In Question

By:  Julie

I had to question many things about myself when the reign of the humans on the earth came to an end. Their arrival threw so many things into question. Would my life end because I wasn't the kind of person that they enslaved? Would everyone I knew be torn away from me? Would they die? Even my own sexuality was put into question, and that in itself is a story all its own.

They only wanted people with dark hair and dark eyes, because those were the only ones that looked similar to their conquering race. We happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, and Chris and Joey were taken away on that first night. I remember sitting huddled on the floor next to Lance and JC, while Lance buried his face in JC's chest and cried for Chris, cried in a far different way than the tears that JC and I shed at the loss of our friends.

They made us a different kind of slaves than they made Joe and Chris. We were sent to places similar to internment camps, like the ones that the Jewish were sent to. It occurred to me, in a moment of idle thought (a rare thing in one of the camps), that, had Hitler been forming a race of people that were dark haired and dark eyed, rather than blonde and blue, he could have been a part of this invading people. I had lots of thoughts like that, when my body had the energy to have a thought after the work they would put us through every day.

People were dying by the thousands. That's when I learned how strong my friends that I still had truly were. JC and Lance helped me through almost everything. Especially through the worst of all the times.

Britney was one of the first to die.

Before they came, it was, of course, common practice for a girl to bleach her hair blonde. There was no way that Britney could have known that by doing so, they'd cast her off as one of the wrong color, rather than sending her the same way as Joe and Chris. She could have lived while we worked and died in the camp. But she didn't

JC held onto me as I cried the morning I saw them dragging her body from the barracks. He cried himself, for the bond of friendship he'd had with her, not for any love that he'd really had. That was on a Sunday, which was the only rest we got, where we could lounge until noon and then it was back to work, in pits mining God-knows-what kind of hellish sludge. She could have rested. She didn't have to give up.

But she did, and that morning was the first time my sexuality came into question.

I suppose it was the way that JC held me against him while I grieved for my girl. It could have been the way his body was hard against mine, and strong, or it could have been the way he spoke to me, those words of comfort while I cried. I thought maybe it was the way he rubbed my back and treated me like a child, the way my mother might have. And for a brief moment, I wondered what had happened to my family, and I cried a little harder, and he held me just a little tighter.

Everything that I'd ever known had been stripped away from me, all except for JC and Lance. And even Lance was breaking down daily, and quite visibly, as well. He had no will to keep going if Chris wasn't with him, and if he had no hope of ever seeing Chris again. I was sure that by now, both Chris and Joey had been killed. They had strong wills, and I'd heard the stories that new people coming into the camps told about the way they broke the humans for their army. No man could withstand what they did if he refused to break down and submit to the invaders. Chris and Joey wouldn't have broken down and given up for anything. Giving up was similar to throwing away your life, as we had, seemingly, when we'd been born with blond hair and blue or green eyes.

By the end of the second month, when people were dragging across the common and to the pits, lifeless, some dropping into the mud, dead, where they'd lay and be trampled, because God forbid anyone step out of ranks to go around a dead body, I was sharing a bed with JC. None of us wanted to sleep alone, and most people didn't. The barracks were mixed--what did the aliens care that men and women were together? This wasn't a time for modesty. It was a time for WORK! WORK WORK WORK! I could always hear that ringing in my ears, if some new person would come in or someone questioned the logic of the co-ed dormitories (if they could be called that).

Besides, at the end of a day of labor such as what they put us through, who had the energy for sex? No, the whole purpose of sharing a bunk with someone was to keep warm when it was cold--and it was damn cold--and, the aliens figured, it saved space.

Lance gave up, just like Britney had.

By this time, we were in different dorms, and in different labor sects. Lance actually had an easier job than JC or I, but still, he died.

They dragged him out by his hair that morning, as JC and I were walking across the common to the pits we were working in. Both of us broke rank when we saw him, and JC stumbled down to his knees, vomiting, and I knelt next to him, tears streaming off my cheeks, and held on to him when he sat back up and carelessly brushed off his mouth, putting his arms around me and crying, wailing the whole time that Lance was dead, and if Lance had allowed himself to die, that meant that Chris was dead too. And that there was no point in sticking around anymore.

They came after us with whips, cracking them in the air and hitting them with us. They were going to kill us, because to them, breaking ranks represented insubordinance, which was something that they did not tolerate.

And our lives were then in question.

But it wasn't really a question. By then, the only question was, when they got through with us and we left the main hall, where the rebellious humans were all tortured... when we walked out...

When we walked out of that building, would Lance, Joey, and Chris be waiting for us?

I would know that answer shortly.

And it would be a resounding yes, as JC held my hand, and his arms protected me, from their blows, as he kissed me, and as I kissed back.

As we died.

The End

 

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