I have always loved aliens, from a young age they have always interested me. I grew up constantly thinking about how I would meet my first alien, but deep down I knew the harsh reality; I would never really meet one. That was until one summer, the summer that changed my life forever. In case you were wondering my name is John Smith, I am 19 and I live in Cardiff, Wales. This is my story.
My family and I always go camping for the summer. We travel to Glasgow where we camp on Loch Lomond. The summer began as all of our summers do, waking up at the crack of dawn in preparation for the twelve hour drive up to Glasgow. We arrived at about three in the afternoon, and were lucky enough to arrive before the large majority of people, so we had a good choice of sites. We headed to the place we always stayed, a nice spot in the forest, about 100 meters away from the water. We were shocked to find that there was already another group of campers set up, it is rare that other campers come up this far. None the less, we set up our camp as usual.
My sister, Amy, and I were sent out to collect fire wood. As we headed out, we came across another group who seemed to be looking for something; curiously we went to see if they needed any help. "From the readings I can see that the temporal energy was highest in this area" said a man with an American accent. "Jack!" said a welsh woman, "There's something over there!" All of a sudden, a young welsh woman, presumably that one that had previously spoke, came out of the trees. "Gwen! What is it?" The man called out, "Oh, nothing to worry about, just a pair of teenagers" Gwen, replied. "Well send them on their merry way so we can get back to finding this bloody lump of space junk before nightfall." Another man called out. We took this as our cue to leave so we headed back in the way that we were originally heading to collect the firewood. On the journey back to our site, I was thoughly interested, what on earth were they looking for? I brushed thgem off as just a bunch of astronomers, nothing that special just looking for a meteor…
Later that evening as we sat down to have our dinner and talk around the campfire, the group that had set up near us came out if the trees, I recognised that woman Gwen, that I had seen earlier that day, she was with four other people; a small Asian woman, who looked way out of her depth in the wilderness, a young man, who looked like he was about to punch something, another young man, who was dressed in a suit and finally a man who looked slightly older, this man who was dressed head to toe in period military clothing with a strange looking leather bracelet on his left wrist. This man appeared to be the leader of the group. "Alright kiddies you have another long day ahead of you tomorrow, you better have some dinner and get to bed so we can leave the camp as soon as possible, I don't want Myfawny to get lonely and come looking for us again" said the military man. I was beyond curious now, space junk, the man that looked as if he has stepped out from world war two and this Myfawny? Something seriously weird was going on here. I decided that tomorrow morning I was going to follow them out to see what exactly they were doing.
The next morning, I awoke with a start, because of the voices outside my tent, oh nothing to worry about, I thought to myself, its probably just the other campers heading out early. I just remembered about my plan so I quickly jumped out of bed, pulled on a pair of jeans, a sweater and my joggers and snuck out to follow that strange group. I quickly hurried in to the forest behind them.
"Alright guys, Tosh has tracked the coordinates of the space junk so we know where it is, lets head out so we are on the road by nightfall back home." I followed them for an hour and forty-five minutes until we came across a small river. By this time the sun had risen and it had begun to get a bit warmer. "Is that it, I think that we have found it" the American, Jack said excitedly," Quick, get into formation so we can collect the data and get out of here" the group began unpacking their bags and I was entranced by the array of what looked like alien technology.
"Oi Gwen, sweetheart," Owen said, "Pass me that scraper, I need to get a sample of the rock" "Here you go Owen, and don't call me sweetheart" Gwen said as she threw him the lever. Suddenly there was a cracking noise, and the scraper had wedged itself into the rock and before I knew it an opaque purple gas was oozing out of the rock and taking the form of what looked like and alien. The Asian woman, Toshiko, began reading out what sounded like a whole bunch of chemical compounds. "I've seen one of them before, it's a Xyron, they will latch on to the closest living thing; absorb all of its knowledge and DNA to take out their world" Jack screamed out, "Here quick all grab out a gas mask!" That's the moment the alien latched on to my face , I felt it, I felt it in my mind, going through everything, my dreams and my greatest secrets. "It's latched on to someone! What on earth is he doing here, isn't that the boy from the forest yesterday?" Gwen screamed out. Then there was a gunshot, the alien fell off me, but it was too late and I fell to the ground.
The next thing I knew I woke up, where was I? All I knew was that I was in an place that was clean, very clean I was surrounded by white walls lying in a bed. I was in a hospital. Suddenly a man reached out and grabbed my hand; it was him, the man who had fired the shot. The shot that had saved me, but also ruined my life forever. "Who are you?" I asked "Captain Jack Harkness, leader of Torchwood, I just wanted to make sure that you were okay, here drink this, it will help you with the pain." I took the drink thankfully and downed it in one gulp. "I will make you pay for that alien attack" I replied. "If you remember me, enjoy your drink" and with a swish of his trench coat he was out of my room and not a moment later I had drifted into a deep, dreamless sleep.
That was the last time I had contact with Jack or any other people from Torchwood, it was not as if I had any choice though, that drink, was spiked with something to give me amnesia. I was able to leave the hospital after two weeks in bed; they had put my injuries down to a severe fall. But since the attack I have felt as if there is a part missing from me, a part that is essential I know that I will never get it back, but I am going to make sure that Jack and the rest of Torchwood are going to pay, pay for what I lost, pay for the removal of my memories. Starting from today, I am joining UNIT, The Unified Intelligence Taskforce. My goal? To find and destroy Torchwood.