The day of the event began like any other normal day...

            Well, not totally normal. Top of a mountain with a bunch of strangers and looming doom aren't normal, but either way, that's how the day began.

            I woke up, if you can call it that since the extreme cold and my constant clattering teeth kept me from doing much sleeping, and rolled over, knocking into Tommy.

            "Rowan, honestly..." He started to say but I narrowed my heavy eyes at him, daring him to try to make a joke about me trying to cuddle with him. He smiled, big square white teeth and wrinkles in the corners of his green and gold eyes. "Someone is cranky." He laughed.

            "Oh?" I asked. "How can you tell?"

            I sat up and released myself from my sleeping bag. Tommy looked up at me and grinned. "That's true, you're always cranky." He said. He reached up to adjust his toboggan that had fallen low on his forehead while he slept. When he tried to pull it up he winced in pain. "Dammit, not again." He muttered then looked at me, poking his bottom lip out. "Help me?" He pleaded.

            I rolled my eyes. "This wouldn't keep happening to you if you didn't insist on having metal in your face." I told him, leaning down over him while I pulled the thread that was wrapped around the ring of his eyebrow piercing.

            He smiled, then winced again when I pulled a little too hard. "Ok, that's fair, but the chicks dig it."

            This was why Thomas Blackman and I are best friends. The guy could always make me laugh. "Oh, the chicks dig it?" I asked around a smile.

            He sat up when I freed him. "Oh, yeah, totally." He smiled. "They line up around the block to get next to me with this thing." He said pointing to the little silver ring.

            "Oh, of course." I smiled along with him. "I bet they especially love the story about the day you got that stupid thing." I grinned and he narrowed his eyes. "Nothing sexier than a guy who passes out after getting a teeny tiny little piercing."

            "Hey," He said, holding up one of his gloved hands. "I have told you a thousand times, I hadn't eaten that day, that was all."

            "Oh, right, of course." I laughed.

            "Do you two ever shut up?" Will asked as he flipped over in his sleeping bag, knocking into Jeremy and making him groan.

            "Do you ever be still?" Jeremy fired back.

            Jeremy and Will claim to be best friends, but I've never seen two men fight as much as they do. It is ridiculous. The close confines of our little tent with four people packed inside was not the best environment for the two of them either. The entire trip up here their bickering had been the constant sound track. 

            Tommy and I rolled our eyes at each other, then the tent shook, the shadow of two big hands appearing at the top. "Wake up, everyone!" One of our guides said loudly to the camp. "We move out in twenty minutes."

            We bundled up, packed our things, had a power bar and some water, then we started on our journey back down from the top of the world.

            Going down had its own set of issues. Going up the mountain had definitely required much more energy, but going down was harder. The downward slant meant that I fell...a lot. I was sure that a few weeks from now when I am back in the warmth and comfort of my house, that my butt cheeks are still going to be frost bitten from how many times I have lost my footing and ended up sliding a few feet down on my ass.

            "Come on, Row!" Jeremy called when I went sliding again. "That other group has old people and they are doing better than you!" He laughed.

            Brent, one of our guides, slid down to me, offering his hand to help me back to my feet. "He's not wrong, you know?" He laughed. "Aren't you the youngest one here?"

            I took his hand, only because I was wedged into a crater of snow too thick for me to get up on my own, and sneered at him. He stayed with me while we waited on the rest of the group to catch up. "Let's take a break!" Donny, the tall guide with zero body mass called down to us.

            We'd been going strong for a few hours, and my feet were welcoming of a break, but it would all depend on Brent and Brock. Of our four guides, the two of them were the hard asses, so what they say goes.

            I grinned up at Brent, hoping that he'd say ok, and praise Jesus, he nodded to Donny.

            As the rest of the group caught up and we all sat down, having some water, I couldn't help but to marvel at what an odd group we were. In my group, there was me, Jeremy, Tommy, and Tommy's brother, Will. Then in the group of five there was an older couple, easily in their sixties, maybe even seventies, with their adopted son, his wife, and their daughter, who was somewhere near my age, but I wasn't sure exactly. Then there was the group of three, a younger couple who were a little quirky, but very friendly, and a random guy who had tagged along with them.

            Everyone pretty much stuck to their own group. We only ever talked when it was the brief moments like this one where we were all sitting together, face to face.

            Brock stood up, and everyone groaned, assuming that he was already cutting our break short, but he shook his head. "Damn, people." He huffed. "I'm just going to take a leak."

            I laughed as he walked away and Jeremy nudged me in the side. "Nice to see you smile every now and then." He said. "And you thought you weren't going to enjoy this."

I grinned at my older brother. We've always been pretty close, but I had feared when he moved out for college that we wouldn't be the same anymore, but I had worried for nothing. Jeremy came home every weekend and he never made me feel discarded from his life.

Jeremy was smart, funny, kind, and an all-around good guy. Every time I looked at him though I couldn't help but to hate him just a tiny little bit. I love my brother with all my heart, but dammit if he didn't get all of the good genes. Jeremy got moms blue sparkly eyes, soft tan skin, thick brown hair with golden highlights,  and the brilliant smile that has been getting him out of trouble since the day he learned how to use it. It wasn't fair. I, on the other hand, am just like dad. Long face, thin nose, and a bottom lip that was too thick to match the top thin one. My face is the constant reminder of the man who left us, and probably the reason mom has an issue with hiding her favoritism of Jeremy over me.

The only thing I got from my mother was her sass and her high cheekbones. She likes to compliment me all the time about how perfectly shaped my face is, but really? Who gives a damn about that? It isn't like a guy is going to come up to me and be like, 'damn girl, those are some nice cheek bones you've got there, can I take you out some time'? My pale skin, dark freckles, and eyes so brown that they're almost black don't do me any favors. The only guy to ever pay me any attention has been Tommy, and despite the fact that he is honestly pretty good looking, I could never think of him as more than a best friend.

As if he was reading my mind, Tommy threw his arm around my shoulders and squeezed. "We are both glad we came, aren't we, Row?" He smiled, pulling me out of lala land and back to reality.

I laughed at myself and nodded to Jeremy and Tommy. "Yeah, it's been...fun isn't the right word, but I guess it'll do."

Will leaned around Jeremy to say something, but he looked passed me and clapped his jaw shut. I turned to see Brock running back towards the group, a walkie-talkie held up to his mouth and his eyes wild. "Repeat that again, command?" He said urgently and it was like the earth went silent while we waited for the reply.

Two cracklings, then horrifying words. "They're shooting down planes." A frantic voice boomed. "Everywhere, there are reports coming from everywhere." More crackling. "Anything in the air is being shot down."

I turned to Jeremy. "They?" I asked, my heart leaping up into my throat.

Jeremy nodded his head. "They."

The quirky guy from group three shook his head. "This just doesn't make any logical sense." He said. "They waited for over nine months just so that they could shoot down our planes at random?"

The girl my age started to breath heavily and tried to take off her heavy parka. "I can't breathe." She gasped, but her father steadied her hands.

"You cannot take off this coat, Kaylin." He said softly. "You'll freeze." He nodded. "Just look in my eyes and focus on breathing." She took a few deep breaths while her mother patted her back and whispered things to her that I couldn't hear.

Everyone in the group looked frazzled. "What do we do?" The old man asked.

"We cannot stay on the top of a mountain if the ships are shooting down planes!" The quirky guy's wife, I think her name is Dani, shrieked. "We have to go, now!" She said standing quickly, tossing her pack onto her back.

The guides were whispering to themselves and then they nodded together. "She's right." Brock announced. "We need to get the hell off of this mountain and get to lower ground." He told us. "Who knows what their next mode of attack will be, so we need to get to lower ground as quickly as possible."

Will stood up. "Then let's go!" He shouted and started to head down the trail.

"That's the thing." Donny called to him. "We need to take the faster route." He explained. "It is more dangerous, but it is faster."

I didn't like the sound of that, but I stood up, adjusting my bags on my back and followed behind our guides carefully.

"Now there are going to be some steep spots, and places where we will have to be very sure of our footing or we risk falling into covered crevasses, or accidentally causing an avalanche." His words struck more fear into my already over accelerated heart. "We want to make it to the bottom of this mountain, quickly, but alive, alright? So everyone just do exactly as we tell you."

The guides weren't kidding when they said that this was a much more dangerous route. The incline was insane, and every few steps the guides would hold up a fist, letting us know that there was a patch of ice, or a crevasse in the way.

After another hour, the sun was beginning to get lower in the sky around us, and the cold was getting worse. We usually would have stopped and made camp by now, but the command center at the bottom of the mountain had stopped responding to us and that was putting everyone even more on edge.

"What do you think is going on down there?" Tommy asked breathlessly, shifting the weight of his bags a little.

I shook my head, strands of my flat brown hair sticking to my forehead. "I have no clue, Tommy." I huffed. "I just want the hell down from here." I told him, almost slipping when I tried to fix my heavy bag on my back too.

"Give me that." Tommy said as he shook his head and reached for my bag. "You'll have better footing without an extra fifty pounds on your back."

I shook my head stubbornly. "No, then you'll have one hundred extra pounds on your back." I pointed out, but while I tried to walk and talk at the same time, I stepped into a small hole and nearly twisted my ankle.

Tommy helped me back up and narrowed his eyes. "Give me that bag."

I shrugged out of it and helped him get it positioned onto his back. "Are you sure you can handle that?" I asked.

He smiled smugly. "Piece of cake."

He had been right. Without the extra weight, I did manage to stay up on my feet more than down on my butt.

Around dusk we all stopped when there was an ear piercing humming sound and a flash of light. Screams erupted around me when in the distance you could see a ray of violet light shooting out from the ship, beaming down to the earth below.

"What's happening?" Someone behind me screamed.

"They're finally doing it! They're attacking!" Someone else yelled.

Jeremy grabbed me by the arm and began pulling me down the mountain in an almost run until we saw it.

Coming up towards us was a dome like thing. I'm still not even sure how to describe it other than a white light dome that came up from below, probably starting from the ground and moving up higher and higher as the beam of light from the ship shot down into it.

"Run!" Brent screamed, pointing back up the mountain, and we all turned back into the direction that we had come from.

I didn't want to look back. I didn't want to see how close the dome was getting to us, because I feared if I stopped for even a second that I would be ended. What a hell of a way to go though. On my tombstone, if we were to even get them anymore, it could say 'fried by alien thingy'. I shook my head at myself as I ran. Now was not the time for my morbid sense of humor. But if not now, on the brink of death by alien, then when is the time?

SHUT UP! I thought to myself as I kept pushing through, my calves screaming and burning at the steep incline of the mountain.

"It's slowing down!" Donny yelled from behind me and I risked turning my head for just a second to see that he was right. If we kept moving at this pace, we should be ok. I laughed to myself despite the dire situation. As if we would ever be 'ok'. It's not like we can keep running when we reach the summit of this damn mountain. Damn you, Jeremy, and your stupid ideas!

The shiny dome continued to nip at our heels, slowly creeping up behind us as we dashed forward. Suddenly, the ground shook, making me lose my footing in the snow and I fell face first into the snow, Tommy and his extra hundred pounds on his back crashing down on top of me too, crushing the air from my lungs.

We looked to our left and saw that a huge crater like crevasse had opened up that stretched out behind us, leaving the old man on the other side and enable to pass. His wife and son were sprawled out in the snow on this side of the crevasse screaming to him. "Go!" He shouted to them. "It's coming, just keep going! I love you!" He yelled to them, looking behind him with a grim look in his eyes as the dome inched up closer and closer to him. The man's daughter-in-law helped up her husband and his mother and pulled them towards us.

I looked up ahead of us and saw the guide who had taken the lead, Kevin, fall and start sliding with enormous speed down towards. "Look out!" I screamed, and Tommy just barely flipped the two of us over and out of his way before he went skidding by, taking out the woman who had just helped her husband up.

The girl, Kaylin, screamed a blood curdling scream as her mother was knocked off of her feet and sent flying with Kevin down the mountain and towards the crevasse. Brock was closer to the crevasse and he jumped, trying to stop the woman, but she fell over into the blackness before he could reach the edge.

"Mom!" Kaylin screamed, trying to push that direction, but her father grabbed her shoulders.

"She's gone, Kaylin!" He yelled with his own teary face. "We have to go!" He said pushing her.

Brock reached out for Kevin as he came sliding down, and he caught him by one strap of his pack. The pack I knew held all of our extra food. Kevin's body slid over the edge, and Brock buckled, his head thrown back in the effort to pull Kevin back up, but his weight was too much and Brock was beginning to slide forward in the snow.

Fast as lightening, Brock whipped a knife out from his belt loop and ripped it through Kevin's pack straps. I gasped as Brock pushed himself to his feet, holding onto the pack with the food, but Kevin nowhere to be seen.

Jeremy and Will were a few feet ahead of Tommy and me, screaming for us to get up. I rolled back to my stomach and got to my feet, making sure Tommy was right behind me, and we started running again.

"Go! Go!" Brock and Brent were yelling to us.

What was left of the group formed a line going long ways up the steep incline, that way if one of us fell again, that person wouldn't take out anyone else with them.

The dome behind us was going slower and slower. It was more than a few yards behind us still and we were putting more and more distance between it and us. We were getting close to the spot where we had split off of the main path to take this highly stupidly dangerous one when Donny on the far end of the line screamed, buckling down to his feet, and he fell back, sliding down the hill. Brock started to turn and go for him but Brent grabbed his shoulder. "Nothing we can do." He said and they both pushed on.

When we had run as far as we could possibly run anymore, really until the point that it wasn't even running anymore, we were more so panting and taking long strides with a rush, but not actually moving fast anymore, we finally stopped.

Looking down we could see that the dome, too, had decided to stop. It was stationary about a football field's length away from us.

We all collapsed back into the snow, just like that, our group of sixteen, was now a group of eleven. Four people who I had just had breakfast with this morning were now dead. I scooted over closer to Jeremy as group two's wailing from their losses filled my ears. To my right, Tommy was looking up at the stars, a mix of sadness and awe in his expression, and further down from him were our only two remaining guides. Brock and Brent were looking down at the snow in front of them silently, neither of them even seeming to move as they breathed.

We all jumped when the violet light coming from the ship disappeared, making the night seem even more eternally dark that it had before, then it was replaced by a yellow beam that shot down to the top of the dome, seeming to go right through it to the ground that we couldn't see.

We all got to our feet, expecting to run again, but the quirky man stood and walked down a little his eyes wide as we all watched the dome begin to fill out with a strange yellowish vapor that swirled within the dome like smoke.

"I don't believe this." The man said lowly.

"What are you doing?" Brock called to him when he took another step lower.

The man's wife stood up and her jaw dropped as she watched the substance spin around within the dome, bouncing off of it and swirling back into itself. "The better question is what are they doing." She whispered. "It looks like..."

"What?" Will demanded.

The man turned back to look at the group and his wife. "They are." He nodded to her. "They are exterminating us." He explained to the group.

"What are you talking about?" Kaylin's father asked.

The man pointed to the dome. "It's like when you tent your new house and fumigate before moving in." He mumbled. "They are exterminating us." He said again. "Our worst fear is true, they are here to kill us." He nodded. "Every. Last. One."