My Prey

Aurora

Aurora McKenna sat in the corner of the classroom, watching her nephew play chess with his friends. She was a student teacher for Rory's class, which he enjoyed since he loved his aunt so much. He was named after her after all.

Suddenly the fire alarm blared angrily throughout the school. It rung painfully in her ears and she groaned, covering her ears to block out the sound as best she could while the teacher ushered the students outside. She took deep breaths when it finally died down. She sighed, running her now sore temples and found she was kneeling on the ground on her knees. She stood up and groaned; she must have been staggering around, all the chess pieces were all over the floor. Something clicked inside her and suddenly, she made quick to pick up the pieces and place them directly in their exact spot.

After she did so, her headache got the best of her and she left the school, leaving a note to the teacher and walking home. As she walked home, the neighbors dog began to bark angrily at her. She groaned again, covering her ears as she rushed past him glaring daggers at the dog.

When she finally managed to get to her house, she noticed a mail truck was on her curb and the mail man was on her porch. He saw her walk up and smiled politely to her.

"Afternoon ma'am. Does Quinn McKenna live here? His box office payments are past due and it says here to send his mail to this address." He says pointing to a large mail box with hundreds of envelopes and a cardboard box with stickers on it.

"I'm his sister, I'll take them." Rory says and signs for them before bidding the man a good day.

Then she dragged the box inside and huffed. She pulled the cardboard box out and set it beside her couch before beginning to go through the letters and bills.

An hour later and Rory had all the papers filed in her filing cabinet and some on the table to be paid before moving on to the box.

"What did you send now big brother?" She says to herself as she opens the box, moving aside bags of rice and then gasping in surprise.

There in the box was a large metal mask of some kind. It had two eye slits and covered the mouth of the wearer. But the forehead was strange; like it was made for someone with a huge oval shaped head or for a giant forehead.

"What is this, an alien mask?" She asks herself as she sets it down on her coffee table and sifts through the box more. Then she pulls out a metal gauntlet and was surprised at how heavy it was.

"Wow..." she mutters as she looks it over, then sliding it on her arm and chuckling.

But then as she ran her fingers across the cool metal, something whirred and clicked. Suddenly a piece of the gauntlet ejected. She flinched, seeing a small rival shaped piece and hummed. She took the gauntlet off and took the piece, looking it over. She bit her lip, leaning back on her sofa and pressing some buttons. Then it turned on, surprising her as bright red lettering began to raise like holograms and she breathed out in awe. But then she blinked; she could tell what they were. They were letters, words. She bit her lip again, a nervous habit, and began to play with the symbols.

Unknown to her, far from her home, an alien ship with a fierce humanoid was ghosting through the skies. But as he set the ship on cloaking mode, making it invisible to the naked eye, Rory fiddled with her end, sending signals up to the ship and rematerializing it. The humanoid growled in confused aggravation and cloaked it again. Rory saw the words pop up again and hummed, touching them once more. The humanoid roared in anger as the ship uncloaked once more.

As she saw the words again, she scoffed in irritation.

"Whatever." She says putting it down and picking up the mask, looking for a place to put it. She placed it on the desk in her bedroom and put the device on her nightstand.

Without her being aware, another humanoid had just escaped from human captors, finding a mask similar to the one Rory now held, picking it up and turning it on. A pin sized light came on on the mask on her desk, showing her form sewing material and humming. The mask then scanned the area, seeing a small card on a cardboard beside her bed, seeing her identification on it. The mask scanned the card, saw her name and address and the humanoid removed the mask with a growl.

'Time for a visit.'

Rory sat on her bed finishing up her Halloween costume when she heard a strange whirring. She looked up and noticed the mask on her desk was glowing red. She put her costume down and picked up the mask, seeing more letters and words inside. She hummed, pressing it to her face and instantly, images began to show.

A planet, humanoids gathering around one lying on a bed, a large needle digging into said humanoid hearing a roar. Atoms and nervous systems changing, exploding, glowing. She yelped as she pushed the mask off her face, dropping it to the ground and panting in fear. The mask turned off and she took deep breaths.

"Aliens..."