Jeff reflected on his past mistakes while pouring eye drops for the hundredth time today.
Contrary to his first impression, having no eyelids simply put, sucked. So did having no family to rely on, as he later realized when the food ran out and the hospital sent the bill for the dispensed care, totaling $50,000. Jeff sighed as he watched the closed curtains, too afraid to open the window and get his eyes dried to mush. He once tried to go out for a walk during the day wearing blindfolds, but between the burns and the abrasions caused by whatever chemicals Randy and his kin had stored in the bleach jug, he ended up with severe sunburns all over his body, unable to find sleep that night, or the next, or the one after that.
He had spent a lot of time on the computer, reading various pieces of online amateur literature, including but not limited to creepypasta and something called "Literature RPG" which was hot these days. Frankly, they both sucked. His life in general had been a mess since the, uh, incident. Subsisting on night-time raids into other houses, stealing from markets and digging through trash for edibles, all while hiding in his home like a crackhead vampire, some sort of overgrown rodent or marsupial monster.
If this humiliation wasn't enough, over the past few months his self-inflicted Glasgow smile (another moment of idiocy) had caused him to constantly drool, his mouth had filled with pustules and blisters, and even a few of his teeth had fallen out. He had to pass all the food he scavenged through the blender, lest he wanted even more excruciating pain in his life.
The hours passed in a blur: eye drops here, moving a little there, browsing the net for a bit, and finally hugging himself asleep. By the time nightmares woke him, dusk had already set. He breathed in, washed his face, and readied the knife.
It was a good thing that families in the zone were either gun-free or so bad at handling them that they made stormtroopers look like sharpshooters by comparison.
He exited his home through the little window in back through the basement and skittered through the bushes, quietly jumping over the fence to the neighbor's house. He had done this several times already, he knew that both parents were fast asleep and that their so-called guardian dog wouldn't react to his entry, nor would their ten-year-old son, who was probably playing video games under his covers. He had felt the urge to stab, to take everything, but he knew better than to undermine his few resources in a moment of temporary madness. Or well, he had learned.
Sneaking into his neighbor's house, specifically this one, was quite easy to him, as he had lived on this other house before ultimatly moving out because the real state agent had offer them a significant discount for moving next door. He never understood why, but he suspected the agent saw his family was the one worse off economically of the neighbourhood and decided to cunnignly sell them the house with the most infrastructural problems. Not that any of that mattered now.
Entering through the kitchen window, always left open to avoid lingering old food smell, he began to search around the counters for anything mixable. He weighed a tomato can, but ultimately chose the beans one. Tomato had barely any calories, and everything was going to taste the same anyway. Jeff was quite focused on his selection task, trying to take as much as possible without being too obvious, choosing only that which could go missing or that the family barely paid attention to, like the bag of frozen vegetables that had been there since the first time he broke in, over a month ago. But even wrapped up in his task, he couldn't shake off this odd feeling of eerie quietness, of absolute stillness.
Even in the midst of the night, some noise would be heard. A snore here, quiet walking around, the paws of the dog, yet there was nothing. Intrigued by this, Jeff made a split-second decision and forfeited stealth, clutching his knife and fearing an ambush. Now, no longer crouched, he saw that on the table dishes with dinner still sat untouched. He frowned as he approached the table; the meals were dry and cold. Glasses were spilled, and the orange juice had stained both the table and floor. Jeff was torn between continuing upstairs to find out what was going on, or running away before getting swept up in whatever had caused the tenants of the house to leave so promptly. He sighed and moved to the master bedroom, which was, as he suspected, empty.
A bit more relaxed but still apprehensive, Jeff decided to be thorough and check the boy's room. Behind the door, something clicked. Something mechanical, deliberate, wrong. The rhythm was too quick for a clock, too sharp for a pen. Jeff's skin crawled with recognition he couldn't name, as if some buried part of his mind knew exactly what made that sound.
Reluctantly, he slowly opened the door and the figure of a mechanical being bent over a lump of flesh appeared before him. Not thinking twice, he motioned forward and tried to bury the knife in the entity, only for the knife to bounce back and cut his palm instead. The being turned around and faced him, a thing neither of flesh nor metal, some abomination in between, with protruding pipes carrying unknown liquids, pieces of alien alloy covering its sickening thin, bluish, oily skin.
The thing didn't waste the moment that took Jeff to collect himself, promptly striking him with both outstretched arms, sending him flying across the room. Jeff picked himself up, and though bruised, he did not waver. The thing wasn't any better than a wild animal; he pictured it as nothing but a really sick, overgrown alien opossum. It took quite the effort to maintain the illusion as he dashed forward to stab the fleshy parts, but the alloys shifted places, as if not really attached to the skin but rather hovering on it. In his moment of desperation he launched flurry after flurry, putting the thing in a defensive position. He was getting tired but nothing reached his ears but the constant clanking of the knife failing to find its mark.
"Just... Go to sleep!" he yelled in exasperation. The noise seemed to have distracted the monster, who left its guard open for a moment too long, and the knife lodged into its malformed chest. Jeff froze in surprise, and in response a fist struck him with hydraulic might. Hitting his head against the wall, he lost consciousness.
The sound of sirens and a policeman banging on the door woke him in a stupor, and without even time for the blur in his eyes to clear, a shrill voice rang in his ears.
"This is the police! Hello? There've been reports of loud noises coming from the house! Is anyone there? Hello?"
The man continued to bang on the door. Jeff looked around the room and saw the partly dissolved corpse of what, judging by the stray pieces of fur scattered here and there, appeared to have been the family's dog. The corpse of the thing also lay on the side, but the knife had pierced one of the tubes and either the contents were acidic in nature, or the mutant flesh had decayed without it. Jeff wasn't sure what had happened last night, but he knew one thing: being found by the police next to a pulped dog in a house that wasn't his where all the inhabitants had disappeared—well, let's say that he wasn't going to get an easy way out just because of his pretty face.
Grabbing the sheets from the boy's bed, he hauled without looking the remains of the thing along with a tiny purse he saw on the nightstand, and wrapped it all on the sheets. He never got any allowance from his parents, but he was grateful the neighbors had different means of parenting. Luckily, it seemed he wasn't in a rush, as the policeman had left on his patrol having found no probable cause to burst into the house. Jeff peeked through the curtains as he watched him go, a bit surprised that the police had actually respected the law for once, unlike when they threw Liu in jail without trial or interrogation, but he assumed that laziness superseded due process.
Just the humorous thought of the fat policeman eating donuts made his mouth water, spilling over the floor. He wiped it with his sleeve, hoping that all the DNA stuff he saw in cop shows wasn't real. He was forced to wait until nightfall, time during which he took advantage of the comfortable and well-maintained house of his neighbors, taking a bubble bath and napping on a proper bed. He looked around the house for clues about the sudden disappearance of the family and their possible location, but found nothing. The starry theme of the boy's room contrasted with the pool of stale blood and mangled remains. A poster with a tiny cartoon UFO had fallen during the fight. "I believe" it said, in blue, bold letters.
What if the thing had been an alien? It certainly fit the part. He glanced at the bundle and slowly unwrapped it. The metal bits had further degraded due to the black goop that remained of the now liquid fleshy remains of the alien. Jeff turned his head as the acid stench assaulted him. It took a lot to make him disgusted, but this day was starting to cut it. He grabbed a piece of metal, the biggest one he could pick from the lot, rinsed it a bit in water and began to inspect it. Unfortunately, having killed his family didn't turn him into a NASA scientist, and even if he had any tools to analyze the composition of the equipment, truth is he saw it the same as a regular piece of steel plate, maybe a little shinier.
Being adept at science fiction, he surmised that aliens had some kind of special weaponry against which this metal was probably a better defense. He entertained the idea of fashioning armor out of it, not dissimilar to the one the original alien was wearing, if a bit smaller due to the acid having destroyed some of it, but unfortunately, blacksmithing wasn't in his skill set and the more he thought about it the more duct-taped the whole thing seemed. He might as well confront them unarmored as he did last night than haul this poorly made piece of trash that'd fall apart at the first minimum contact.
He did, however, hastily make a shiv out of the metal, working with a smaller piece he got from the bundle, which was already sharp and pointy (if a bit irregular) and made a handle with a piece of wood from the broomstick. He even submerged it in water, so the wood would expand and hold the metal scrap a bit better. Making shivs was in his skill set, he proudly considered while nodding at his shabby creation. You never know when a special energy field that can't be affected by any earth materials may need breaching.
Dusk had already set, and before returning to his home he decided to make a stop by the local gas station. Fortunately, the attendant was acquainted with his accident, so while she glanced at him every now and then, it was all questions-free and more importantly, police-free.
The cool air of the night was probably the only good thing since the accident. He used to stay up late, playing video games with Liu, or more often than not, just watching him play them.
Revisiting these memories, he remember himself looking at Liu with perhaps too much diligence, maybe even envy. Envy of the love his parents gave him, envy of his friends, of his GPA. Jeff always did things better, but it was his little brother the one getting all the smily stickers.
Perhaps that was ultimately what led him to so callously murder him. His parents were a given, almost self-defense—he was going through a rough transition and shortly after harming himself his mother called dad to bring the shotgun, as if he had turned into some savage beast. Was he just justifying himself? Were his acts simply those born out of a psychotic breakdown, or was there something more insidious boiling beneath the surface? He sighed. These memories were certainly not to his liking.
The gas station was just around the corner now, and now it fell upon Jeff that oddly familiar feeling, that everything is too quiet, like the eye of a storm.
He entered the shop, the bright lights burning his eyes, photosensitivity being yet another consequence of his actions, and looked around for the attendant. She was nowhere to be found. The quiet humming of the refrigerators invited him to help himself with the goods of the store, as apparently, no one was tending it. A benefit of being a patricide is that petty theft is no longer a moral issue. He ogled at the sparkly sodas and the strong-tasting energy drinks, picturing himself chugging several cans at the same time, then popping the salty snacks and breaking them down so as to eat them faster... But unfortunately, his mouth was no longer fit for such treatment. In fact, after looking around for well over five minutes, he had to settle for some fruity water.
While checking the dark, empty back of the store, a sudden flash coming through the window made Jeff drop in surprise near some boxes. It was as if a helicopter from an action movie was pointing the light beam straight at him. In the distance gunshots could be heard and sirens went off; a number of possibilities passed through Jeff's mind. One thing was for sure: this place wasn't safe anymore. A glass broke in the front, and he peeked through the lock. Two hulking metal-clad figures heavily walked into the store, each of their explosive steps resounding and knocking over everything not attached.
Jeff looked down to his belt, where the shiv limply hung, and once more he lifted his view to the mechanoids. Each step sounded like a countdown to his death. He decided to flee the scene. Laying prone, he began to move toward the back door, passing through the light beam, hoping that the alien manning whatever was producing it didn't have x-ray or infrared sight, and even hurrying as much as he could he still felt sluggish in comparison with the ever-increasing tremors that shook the ground.
As he finally emerged on the other side of the window, a car brake noise reached his ears and a number of policemen yelled at the aliens. Five quick shots followed, and then a blast. The policemen had disappeared in a mere second. Jeff kicked down the door and quickly ran toward the nearest house, and saw through the corner of his eye a gargantuan alien mothership, shaped like a funnel, gleaming with lights of all colors. The ship noticed him and as he ran across the street a gatling laser began to fire at him. He sped up and with the gunfire hot on his heels he crashed through the house window. The mothership ceased to fire, but he saw something even more concerning as he peeked through the broken window: five aliens, not unlike the type he encountered in his neighbor's house, came floating down the sky. This time, they were armed with what appeared to be some kind of assault rifles. He was sweating profusely, working his mind at full speed trying to figure out what to do.
The aliens, much lighter than the mechanoids, quickly covered the space to the house. He was running out of time. He hunker down beneath the window and readied his shiv; soon the aliens would enter the house and he'd ambush them, they'd come through the open window and he could strike them from behind, then, he would take the gun of the fallen alien and shoot the others like in a one-man army movie.
As he was thinking of other factors, a screeching ticking noise quickly increased in frequency and the wall next to him blew to smithereens, shooting Jeff across the room and leaving him dazed. The aliens opened fire and struck him in the shoulder; a searing pain coursing through his body caused a surge of adrenaline that gave him enough of a boost to continue to run.
The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
More shots followed, but the dust from the wall obstructed the sight of the aliens, who destroyed more of the house and less of Jeff. He managed to close the door as he exited, and continued to sprint into another house, only to get to the next window, and so on until the shots and the sounds of destruction began to fade. All manners of alarms were going off and the electric grid was partly down; he was now surrounded by darkness in an alleyway closer to his goal, the police station.
All the houses he'd passed through were empty, and he surmised so would the station. To all the bad things that Auburndale had, the latest decision from the mayor to add a helicopter to aid the police force would really help him. A part of him doubted the helicopter would still be there, given the flagrant acts of corruption going on around city administration, but as he emerged onto the main street he saw it parked on the helipad, in all its shiny, metallic glory.
He walked into the building, completely out of breath, all of his body burning and the wound from the laser rifle pulsing. He collapsed behind a wall, glad that all those gleaming eye scorchers that the police had were off. He dug his eye drops out of his pocket and washed the debris that had collected over the past few minutes. He wished for a lukewarm water blindfold, but lately his wishes didn't seem to be coming true.
Jeff searched through the police station and found the armory depleted, as there wasn't much to begin with and the cops had taken most of it with them, but the one thing remaining was all he wanted: a grenade launcher. It was black, sleek and looked terribly lethal. He wasn't a gun geek, but he surmised it was the only type policemen were allowed to carry. He imagined blowing the aliens to pieces like a mob leader in an '80s action movie, and couldn't wait to try it. Wearing a vest and packing the ammo belt with 40mm grenades he felt much safer; moreover, the colorful arrangement of the grenades made him wonder about their destructive power. He picked a couple of green-tipped ones, probably acidic, some white tips, that surely had a blinding effect on top of the explosion, and finally some red ones that he imagined must set the targets on fire. He would save those for the mechanoids, as perhaps the explosion alone would not suffice to kill them. He shook his head; why on earth would the officers leave such a powerful tool behind?
Fully packed, locked and loaded, Jeffrey was ready for revenge. He went up the ladder and manned the helicopter, smiling to himself.
Quickly he realized that actually using the helicopter may be a little more complex than he expected. He was sort of hoping that there'd be an "on" switch and some kind of control lever. There were three levers, and also a dozen buttons, at least five switches, two pedals, twenty... speedometers? Jeff scratched his head.
"Well, it can't be that hard, right? Let's see... There's no ignition key, but I guess that's for the best. OK, switch one. Nothing. Switch two. Weird static noise, better turn that one off. Switch three..."
The helicopter rotor kicked into action, making a terrible racket that would attract nearby aliens. Jeff started sweating and questioning whether this was a good idea to begin with, but it was too late to bet on another horse. This was the fastest way to get the hell out of Dodge. He began to rapidly press all buttons and flip all switches, frantically moving levers and pressing pedals until the helicopter began moving up. He now knew which lever made the helicopter go backward; that had cost him quite a bump. The helicopter began to slowly drift away from the platform, moving both forward and upward. A loud humming made Jeff look backward, and he saw with horror that the mothership had spotted him. Their searchlight was already shining on him and he didn't doubt that the laser barrage would shortly come. He needed to move forward, and fast.
Jeff put all his weight on the lever that made him go forward, but as the helicopter exited the building at quick speed, and just as Jeff sighed in relief, the helicopter began to plummet straight down to the street. He pulled the lever back up, but he didn't make it in time. The helicopter crashed to the floor, and Jeff became trapped in a cage of twisted metal, now on fire. The heavy steps of the mechanoids reminded him that this wasn't the only danger that threatened his life.
Jeff shifted around in his burning metal prison; he was battered but not defeated, and while covered in scratches and bruises, none of the bent, broken pieces of steel had pierced him. He rolled out of the helicopter and took cover behind it. Through the debris, he could see the mechanoids making their slow but deadly march toward him. His moment of glory had arrived; he may have gone down, but he'd surely take some aliens with him. He smirked as he loaded the grenade launcher with his red-tipped charges. The launcher had capacity for two more rounds, but there were only two mechanoids and surely one flammable explosive each was enough. He came into full sight of the aliens and screamed loudly as he pulled the trigger twice, and as if by divine inspiration, Jeff, who had never before used a gun, became accurate like a professional sharpshooter. The grenade impacted each of the monsters right in the ugly face, and Jeff flinched in expectation... But no explosion came, only red smoke. He widened his eyes, further making them sore with all the smoke on the scene, taking cover once again. He hastily produced his four other grenades as the aliens began their high-caliber showdown, blowing pieces of the already unrecognizable helicopter. He then retreated while shooting the launcher, but each of his projectiles only made colored smoke, green and white. Realization dawned on Jeffrey. The cops hadn't taken the launcher because they only had smoke grenades at the station!
He tossed the gun at the mechanoids, and ran as fast as he could in the other direction. As he ran he saw the city he once loved having turned to cinders. The alien mothership had done terrible damage to every house, sporadically activating their heavy guns, and the foot soldiers had also caused wanton destruction. He expected to see rivers of blood and corpses in his wake, yet nothing appeared. Behind the explosions, behind the lasers and the plasma, behind the alarms and the crushed buildings, not a single human utterance, not a scream, not a wail, just nothing. As the ashes filled his lungs and clouded his eyes, he thought he saw visions of the past, visions of him and his brother just playing in the park, his parents watching over them. He saw a happy, normal child in a quaint but otherwise common town. Why did it all come crashing down? Why did he kill this dream? What demon had possessed his hand and drove it into the heart of his family, furious, filled with homicidal rage? Jeff thought he felt a tear running down his cheek, but it must have been the ashes.
His body suddenly felt light as he ran, as he was suddenly in a dream. He thought for a split second that this was all just that, just a horrible nightmare and that he'd wake up to his mother making breakfast and his brother asking for help with an assignment he didn't do in time, but reality struck him once again. He felt lighter because he wasn't on the ground anymore; a light blue beam descended upon him and as he looked up, he saw the mothership. Jeff's mind spun, wondering if he had finally lost all touch with reality. He was being abducted by aliens!
Jeff had touched solid ground with a metallic clank, but his sight hadn't returned yet. A mechanical voice, like that of an old-fashioned voice modulator, reached his ears.
"I see you caused quite the ruckus down there; you even resisted arrest by my elites. Your misdeeds had reached our ears all the way across the galaxy, 'Jeffrey.'" The voice made a guttural growl that he interpreted as a chuckle. His sight was slowly coming back, and he mentally prepared for the dreadful odds he could face once he saw the full picture. Would there be hundreds of aliens in that ship, or even in that very room he was now in? The voice continued to speak.
"You go by that name now, isn't that right? You seem confused. Let me remind you of who you are, of your mission here on earth. Oh, and don't bother trying to reach for that thing you call a knife. No weapons allowed in your commander's presence, as you should recall..." Jeff stopped drawing breath for a moment, as time seemed to stop. "Are you surprised, agent? Do all those things that you thought beyond comprehension not now make sense? That detachment from reality, your uncanny abilities and resilience, your behavior?"
"What are you saying?!" spewed Jeff, indignant, fearful.
"Your memories have been rewritten, but surely even in this incomplete version of yourself you notice the inconsistencies? The way you felt nothing when you carved up your brother in his sleep? The mechanical precision of each cut? The complete absence of hesitation?" The alien's voice dropped to a whisper. "Tell me, 'Jeffrey'... what kind of human child dreams in star charts?"
Jeff became blind again, quickly collecting his memories, trying to get hold of them and piece them together, but as he tried this it was as if his family, his memories, his entire identity were but grains of sand, swiftly escaping his grasp.
"You understand now, don't you? You're one of us." His vision finally cleared and revealed the figure that spoke, a pale, thin and waxy figure whose unhinged jaw drew a sinister smile; he felt as those unblinking, lizard-like eyes penetrated his mind. A figure all too similar, as he have seen it every time he looked in a mirror.
"But... why? How?" Murmured Jeff in disbelief, mostly to himself. The alien shrougged, uncaring. He had his fun at the expenses of Jeff and now he mind was moving onto other, more important matters.
"Does it matter at this point? We replaced a few human children from their cribs with our own kind, grown in labs, genetically manipulated so that they could infiltrate human society. You're one of the few that survived, and the only one that escaped capture, therefore, the only one with useful information" The commander observed Jeff for a moment, then sighed and continued
"The upper echelons insisted on collecting information from the inside before wiping them out, and found that human DNA can have possitive effects on our medicine. The ship is now full with all those that once populated the town below" He took a step forward, standing next to Jeff "And now, you will complete your mission and surrender all the information you collected about the indigenous species of this planet, these 'humans,' so that the plan of the council may continue."
"You... You've deceived me, you've used me! Why would I ever help you, a disgusting, manipulating, slimy alien?"
The merriness of the alien's tone suddenly cut off. He became sick of these games.
"Agent. I'm going to forgive your transgressions, including your insults and the friendly fire, but this madness ceases now. You and I belong to the same army; you're a spy, and I'm your commander. This extraction has cost us enough resources. I will not repeat myself. Hand over the information." The commander produced what could only be described as a metal scalp massager with long bristles and a red, biological proboscis in the center. The realization dawned upon him, and there was no way to avoid it. All he ever was is an alien spy, and that's why he didn't hesitate to attack his family and why his mother, if she could even still be called that, feared for her life. A lot of questions would remain unanswered, but there was one answer that Jeff could give without mistake: he would not take this deception lying down. The commander had breached his personal space, unaware of that one memory that shone like a lone star amidst the falling sky that became Jeff's mind; pulling his arm as far as he could, his fist flew true toward the middle of the alien's chest, and with a loud thud the commander staggered, gripping his chest.
"What's this...? What have you done...!?" Those were his last words as he fell onto his back, dead. Jeff smirked. The alien's biology was a mystery to him, but no living organism of this complexity would be able to live without a heartbeat. He recovered his shiv, and wiped it of the grime that the commander's belt had stained it with.
Before he could gloat too much, a patrol of five aliens entered the room and began to fire at him; he scurried behind a half wall and took the distraction that the dead commander provided to safely escape into the hallway. The white passages and bright lights had awakened some dormant memories in him. He knew where to go, but first, he took a small detour to the right. Over a nondescript white door, a sign with hieroglyphics said "Research Lab." Jeff entered and quickly skimmed past the test tubes and obscure experimental biological weapons that lay on the table, beelining for the big locker. Inside, he found a number of human artifacts, from cell phones to radios and speakers, pistols, a musket and even a gramophone to the back. He grabbed a conspicuous SPAS-12 and loaded the shells.
Reluctantly, he also grabbed an 'artifact' labeled 'human grenade' which seemed like five frag grenades, duct-taped together. He was determined to set the score right, even if it cost him an arm, he thought as he turned to leave. But a memory of a different life sparked in his mind. He grabbed a Walkman and wore the earbuds, and scrolling through a list of '90s pop music, he picked that one song from Eurythmics. Feeling energized, he moved for the flight control room.
Jeff heard the shuffling tentacles that the aliens had for feet moving swiftly behind the door, and timing his movements he kicked it open, and plunged the improvised shiv into the stomach of one of them. Using the alien as a meat shield, he took a wild shot and blew another's head off, spraying the pink goo they had for brains all over the white, pristine walls.
The last alien panicked and sprayed laser in the general direction of Jeff, but most hit his former comrade, whom had not been dead before, but surely had died now. Two of the shots did find their mark on Jeff, one piercing his thigh and the other hitting his side. He countered with two bursts that knocked down his assailant, and while the partial metal armor had deflected some of the shrapnel, most got through and the acid tubes were compromised. The alien shrieked as he melted while still alive.
Moving on, he continued down the hallway; the control room was just behind the double doors at the end of it. He heard the distinctive steps of two mechanoids that prepared their heavy blasters. Jeff reached out for the duct-taped grenades and pulled the pin of one as he felt they were about to cross the doors.
"Heads up!" he yelled at the now visible mechanoids, that tried to shoot down the unknown projectile almost at the top of their heads. Jeff threw himself on the floor and a huge explosion came right afterward. The human grenade had not only turned the aliens into charred scrap metal, it had also bored a hole in the mothership's hull. A small one, but it enlarged every passing second.
Jeff entered the control room and briefly glanced at the myriad panels, more complex than those of a nuclear reactor. The aliens manning the ship were hiding in a corner, much smaller than the ones he'd faced, almost infantile in their disgusting appearance. He ignored them and looked for the central control.
A gilded yoke stood in the center of the room. Even with all the controls regulating the diverse aspects of the ship's maintenance, aerodynamics, velocity and machinery, it was better to have a singular entity steering the wheel, and now that person was him.
Jeff got hold of it and tightened his grip. He regretted a lot of things in his short, and partly illusory life. He regretted the misconception of his character and lack of identity, and having gotten involved in such a plot that required him to wipe his sense of self. He may be incapable of love, of happiness... but even for those months he had been reduced to a hurting shell, at least he felt in control of who he was. There was a fate worse than death to Jeff, and that was being used.
A faint part of him, his survival instinct perhaps, promptly tried to disuade him of his determination, but an even greater part just wanted to watch it all burn. What survival meant for a clone grown on a batch, or whatever he was? He chose chaos.
Jeff did what he did best and bent the yoke forward and sideways. The tiny aliens began to panic and tried to exit the room, but as they left, the vacuum of the hull breach sucked them into the air. The mothership and its millions of tons came crashing down to earth, and a fiery explosion consumed Jeff the Killer and what had once been the closest thing he considered a home.
