I wake up with a gasp, my body feeling strange, sluggish. I take a swift, wild look around, hoping to see something familiar.

No such luck.

This is not my bedroom.

Memories filter in, my body throbbing with each segment of remembrance.

Screams haunt my mind, darkness in every corner.

They're dead.

But how? How could they all have died?

I struggle weakly as another memory hits me. After the fires, after the death, after the pain and agony that we already suffered, they came.

Aliens.

I mentally scoff.

How could we have, for so long, dismissed them as conspiracies? As good fodder for a TV series or a horror film?

Well, we were wrong. It's not just fiction. It's real. And one of those no good alien creeps would be coming back for me soon.

I struggle to a stand, my legs achy and wobbling. Cords, including an IV, surround me. I quickly rip them out, letting my blood drip onto the pristine white floor. Serves them right.

Moving swiftly, I search the room for a hiding place or a back door.

That's when I hear him.

My best friend.

"Karmellia!" He says again, slightly louder, and this time, I can pinpoint his location.

I turn, looking at him, his face. It's not like I remember. It's older, longer and thinner. His face used to be cute and chubby. I struggle to reconfigure my memories. It's been ten years since he was slightly chubby. Still, it is very different from my most recent recollection.

Tanned and handsome, Torrice Loje looks every inch the Hispanic he is. His black hair's grown out, spiky in a way that's almost like the anime characters I used to care about forever ago. He has a line of stubble, all over his chin, which was new. He also now had an almost gaunt, toughened look to him, in a bit of a dangerous way. The biggest change about him, however, was his eyes. Normally, his dark brown eyes reminded me of melting chocolate, from how warm and dark they were.

Now, his eyes shone a pale white, the pupils colored a faint grey.

"Torrice?" I ask, hoping beyond hope that they hadn't gotten to him yet. That the evidence in his eyes were a lie. "Did they ...?"

He ducks his head, looking away. "Yes. They ... did."

Disappointment floods me, and I place my hand against my face, palm pressing against my eye, fingers gripping my hair.

"Karmellia," Torrice says, hesitantly.

"What?" I refuse to meet his gaze. The gaze of those horrible white eyes.

"They ... They changed you too."

Where grief had been, horror swiftly strikes it away, taking it's place. "What? No. You can't know that! It's ... It's not true!"

Wordlessly, Torrice grips my hand, hushing me. "Calm down. They're in the other room."

I firm up my lips, not wanting my 'master' to know I'm awake. "Okay, show me."

Torrice nods, gripping my hand in his, and leading me to a small bathroom nearby. "Go ahead." He says. "Look."

I glance at him, before entering the bathroom, not bothering to close it. Even if I was doing anything I didn't want him to see, privacy scarcely mattered anymore. Especially not between the two of us. He's seen me through my worst and best times. Screwing up my courage, I glance into the mirror.

It was as he said.

My wavy black hair looks as it did, fine and soft, but short, cropped to my chin. My skin was the same warm brown it's always been. I can see the same touches of middle eastern descent in my brows, face, and eye shape. My muscles had wasted somewhat, from the surgery I had just woken up from.

The worst of it is my eyes. Rather than a light hazel, they now glow just like Torrice's do. Instead of white, however, my eyes glow red.

Apt, since I was seeing red right now.

"They changed me." I growl.

Torrice embraces me, his arms around my chest, just high enough that I wouldn't smack him, but loose and hanging a tad. "It's okay, Karmellia."

Karmellia Renkin. The girl they killed on that operating table. Those stupid aliens had come in our planet's time of need only to enslave the survivors. The lucky ones were given hard labor for their entire life.

The unfortunate were bought as personal slaves to those with specific needs where they were modified, like Torrice and myself.

Whatever genetic modifications I got weren't worth the price. The modifications came without freedom.

Oh, one might think, hey, at least I can still find love, live happily ever after, find happiness in my enslavement.

They'd be wrong.

Yes, the surgery left my ovaries intact.

Yes, I could still have a family.

In fact, the surgery would have made those bits stronger and more fertile. So that I could have some little genetically modified babies and start a race of genetically useful humans. I would have a man. Maybe even a man I could love. And I would have children.

But my children would be sold to other masters to be raised and molded into weapons. My children would be used for gain, or whatever sick reason those freaks had for creating me.

Not worth it.

Maybe that's even what Torrice was here for. They could be making negotiations to start a super human race from the two of us.

I mean, ew. Torrice is my BFF, which, while it might be one letter off from boyfriend, was not the same thing.

But, A quiet part of my mind whispers, At least he'll be mine and only mine.

I shove that part of me aside. I've always gotten insanely jealous from seeing Torrice anywhere near another woman, though I've tried to ignore it.

Torrice's white eyes laugh at me. "Karmellia, calm down. We'll figure it out."

"What? You mean when they force us to mate."

Would that really be a bad thing? A voice asks in my head. It doesn't sound like mine. I brush it off.

Torrice winces. "Alright. I get it. It's bad. What do you want me to do?"

His earnest expression. Sweet Christmas. He's always been my better half. Whenever I get into trouble, Torrice was always there to get me out of it.

Of course, I reflect, Torrice hasn't had it easy either.

I may be little miss violence, with my fierce nature and mischievous streak, always resorting to violence, but he's mister sweetness.

Life isn't easy for sweet people.

They give too much, too easily, and they never receive anything in return.

Sure, he's all laughs on the outside, but ...

His smiles are lies for everyone but me.

Maybe it really wouldn't be a bad thing. I find myself thinking.

I cough, startling myself out of that mode of thinking. It would do no good to start crushing on him. Especially since I'm pretty sure he had a crush on Kace, my ... younger sister. Who was dead.

Now would be a terrible time to start crushing on him.

Torrice's lips twitch. "What do you want us to do."

I shake myself off. 

"Well, we have to do something to stop these aliens. For everybody's sake."

"And how do you want to do that?" He leans closer.

I take a step towards him, cockily lifting my chin, mimicking my younger spirit. "I say, we kill them."

I've always been the violent sort.