The Designs Of Change

~Chapter 10~(Copia POV)

          (copia POV)

          Nobody had seen Aure in over a year. And Copia being Copia, she... worried. About her best friend. Every moment of every day. More people she noticed had gone missing, so the kidnappings hadn't stopped after they got who they wanted.

          And then there was the problem of an Alien invasion. She still had no idea when it would happen, and she had no way to tell. She was half convinced it wasn't happening at all. Worse, the group she had originally had to help her figure it out, was now just two people out of what used to be four.

          Harrison had been staying over at Copia's house for the last year, since he couldn't return home and put his family in danger after the first time he escaped. And Aure, being Aure, had left the city, and nobody had seen her since. Caseus had mysteriously gone missing after wandering through the park on his own just a month after Aure disappeared.

          It amazed her truly, how nobody picked up on the absolutely huge conspiracy going on under everyone's noses.

          Copia stared at her computer screen, looking for clues. As usual. As usual, on the schoolwide discord server, Aure, Caseus, and Herbert were offline. As were the other eight students that had been taken the prior year.

          She couldn't help but call back to the journal, decoding the ciphers written in invisible ink in the first half of the book. Horrific things she knew now. Genetic human experiments and drawings of mysterious winged lizard creatures the size of cats.

          She was just about to give up searching for mentions of victims for the day and go down to get something to eat, when a notification popped up on her screen, and a video opened without her even clicking on it. The video seemed to be over Canada, Hawaii, china, and new york. Hundreds of UFOs could be seen making their way across the sky at record speeds. LA. Salt lake. Kansas city. Which meant they might also soon get to Topeka.

          The invasion prophesied by the journal was at last coming to pass at last.

—

          Copia ran down the stairs, tripping over the last few and falling flat on her face at the bottom. No time for this now. She shoved herself up despite the pain blazing up her nose, and ran to get Harrison and her mom out of here as fast as possible. She couldn't get dad. He was off on a vacation with her older brothers. Although she desperately wished she could.

          She burst into the former guest room, and yanked harrison out by the hand, him looking confused, but letting her drag him away. Her mom came into the living room to see what all the commotion was about, and copia promptly took her hand as well.

          "It's happening. They're everywhere in the sky. We need to get everyone to gage park."

          Harrison looked confused for a moment before he remembered and looked grave.

          "So the journal was right about the alien invasion?"

          "Yes. mystical chimera dragon from the future stuck in a human body was right all along."

          She dragged her two captives outside and into the nearest car in the apartment driveway, which just so happened to be hers.

          "Call everyone you can on the school discord server. Send them the video from the news. Tell them all to meet us at gage park with their families. We don't have time to preach to people in the streets. We can only save as many as we can."

          Copia sped down the highway, going as fast as her car would allow, before she stopped at Aure's house on the way and shoved her mom and little brothers into the car with no further explanation. Harrison had Copia's phone and was calling up acquaintances and former students of liberty high school who still lived in the city, telling them all in his most urgent voice to come to the park as fast as possible. Some needed minimum convincing, as they had seen the spaceships swarming the earth on the video, but hadn't actually believed it was real.

          By the time Copia and the others made it to the park, there were maybe around 500 or so people swarming around, looking confused. Copia quickly got out of the car, and her eyes widened as she saw thousands of dots in the sky on the horizon, getting very quickly larger, and definitely getting very quickly closer.

          Time to try my preaching skills...

          She yelled to gain attention until all of the heads turned towards her.

          "I know you are all worried. Scared. sad. " she started, as the rest of the eyes rested on her. "But we don't have time to panic right now. In the far north of gage park, near Westlake, there is an underground bunker, with enough food and room to last us months. Aure made sure to check it out thoroughly before she... disappeared. Right after we learned the invasion was coming."

          She cleared her throat to continue.

          "Right now, we need to get to the north side of the park as quickly as we can, before they get here. All of you, follow me."

—

          She was filing people inside the bunker when the first ship beams came into focus. And then she felt sudden panic. Mrs. Mercutio and Cameron and kyle were all near the back of the line, near where the beams were pointed.

          No no no no no. I promised her to get them to safety when the time came. I can't let them...

          Without thinking, she rushed forward just as the beam reached the back of the line. Everyone the light touched turned into goo with clothes mixed in. the people Aure had sacrificed so much to save- She had to save-

          And then the light touched Mrs. Mercutio and Cameron, the woman shoved kyle into her arms, and Copia jumped out of the range of the beam as it swept past her. She looked back, only to see piles of goo where the two family members had once been.

          She shielded the boy's eyes from the sight, and rushed him to the front of the line that was rapidly disappearing, and she shoved him into Harrison's arms.

          "Get him inside, NOW!" Copia screamed.

          Harrison took the boy and went down the bunker stairs as fast as possible, and the ground closed behind him as the last survivors of the line disapeared underground, and safe. With Copia definitally NOT safe as beams of the killing light swept toward her.

          I can't escape now. But at least most of the others got inside alive.

          That was the teen's last thought, as the light passed over her, and turned her to sludge.