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Kendra
Today’sthedayIleave this god-forsaken planet and reunite with my sister. We’ve only been away from each other for one month, but it’s the most time we’ve been without each other in our entire lives. Maybe leaving Earth should scare or worry me, but it doesn’t. If anything, I’m kind of excited to be going.
Every month, the Hands, the aliens who came to save the last of humanity from extinction, send one woman from our unit to a new planet where the aliens need incubators. Diane’s turn was last month, and we thought we were so clever by coming up with a plan to escape being sent away.
The plan we came up with was simple: hide in the stadium somewhere the Hands couldn’t find us until they decided to take A12-04 instead of us to the new planet to be some alien’s lover. The plan didn’t go well. They let me see my sister while she was still unconscious before they sent her so that I could see how badly we had failed.
When I first saw her bruised body, I thought the Hands had beat her into submission because she wasn’t making it easy to take her away from Earth. Nope. A group of women jumped her because they were pissed off that the Hands treat us, their cattle, better than the other human women. Apparently, being able to eat slightly better food is the worst offense we can do to the women who think they deserve the same treatment as us without having to sacrifice themselves.
I thought they would send me instead since Diane was bruised and broken. So, I sat and held her hand for a few minutes as I said my goodbyes, but then they rushed me out of the medical exam room. The doctor told me they needed to prepare Diane to be sent to the new planet since her injuries were not life-threatening.
I screamed and cried, begging them not to send her and to let her stay with me until she was healed. My pleas were ignored. The Hands said nothing even when I offered to go in her spot. They just pushed me out of the exam room before waking my sister. The doctor came out an hour later, and I was still crying and leaning against the door. He told me she was gone, and there was nothing I could do at that point other than wait to be sent in twenty-eight days.
I was left with nothing to do except find the women who hurt my sister. They deserved to be punished for what they did, especially since it was for such a pathetic and petty reason.
The Hands who monitor unit A12 to ensure we stay healthy and complacent thought the same as me. I didn’t do much to find the women other than listen to all the gossip chains and tell the Hands what I heard. It only took four days to find the women responsible. When they were punished, I thought I’d feel better.
They were thrown out of the stadium, but the ache in my chest remained. I still didn’t have my sister, and I was still being sent to another planet. I wasn’t winning anything against the women who seemed to hate our unit more and more each day. No, if anything, I was losing in almost every way. The only thing that kept me from falling into despair was knowing I would be back with my sister. Sure, we’d be on a whole new planet and maybe be getting impregnated by some weird aliens, but we’d be together.
Diane and I did everything together. Birthing some alien babies would just have to be added to the list of weird stuff we did.
She’s the only person in my life who has supported me in everything I do. When I told her I wanted to be a cam girl, she helped me price out equipment instead of immediately trying to talk me out of it. When I wanted to try out a weird sex club I’d heard about, she was right by my side. Of course, that night worked out better for her than me since she got a husband out of the deal, and I only got more viewers. When she and Blake needed somewhere to crash while apartment hunting in New York, they were welcome to use my spare room. Then the end of the world came.
All the men died one night, and the harrowing scream I heard from Diane’s room still haunts my nightmares. She clung to Blake’s dead body like she could bring him back if she tried hard enough. I had to force her away from his corpse because of the emergency alerts telling us to get further inland because of the third hurricane in the last month coming to wreak havoc on the bay. They were getting worse and worse, and the alerts were telling people to get out of any coastal city. Diane bawled hysterically as I dragged her out of the apartment, leaving Blake’s body in the bed since there was nothing else we could do.
We made it two blocks before the first spaceship contacted the East Coast. An announcement rang in our minds, telling us we needed to make our way to the baseball stadium in the Bronx. The world grew silent, which is crazy to happen in New York, even with half the population dead. But we stood in silence, looking up at the giant metallic ship in the sky and listening to the announcement until people started changing the direction they were walking.
I linked my fingers in Diane’s and dragged her through the streets until we were congregating with thousands of other women, all being processed into the stadium as a hurricane with waves large enough to topple buildings raged against some invisible wall the aliens had constructed around us.
Diane and I stayed together for two years while we lived in the stadium. We were put into the same unit, and we even moved the partitions around so our rooms were combined to make one large room that we shared. The Hands let us stay together, so when we were told Diane was leaving Earth twenty-eight days before I was, we freaked out for the first time since we entered the stadium. I didn’t want to be left on Earth without her, and she didn’t want to be on a new planet without me.
There’s no point in thinking about all of that now, though. Any minute, a Hand will come to find me and tell me it’s my turn to prepare to leave Earth.
Right on time, a Hand pulls the curtain of my room back and steps into my small room. My eyes light up, and I stand up a bit too quickly. I’m the first woman being sent to the new world that’s actually excited to go. Maybe I should be more worried, but I just want to be with my sister again. She’s the older one, the smart one, the one who always makes sure I’m okay. Am I a little codependent? Of course. We’re identical twins. How could I not be codependent?
“My turn?”
“It is,” The Hand eyes me warily like he doesn’t understand why I’m excited to go. He should be happy with my good mood because it makes his job easier. “You get a meal before you leave.”
“Oh, I just ate some pasta from the cafeteria.” I frown slightly. “Are you trying to drug me?”
The Hand is unamused with my question and motions for me to follow him. “If we were to drug you, we’d just tell you we were going to drug you. We gain nothing from lying to any of you.”
“What do you gain from sending us off?” I ask as I glare at the various women from other units who whisper and snicker as we pass them.
They need to get a life instead of camping around our unit like they can get something from us since the Hands have stopped showing them favor. Some of them think we’ll get them better food if they befriend us. Others want to gossip about the women being shipped off to breed with aliens. It’s tiresome, but it’s just a part of life in unit A12 now.
The Hands are going to need to beef up their security of us unless they want more attacks like the one that happened to my sister. The women are getting more and more brazen, so it’s only a matter of time before they really lose it and start attacking unit A12 in their rooms.
“The continuation of your species and the species of creature you’re being sent to breed with is what we gain.” The Hand says that entire sentence with a straight face, and I can’t stop from laughing.
“Oh, is that all?”
“Yes,” The Hand answers, not catching on to my sarcasm.
“Are they cute?” I ask with a wiggle of my brows.
“The two humans we have sent have found mates since being there.” He deadpans. “They do not resemble your human males, but we will explain all that to you during your briefing. First, you need to be examined by the doctor.”
