Alison's Writing Corner

Image by Rohan Kumar from Pixabay

Keo stared out over the city. His mom was late getting home from work again and he was hungry. His father was off at war and there was no one to fix him food. He wondered when the war would end and his father could come home. It had been going on since before he was born and his father had been drafted. His mother, because she was pregnant, hadn’t been. If she hadn’t been pregnant, she might have had to serve as well.

Keo listened to the adults talk when they thought he was asleep. They were afraid. This war had gone on longer than anyone expected it to. The government had promised it would be over in just a few years. Keo was eight, turning nine in a few months, and the soldiers were still seeing heavy action.

“Keo? Sweetie, I’m home,” his mother called. Keo came inside. “What were you doing out there?”

“Watching for you,” Keo said.

“You know you’re supposed to stay inside and wait for me,” his mother said.

“Mom, when will dad come home?” Keo asked.

“I don’t know, honey,” his mother said. “I hope soon.”

“Who are we fighting? I know dad’s at war but no one will tell me who we’re at war with,” Keo said.

“The government hasn’t said who we’re at war with, Keo. So no one knows,” his mother said. “It’s all a little strange, really. We’ve had peace between the countries since I was a little girl so I can’t see any of them choosing to fight us. I really don’t know what’s going on.”

His mother fixed them dinner and Keo got started on his homework. He kept getting distracted and his mother would have to remind him to focus so he could finish in time to watch his favorite show. Keo finished and sat through an episode of his show and then went to bed.

The next day, Keo got up and his mother was gone. She’d left him some breakfast and a note saying she’d been called in for an early shift. That wasn’t unusual either. The hospital saw a lot of patients and they were always short staffed with most of the young people gone to war. So she was always working extra shifts.

Keo ate his breakfast and went to school. He was sitting in his class, listening to his teacher drone on about something in the far distant past, when a siren went off. None of the students moved. None of them knew what to do. “Get under your desks. That’s an air raid siren,” his teacher yelled. The students all climbed under their desks. The teacher hit a button on his desk and shielding erupted from each desk to shield the children.

Bombs started dropping and soon the air was filled with a choking green mist. Children started retching and Keo felt his lungs burn. What was going on? Then the school’s air filtration system, independent from the city’s, kicked in and the air cleared. Keo began to panic. Was his mom okay?

After a few hours, an announcement was made that the city had fallen under a new regime. All citizens were to return to their homes. Buses would be sent to the schools to take the children home. Everyone was to remain in their homes until the new regime decided what to do with them.

Keo boared the bus and made his way back to his apartment. His mother was already waiting for him. “Keo!” She grabbed him and hugged him.

“Mom, what’s happening?” Keo asked.

“Oh god, Keo, we lost the war. What we were fighting wasn’t even human and we lost,” his mom said, tears streaming down her face. “Our soldiers are dead. The Earth has been taken captive by an alien race and they are not forgiving. I don’t know what’s going to happen.”

Keo stared out the window at the sky. Ships like none he’d ever seen before hovered in the air. He was terrified. His father was dead. Something unknown now controlled his world. What was going to become of him and his mother?