There was no thought of surviving the day.

We chose the basement because it was cool; the air no longer moist due to the heat outside, yet the stone still supplied the illusion of a cool breeze. It was a shame to be underground, buried before death, but the alternative was to stand in the heat and watch the world burn, the bursts of wavering flame on the horizon, and even worse than that, to watch the interior of a science fiction novel play out above our heads.

Scariest of all, the beams of light that struck the ground where people ran or stood or screamed, and removed them. The white ships had been in the sky since yesterday, breaking the atmosphere with cracks that reminded us all too well of the first ships, the spinning gray ones that shot death into our Earth. They shot the white ships too, bringing three to the ground before the radio died. Some thought they were our saviors, these white, bulbous ships that made people disappear. But they did not return fire on the gray ships, and if the people begging in the streets to be taken away from their burning world had any effect, there was no sign of it. The choosing seemed random.

My mother mixes cookie dough with shaking hands while my father leaves kisses on her head. The neighbor’s children play with toy horses while my sister reads quietly yet passionately to my little brother. I hold my grandmother’s hand and watch her smile at her descendants. Out of all of us, she seems most at peace. Looking at her face, I can almost feel okay. If I were to choose any way to go, basement aside, cookie dough and love seem like a decent option.

Then I am sliced down the middle.

The cold tile feels like a burn on my hot skin. Before I can really understand, I recognize the sudden absence. A feeling of loss akin to the fear of being lost is like a punch to my gut, silencing any scream, any breath. This is more than a physical separation; it is emotional untethering.

I am alone.

I am alive.

People press around me, their bodies radiating heat. We make a beautiful, confusing, clash of cultures, languages, skin tones. There is an Asian woman next to me, and a pale boy on my other side. Not my family.

Hands pull at me, fingers long and foreign. They make my skin crawl, my body recognizing the wrongness before I know why. What I thought was running water crashing on rocks is actually words, a language that vibrates above my head. I catch a glimpse of marbled black skin and pale shapes that remind me of flowers, before I am jerked onto the floor, away from the raised tile I’d landed on.

I try to slap the person behind me when a light prick touches the top of my head, but my hands are too slow. A pop sounds in my ears, and for one dizzying moment, I think I feel my head expand from within. The din of noise, the running water and the clamor of different earth tongues, all become English to my ears. I can hear it all clearly.

One voice stands out.

“Clear the pads!”

Under the glare of a foreign light, I watch one of the tall aliens bend over the pale child and in its long arms, carry it off the raised tile. That one’s marble skin is white, its face long. Like a human that has been stretched.

The moment it moves the tile lights up, and the other tiles that are half-hidden behind huddled humans follows suit. A zap makes the floor vibrate, and three people appear on the tile.

Not my family.

I realize then, each thought and meaning coming like a delayed heartbeat, what I am looking at. The screaming children, their eyes uncomprehending as they look around them. The weeping mother, holding her arms as if a child should be in them. The kindness and urgency in the aliens’ movements.

I have never seen so much diversity in one room. If someone were to take a sample of Earth’s population, it would look like this. We have never looked so alike.

I am alive.

And I know that every horror I had imagined on the white ships is nothing to the truth.

“Clear the pad!”

A woman runs through the room, her hands extended like claws to the alien whose commands are heeded. He stands between clear monitors and three other aliens, their fingers flying across the controls. His eyes widen at the woman’s approach and he takes a stumbling step back, nearly knocking into a monitor. An alien catches the woman around the waist, the female’s long arms straining to hold the woman still before she can reach the leader.

“Bring my son!” the woman screams. “Bring my son!”

The alien holding her whispers something in her ear, the embrace almost comforting. The woman collapses, sobs wracking her body. The alien at the center of the room straightens his back and looks away, eyes expressionless.

“Clear the pads!”

Most eyes follow the woman as she is led from the room, the aliens’ gazes wary, the humans’ blank. I stumble to my feet and make a running start at the leader. Exclamations come from behind me, a warning. Consternation crosses the male alien’s face, his annoyance covering fear and I think exhaustion. I stop before reaching him, my hands going up. I’m swaying, and dammit, I think I might be about to throw up.

“You don’t want me,” I say. “Take me back. Pick someone else. You’re saving us at random, right? Send me back, take someone else.” I hold his gaze, his eyes narrow and slow to blink. Alien, but not unpleasant. “Please.”

He blinks, and something about it makes me think he doesn’t want to open them ever again. “That is impossible,” he says.

“You don’t want me—“

The room jolts and I fall to my knees. The alien catches himself on a monitor. One of his people bites out, “We lost the Exis. Captain is aborting.”

“Tell her to wait we don’t have enough—“

“It’s too late.”

A grip on my arm restrains me. “Send me back! Before it’s too late.”

He doesn’t look at me. “We grab as many as we can as we move. Make room!”

Someone pulls me away, lifting my feet from the floor. I’m screaming, but I don’t know exactly what. Threats, pleas. I can feel his eyes on the back of my head, and know exactly when he has looked away. When he has dismissed me.

I’m released in a hallway, pressed between one human and another. Children cry. Men and women cry. My heart aches in my chest. And I know, as my knees hit the floor and the loss settles over me, that there is no one left who knows my name. My family is dead. My world is gone.

 ***

I huddle with my fellow humans in a room large enough to hold an airplane, maybe two. A man’s quick eyes flash over the room, and he says that he thinks there are close to a thousand people here. I drag my eyes over the room. All I can think is that a thousand doesn’t look like much.