The Girl Who Saw
I see things. I always have done. Things that make me question what the human race really knows about life beyond earth. Things that I didn't understand. Things that I don't know are real or not. Things that have threatened earth a dozen times, but never invaded, or at least, never succeeded. Things that know not to come near this planet. These things know that they cannot ever take over the human race because of me. Because I am the only one who sees them. Because I am The Girl Who Saw.
It started when I was small. I saw these things in the corners of shops and cafes. These weren't the dangerous ones. But they still scared me. So I drew them. That's what I do, I draw. I draw everything. To relieve my mind of things. It's like I draw my stress and anxiety onto the paper. My mother thought I was crazy. I was. I still am. Mad as a hatter. She took me to about seven different doctors, and I simply kept insisting what I saw was real. It got to the breaking point for my mother when I first visited the seventh doctor.
I was called to come into his office, and the moment I looked up at his face, I screamed and screamed. My mother and a nurse ran in, pulling me out kicking and crying. I was only eight, but I remember that day incredibly well. He looked like someone had burnt his face and smacked it with a hammer. It was red and black, and boil-like things all over him. But of course, no else saw it. Only I did, and I never found out what he was.
I was taken to a children's home the next month. And the month after that I was told by a carer that my mother had hung herself. So, with no mother or any other family, I was to stay in the home. It had only been temporary at first, but now it was permanent.
But, one night when I was nine, I woke up in the night. I was used to waking up at the smallest things, so I slipped on my slippers and padded to a light behind an open door. What I saw shocked me. It was the newest carer, she only joined last week. She was tearing a hole in her forehead, but it looked more like a zip. The bright blue light streaming out of the hole nearly blinded me, and I tried not to gag. The large woman pulled off her skin like it was a suit, to reveal a much taller, green slimy thing that can only be described as an alien. Nostalgic, isn't it? My first proper evil alien…
I held my hand over my mouth in horror and ran to my bed. I dived underneath and felt for the secret pocket in my suitcase. Inside it was a small pistol. I know, horror, a child owning a gun. I had stolen it off of my mother while she was drunk and passed out, when I was most terrified of the things, although I had never used it. It was my fathers, and she liked to forget about him, so she never knew it had gone. I crept back to the room with the alien.
That was the first time I dealt with something evil on this planet. I later learned that the species I saw and killed that night were called the Slitheen, from the planet Raxacoricovarlonpatorius, when I captured and interrogated one when I was sixteen. That was the first time I felt slightly guilty when killing an alien, only because me and the Slitheen bonded in the ten minutes it took for me to memorise his planets name.
So, I carried on like that. Killing the aliens, protecting the humans. I was the only one who saw anything, it was like something clouded the other human's eyes. Vanity, probably. Even when there was an attempted invasion, it was like everyone just forgot. I became a hunter and a protector. A liar. A thief. But in a good way. I'd never say I am a murderer. Although I have no problem killing things, so people pretty much do what I want.
I ran away from the home when I was twelve, and made my own way in the world. People said I wasted my life, because I live in a small, gritty flat (illegally, I found the previous owner dead, kept his name on the lease, and money from his account still goes towards the rent) and spend money on alcohol and cigarettes. Which I do, but my life isn't wasted. People think I steal money and food, but I let them think what they like. There are good aliens on this planet, good aliens who pay me good money to kill off bad aliens, which I suppose makes me a hitman. Or hitwoman, actually. I brought myself up to fight, to hunt. When aliens flee the planet terrified because I killed their leader violently on a livestream to them, they tell other aliens. All the races up there now know not to mess with earth, or I'll tear them down.
But my life changed forever one day. Because that day I found out I'm not the only one who could see these things. And I am not the only protector of the human race. The day I came home to find a small blue box on my street corner, and unearthed a whole new way of living.
