This is related to a game that a few of my friends and I played when I was younger. I personally think growing up is a joke and people forget their roots or abandon their imaginations too easily. This is kind of an homage to that.

Scott McExtraterrestrial

There was always a UFO somewhere. The world that we created with a Roswellian utopia, with aliens and monsters around every corner, trying to get the drop on you before you could do something to stop them. We protected ourselves and our clueless classmates with an arsenal of weapons that could have hung in a super-secret, Men in Black closet. The rocket launchers would take down the larger ships, while our pistols and assault weapons would take down the hordes and hordes of alien enemies that came in all sorts of shapes and sizes.

The school bus was our twelve parsecs. Every trip was more dangerous than the last because they wised up and became veterans in the war against us. The attacks changed from one or two aliens to many. Then when we tore down the hordes of many, they would bring more advanced weapons themselves. Once that failed, they made vehicles that would grow to sizes so unimaginable that only we could imagine them. No matter the enemy, we took them down, and when we got back from school, we would bring the battle to them.

We would hide behind the bushes and plan our next attack against the bald green creatures. I would circle around while they suppressed with an infinite number of bullets and attack from behind. I used the trees as my cover and stayed as hidden as I could, only taking out a few of the stragglers that spotted me. When I made it to my position, I started shooting. The enemies shrieked and fell. The ones that surrendered were either mercilessly mowed down or taken back for interrogation. We couldn’t let them go back to their mothership and tell them what we did because then there might be too many for us to handle the next time.

One day, when we were least expecting it, they took one of our own. Our squad of three dropped to two and we were left unprepared for the alien warriors. They came in larger hordes than before and our weapons could do nothing to fend them off. Grenades bounced off of their large, calloused bodies and bullets missed or did nothing at all. We couldn’t think of anything strong enough to take down the infantry, so when they attacked with their ships and vehicles, we could do nothing but cower, retreat and regroup – but we were demoralized.

The meetings happened less often. We couldn’t muster up the strength to take down the hordes of enemies anymore. We were one short and then, as time progressed, they got him too. Then it was only me against these extraterrestrial aliens which we had sculpted to be the most sophisticated, battle-ready foes in the galaxy. I tried to fend them off for a while, but eventually they overwhelmed me. They made it through my last remaining stronghold and I was left alone and naked, with nothing to stop them. I had to submit to their looming threat and I had to let them take me.

They stopped appearing. The days went on, but we had lost. They crushed our spirits and one by one, took out the squad that had been built through years of friendship, comradery and most importantly battle. The aliens are still out there, but we let them win. They watch from a distance, wondering… hoping that we’ll build up the courage to attack them again. They know as well as us that we won’t. The squad is dead, and they reign supreme, because we let them.