Tainted

Nobody can hear a scream in the vacuum of space, or so they say. It must be why the invaders, or the High Lords as they like to call themselves, released so many of our people into that wretched void. They like to pretend that they’re merciful and ‘humane’. To them, mercy is releasing the harvested ‘tainted ones’ into the black nothingness of space and then experimenting on our corpses, while they make us watch.

They came to our planet eighty years ago and presented themselves as our saviors. Saviors that could reverse the aging and decay of dying planets. Saviors who could reverse the damage of toxins that we created and poisoned our bodies with. Their advanced technology was our planet’s hope, a hope to quickly save the earth and her people. But it was human greed on all sides that brought the High Lords’ facade to an end.

At the time, we were a severely underdeveloped planet, and our technology was thousands of years behind the rest of our galaxy. We were completely unaware that there were even others out there. For decades we’d sent out machines in hope to find other intelligent life, hoping to make contact and learn from them. Instead, we found out that the High Lords, and other advanced races, had been watching our development for centuries and were just waiting to invade when we were up to par for their standards to experiment. It’s been eighty years of this, eighty years of torture and misery.

If it weren’t for people like my great grandmother Mandi, all of this knowledge would have been wiped clean with past generations. Mandi, and a few others, wrote and stored away dairies for us to read, in hopes that one day we would revolt and take earth back as our own. She wrote in one of her diaries that when they arrived, they were welcomed like the gods that they think themselves to be.

Nations threw elaborate feasts and celebrations in their wake and there were several months of peace, healing, and prosperity. Unfortunately, our nation's leaders had their own game they were attempting to play. As each nation watched the High Lords’ technology drastically change things for the better, they began to claim to be more desperate and oppressed than other nations in hopes to gain favor. They started demanding and begging that the High Lords help them wipe out the other nations and that others were not worthy of saving.

Many watched as our world leaders claimed the earth was too overpopulated, and that the elite should be the only ones saved. They began to use economic rank, morals, and religious views as a way to convince the High Lords that the others needed to be done away with. The High Lords, in their vain deceit, made claims to help each nation, convincing them all of their loyalty by making the Domes. In these Domes, they gradually took away the human need to survive, by handing us everything we could have ever needed. It was a time of Utopia, where humans relied on machines to do everything for them. There was no hunger, no war, no poverty. Everyone was convinced that they controlled the High Lords and that they were only loyal to them.

Except, the High Lords were loyal to no one but themselves. When the nations caught wind of their deceit, all thanks to one of their kind, we turned on them and ourselves. We used weapons of nuclear warfare to hurt and demolish as much of each other as we could. The Wars of Apocalypse took place for five years. We lost 2 billion people because of cowardice and greed. Hundreds of millions lost their lives to radiation, starvation, and disease. During this, world leaders were killed, the elite fell from their high places and everyone truly became one. There were no more nations, just people.

Despite ruining our planet even further, people rejoiced because we were free from Earth’s corrupt leadership. Others revolted and started to use everything they could, to try and destroy the High Lords. And some, like my family, hid. They tried to survive. They tried to document everything and not get caught. They tried to remain intact with their humanity. And they wrote everything down in family dairies.

It’s these diaries we have to thank for knowing what all happened in the beginning, and on the day they finally took over. This is Mandi’s story, this is our history. May we never forget, and may we never back down. Find courage and fight the Lords of scum and reclaim Earth as our own. Find peace in knowing that someone with hardly any resources, did such brave things. Find courage in knowing that these harvesters bleed, and we can stop them from taking our families. We can, and we will take Earth back!

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December 15, 2044

It’s my birthday today. I’m 33. I’m trying to remember how to be thankful today. I guess I could say I’m thankful we’re all still alive. It’s hard to remember to be thankful when you constantly hear those fucking drones driving overhead. I feel like they’re trying to rip our bunker out of the ground whenever they drive over us. It’s unnerving.

It’s so hard to be thankful when you’re constantly worried about your children’s next meal, or if we’re going to get caught.

I hope we don’t get caught. I don’t want to think about what they would do to us...

They’re monsters.

This morning, right as we were getting ready to leave, the sky lit up again with another one of their experiments. This time it was a guy who looked like he was my dad’s age. He was of course a “tainted one”. His sin against the High Lords was probably one of the saddest I’ve seen in a while. He was a slave in the largest dome, and he stole a cracker-sized piece of food from one of their plates. According to their message, the High Lord that he insulted was done eating, but it disgusted them that he ate from their plate. I swear they’re just coming up with new “sins” to harvest us for. It used to be actual crimes… now it’s just petty shit like this.

I had to turn away again when they released him into space. I don’t think that’s something I’ll ever be able to watch. It’s horrible.

Gah! I remember thinking that working a 9-5 was the worst thing ever… I’d go back to those old days so fast if it meant that my family would be safe. If it meant they could grow up normal.

I just have to keep reminding myself that we’re all here, though. We’ve made it alive for the past three years. I’m looking at all my sisters' smiling faces. I’m looking at my two boys giggling together over the toys I scavenged out of an old target.

I’m so thankful we never got caught and shipped to the Domes. I’m so thankful we have so many resources. I’m so thankful the foothills of Alabama hardly got nuked and we don’t have to worry about radiation where we are. I’m thankful. Regardless of the circumstances, I’m thankful that I have my family in this bunker that reeks of mildew. And I’ll be even more thankful when Nick gets back from hunting.

I hope it’s been a good hunt day. We need more meats.

On a brighter note, It’s my favorite kind of weather today. The sky is so grey, and the sound of sleet falling on the ground is one of the most relaxing things I’ve heard in a while.

It was so hard for me and Heather to go back in after scavenging. We wanted nothing more than just to be able to let our babies roam and play outside. It’s been months.

Heather’s husband, Cass, was telling Her yesterday that he thinks he found a cave that the kids can play in. He said he saw fresh mushrooms and wild herbs growing near the opening, too! He’s going to go and try to explore it sometime in the next couple of days. It’s not too far from here, and there’s a little opening where the kids can play safely and not be heard.. or seen.

Here’s to 33. I’m thankful. I have hope, but I’m also terrified. I don’t remember what it feels like not to be.

-Mandi johnson

Foothills of Alabama (Helena)

33 years of age

Wife to Nick

Mom to August and Arlo

Second oldest of ten kids

Daughter of Bill and Shannon Lutz