Friday Challenge Entry #3

For the Friday Challenge

"Che cosa ha accaduto questa estate" or "What occurred this summer"

Miss Truglio assigned us all a report due on our return to school, telling her and the rest of our class what we did over the summer break. At first I thought it was a silly and childish thing to have to do. And I already had mine almost done a few days after we left school, figuring that nothing of any importance would happen anyway. That was just a few weeks ago, just before it all started. Proving me wrong in the worst possible way.


The invaders came during the night, their terrifying ships floating silently above the city.

My parents and my brother Marco were as scared as I was, but they made the mistake of leaving the house to inspect the spectacle they thought must be a sign from God.

Something in the pit of my stomach told me otherwise, and I was about to warn my parents and the the others in our neighborhood who'd also gone out to see. But before I could, a brilliant flash of light and heat came from the nearest ship, and they were all gone in an instant.

All that was left smoke and a patch scorch marks upon the earth where they had stood.

What looked as harmless as a ray of sunlight poking through the clouds had taken my entire family, and almost everyone else I knew before I could even blink. The warning that I had meant to voice had been all but forgotten as I ran back to my bedroom, and gathered what I would need once I'd gone into hiding. A few days worth of clothes, the knife my father had given me last year, and a small map of the area that I been making to keep busy over the summer break.

Running to the kitchen I grabbed a few loaves of bread my mother had made for the next day, and some other things I knew would keep well on my journey. I had made the decision only seconds after watching what the invaders were capable of, I would need to run for help. No weapons we had in the village were capable of defending us from them, but I suspected that maybe nearby garrison of soldiers did.

As I watched the invader's ships float away towards the center of the village, I pulled my pack of supplies closer to me, fingering the handle of the knife, readying myself for a confrontation in case I ran into any of their ground forces.

A foolish gesture, I know, but at the time it was more for confidence than anything else. Once the ships were a fair enough distance away, I slipped out of my home and made my way toward the garrison and what I hoped would be my village's salvation.

Fearing being seen by the invaders I had decided against carrying anything to light my way, depending instead on the moonlight and the growing fires their weapons were starting. I had made it to the crest of the pathway the led away from our village when I got a glimpse of one of them.

Standing high above me on the ridge overlooking the village was an invader. He was no bigger than any of the men in the village, but something about him seemed much more threatening.

He wore strange clothes that covered him from head to toe, all in black, cinched with a belt around his waist, loaded down with what I assumed to be more weapons.

It wasn't until he turned around and I caught a glimpse of his face that I knew how terrifying and different the invaders really were.

His face was a smooth blank sheet of black with one small green eye centered in the middle of his face.

As I watched him observe what was going on back in the village, I waited for him to leave, hoping I'd be able to make a run for the soldiers. But as the moon slowly traced its way across the sky, marking the hours passing he stood stone still. Carefully moving as not to make any sound, I walked back the way I had came, praying that none of the invaders had followed my path out of the village.

Realizing going back home would be pointless, I spent the rest of the night creeping around the village, making my way to the only place I could think to hide, the school. By the time I got there it was nearing dawn.

Any other day and I'd have only been getting up just now to the smells of food being cooked by mother, listening to the sound of her yelling at Marco for running around her and generally being in the way.

Walking into my classroom, these thoughts racing through my head I finally broke down and started crying at what I'd lost, and the fact that I may never survive long enough for anyone to know what has happened here.

That's when I started writing this. So that if the invaders do find me and kill me too there will be a record of this, that all who died will not be forgotten.

Fulvio DeRentis, age 10 brother of Marco, son of Silvio and Josette DeRentis, of Pompeii

August 24, 79 In the Year of Our Lord Jesus Christ



It had taken even less time than the leaders had assumed to take over the small country, thought the invader as he stood over the spot where the small boy had been huddled asleep only moments earlier.

The scent of ozone and charred carbon hung in the air long after the body had been vaporized. He'd hated to to kill children, having two of his own, but the orders were clear, no survivors.

Looking down at the scrap of paper the boy had been writing on when he'd caught him unaware, the invader wondered what the indecipherable scribblings meant, if anything. He debated taking it along with him back to the command post, but thought better of it in the end. The cleaning today and tomorrow would take care of any evidence of their arrival.

He had to hand it to the leaders, disguising an invasion with a series of natural disasters was brilliant. Too bad the next one wasn't scheduled to occur for another 1804 years. He'd counted on bringing his family with him to settle on this planet. But took solace in the fact that they'd be well taken care of from the work he was doing.

As he pulled the night vision glasses, and the environmental hood off his face, revealing not the the face of an alien, but a human being, he wondered to himself what kind of name was Earth for such a beautifully unspoiled planet?

He knew the inhabitants hadn't done any better naming his home world after a god of war, but to name a planet after the ground underfoot was just lazy.

He'd spend the walk back to the command post coming up with much better suggestions, he thought to himself as he watched the scientists setting up the cleansing devices in the mountain above the silent and now nearly empty village.

Any stragglers he and the others manged to miss would be taken care of by that, he thought smiling as he went back to coming up with much better names for this new world.