"Go, go, go!" The whisper of screams just barely rise up over the noise of engines hovering above me, but I knew it would've had to have been so loud that their throat is sore.

They made the mistake of trying to cross into what's left of a New York plaza. Just because we couldn't see them doesn't mean that they weren't there - We learned that in the first week of the slaughter.

Technology, weaponry, armor... All of it so far past ours that we couldn't have stood a chance. And yet, there seems to be some sort of flaw to their abilities if there are still some of us left. It had been what felt like years since I saw another human being, even if the whole murder spree thing only happened roughly a month ago now.

I haven't moved since the ship came out of the sky. I'm not sure if that's how I've been staying along for so long, but it's worked for me so far.

Don't risk even breathing too much. If you hear something, don't flinch. Anything could be them. Anyone could be them. Trust only what your gut tells you.

Twigs and other various undergrowth snap off in front of me. I could see the flashes of the energy weapons as someone has managed to get away from them. Snow crunches under them as their breathing is labored.

And they're getting closer.

My position might be in danger as I began to catch glimpses of the outline of what I'm assuming is a human. But I wouldn't put it past them to somehow fake this to draw out others.

We only knew what they wanted us to, so if they can cloak an entire fleet from us, what's to say they don't have the ability to change how they look?

I glance up to the ship above me as I look again through the trees to the body running full speed towards me. A blast of energy streams through the air to burn through a tree only a few inches away from my head.

No sudden movements, I might catch their attention.

My eyes close as I have to keep my shaking legs from taking off. Every thought in me is telling me to be still even if I want to run as fast as I could go. About that time, I heard it.

The snap.

You see, the energy weapons don't pierce through like bullets - you can't even see what they're shooting. It's a clear beam of solid force. It does some seriously nasty things whenever it hits the human body.

A nudge at my toe makes me look down before I have to bite my tongue to keep everything inside. A section of his head has landed on my combat boot, the brain sliding down the side as the eye stares off into nothing in its socket, the hair was sandy blonde...

   "Ons te resevwa l agē vadhadē rahiṇā." The booming voice of one of their robotic tones radiates through the sudden silence as a groaning and clicking sound follows.

Their armor almost resembles our space suits, but they're much different at the same time. The top half pop over to cover their heads as the rest is covered in an unknown metal. Bullets have no effect on the armor. If you manage to get close enough for hand to hand combat, you can bet that your hand will break before you manage to break something of theirs.

Luckily, they don't chase down what used to be human in front of me - they leave it to the animals. The ship above begins to make a louder humming noise as I pry my eyes into the sky to watch it begin to turn the sky brilliant hues of color. Almost like the northern lights came to New York. Then, it's gone.

Gone.

I slowly let myself raise as I look around before I release the breath... and proceed to loose what little food I had managed to find this morning. The vomit burns in my throat before it stings my lips. Whenever I finally have nothing else to give, and the convulsing gags stop, I wipe my mouth and straighten. The body behind me is going to be horrible, but there really are only a few rules of mine that I haven't broken yet.

I've already killed, stolen, and ate meat. Now to curse in front of a preacher and I'll be certainly killed.

Slowly turning around, I swallow what I can as I slow my breathing. My eyes open. It works a lot better if you can avoid looking at the damage, and simply look for something useful. But my morbid curiosity continues to drag towards the head.

   "John?!" The static of a voice sends me flying up into the branches of a tree before I could completely process it. "No, no please, someone, anyone - Is anyone there?!" It's female, and coming from the body. The hysterics in the voice make me think that it's a really good actress.

Nobody uses coms anymore, the aliens could easily track them. No wonder these people got hurt!

I start down the tree before landing quietly beside the trunk, and creep towards the remains. On the side of his head that's still intact, I find the source of the static noise. He's got an earpiece that's come unplugged from...

   "The fuck?" My voice startled me before I shake my head and pull the black box out of his pocket.

Clearly, this is what they were using to communicate. I remove the earpiece from him and check it over as well, curiously holding it up to my own ear before I plug it in.

Instantly, there's a small bit of feedback that clicks through the wire.

   "Hello? Oh God, please, is someone there?"

My throat goes dry. I should've guessed that there would be a catch. I glance around before I try to remember what I was thinking whenever I plugged it back in. The blood was all burned into scabs whenever the energy hit, so nothing here is bloody except for the brain on my shoe and the grass.

    "Please..." The girl on the other side pleads and I check the box again. It's almost like those old brick phones that my parents would jokingly use to show us how far technology has come. But it has a clip to attach to pants, a nob at the top, and a wire plug in to lead to the bottom half of a gamer's set that I've just put on.

I could've just killed myself.

I grab the bag he was carrying as I begin to move away from the body, my breathing becoming quick as I could feel the hair on my arms beginning to rise.

Trust the instinct, run Ryan. You need to run.

I take maybe another millisecond of hesitation before I turn on my heel and take off through the darkness. The canopy above me explodes into motion the moment I pass under an oak.

Cats.

Three of them dropped down behind me, leaving the birds they were chasing to go for the big game. You would think house cats would manage to be friendly, right? No. When the virus took out the vast majority of us, it changed the animals and creatures around us into feral things.

But if that were the worst part, then we would've been able to congregate again. Come together and fight back as a group. Animals that were already wild got worse. Bear fur could suddenly harden into metal-like strength, lions could poison, wolves were faster than a speeding car, and birds could speak. It wasn't English, no, it was whatever dialect the aliens had.

Conspiracy theorists would've had so much fun if the entire internet hadn't completely shut down.

I slide around a corner and dash across the river after glancing to make sure that the monster wasn't there. Luckily for me, it wasn't. Whenever I was able to get to the other side, the cats stayed on their turf. They hiss as I could see the fur on their backs lifting. It wasn't until I was thinking about the sound they're making that I realized the mic had at some point fallen down from the side of my head, stopping just in front of my mouth.

"Cats fucking suck." The voice on the other side sympathizes with me as I glance around the trees again.

"As life goes on, this creature starts in four legs, moves to two, and then has three. What is it?" My voice is shaky, the adrenaline has me turning at every little sound, but the intent is clear.

Riddles. The aliens didn't understand them, none of them seemed to be able to wrap their brains around them - and completely ignored them.

    "A child, an adult, and an old man." She responds before she turns it on me, "On what side of a church do the trees go?"

"The outside." I answer with a small sigh of relief before I maneuver into the new territory, this one belongs to the pigs. Which you might not think is scary until you consider that they love human flesh, and are completely invisible.

"I... I need to know how you got this device. Who was it from?"

I don't answer as I pause at the sound of a bird, but it flies over my without issue as I slowly move to one of the bigger trees. Boars have been known to knock down the smaller ones when starving - and I don't want to take the risk.

"Hello?"

"Listen, I don't know who you are, and I'm pretty sure it's better that way. I don't know where you are, but I'm out in the open. I will not be talking." I sound a little harsher than I mean to, but my hands shake slightly as I pull myself up into the higher branches. "Pigs, birds, you name it. They hear me, I'm dead."

    "R- Right. I'm sorry, I forget about all of that sometimes... It just feels like old times."

Once I reach the thicker leaves, I pause as I think about what she means. In the older times, I would be at school right now as we learn about whatever bullshit they want to feed us for that day. We would be secretly passing notes or texting. Our biggest worry was the upcoming STAAR testing that we have to do.

More than half of those kids died in the Virus. Including my girlfriend.

My hand instinctively goes to the bag strapped to my leg, my fingers running lightly across the top of it as I take a deep breath.

    "Yeah." I say after the silence floats between us, "I know what you mean."

    "So... May I ask what to call you? You can call me Iris, it's what everyone else does." Her inquiry makes me smile as I faintly remember my father, his nicknames were painful to even hear - forget about having them used against you.

    "RJ." I mummer as I glance to the snorts and honks below me. My hand leaves the bag as I squat down and squint at the gathering group.

    "It's nice to meet you, RJ." She pips as I could picture a female shape bouncing in their chair from excitement.

She seems like the type to have been sheltered during all this. I wonder where she could be where she could forget that we were invaded, the cities alone would be a constant reminder. Not to mention the threat of the animals.

     "I'll be going to sleep now, but if you need me - Press the grey button on the black box. It'll beep at me until I answer."

    "Yeah, goodnight." I mummer as I take aim down the pistol, "Sleep tight." A few light squeezes later and I have dinner.

It's surprisingly nice to have someone to talk to after so long with quiet, and I find myself tempted to press the button just to get her back. The only thing stopping me is the fear that it'll kill her.

I accepted this radio too fast, too soon. I accepted her answers too fast, without reason.

A low sigh leaves me as I flip the mic up to its resting position.

One of these days, it's going to be something like that that'll get me killed.