feet tall, and they carry weapons with much more advanced technology. We never stood a chance, yet most humans were too proud to relinquish their homes. Some say that we should have nuked their landing sites the second they arrived, others say we should have bowed to them.

I agree with the bowing idea. This race is far superior to ours. With enhanced hearing, speed and strength, they only lack sight. Which is why they want us. They found that crossing humans with themselves created a super-creature. Fast, strong and now with the ability to see in light and dark, they became invincible. We call them the Luvah. They're separated into two generations, The half human being the second. Soon I suppose we'll have to add a third generation, for when two second generations mate.

I was born sixteen years after the invasion, soon it will be twenty years of being stuck in the tropics. We live in fear of being captured venturing across the equator. Teenagers dare each other to go look at Asia, many have never returned. Nobody knows what happens if you get caught, and nobody particularly wants to know.

While the war took care of overpopulation, the aliens take care of mother nature. They routinely check in on our half of the world, part of a very carefully formulated treaty. Plastic no longer exists, all devices are sent to us from the northern factories, and all our houses are built of wood.

The treaty itself was crafted by a human and their Luvah lover. Once presented, the Luvah accepted, them being a pacifist race after all. The war stopped, humans were transported, and now our life hangs on the edge of what we once knew as humanity.

Part of the treaty is similar to a book my parents read as kids. In The Hunger Games, kids are taken from the districts and sent to fight for sport. Our version is slightly different. We are selected the moment we are born, and when we turn seventeen, taken away. We get auctioned off, the worst offer being sold to a slave house or brothel, the best becoming someone's lover and baby machine.

You'll never know if you've been selected until your seventeenth birthday. Then the Luvah armed forces come and take what they think is rightfully theirs. On the rare occasion that even a slave house doesn't want you, then you'll be branded and sent back. One of the few good things about this is you nor your kids will ever be selected. Your grandkids still can, but most people are dead by the time that happens. People above sixty are few and far between.

I still have a grandmother, mostly because she and my mother gave birth young, both at twenty. She's the village elder and peacekeeper. Any arguments get settled by her, and even a few Luvah have sought her advice. Wiseness comes not from old age, but from taking in our surroundings, she tells me. I follow her advice, keep my head down, and try to not make any enemies.

It's hard to avoid notice when your family is well known, people all over our small island know my name. Crynn Barker, serial number #0831. We have our number tattooed onto our wrists, designed to let the Luvah manage us much more easily. My father works in the Luvah army, he opted to go once he found out my mother was pregnant. Everyone on the island hopes for his death, due to the fact he left. As a society, we have rules, and he broke them. If he ever returns, he will face my grandmother.

I turn seventeen in a day, and I hope my birth escaped notice of the Luvah. My grandmother reckons they'd take me, purely for the exotic colour of my hair and eyes. My hair is short, cut to minimise attention. Whenever the Luvah come, mother makes a batch of dye, and colours it. Even under the mud brown concoction, the bright red still peeks out. My eyes are not as exotic as my fathers, him having heterochromia, but rather a plain amber.

Even if I'm selected, my traits would not be wasted in a slavery position. I would go become a baby machine for some high-ranking male Luvah. Pop out three kids, then go to a village for Luvah lovers and live there until I die.

I'd rather not, thanks. The mere thought of some male using me, then throwing me out once I'm past my prime disgusts me. For this reason, my mother has been teaching me the art of seduction. A few humans in the past have managed to sneak away to Saturn's Moon, Titan and they live a happy life. I'm going to seduce my buyer, and find a way to get there. I don't care if they catch and kill me, any life is better than the two that fork out in front of me.