I worked as a security guard at Area 51.

There’s a level of anxiety that comes with starting a new job that I just hate. Not sure if it’s just the process of learning what to do, the pressure of proving myself to new coworkers, or just the stress of being in a new environment, but it’s been a constant across every job I’ve ever taken. This newest one piled that anxiety on to the max though, and I don’t think I’ll be going back after what happened last night.

To be perfectly clear, if I end up hitting send on this and you’re reading it right now, well… it’s not really up to me if I go back to work or not. They’re probably going to ship me off to some blacksite that’s further off the map than my current position. One week here and I’ve learned all those conspiracy theories Americans have about Area 51 barely begin to scratch the surface, so might as well go for broke and tell the whole story, right?

I’ve been in the Air Force for about five years now, and this was supposed to be my latest post. Something my commanding officers said was a breeze, which I honestly had doubts about considering I’ve been in Germany for the last two years and it was, for lack of a better description, the easiest shit I’ve ever done. They said it would be just as easy, except I would get to be back on home turf in the desert of Nevada. Guard duty isn’t that hard anyway, right? Assuming you’re guarding humans…

My first day started out like any other I’ve had. Get to the base, find the CO there, and get my orders directly from them. They assigned me to this older officer as my trainer, Mills, and he started leading me through the main building towards our post. According to him, all we had to do was keep an eye on the security cams for the entire place and notify higher ups if anything looked out of place.

The base itself was… well, what you expect from a base in the middle of the desert. A few big, nondescript buildings surrounded by fences with a healthy amount of razor wire. I honestly wasn’t expecting much when I got in, but imagine my surprise when Mills told me to hop into a golfcart so we could get to the monitor room. I mean I always figured there was more to Area 51 than what we could see from the outside, but then we drove at least four miles through this huge tunnel on a pretty steep incline. He was talking to me the whole time, asking me if I had found a place to live nearby yet and telling me about staying away from the Vegas Strip on my off days Seemed like we were driving for hours through a long concrete tunnel, my stomach getting more and more uneasy with every passing foot, when we finally stopped in front of a small door built into the side of the tunnel.

“You’re lucky, kid. This has to be the cushiest job in the entire US military. We just watch these screens and give a little check in every other hour. Sometimes they’ll have us do rounds and check doors. Otherwise, I get to sit here and work on my sudoku puzzles for as long as I want while getting top dollar for it!” He said to me when we entered. The room was surprisingly big, with almost the two entire walls filled floor to ceiling with monitors that we were supposed to keep track of. Some showed empty, grey rooms with nothing but abandoned desks, others were static shots of desert sand, another with the exterior of the buildings we entered through… then one in the upper right corner caught my eye.

“What in the world is that?” I asked, pointing to the screen in question. Mills gave a chuckle, pulling up a chair at the small desk and grabbing the nearby mouse. With a few clicks, he enlarged the image for me to see better.

In the middle of a small, all-white room, sat a table. On that table was one small body, and at first I honestly thought it was a child. Maybe the kid of a superior officer having a nap or something while their dad was working, I don’t fucking know. Then when Mills made the picture bigger I noticed the odd proportions of it. A massive head, long arms and legs with a small torso that seemed barely strong enough to hold up the rest of it. The grey, flushed skin was nearly a pale white that looked sickly against the walls of the room

“You’re fucking with me, right?” I asked, looking back at Mills. He smiled, shaking his head and putting the screen back on multi-view.

”Nope. Welcome to orientation day, kid. That there is an original.” He said, taking a seat and pulling out a massive thermos before beginning to pour the contents into a mug. “What did they tell you when you were assigned here?”

”Nothing, pretty much.” I said, mind swirling. There was no way he just confirmed the existence of aliens so… casually. It was like showing me an animal in a zoo exhibit for him. All he was doing was smiling, watching as I tried to reconcile what I was seeing on the screen. Scanning through different views from the cameras, I began to notice even more odd sights. A massive disk in one that had tons of tech set up all around it, a mechanic using an arc welder on one side. Another view showed… something in another room. It looked like a concentrated ball of darkness, the occasional tendril reaching outward towards the door before a light would come on causing it to snap back into place. Then another room, with one lone person sitting in a chair, dressed like your every day civilian with just a shit-eating grin on his face. All of it looked so out of place to the regular human but Mills was smiling at me like it was just another day. “So what is all this?”

”Well, what have you heard about Roswell 1947?” He shot back at me. I shrugged as he continued, “Doppelgängers, dark matter, all kinds of weird shit out there that the regular joe doesn’t get to know about. Come on, want some coffee?”

“So you mean all the little green men cartoons and shit like that… all real? Like not even an exaggeration or change to how they look?” I sat next to him, taking the mug of coffee he offered and sipping slow. It burned a little, but that burn was helping to distract me from the near-existential crisis going on in my head at the moment.

“Best way to hide something is to do it in plain sight.” He retorted. “And they’re not green, as you can see. More of a grey pallor, though they look a lot like a corpse in most lighting. That one there is perfectly healthy though, far as we can tell.”

”How can you tell? It looks dead.”

“Well, we don’t have anything that can pierce its skin, and of course vitals aren’t going to be the same as what we measure for ourselves, but they have picked up brain waves. From as far as sixty feet away, even. That’s why that room has lead walls three feet thick. Damn thing will start talking into your brain if you’re close enough.” He muttered, his face flickering for a moment from being playful to a look of horror.

”Telepathy?” I asked. He only nods.

”Some Professor X shit if I’ve ever seen it. Went through it myself on one of my first guard duties here. They didn’t have the walls thick enough yet and when I passed by on rounds it started screaming in my head.”

I nearly choked on the hot coffee, earning myself a coughing fit in the process. “What did it… what did it say?”

”Begged me to let it go. Then when it realized I couldn’t do that it started begging me to kill it. It hasn’t moved from that table in the almost eighty years its been here so they think it’s paralyzed or something, totally unable to move. Probably happened in the crash. Was like it was reading my mind though because I barely got the thought out and it was screaming curses at me for letting it live. Hell, like I have a choice. Uncle Sam would have me erased from existence if I did that.” He looked around the monitors, “Can’t say I blame it for asking though. Must be a hell of an existence just… stuck there like that.”

I just couldn’t compute what was happening. Somewhere in my brain was a voice going ‘Well, of course aliens exist’ while a whole other section was telling me this makes everything I’ve ever known a total lie. Why the hell did I get chosen for this post? I’m nothing remarkable, I haven’t done anything bad to piss off superiors so why would they put me here and shatter my entire worldview? Did someone really just hate me? Or was I just another faceless rank that they tossed on the job.

”Just don’t let it get to you too bad, alright?” Mills said, genuine concern on his face now. “I know it’s a lot to take in, but trust me, it’s normal after a while. Just don’t think too hard on any of it.”

The rest of the day was spent watching monitors and doing rounds. Between our patrols Mills clued me in on the… guests that were kept around here. The grey was obviously the big deal, but the other things on the screen were a whole other ballgame of weird.

The disk thing was the ship the grey arrived in. Not too big of a surprise there. Mills said they haven’t been able to crack the damn thing since the crash though. There’s no door in, no visible way out, and nothing we have can get through the hull, though the guy with the arc welder gave it his best for about three hours before finally calling it quits.

Dark matter was what he called the… well, the mass of darkness in the lighted room. Said he wasn’t sure where the hell they found it, but anything that went into the dark never came out. There were at least ten high powered UV lamps in that room that acted as a deterrent, and apparently it could assimilate any sort of shadow or darkness, potentially using it to escape.

By far the creepiest one though was the doppelgänger. Mills mentioned to me that it had breached containment once before, able to nearly perfectly imitate any human it wants. About brought the entire damn place down and killed five guards before they got it back into a cell. It just… sat there. Totally rigid, upright, smiling huge with pointed, inhuman teeth that gave away it wasn’t one of us. Damn thing gave me a shiver every time the rotating cameras passed back over it.

I went home that night unable to sleep. I know it seems cliche but finding out we aren’t alone in this universe is fucking terrifying. Like ruin your entire worldview level shit. I was raised Baptist, and even though I didn’t hold to it I started to question if god was even real. And if he was… why the hell would he make anything like what was being kept in Area 51?

That was four days ago. The next two days were uneventful, for the most part. Some dumbass conspiracy theorists were trying to climb one of the fences near the upper base, but here underground in lower base, nobody knew we were there. Mills about drove me out of my mind with small talk. The guy is nice and everything, but when you’re looking at aliens and deadly mimics on security cameras it seems kind of trivial to discuss your favorite food or what was on television the night before.

Last night everything went straight to hell.

I got in for my first solo guard duty. Guess three days of training was expected to be enough time to acclimate myself to the horrors of the universe Uncle Sam was hiding deep below the Nevada desert. Wish I had called out, if we’re being honest.

Around 9:30, not long after the last rays of sunlight had finally faded over the horizon, I went on my first patrol of the night. Through the long tunnel, down to the cells area. A long hallway, each holding cell about thirty feet apart with most of that space filled with solid concrete between rooms. There were other guards on duty, of course. Each cell had two men posted outside, ready in case anything might make a break for it.

From the cells it was back upstairs to upper base and R&D where they were trying to crack the Disk once again, this time with a massive laser setup that looked like it could do some gnarly damage if it was aimed elsewhere. Nothing out of the ordinary, so far.

When I got back to the monitor room it was around 10:30. Going through the cameras nothing was really out of the ordinary. The dark matter had the UV lights all the way up, a normal precaution during the night hours. Why, when we were over a hundred feet below ground, is beyond my pay grade. Not like sunlight is reaching down here to help during the day. The doppelgänger was sitting, staring into the corner. I didn’t stay on the camera for it too long because it made me shiver involuntarily. It was like no matter if it was facing you or not, it could always see you. I swear it was watching me more than I was watching it, and there was no fucking way it could see me.

Eventually I hit the outer cameras. These things were all over the surface, disguised as cactuses, shrubbery, random rocks… whatever could hide a camera had one in it, covering every possible inch of the surface above the real base. It was camera 46 that stood out tonight though.

I don’t know if I would have noticed it if it weren’t a clear night. Every damn star in the sky was visible through the cams, shining bright to show the entire desert. Except right up in the top left side of the camera’s view. There, the stars were blinking and moving ever so slightly, wavering from side to side like something was swinging them around for its own amusement.

As I stared it began to affect more of the stars nearby, nearly engulfing everything in view before finally settling in. As I looked closer, reaching for my radio to call one of the surface guards, something flashed.

Every camera went out, along with the lights. The base shut down completely for a moment, darkness taking over as whatever flashed outside cut off the electricity. Before I could even reach for a flashlight, it was back on though. My face was mirrored on the black screen, a look of fear in my eyes.

I booted everything back up, looking close as it took its sweet time, desperate to bring Cam 46 back up so I could see what the hell was going on. My worried expression stared back at me as alarms began going off across the base.

”Attention, lock down protocols are now active. Please stay at your post and report any strange occurrences. Lock down protocols are now active. Do not, under any circumstances, open cell doors.”

The screen came back on, but it wasn’t on cam 46. Instead, there was my own face, still staring back at me but this time in full HD color, rows of sharp teeth in a huge grin smiling right at me. Nearly fell back out of my chair when I realized the doppelgänger was staring straight into the camera, taunting me. I don’t know how the hell it took my face, whether it could just sense me there through the camera or it just did it randomly, but it freaked me the fuck out.

“Wash! Wash! What the hell are you doing in there?!” The radio started cackling. I could barely hear it through my own racing heartbeat, one of the superior officers on the base calling for me to check in. Meanwhile the doppelgänger was still just staring at me over the screen, daring me to make some kind of move or come after it. My hands shaking, reaching for the radio, I pushed the button down to talk back.

”Yes sir, I’m here.” My voice sounded distant, frail. The smile on the doppelgänger seemed to get bigger as my fear grew.

“Well what the hell happened out there? Did you see anything on the surveillance?” He shot back.

”There was something in the sky, like it was shimmering. Then a flash and everything went out.” I stammered back.

”Son of a bitch, they’re back!” He was shouting now.

”Who? Who’s back?” Good god, you would think if there was some history of attacks on this place they would have clued me in so I could keep an eye out.

“Greys.” He replied. That was when a huge explosion sent a tremor through the building. Switching through the cameras back to the one above ground, I could see that the sky wasn’t empty anymore. There were at least three disks, just like the one being kept down here in R&D, hovering in the sky. One fired off a thin beam of light towards the ground, causing another tremor to rock the base. Lights flickered, but didn’t quite go out this time.

”I need someone with eyes outside to answer me, what the fuck is happening!” Another voice came over the radio.

”Multiple hostile spotted over lower and upper bases. We are under attack!” Someone else answered. Clicking through the screens, even more of the disks were visible over the above-ground base, already firing off shots at the buildings up there and sending them up in flames. It took everything in me not to just sit in the corner and cower, desperate to believe that this was just a bad dream.

“We’ve got worse problems. The dark matter escaped when the power went out. It’s… it’s not good.” He said.

Should I run? I was trying to come up with any kind of plan to get out of here, job be damned. The only way of escape I knew of was through the tunnel back up to upper base though. Even if I managed to escape up there, there’s still the problem of these damned flying saucers that would probably evaporate me on sight. Maybe my best hope was just to stay down here, out of sight, out of mind, and wait for everything to calm down before I escape…

”AAAAHHHHH!” Another voice over the radio, screaming out in pain. “Help! Send reinforcements to upper base, they’re coming in!”

I flipped the cameras over, watching as the disks let out an even larger beam of light. On the ground where they shone, more of the aliens suddenly began to appear. They looked just like the one laying on the table down the hall, but far more dangerous. A soldier moved towards them, raising his gun and firing off a couple of rounds at one of the alien’s massive head. The bullets stopped in front of it like the Matrix, hovering in midair for a moment before falling harmless to the ground below.

The Grey didn’t take that particularly well. Honestly, can’t say I would blame it, getting shot at is never something you just shrug off. But it simply looked at the soldier, barely even moving its head. What I saw next was something that no horror movie or years of watching Liveleak could have prepared me for.

Something picked the shooter up, raising him into the air with invisible hands. He struggled against it, begging it to let him go. Before anyone else could step up to help though, he began folding in on himself. I couldn’t hear the bones cracking over the cameras, thank God, but I could vaguely hear his screams of pain as they were caught by the small microphone. He kept folding, smaller and smaller until he was barely the size of a baseball, compressed into an orb of flesh and pulverized bone, dripping blood as it hovered there over the ground.

“Oh my god.” I muttered as the Grey simply moved its head slightly, sending the flesh ball flying through the stomach of another soldier that was approaching. It punched straight through the poor guy, making a huge hole as it blew chunks of intestines and bone through his back.

The Grey continued on, unimpeded as it simply crushed anyone that got in its way. I could only watch in terror as it walked calmly through a dozen men, taking them all out without even lifting a finger. More began to beam down to the surface, following it toward its goal and joining the march.

“Fall back! Air support is inbound!” The radio cackled to life once more. On one of the big monitors I could see a jet take off from one of the nearby runways, already beginning to veer back around so it could fire a shot at the disks floating nearby. Two choppers took off around the same time, taking their own positions close by. Before I knew it, the plane and choppers all fired off their shots, aiming for the cluster of disks.

A bright flash of light came from the disk closest to the ground, causing munitions to explode in midair before they could even touch the alien vessels. A small laser erupted from it next, quickly spinning around the edge of the disk. As it passed through the choppers and plane in a clean arc, they split, flames engulfing them from the subsequent explosion.

It was pure hell outside. Nothing we had could possibly stand up to these things. There was no other choice but to run.

Except I couldn’t. The Greys would be coming through the tunnel and that was my only way out. The other way was the cells and after hearing about the darkness escaping… I don’t think it was worth the risk.

All I could do was wait. There’s no point risking a direct run in unless I wanted to die horribly. No, it was time to hunker down and wait for the storm to pass.

I got up, closed the door, locked it, and tried to move what spare furniture I had in front to block it off further. If anything got in here, I only had my handgun on me and god knows that’s like hunting a bear with a water gun. Nope, got to play this smart and avoid any kind of confrontation.

If only it was that easy. I kept my eyes on the monitors after that, tracing movements of the Greys while keeping an eye on the lower cells. They were… well, the dark matter obviously wasn’t in its cell anymore. The lights were on, but they were simply illuminating the bright white room now. Where the darkness managed to go, I’m not really sure. There were a dozen guards stationed at each end of the cell block though, each shining a UV light around, trying to illuminate any shadowy corners where it could have been hiding.

Another explosion made the ground under my feet tremble. The Greys had broken through the tunnel now and begun a slow but deliberate descent towards the lower base. They would probably pass me in around ten minutes, meaning I just needed to keep holding out. The other monitor showed that my time here was coming to an end though.

The lights flickered when that explosion came through, plunging the cell block hallway into total darkness for just a fraction of a second. That was all the dark matter needed though. It must have used that brief time to flank around the soldiers at one end of the hall, and as they were still flinging their lights around desperately, shadows suddenly began to swallow them one by one. It was like… well, it was almost cartoonish. They were just falling right into these massive pits of darkness that would appear in the wall or floor. Like a damned cartoon gag, but when they got sucked in it looked painful, like they were entering a black hole and being torn into shreds as it pulled them in.

“Hey man, let me in!” Someone began knocking at my door. They sounded terrified. Can’t say I blamed them. “Come on, they’re coming! Don’t let them get me, please!”

”Hold on, I’ve got to move the furniture!” I shouted back through, starting to move the chairs.

“Please, Wash, hurry! They’re gonna kill me if they see me!” He shouted back through as I was starting to unlock the door. I froze instead, hand just about to turn the deadbolt and let him through. Slowly, I turned back to the monitors, afraid that I was right about what I was about to see.

The only other person on base I had spoken to and given my name were the commanding officer on upper base and Mills. Neither of them were here tonight. Sure enough, as I faced the monitor, I saw the room that the doppelgänger was being held in- empty.

”Waaaaaash! Let me in!” The voice shouted again. Something was off about it. Like it was more than one voice saying the same thing, but talking out of turn so they didn’t quite harmonize. “Letmeinletmeinletmein!”

All I could do was pile the chairs in front of the door again, desperately hoping it would go away. I don’t know how it knew my name, but when it spoke my blood ran cold. There was pure malice in its voice, and all I could feel was that it was going to hurt me. I got this distinct feeling that it didn’t want to kill me though, only inflict as much pain as it could.

My blood ran cold as I made my way back behind my desk, climbing under it and holding hands over my ears as it just kept screaming at me. The voice kept changing, turning into other people as it first begged me to let it in, then turned more violent, demanding that I open the door for it to get through. Before long it must have gotten bored though, because it stopped knocking on the door and shouting. I waited a few minutes, afraid if I came out of my hiding spot it would just be waiting there on the other side of the desk, that huge grin full of teeth ready to devour me within seconds as soon as it saw me.

I took a deep breath, crawling out little by little as the monitors above me blared with chaos. Everything on upper base was a disaster, fire all over the place. Even if I can get through the tunnel and get back there, making it through the flames was going to be a whole other challenge. God, I didn’t even know if my car was crushed out there considering all the carnage. A walk through the desert in the middle of the night was almost as dangerous as the aliens attacking from every direction.

The lights flickered again as another explosion rocked the base. Looking at the monitors, I could see the Greys approaching my section of the tunnel. All I could do was keep quiet, hoping that they didn’t try to look in here as they continued along their war path.

Too much to ask, especially for my luck. The first Grey that was leading the pack stopped in front of my door. It raised a hand and I heard the metal begin to bend and creak. Diving back under the desk, I pulled myself in as much as I could, desperate to avoid being seen as it ripped the door from the hinges without even touching it.

Pretty sure I involuntarily squealed a little when the door hit the wall, falling to the floor with an even louder bang as the Grey stepped into the room. I saw its feet as it walked around for a moment, inspecting its surroundings for whatever it was looking for. It stopped in front of the monitors, staying there for the longest minute of my life as it studied them before walking back out, leading the rest of the Greys forward.

At that point I could only assume they were after the one that was laying in a cell down the hall. Guess aliens have the same code of “no man left behind” that we do. Who says we have nothing in common, right? Too bad they were slaughtering us to make sure it happened.

I have to get out of here. There’s no excuses now, I was exposed to the dangers outside without a door on the hinges. I had to move. Fast.

Looking at the monitors, the Greys were far enough ahead in the tunnel that I could slip out without them noticing. I poked my head out, making sure there were no stragglers that could fold me like origami with their mind, and started my escape. Running as fast as I could towards upper base, I was quickly out of breath. The incline in here was killer, and god knows it’s at least a couple of miles directly up. Nevertheless, I’ve got to keep trying.

I managed to get maybe halfway there before I came across a body. It was slumped next to a wall, head down and blood all over the front of its uniform. As I got closer, trying to give it a wide berth, it began to cough. I paused, unsure of what my next move should be.

If it’s another soldier the obvious answer is that I should help, right? But then there was the other chance nagging at the back of my mind. I’ve had this… pit in my stomach since the run-in with the doppelgänger. This guy could just be that damned thing trying to lure in prey. If it is… well, then trying to help him is a death sentence.

”H-help.” A weak voice came through the coughing. Ah, hell. I can’t leave them in good conscience to die on the slight chance they could be that damned monster. I know it goes against self-preservation, but I can’t just leave him here.

“Hey man, what the hell got you?” I said, moving toward him slowly. His head tilted a little, looking for where my voice was coming from. As he looked up, I could see that although he was pretty messed up, he was definitely human. His throat was slashed pretty bad though, and judging by the amount of blood everywhere, he wasn’t making it out of this tunnel.

“Damned thing… disguised itself as one of us.” He gurgled out. The doppelgänger then. It had been through here already. Shit, was I going to have to face it when I get to upper base? Before I could think further, he kept talking. “He… he tore out their throats with his damned teeth. Ate them while they were still screaming. I tried stabbing him but he slashed me… oh, I don’t think I’m going to make it. It’s cold…”

“Hey, hey, stay with me, okay? I’m going to get help and come back here for you, alright?” I said.

”Is that death?” He asked, pointing towards the tunnel going to lower base. I looked forward, squinting as the light seemed to dim. It was definitely getting darker…

”Oh shit.” Was all I could get out before a long shadow appeared in the middle of the room, steadily getting closer as it made its way out. God knows what this thing can do once it hits outside, but I wasn’t about to stay around here and figure it out. I grabbed the soldier, hoisting him over my shoulder and starting to move as fast as we could.

This guy was dead weight, almost cold to the touch too, not able to contribute at all to escaping certain death. We got a few feet before I tripped over one of his legs while trying to haul his limp body, dropping him as I fell to the ground.

The shadow caught up, taking hold of one of his feet first then slowly drawing the rest of him in, whatever blood he had left in there slowly seeping out as it crumpled his body into shadow.

Look, it might seem like I got over it quick, but I promise once the dark had him there was no saving him. Instead I ran my ass off, heading towards upper base as fast as I could in the hopes that I could outrun that primordial dark that was still devouring a man behind me. After a minute, I could tell I was getting close. Smoke began to fill the tunnel, causing me to nearly choke as I ran, gasping for breath desperately.

Emerging from the tunnel almost made me want to go back in and chance it with the darkness. The disks filled the sky above and everything was on fire. I had to move carefully, afraid that they were going to vaporize me in seconds if they caught sight of me. My best bet was to go around the main building and find my way to the parking lot. If my car wasn’t totaled, then I could maybe wait out the disks until they leave then get the hell out of dodge. It was a pretty far-fetched plan, but it was all I had at the time.

Slowly, sticking to whatever shadows I could with the fear that they might devour me any second, I made my way from the tunnel entrance to the R&D building. Logically, the parking lot was on the other side of it, so I could just go straight through the building and out the other side, minimizing my risk of being seen by the disks or the Greys as they made their return trip.

Inside of R&D was rough. There were various aircraft in differing stages of construction, with pieces and parts all over the place. Different testing arrays lit up on one side of the massive hanger, while down at the far end, there was something making a continuous beeping noise. Further on to my left I could see one of the disks, the one that we had in our inventory from the old crash. The big laser cutter was still sitting nearby, lights blinking on a control panel to show it had been abandoned mid use.

A loud crash made me jump. Just up ahead, in shadows between the fluorescent bulbs, was a soldier. He had pushed something over, seemingly on the hunt for something in the huge hangar.

I tried to hide from it, trying to quietly duck towards one of the walls and out of the fluorescent lights where it could see me. Unfortunately for me, this place was a mess, and I tripped over a rolling tool box that was in the path, causing it to crash to the ground.

Not sure what I expected to happen, but the creature let out a roar when it heard the noise, now aware that it wasn’t alone in here. The roar was quickly stifled though, instead being replaced by a discordant voice that phased in and out of normal range, moving from male to female, adult to child as it tried to modulate. As it’s turned, I kept going to try and hide, even though it felt futile.

“Come here.” It shouted, moving towards where I was ducked down behind a workbench. “Son of a bitch, get OVER HERE!”

As it got closer I could feel the sense of dread in my stomach growing. I couldn’t make out the face, covered in shadows, but where its eyes were seemed to be shining. Reflecting little bits of light like a predators will in the dark, looking for its next meal. I don’t know if it could see in the dark, but I could swear it was homing in on my with ease.

“Wash, it’s you!” The doppelgänger shouted now. Shit, it must have seen me. I had to make a run, hell with giving my position away. If I was faster, I could make it to the far door and get the hell out of here before it had a chance to catch up. “Come here!”

It moved fast. Faster than I had ever seen any human move in my life, seemingly going down on all fours to run at me faster. As it closed in, I fell back, crashing to the ground beside the disk as it gained ground on me. Looking around, I grabbed my gun from its holster, leveling it at the doppelgänger and firing. My aim was good, and the bullet hit it right in the face, making its head blast back for a moment.

”Now why would you do that?” It said again. The voice was more discordant this time, hundreds of different inflections and tones all fighting for supremacy under the tide of noise. The prevailing feeling I got from it now wasn’t just malice, it was anger. I had pissed it off, and now it really wanted to hurt me, even more so than before.

I scrambled, firing off more shots into the monster. They each hit, but did nothing when it came to slowing it down. The bullets were useless, and as I looked around, my only options were crowbars, various mechanic tools, and… the laser.

I have no idea how to use this damned thing, so I just had to hope that when it was left here, they had already primed it so it was ready to go. The doppelgänger lurched frontward, screaming at me in an ancient language I couldn’t understand. I turned the dial on the console, all the way towards the top to max it out, and hit the green button that was lit up next to it.

The light that came out of that thing was practically blinding. I closed my eyes, turning my head as it flashed. I could hear the damned creature screaming even louder now, and smelled something burning as the laser hit it. After a moment, the light died down, and I finally opened my eyes.

The doppelgänger lay on the ground, half its face melted and the entire torso on fire. It was twitching on the ground, still cursing me in an ancient language, but unable to keep moving.

I’ll be honest, I wasn’t going to wait to see what happened to it. I ran, heading towards the back door and bursting through it. On the other side of the road, there was the parking lot. My car was parked in the back corner, and from the looks of it, still intact.

I kept to the back wall, desperate to avoid being seen, and continued slowly moving across the road towards my car. After a moment, I finally made it, pulling out keys and unlocking the door manually so the lights didn’t alert anything to my presence.

Before I could get in, I looked across at the burning base and tunnel entrance to see the Greys emerge. The one that had been prisoner was floating alongside the others, levitating out of the tunnel with whatever powers they had used to tear dozens of soldiers apart. As they emerged, the disks began to shine their lights down, beaming them up into the ships one by one.

Just to be safe, I ducked down in my seat and waited to see if they would leave. After the last Grey was picked up, the disks fired off a few more lasers before rising further into the sky, suddenly blinking out and disappearing completely. As they left, a laser suddenly hit the R&D building, causing it to explode and hit me with a blast of heat.

That was the last thing I needed to tell me that this wasn’t the place to be. Turning the key, I threw it into drive and hit the gas, nearly smashing into another car when it lurched forward. I steered around it, hitting the road and flooring the pedal towards the entrance. The guard arm was down, but I smashed straight through it, unwilling to wait for it to raise. Not like there was still la guard at the gate to raise it anyway.

The flames were in my rear view for almost twenty minutes, burning into the night sky as I drove as far away as I fucking could. I came home, surprised a cop didn’t pull me over for speeding. At some point a bunch of fire trucks passed me, heading towards the base to deal with the chaos I had left behind.

About six hours ago I walked in the door of my apartment and haven’t looked back. Typing this up just seems silly now, considering all that I’ve gone through in the past twelve hours. I’ve been looking out my window every five minutes, waiting to see black vans roll up ready to cart me off to some black site where I’ll never be heard from again.

I don’t think I’ll be lucky enough to have some aliens come break me out if they do take me, but goddamn it, they’re real. They’re out there. We are not alone. If this country is smart, they won’t try picking any more fights with them.