How to: Survive an Alien Invasion

Deux - French

I spotted another car along the road and it had black and white colours. There was a beam at the top with blue and red lights, but they weren't on. It was stopped on the side and I wondered if it was broken, but Julia explained to me that they were waiting for people who were driving too fast. That was called 'speeding', and they'd give you a ticket with an amount you'd have to pay depending on how much faster you were going than you were supposed to be.

I'd also learned that the object blaring random conversation and the occasional noise was a 'radio' and that noise was 'music'. I didn't understand how it was 'music'. When I'd learned what music was, it was supposed to be... melodic. This was just someone talking really fast about something incoherent while a prerecorded soundtrack played in the background. I don't know where I learned those words, they just kind of came to me. If someone had asked me to explain it, I wouldn't be able to.

I fell asleep at some point which was unusual for me. Usually I drift off because I'm either in so much pain, or I've exerted myself to the point of physical and mental exhaustion. When I awoke, we were no longer surrounded by an orange wasteland, we were encased by forestry and small green things that stuck up from the ground.

"What is that?" I asked, pointing to the ground. Julia looked back at me and smiled.

"That's grass, sweetheart," She answered me kindly. The tone of her voice matched her features; soft and calm. Her brown hair was tame and looked smooth, while her eyes seemed to be warm and welcoming, like the sun. Of course, they didn't burn your retinas, but they were bright and cheery. Throughout the car ride, Allan and Julia continued to explain new concepts to me, including what retinas were, and that the 'music' I'd been wondering about was 'rap'.

After an afternoon of learning, I'd absorbed a significant amount of information and by listening to the words they'd been using, I'd picked up many more words. I learned that Allan's glasses weren't just for reading, they were for everything. He needed them in order to see people, things, words, everything.

We rolled up to a small building. It was tiny in comparison to the laboratory — that's what Julia and Allan had called it.

"What's this?" I pondered as Allan opened what I'd learned was the trunk door.

"The house?" Allan replied with a question. I awed at it as he lifted me out of the car. I'd read about these places in books.

"Home?" I questioned as he put me down gently. He looked down at me and smiled softly. Homes were safe places, no one could hurt me here.

"Home."

—————

That was ten years ago.

My 'parents', for all intensive purposes, have kept me in hiding for ten years. I often think back to that day, wondering how I got so lucky. There were dozens of other kids at that lab, but Allan and Julia chose me. I must've been one hell of a kid.

Soon after we'd arrived that day, Allan gave me a mirror and handed me some contact lenses. At the time, I didn't know what they are, but they quickly became a necessity. I hadn't noticed it before, but not only are my eyes alarmingly blue, they're also the eyes of a cat. Allan explained to me that when they'd been experimenting on me with cross-species genetics, they decided to switch my eyes entirely. Some poor cat probably has my weak human eyes.

As I understood it, several other young children had undergone the procedure and lost their eyes completely. I was the first to succeed. My ability to see in the dark is impeccable, but no one else has eyes like mine so I wear contacts to hide them. Goodbye cool blue eyes, hello normal brown eyes.

Throughout the years, Allan taught me self-defence for insurance that if I ever got recaptured, I'd be able to defend myself to some extent. Julia and Allan already knew that the scientists had played with my DNA when I was nothing but a mere zygote, but I learned that when I realized I could climb walls.

When they told me that I had frog DNA. I was bouncing off the walls. Literally. The DNA alterations gave me sticky finger padding, along with toe padding. Spider-Man who?

Then there was the incident.

When I was twelve, I was working in the shed. I wanted to make Allan and Julia an anniversary present when it all went wrong. I was cutting a price of wood in half with the electric saw when I slipped.

The pain of cutting off your left arm is unimaginable. The only words I could use to describe the feeling are: Kill me or I'll do it myself. Then again, that's how most people feel every day. I guess it's just being a teenager on a Tuesday.

So there I was, screaming in the shed, when Julia and Allan stormed in. Julia screamed while Allan gaped. My left arm was somewhere along the side of the shed, but I only felt the blistering pain. For some reason, I closed my eyes as I began to focus on the pain and turn it into something else. I didn't know what it was, but I heard Julia gasp. I opened my eyes and looked down at my arm to find it entirely restored.

Fricking axolotl DNA.

There's a breed of axolotl that lives off the coast of Mexico and it has the ability to reverse cell
mutations along with limb regeneration. Unfortunately, the pollution in Mexico is drawing in the predators and they're eating the axolotl eggs. To think, the cure for cancer is sitting in the bay of Mexico and we can't do anything about them going extinct.

Scientist have tried recreating the environment in which they inhabit, but they won't reproduce unless they're in the real bay of Mexico. Therefore, unless Mexico finds away to chase away the predators and reduce the water pollution, the cure for cancer is thrown down the metaphorical drain.

Now, I'm a cat-eyed girl who can climb walls and regenerate limbs.