Tick-tick-tick

The bomb’s mechanisms kept going with no regard to the chaos around it. 

“Damnit! It is always down to two wires, isn’t it Gregarrd?” Kyko muttered to his droid. 

He continued to stare at the wires, hoping something would eventually make sense. The air was thinning and Kyko did not feel all that comfortable being so close to the impulse engines. If this bomb did not kill him, the infinite space just 5 feet from him surely would. 

Tick-tick-

“Finally! Hey Gregarrd, in all those old films we used to watch the hero never chose the red wire. Since I am no hero, I deduced I should choose that very one and as luck would have it, I beat the system!” 

Greggard barked enthusiastically in response. 

The compact space that the device was hidden in contained nothing more than the back up generator, the perfect target. 

These Martians are coming to be quite predictable, thought Kyko. 

He pushed open the metal door behind him and glanced down the long hall, deactivated bomb in hand. Fighting could be heard from the end of it, but he had confidence Titus would have it cleaned up in a jiff. This was always how it went, after all. He disabled the ever-present bombs and  Titus did the dirty work. 

The hatch in the wall next to him allowed for proper disposal of the device. He could feel the pull that was created in the air the second that hatch opened. Kyko’s curiosity of what space could possible hold for him would one day turn deadly. The feeling was gone the moment the hatch slammed shut and he shook it off. 

Continuing down the hall with his droid at tow, he found Titas. A sickly green head dangled from his massive fist and a equally sick smiled marred his otherwise imposing face. 

“That easy?” Kyko questioned. 

“Quite. Their poor tactics will never cease to amuse me,” Titus jested in response. He had been fighting these aliens for over a year now and has been itching to teach them a fighting lesson or two. Being trained by his war-born father, he was the best in his class in his youth. No one could best him, except Kyko occasionally. 

This particular war has been going on for 37 years between Earth and Mars, both strong colonies. Mars was jealous of the advantage that Earth’s citizens had when it came to it’s natural resources. Mars, being an organically barren planet, demanded to have equal rights to them, to which Earth refused. 

Kyko and Titus were born into this war sixteen years into it’s progression and it has yet to end. The people of Earth agreed to a draft for the military and Kyko, along with Titus, were sucked into this life with no say, only their classes and experience to save their asses from time to time, like when particular alien asses invade their ship and attempt a suicide bombing. 

“We better get to the cockpit to see how Lerena has fared,” Titus remarked.

“Oh, I am sure she’s fine. Hasn’t crashed yet as far as I know.” 

Lerena, too, was a victim of the draft. She was orphaned at the age of eight and a soldier ever since. They made quite the formidable crew. 

In the cock pit, Kyko immediately noticed Lerena’s absence. 

“Um, we do have a pilot, right? I did not just dream that up one horribly lonely night?” Kyko questioned.

“No,” Titus answered with a jovial laugh. “She is nothing like the sort of woman you’d create, Ky.”

“Just checking.”

They searched only to find her  asleep beneath the controls.

“Wakey wakey, eggs and bakey, princess,” Kyko said with a stern kick to her back-side. 

″Eggs, mmmmmm,” Lerena mumbled sleepily. “Don’t mention eggs.” 

“I’ll make you a huge pan of them when this bloody war ends and you tell me why you’re asleep during a damn invasion!” Ky replied, yelling the last part. 

“No... sleep... for... three... days,“she mumbled half-heartedly.  

“Ugh,” he groaned. “Let’s just get out of here.”

“I’m with you on that. Ler, you can sleep when you’re dead. Get up.′

She slowly crawled out from beneath the console and got to her feet. 

“Ok let’s go.”

(The end, but you get the gist)

Life is empty. I hold no hope for humanity as I know it will eventually throw itself into the pit of extinction. Love is just a series of chemical discharges brought on by the brains urging. Without dopamine you would feel absolutely no pleasure in life and would not feel as satisfied to accomplish anything ever again; you'd be just as well sitting on a couch for eternity. To know all of this takes the beauty away from life; the mystery has vanished. What I would give to laugh again and feel it means something more than just audible contractions of the diaphragm responding to the relief theory. But it doesn't, and it never will.

That is what it is like to be the most intelligent. That is what it is like to be me...

My only defense was to write down every single word they said. The horribly chewed pencil bit into the paper, moving over it ferociously fast. This is what it was like being in a college level biology class when you have no business being in one. I, personally, wanted to be an architect, the greatest one Minnesota had ever seen. But alas, my constant evasion of science in high school forced me to sit here rubbing the side of my hand raw all for a C+, if I was lucky enough.

“John?” Mr. Edle said politely.

I sighed and looked up at the middle aged man with an oddly comforting concern for me. It softened the blow whenever he gave my failed exams back, but of course this wouldn’t stop him from calling on me…

“Yes?” I replied with only slight distaste.

“Are we moving too fast for you?”

All fifty of the other students turned their eyes on me.

This was in no way an insult on his part, but no one wanted to get called out for being slow.

“Mr. Edle, I hope you are not insinuating that I am slower than the general population of this class with that comment. I, too, know that the mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell. Does that not prove I am able to hold my own in Bio 100?”

“John, we were just discussing chromosomes and the effects of a deficiency or excess of such.”

A kid in the back with balls for brains whispered “it appears he has one. Maybe we could use him as a case study.”

Student around him snickered.

Mr. Edle calming took control of the situation again with a raised hand. “Your knowledge on the mitochondria fairly impressive,”a twinkle came into his watery grey eyes, ”but it is not what we are discussing. So I ask you again, are we moving too fast for you?”

I paused, thinking about how I did not even know the topic of today for this godforsaken class. “Yes,” I replied with a resounding huff.

He walked smoothly down the street, the concrete below him just waves rolling beneath his feet. Who was he? Many asked. No one ever dared to answer, not just because they did not know the answer. He hid his face in the shadows of an old fedora of which no one knew where it came. His finely tailored suit sat comfortably on the shoulders of a ghost. 

Who?

Maybe he has come to rob the town of it's wealth, the few nervous folk would whisper. Maybe it is a person, and not wealth that he sought, the few hopefuls would whisper. The town had to know; needed to know, not that they ever would. 

The man paused at an alley way, the town behind his back, watching him. He turned and gave a brief smile, the glint of his alabaster teeth fighting in contrast with the shadow that covered those secretive eyes of his. He wanted them to be aware that he knew, even if they did not. He knew they were watching, listening, stalking. He left them there, that sunny, summer afternoon, on the sidewalks of a small town no one knew about. He knew it all and that is why they could know nothing. 

Who? 

The following week was chaos. The man had been forgotten, but what remained in his wake had not been. He did not come to take money or find someone. No, he came for a different purpose completely. It was not obvious at first, but the slight shift in the air told me what had happened. 

How could he do it? To those poor children. To my children. 

Out from the woods came them.

They did not speak. They just ate. Until their bellies were full and ready to consume again. First went my sister, then my mother. I watched from under the couch. They could not fit under with me; they could not fit. I was the tallest girl in my fourth grade class, but still the only one small enough to fit. They would have eaten me too if I were not so small.They ate until blood dripped down their torn fingers and onto the glossy wooden floor, the very same floor I had to crawl on to escape their notice while they were feasting.

Into the woods I went.