Last day on my Earth

The start of a longer story on a post apocalyptic world.

723 days. That's how long we managed to stay alive until the inevitable. I used to wish we would go peacefully, taken by an illness or maybe shot in the head. Anything but eaten alive by those walking corpses. I sit here, hugging my crying daughter as tight as I can with my left arm, pretending that everything is okay, while I adjust my grasp on the hunting knife with my right hand.

 

Do it. I whisper to myself. I know it's better, I know she'll thank me; it'll be for the best. Drive the knife through the little girls' skull to kill her instantly and save her an insane amount of pain being eaten alive. But no. I can't bring myself to do it, it's not human. Tears fall from my eyes like a waterfall as the sound of the growling and screeching just outside the door grows louder and louder.

 

The door is giving out. It's probably a matter of seconds now until they run into the dark shed. There's no way out, there's no survival anymore, just patience; waiting for the moment we don't feel anything anymore. After all we've been through, after all the horrible things we've survived. After perfecting my fighting skills against these things... it all comes down to this. An inevitable, painful death.

 

I hear the shot of a machine that suddenly stops any other sound until everything is silent and still, except for my daughter's cry. I lift my head up and see the door still holds, but nothing is banging against it anymore, at least for a few seconds. The door flies inside the shed and I have to cover my eyes from the unexpected light.

 

Everything is blurry while my eyes adjust to the light, but I manage to see two human forms with some type of gun that I don't recognize. They're both much taller and bigger than regular people, their legs are especially long. They slowly come closer to me, lowering their gun and putting the other hand up.

 

"Guard the door." Says one of them, a man with a very deep and soft voice.

 

"Copy that." Says the other, a girl. She turns around and adjusts her gun ready to shoot anything that approaches from the outside.

 

They're wearing some strange costume, mostly dark red with white details. It covers them from head to toe, I can't see one bit of them. The masks have something that resembles a speaker where their voices come from. Robots, maybe?

 

"It's okay, you don't have to fear us." The guy extends his right hand to me. I take it and lift myself up with my daughter on my other arm.

 

"Who are you?" I ask, stroking my daughter's hair as she hides her face between my neck and shoulder.

 

"That's not important right now, what's important is that you come with us."

 

"Not that I have a choice, do I?" I respond. He nods. I take a glimpse outside and all I see are ashes. Somehow, their machine has incinerated over 50 walking corpses like it was nothing. But something’s not right. I didn’t hear a car, nor plane or any other type of transportation, and I confirm it by not seeing anything outside the shed either. “Where do you come from?”

 

“That’s complicated, we’ll explain everything later, but we need to go now.” He takes two metal bracelets off his wrist and extends them to me. “Put them on, one for each of you.”

 

I look at it for a moment, then look back at him, not that I can see anything but a weird mask with huge eyes that resemble a fly. “What are they?”

 

He sighs and lowers his arm. “Look, you either come with us or stay here to die, I’m sure you know that already, don’t you?”

 

“I’ve survived and protected my girl well enough so far. If you’re taking me anywhere, you sure understand I need to make sure that wherever you come from is safer than here, don’t you?”

 

He stares at me through his mask for probably too long, then reaches for some type of button on his costume that makes the mask disappear. I gasp. He looks nothing like anyone else I’ve ever seen. His eyes are much more separated than normal, and wider, they’re a hazel color that matches his short hair; his chin has sharp edges and is longer than it should; his mouth wide with thin red lips; his ears are normal, but look too small compared to the rest of him; the weirdest part is his nose, it’s almost flat with tiny nostrils.

 

“I bet you wouldn’t believe me if I told you where we’re going, but you will once we get there.” He says.

 

I tighten the grasp on my girl and take one step back, unsure if I should grab the knife that I tucked on my belt, or keep my daughter safely in my arms. I choose the latest.

 

“Tell me anyway.” I insist.

 

The girl guarding the door turns her face to us for a quick second, then abruptly abandons her guarding position to fully face us. “Alec! Are you insane? You’re not supposed to take your mask off!” She yells.

 

“Do not abandon a guard position if we’re in an unsafe place.” He responds, pressing his lips tight together.

 

“You could die!” She insists.

 

“Not if the planet still has humans alive, you should know that from your training. Now get back in position!”

 

The girl desists with a growl and takes her position back. Alec faces me again and lets out a loud sigh. “Sorry, she’s practically new and has never encountered one of you before.” He says with a low voice.

 

I stare at him with my jaw dropped. “Are you an alien?”

 

He laughs. “Not exactly. We do live on Earth, just not on this one.”

 

“Is that supposed to be an explanation?” I say with my eyebrows raised.

 

“Someone’s coming!” The girl shouts.

 

“Shoot them, we’re not done.”

 

“Can’t. There are humans among them.”

 

Alec takes a few steps towards the door and I follow. There are three people running towards us, being chased by a few walking corpses. “You can save them too, right?” I haven’t seen any other people here in months, I thought there weren’t any left.

 

“That’s not how this works, you need to put the bracelets on, now!” He passes me the bracelets again. “There’s no time for discussions, take it!”

 

I grin my teeth, but take the bracelets without looking back. My girl starts crying as soon as I put her on the floor, but there’s no time to soothe her. I take her little arm and put the bracelet on, which perfectly adjusts to her wrist. Mine does the same.

 

The girl comes closer to us and they nod at each other. Alec presses the same button located on the left side of his chest and the mask appears again, then he does something to his bracelets and we’re all sent flying through some type of portal.