Space Invaders

A Normal Friday

Friday June 19, 2978
1724

          The sky was a luscious blue colour, brilliantly accompanied with the orange-yellow light that emanated from the sun. In this sky, black dots migrated across the sky, ascending and descending. These tiny dots were starships, exiting and entering Earth's atmosphere. To Zekda Suphara, these starships represented her own imprisonment on Earth. Outside of Earth, an entire galaxy existed that seemed to be calling out to her. An endless array of planets with infinite potential. Bekairan, Torum, Akshan, and many other worlds that Zekda had only ever heard of, and could only dream of seeing.

          Turning her attention away from the sky, Zekda looked down at the ground. Titanic buildings dwarfed the tiny civilians that walked among them. The dull, grey colour of these structures stood out against the luminous backdrop that was Earth's sky. Among these buildings vehicles weaved in between the trees of this concrete jungle. Zekda turned away from the backdrop and re-entered the building that she was standing on top of. The building's interior was upholstered with red velvet, and the floor was carpeted with Vaki silk from the planet Torum. Vaki silk is naturally green in colour, and this carpet was its natural green, but it was also speckled with blue dots of colour that were organized in geometrical patterns. Vaki silk also repelled dirt and water better than many artificial substances, that property and the fact that it brilliantly reflects light made Vaki silk the number one carpeting material in the galaxy. Intense jealousy boiled up inside of Zekda, she badly wanted to have Vaki silk carpeting in her home; the only problem was her family was dirt-poor, and the system was so rigged that it was impossible for a poor person to get a job and get out of poverty.

          Zekda came up to a door with a holographic blue keypad on the wall beside it. She pushed the keypad until its light changed from blue to red, and the keypad flashed a message in multiple different languages. Having no education, Zekda was illiterate and unable to read the messages that were shown on the keypad.

          She knew which buttons she had to press, as she snuck up here every time she needed a quiet place to calm herself. And considering her situation, that was almost every day. She pressed the buttons she needed to and waited for the lift doors to open.

          When the lift doors opened, Zekda was treated with a surprise: two burly security officers. Zekda stared at the officers for no more than a second before she turned around and bolted in the opposite direction.

          The officers drew their stun guns and ran at her, shouting the whole time.

          "Hey!"
          "Get back here!"
          "We're gonna shoot on three!"

          The last phrase caught Zekda's attention. Not out of fear, but out of her wanting to be annoying. She spun around, looked the officers right in the face, and shouted back "Three!"

          Then she ran around a corner.

          Zekda found herself in a long, fancy hallway filled to the brim with snobby rich people. Zekda didn't care about their opinion of her; she never did and she never will. She heard a gasp from one of them as she entered the hallway, but she ignored it and kept running.

          As she ran, the rich people stared at her as if she carried an incurable plague.

          Before long she decided to sneak a peek behind her back to see where the officers were. She saw that one of the officers had just sprinted around the corner.

          She needed somewhere to hide.

          She frantically shook her head and almost gave herself whiplash trying to find an appropriate hiding place. She eventually discovered one in the form of a tiny corridor that led to a window. Wasting no time, she ran into the corridor to hide.