Seven Times Over and One
My name is Liz Parker and five days ago I died; after that things got really wired.
~Roswell, Pilot Episode
It's been seven long years since it all began, or ended, I'm not sure which. Jada was eight we found her, and Rath was seven going on eight. The seven of us were driving in Wyoming, along a back road, when our lives changed. Max was driving, I was in the passenger seat, Michael and Maria were sleeping in the middle drooling all over each other. Isabel and Kyle were playing there never ending game of war, Isabel wining as usual, and on Kyle's lap sleeping hard was Rath our son.
Rath had never spent more than a few months anywhere, that was the problem with running from a secret government agency. The hard life of a nomad. The life where you never really slept for fear the enemy might kill you, as you dreamed of a home you would never again see. The life where your kid learned to fear the shadows and be ready to run in an instant, before he knew how to read. A life of fear.
Our life had never been easy even at home in Roswell, I learned to evade the government by the time I was 16, I saw my death so many times I no longer fear it, I was Liz Parker. I was the girl who didn't duck and cover when the gun went off, who watched Max Evans heal her fatal wound, and found out that aliens really do exist. I was the one who told my friends Alex and Maria and lead them to danger again and again for the sake of three aliens. Max, Michael, and Isabel the only extraterrestrials on earth who loved humans and asked for there help. We all know our lives can end just around the corner just like Alex's but it doesn't matter with the love they give us, were strong, and I'll be dammed if I let the government get us.
So on that not so dark and quiet road, when we met someone as scared as us, we all swore silently to our selves that she would never have to go back to where we had nightmares of going ourselves.
I remember the way it began, it was a cool clear night, in early February, Max and Isabel celebrated there birthday a week before. We were in good spirits that night, but like always that mood didn't last long. The road was twisting and turning with ice and snow thick on both sides, we were peaceful and content for the moment. And then Max hit the breaks in a hurry.
I started out of my half-sleep to a child laying in the middle of the road.
"They[the Nomolies] crawl up from the basement through special tunnels. And when you're not looking...BAM! They break through the wall and drag you away."
~Ben, in Polo Loco
I'm a soldier. I have been a solder all my life. It's a hard life, even when my collar bone is crushed by a hummer, my leg is at a funny angle and all I want to do is give in to the pain and succumb to darkness I still force my self to keep moving. So of course it really sucked to find myself doing a face plant in the middle of the road with a van coming right at me. If only 599- Zack my CO- saw me now, I'd be dong 50 reps every day for the next month.
It's hard being a solder when you don't have enough unbroken bones to defend your self, and a another car nearly rolls over you when you've already been mowed down by hummers. Stupid guards. I could hear them on there radios they were after me and 412, running us down in the road, I stumbled and the hummers didn't even slow as they hit me like a deer running from a pack of wolves. I could hear the sergeant on the radio, 'one X5 down on the road, three clicks from the north perimeter…' the fool never stopped to see if I was alive or not. But then again most normal people wouldn't expect an eight year old to survive three hummers rolling over them. And again I'm not the normal eight year old, I'm X5684 AKA Jada. And me and Block 12 of the X5's were escaping Manticore, the only world we ever knew, a world where an eight year old was expected to kill and hunt and maim. We were solders. And at that moment I never hated Manticore more.
The big van skidded to a stop and doors opened to reveal feet clad in boots and sandals and running shoes and shoes with spikes on the heal. What the hell? Was this what the Nomolies wore? The doors closed to give me the view of people in the oddest garments I had ever seen. Two of women wore skirts like the nurses and watchers, but with flowers on them rather than the stark white I knew the both had the really odd shoes with spikes. The three men had on pants but not the blacks, whites and camouflage I knew. They were light blue and worn away at the knees, and the hems were ragged. But strangest of all was the third girl who did have cameo on, it was orange and purple. Not only stupid colors for hiding, but ugly as hell too.
The people all rushed over to me and be gain exclaiming over me, they were speaking English but I could only under stand a few of the words. But the only words I really knew were the safe now's one of the woman keep repeating and despite every day and night of training I had ever had, I let my self go.
Some solder I am.
To see a world in a grain of sand, is to know the possibilities;
To hold your spit in the palm of your hand is to know the world's realities.
