A wide smile spread across the young woman's face as she laughed at something her parents had said. They had played a terrible joke on Samaah, telling him they had arranged his marriage years ago. As they recounted the story to Sunitha, she couldn't help but to laugh. The conversation turned to a discussion of an upcoming visit. Sunitha's parents were going to be leaving in less than a week to visit Sunitha. In the middle of the discussion, everything started going wrong. The ground started to shake. At first, it could have easily been mistaken for just a normal earthquake, but within a minute, it was more violent than any Sunitha had ever heard of before. With a terrified look on her face, she looked at her parents in the holo-chat once more. It was no longer than a second before the connection was lost. There was no time to explain to them what was happening, no time to say good bye, no time to say she loved them.
The building, her apartment building, was collapsing. Screams were coming from all directions. Some were loud and sharp, others were muffled and could barely be heard over the sounds of destruction. Panic settled in, and Sunitha looked around her small apartment with wide eyes. Her ears started to ring, blocking out all other sounds. She was terrified. With shallow breaths, she did her best to find something sturdy to hide under, to protect herself with.
Under the bed, Sunitha was breathing heavily, shallowly. She closed her eyes. It felt like she was spinning. Thoughts were racing through her mind faster than they ever had before. Her lips moved quickly as the words of an old prayer slipped out in her native tongue.
When she opened her eyes, the earth had stopped shaking so violently. But the world was in pieces around her, or so it seemed. Sunitha was lucky. She was alive. With still shallow breaths, she thanked the Gods as she struggled to free herself from her bed frame. It was a miracle that the bed frame had held up against the concrete, but it had done so nonetheless, and Sunitha was glad it had. Once she had crawled out from her hiding place, she rushed away from the rubble before turning back to look at what had once been her home. Besides, she needed to keep herself safe if she intended on helping others. There was no point in her getting herself injured because then she would not be able to do anything for anyone. It was a lesson she had learned early and heard often throughout nursing school.
"Hello?! Can anyone hear me?" Her voice was quivering, but there was a strange sort of confidence there as she yelled out towards the rubble. "Is there anyone in there?!" No one was answering. Not verbally, at least. A hand was reaching out to her. Breath stuck in her throat as she scrambled over the rubble as quickly and carefully as she could manage. It seemed like forever before she reached the hand. Someone else had survived. Sunitha pushed away her fear, her trembling. Now was not the time to be frightened. Now was the time to be brave, courageous. Someone needed her help, and help them she would. Sunitha gripped the hand as best she could, her fingers closing around it tightly. The flesh was still warm, still living. She could have sworn her had felt the fingers twitch, begin to curl around her hand. But when Sunitha began to dig the person out and pull on the hand, she found there was nothing attached. It was just a hand attached to a fair amount of forearm.
A scream tore from her body as she dropped the arm to the ground. Fear took over her again as her heart pounded wildly in her chest. Sunitha stumbled back, away from the rubble of her apartment building. She fell a few times, scraping up her legs, her arms. Her feet finally found ground. Real ground. Sunitha stood up and looked around. Ruin and devastation were all she could see. It was everything. Nothing seemed to still be intact, except her. She wondered what could have caused all of this. What would have caused so much death and destruction?
Then she saw it. It wasn't human. It wasn't an animal either. It was like nothing she had ever seen before. Alien. It was alien. An Alien.
It was all so surreal. A dream, maybe. With wide eyes full of terror, she stared at it. She couldn't be certain, but she was pretty sure it was staring back, watching her. Off in the distance, Sunitha could see more of them. Destroying things, killing people, as if it were their job. But this one, this one was standing right in front of her, looking right at her. Or maybe it had its back to her, Sunitha couldn't honestly tell. It was the first time she had ever seen anything like it before in her life.
And then it started to move, towards her at first, just a step. Sunitha stumbled backwards, tripping and catching her balance before she fell to the ground. Terror made her heart beat faster and faster. It almost hurt, her heart was beating so fast. This was it. She was going to die, she knew it. But then, it turned away. It walked away and left Sunitha standing there, unharmed. Or as unharmed as she could be.
Sunitha's heart slowed back down to a more normal pounding. Her breathing was fast, shallow, and raspy. It had to have been a dream. Maybe she had hit her head when the building had collapsed. She could not convince herself it was a dream, though. She was certain the Alien had let her live. Why her, she had no idea, but it had not killed her. It had not killed her. If this one had been willing to let her live, well, then, maybe there were others like it out there. Maybe they weren't all bad. Maybe they were being forced to attack, to kill.
Finally, she gathered her thoughts and collected herself and ran. She ran as fast as she could until she found another living person, a human. He was part of the Alliance and wanted nothing to do with her babbling about hands and aliens. He ushered her to the evac zone. There she calmed herself further and explained that she was a nurse, that she would be able to help with any injured or wounded. Sunitha was taken to Cometra, to New Earth, where she would treat the injured. She would start a new life there as a refugee. Too bad for her it started off poorly when she mentioned to someone that she didn't think all of the aliens should be killed, massacred. It all went downhill from there.
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