Jessica Moore studied her once perfectly manicured nails in disgust. Just like her life, her nails were broken, splintered and dirty.
Her father Arthello let out a hoarse chuckle from beside her. In a raspy voice, he said, "You do know that staring at your nails won’t make them grow back any quicker?"
Unruly curls bounced on her shoulders as she shook her head. "Dad, I’m not worried about my nails." Her nails were the least of her worries.
She tore her eyes away from her now calloused hands and scanned her surroundings.
The area was about one hundred square feet wide and fifty feet tall, with metallic walls, floor and ceiling. Lights encased in the ceiling shone bright continuously. For all she knew, it could have been the middle of the night or just as likely midday. Her circadian rhythms were long gone.
Rudimentary objects had been used to section off the space for various purposes—sleeping, dining, medical ward and meeting areas. For over two years she, like everyone here, had come to accept this place as home, but in reality they had no other choice.
We are trapped.
She along with over three thousand other people were crammed in what she assumed was the belly of a spaceship.
None of them had stood a chance after the Loconuist invaded Earth. Black, white, Asian, Hispanic, poor or rich, it hadn’t mattered—the Loconuist didn’t discriminate as they hunted humans down, herding everyone to this place with no chance to escape.
Escape where? had been her question—everyone’s question.
Did she dare try to slip through the cargo doors to where the large scaly lizards were? No, she would stay as far away from the Loconuist as possible. Besides, there was no going back home.
Life on Earth as she knew it had been destroyed. She’d been caught too early to see the destruction firsthand. But others who came after her described the devastation in graphic details.
Jess turned to study her father. Once proud and strong, he now lay side by side with the other sick people in the small makeshift medical ward. It wasn’t a real medical ward. That would imply there was medicine, medical supplies or even medical equipment, which wasn’t the case.
Still, he was better off here with the handful of doctors and nurses than with her in the tent city on the other side of the makeshift wall.
Since he began coughing up blood, she hadn’t really had a choice but to move him here. He was now bedridden and a mere shell of the powerful man he had been on Earth. The sun-kissed California coloring she was used to was now pale and pasty. His hair, the same chestnut brown as hers, had long since lost its luster and turned white. The wrinkles in his face were far too many to count and made hard, deep lines in his skin.
"I was thinking about how much our lives have changed." She nodded toward the massive doors. She didn’t know where those alien bastards were but as long as they weren’t around, everyone was safe, for now. "They’ve taken us from everything. Home and the company you worked so hard to build are gone."
