Aurelia's Window

The outside world was unknown to her, but she could see a glimpse of it through the window in his room. Aurelia didn’t know who “he” was, even though they had shared a cell wall for at least the last two cycles. All she knew about him was that he was dead now. The Hosts, as she had taken to calling them, had taken him from his cell very loudly last night after he had made a point of banging incessantly on his door begging over and over to be let out. When Aurelia woke up this morning and he still hadn’t returned, she had moved her small handful of possessions she had acquired into his cell and claimed it for herself. His cell was the only one she’d seen in the many cycles that she’d been confined to this building that had its own window.

The view wasn’t picturesque by any means, in fact it was quite depressing to look out into the desolate, war torn remains of what used to be a heavily populated city. The streets were nothing but rubble, scattered with debris from fallen buildings and street lights laying on their side. She could see remains of what looked like vehicles, all rusted and gutted beyond recognition. She put her palm against the thick glass and ached to know what fresh air would feel like on her skin. That feeling of desperation is what kept drawing her back to the small square in the wall. She was determined to one day be able to go beyond the limited view she was granted and consider herself free from her Hosts. She watched the sun dip down behind the remains of a crumbling building, and was amazed at how beautiful and vibrant the oranges, pinks and blues of the sunset looked among the wrecked cityscape.

A short and loud alarm bell rang out through the holding area that ripped Aurelia from her thoughts. She made her way cautiously out of her cell and into the Viewing Area. This was a small stretch of concrete between each holding cell and the wall of glass that separated the humans from the Hosts. The entire building was laid out as a large square with the center cut out of it. Every day, twice a day, a group of Hosts got lowered into the glass box to point and laugh at the now feral and emaciated humans on the other side. Aurelia and the other humans had been conditioned over time to come out to the Viewing Area when the alarm sounded because the Viewing Parties were the only time they were ever given food.

“The Hosts” wasn’t their true name, but Aurelia and the other humans had been in captivity for so long that their real name was lost on her. They had invaded Earth close to thirty years ago. Within hours of their invasion, the World Powers and every government on the planet had been obliterated. The human militaries did what they could to fight back, but the aliens were too strong in number and too advanced in their technology. In a matter of days, over three quarters of the human population had been wiped out. These square prisons were built in what used to be major metropolitan areas across the world, and the remaining humans were herded there and kept like zoo animals.

Aurelia glanced around at her fellow prisoners, and it was as if they were in a trance. Everyone was lined up a few inches from the glass, faces tilted up toward the ceiling to wait for their meal for the day.

Each prison was filled with people from all walks of life. There were old folks, children and babies, and every age in between. People of every nationality and religion, people of every political side. Ironically this was the closest the world had ever been to achieving world peace. Aurelia was old enough to be considered an adult by the children, but young enough that the older folks saw her as a child. She was one of the many that had been born and raised in captivity. Every woman in the prison was her mother, every man was her father. She never bothered trying to find out who gave birth to her, or who her biological father was, because she didn’t want to deal with the pain that knowledge would bring. The knowledge that they weren’t around was painful enough.

Aurelia was once again pulled from her thoughts, this time by a mechanical whirring that had started up. The ceiling in the center of the room began to lower, and there was a tangible restlessness in the air radiating off of the inmates as the natural light from outside flooded into the building. As the platform came closer to ground level, the oglers came into view. The Hosts were impossibly tall, and they had large, pear shaped heads and ashy gray skin that looked like it was stretched tight over their skeletons. Their eyes took up most of their face and were black as pitch and soulless. Their nostrils were small slits in the center of their face, and when they opened their mouths to laugh at the humans, Aurelia could see their teeth were sharpened into perfect points.

They began throwing bits of stale and moldy bread, meat and other scraps through the sizable gap between the glass barrier and the ceiling. Chaos ensued, as starving people that called themselves friends turned on each other over every rotten morsel that landed on the grimy floor. Aurelia was shoved violently as a hunk of what looked like it had once been meat landed next to her foot. She braced herself against the glass, much to the amusement of the aliens as this got quite a laugh out of the group. Aurelia turned to scowl at who had shoved her, and her face fell when she saw it was a small child. He couldn’t have been any older than six, and he was skin and bone. He looked up at Aurelia with crazed eyes as he snatched the food off the floor and immediately tore into it with his blackened teeth. Aurelia raised her hands in a surrendering gesture and took a step to the side to give the boy plenty of room.

The platform began lifting the group of aliens out of the room, and that’s when one of the women began wailing at them. She was across the room from where the boy was crouched and inhaling his food, and she began pounding her fists on the glass much to the distress of the baby she had strapped to her chest.

“How do you expect us to feed our children with these scraps?! Give us real food you monsters!” Her voice was high and shrill with panic, and the infant began to have a fit. The mechanical whirring stopped, and three of the Hosts near the front turned and gave the woman their full attention. All the humans around the woman scattered and busied themselves trying to find bits of food to eat. The aliens spoke quietly amongst themselves, and then approached the glass. The one closest to the woman held out their hand, and the woman paled and began to shake her head.

“N-No, no I’m sorry I-I’ll make do…” The alien insisted, and Aurelia watched as they placed their palm on the glass until it began to quiver. They lunged forward through the glass and grabbed the woman by the wrist. She screamed and her baby continued to cry as they were yanked onto the platform. They finished their ascent, and the building was bathed in darkness once again.

Aurelia foraged for forgotten scraps on her way back to her cell, and she thought about what they had all witnessed. That woman and her child wouldn’t be back. People that went with the Hosts were never seen again. And she was almost certain they wouldn’t have to worry about feeding her for much longer. The way she had been taken was news to Aurelia, though. She had never realized in all the time she’d been held here that the way to freedom was lowered in front of her face and made to laugh at her every single day. As she laid down on her sagging cot and nibbled on what she had gathered, she began to formulate an escape plan.

They come twice a day, around sunrise and again at dusk. I’ll need a weapon, Aurelia thought as she glanced around her cell. It was just big enough for her cot and a toilet, and as she swung her feet onto the floor the metal door slammed down from the ceiling. No matter how many nights she spent in this prison, that sound echoing through the building made her jump every time. She and the rest of the humans were locked in their cells until morning.

That works for me, now no one will interrupt me. Aurelia squinted as her eyes adjusted to the darkness and she was able to make out vague shapes around her room. She had a small collection of things that she had acquired during her stay here, and she lowered herself onto the icy concrete floor to reach under her mattress pad. She had the eraser half of a No 2 pencil, a large paperclip, a piece of shale the size of her palm and a black marble. She laid out each item in front of her and ran her fingers over them individually. The first thing she did was unbend the paperclip until it was a mostly straight piece of metal. She set that back on the floor in favor of the pencil, and slowly pulled what was left of the graphite out of the center. Again she picked up the straightened paper clip and the shale, and she began sharpening one end into a point. Once she had it at a sharpness she thought could be effective, she bent the paperclip in half and shoved the folded end as securely as she could into the soft wood of the pencil. What she couldn’t force through, she wrapped around the pencil as a way to reinforce her shiv. She would have one shot at this, and if she missed her mark she was dead. For the rest of the night instead of sleeping, she practiced a few different ways to injure her captors. She had no knowledge of combat, but she was quick on her feet and she hoped that was enough.

Aurelia was brimming with nervous energy and pacing her tight quarters by the time the sun peeked through the rubble and bathed her room in rays of soft light. The grinding of metal sounded as the cell doors were all opened, and it made Aurelia grate her teeth. She tucked her shiv into the waistband of her pants and shook out her hands. She still wasn’t sure how she was going to get onto the platform.

The alarm bell blared through the building and Aurelia and the rest of the captives made their way out into the common space. Aurelia wasn’t sure if it was because she had an escape plan, but she could feel a certain energy among the prisoners this morning. Everyone was on edge. They all dutifully stood by the glass and waited. A man beside Aurelia had begun muttering to himself as the whirring started up again, and his hand began twitching as the platform lowered slowly. When morning light broke through, the man began muttering louder.

“Can’t keep us here forever… Have to get out…” The Hosts’ feet became visible, and the man lost it. He began hollering, and he backed up to take a running jump at the glass. He leapt into the air and grabbed wildly, his fingers just barely finding purchase on the edge of the gap. A group of men gathered around the dangling man’s legs and heaved him up to help him get an arm over the edge, and then the top of his chest. By this point, the platform had made it to the ground, and the Hosts reacted. Aurelia gripped her shiv in her waistband and waited for her moment.

One of the aliens unholstered a pistol from his hip and fired a laser right between the desperate man’s eyes. He dropped unceremoniously to the floor with a sickening splat as his head connected with the concrete and opened up. Blood was very quickly forming a large pool around the point of impact, and a stony silence fell over the prisoners.

This was the first time they had ever killed one of the humans out in the open since creating the Zoos.

A few children began crying, but no one dared to utter a word or even move. The aliens stayed for a few minutes longer, quietly observing the panic on all the malnourished faces before getting bored and returning to the roof. As soon as the platform was back in place, people went to work. A handful of women gathered blankets and a mattress pad from unused cells. With help from the men that had tried to help him escape, they rolled the dead man onto the mattress and wrapped him in blankets. When they were finished, the final blanket was used to soak up the blood. Two men grabbed the mattress at the head and the foot and hefted it over to one of the empty cells. Aurelia hadn’t moved, her hand still gripped around her shiv. She felt frozen to the floor.

What if that was my last chance? What if they decide that we’re too rebellious and have us all exterminated? Aurelia’s eyes burned with unshed tears and she was finally able to will her body to move. Most of the humans, Aurelia included, spent the rest of the day confined to their cells.

The aliens did not make their usual trip in the evening, which meant the prisoners went without food for the day. Their punishment for allowing such a blatant act of rebellion and disrespect.

Aurelia’s stomach growled angrily and began to cramp. Before the doors closed for the night, she ventured out of her cell to look for any food that may have been missed the day before. She was able to find a chunk of molded bread, a mostly eaten apple and a strip of old fat with bits of meat still on it. She hurried back to her cell with seconds to spare as her cell door snapped closed behind her. She curled up on her side in her cot beneath her threadbare blanket and forced herself to take tiny bites of the spoiled feast so it would last longer. As she ate, she allowed herself to daydream about what her life would be like when she was able to see the sky above her head.

Was there even anything out there worth escaping for?

Aurelia kicked herself and closed her eyes. Of course there is. There has to be. Anything that’s out there is better than one more day in here.

She imagined lakes and rivers, and mountains. Wildlife and flowers. Things she had only heard about from the elders’ stories when she was a child. Her last thoughts as she drifted off into a fitful sleep were of soft grass and warm sunshine on her cheeks.

Aurelia was woken up the next morning by the Visit alarm, with crumbs of last night’s dinner and drool stuck to the side of her mouth. She rolled out of bed so quickly that her feet slipped from beneath her and she landed face first on the unforgiving floor. She groaned as she picked herself up and wiped a hand across her mouth. She was one of the last out of her cell and was still rubbing sleep out of her eye when the platform began its descent. She was surprised to see only two aliens on the platform, and they were stone faced as the elevator came to a stop. One of them raised a hand and pointed to the stain on the floor where the man had died yesterday. They looked out at the handful of people and spoke in an unearthly language. It sounded like a question.

“You want to know where we put the body.” Aurelia said quietly. The alien nodded, and a sense of foreboding gnawed at her stomach.

“It’s in a cell. Why do you care?” A woman piped up, and then immediately hid behind a man that was presumably her partner. The Hosts glared at her and simply continued to point. They spoke again, this time it was a statement.

“They want us to give them the body.” Aurelia guessed. The alien turned his gaze to her, and she knew she had guessed correctly. The Host uttered what sounded like the previous statement, said with more urgency.

“You can have it. It’s in that cell.” Aurelia pointed to the farthest cell to the left. “But he’ll be too heavy for us to move. You’ll have to come get him.” The alien scowled at her and muttered something only their counterpart could hear. The second alien nodded, and fluidly stepped through the glass as if it were made of water. Aurelia found her shiv in her waistband and readied it beneath her pants. The alien walked purposefully to the cell and disappeared inside. When they reappeared, they had the body draped haphazardly over one shoulder. They passed by Aurelia on their way back to the platform, and that’s when she made her move.

She fell into step just behind them, out of sight of the alien left on the platform. As the alien carrying the body passed through the glass, she made sure she was right on their heels. The glass felt like cool gel against her skin, and it made her shiver. Time seemed to slow down as she crossed the threshold onto the steel floor of the elevator. The alien carrying the body dumped the dead man off their shoulder, revealing Aurelia to their partner. As they began to react, Aurelia pulled her shiv free of her waistband and jammed it as hard as she could into the alien’s neck that still had their back to her. She shoved her captor with all her might and they stumbled into the Host reaching for their holstered pistol. The pair collided and fell back, falling half through the glass.

That’s when the mob swarmed.

Aurelia hit the button on the control pad that would take her to the surface and watched as her fellow prisoners pulled their oppressors fully off the platform and began tearing at their smoke colored flesh. The last thing Aurelia saw before the platform reached the roof was one of the aliens being violently beheaded and the other pleading for their life as they were being ripped apart.

The first thing Aurelia noticed about the surface was the breeze.

It was warm, and carried the smell of something chemical that Aurelia scrunched her nose at.

The second thing Aurelia noticed was that she was, blissfully, alone.

There wasn’t a soul on the roof and no one to stop her from descending the metal stairway that clung precariously to the side of the building she stood on. The only sound she heard was the wind whistling through the shells of buildings, and the occasional chirp of an insect or a bird. She made it to the ground and into the cover of an abandoned building before she heard a group of aliens making their way around to the stairway she’d just come down.

I hope they gut you all. Aurelia thought menacingly. She slinked through the ruined building and tried not to get distracted by all the different smells and sounds accosting her. She had no idea where she was going, but she knew she had to get out of the immediate area.

She picked a direction and started running. She ran past ruined vehicles, fallen signs and billboards and crumbled buildings. She ran around gaping holes in the asphalt, leapt over felled street lamps, and kept her eye on the sun rising higher off the horizon.

She had no idea where she would end up, where this ruined road would take her, but none of that mattered.

She was finally free.