East Los Angeles, 2 weeks later.

“Run run! D.O just leave it already, they are coming.” Soonkyu shouted at a young boy who was trying to grab some gas from a used-to-be-the-biggest restaurant in the town. The short blond girl kept running forward, following behind her was a group of another three girls and the D.O boy. They were armed carefully with a machine gun, a hand gun, and military knife. One of them, a tall tanned girl, also was armed with a close assault rifle. It seemed like they had to struggle for life for such a long time based on their dirty clothes and muddy faces.

“Over there, there is a small alley over there.” The boy pointed forward as the other members of the group looked for the alley. Thanks to the moon’s dim light, they easily spotted the alley. The group quickly changed direction. They reached the alley and hurried finding a place to hide. The short blond girl signaled the others stood still against the wall as the aliens were walking pass by. She mentally counted. “One, two, three, four, …, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen.”

“Okay guys, they’re gone.” Soonkyu announced when there was not any alien left in the area.

“Damn, we can’t find anything tonight.” Said the tall tanned girl in frustration and stomped her feet onto the ground.

“Take it easy Yul, we can continue tomorrow. It’s not that we’re completely out of supplies.” Soonkyu comforted her new friend.

It had been 2 weeks since Soonkyu and Jessica found the ship that turned out to be what the aliens had used to come and invade the city. After the attack, the survivors had gathered into a resistance. Many young adults volunteered to join the army to help to protect other civilians including Soonkyu and Jessica. The short blond girl soon was promoted to become leader of a five members group because of her brave and outstanding skills. Jessica, on the other hand, was asked to work at the laboratory to study the aliens. Although the young professor showed that she could handle the gun as well as handle the telescope and calculator, she could not win against the camp’s commander in the end.

“Fine, let’s go Yoong.” Yul or Kwon Yuri as her full name called out for her girlfriend, who was one of three other girls. Yuri gave her girlfriend a hand and the girl named Yoong immediately intertwined their fingers together and blushed hard. She still felt embarrassed whenever her girlfriend made skin contact in front of other people. “You can have my meal tonight. I know you can’t stand being hungry.” Yuri mumbled into the latter’s ear.

“Yoona, I can sense your blush haha.” D.O teased the girl and the other laughed while Yuri shot the boy a death glare. Sometimes, they had funny moments like this to help them to forget their current circumstance even it was just something temporary.

“Okay guys, back to mission. We can’t head back to the resistance using this street anymore since the Crabs were patrolling here. So we will use street No.5. It might take longer time but I think it will be safer for us.” Soonkyu stated while the rest nodded in agree. “Good, Tiff, you’re first.” The short blond motioned the girl standing next to her to go out to another alley across the main street which led to street No.5. One by one, they moved quietly and slowly in a ready-to-fight position. Tiffany tightened the gun in her hand as she carefully stepped forward with Soonkyu beside while Yuri guarded the group’s left side and Yoong guarded the right side. The only boy of the group whose name was D.O retrograding to protect back side.

A mess welcomed them when the group reached street No.5. Tiffany covered using the back of her hand as she saw the scene in front of her eyes. There were about ten corpses lying on the ground. Soonkyu secured the gun behind her back then stepped forward to check the nearest body.

“It’s Mike’s team. I think they’re all dead.” The short blond kneeled down and turned around the freefall dead bodies. There was a 9-inch-diameter hole on the man’s chest. Soonkyu even could look through it and saw the street under him. She closed her eyes and mentally prayed for the fellow member who was a leader of another group. They knew each other from the very first days of the resistance. Mike had a crush on her at the first sight but the short blond girl resisted his confession and they became friends in the end.

“Hey, we can’t do anything. They’re all died. Let’s keep moving since we don’t know when those monsters are going to appear again. And it seemed like they found some food so better we bring them back to the camp for others.” Yuri popped up next to her leader putting her hand on the latter’s shoulder to comfort her while the other hand was pointing toward the full-of-can-food carts that Mike’s team found. Knowing what Yuri had told was right, Soonkyu nodded standing up and signaled Yuri’s girlfriend and Tiffany to take care of the carts while the rest would do the assist job.

They started to head to the camp with a faster speed than they did before, hurriedly yet carefully at the same time because they did not know when the aliens would occur. When they were about 200 meters away from the camp, D.O noticed there was a group of spaceship on the sky. The aliens patrolled again. “The ships.” D.O whispered and his fellow members all looked up to be welcomed by ten ships appear from the East. Those ships had sensors that could detect a small movement from afar and would destroy the subject immediately. However, if there was something like a shield, the ships could not detect them at all.

“You two run. We will slow them down for you.” Soonkyu demanded and pushed the two girls who were handling the carts toward the camp direction. Yuri also nodded at her girlfriend then gave the latter an assure smile telling her that she would be back safely. After Yoona and Tiffany disappeared into the night, the other three were ready to fight. As their guess earlier, the ships spotted their movements, lower their altitude and began firing the three.

Soonkyu quickly noticed the others to hide themselves behind a crashed van while kept fighting back them. They had to get back to the camp side as soon as possible because the amount of ammo that they brought along did not allow them to destroy a ship. Usually, the Growler which was a jeep armed with a .50cal machine gun would take responsibility to shoot those ships down but there was only one Growler in the resistance so the commander wanted it to be used to protect the camp side and civilians.

The short blond then noticed another crashed car not far from their hiding place. Secretly communicating with her members using eyes contacts, the short blond then ask Yuri and D.O to go first while she would pin the enemy down but was cut off by the only boy in the group. “No, you two go first, this time I will pin them down.”

“Hmm, okay. Let’s go Yuri.” The two girls made their move toward the car. The nearer the camp entrance they reached, the safer they got. However, what they did not expect was there were more ships coming for them. “D.O! Use the grenade launcher!” Soonkyu yelled.

“There is only two grenades left sis.”

“Use them, we can’t defeat those ships so slow them down is the best way.”

“Okay!” As the boy pulled out a grenade from his belt and put it in the 40 mm grenade launcher which was attached to his M4 machine gun. D.O then moved to the middle of the street to have a clearer view when those ships started shooting again. Could not pull the trigger, the boy fell down onto the ground liked a collapsing tree after the storm by lots of shots aimed to his body. Soonkyu and Yuri stood still in shock witnessing the death of their brother. He was only 17 but he was one of the bravest soldiers they had ever met. Soon, a high intensity of gun shoot sound brought them back from shocking mood as they heard someone sounded their name.

“Sunny, Yuri. Hurry!” It was Jessica. She was leading another group of soldiers to rescue her sister’s group. It must be Yoona and Tiffany reported the head quarter about the situation outside the camp. Jessica told her members to slow down the ships by grenade launchers in order to buy the others time to backtrack.

After getting back to the camp turning out to be a local infantry base that was used to gather the survivors, Soonkyu rushed to her tent and killed her free time by cleaning her weapons. The short blond girl’s session soon was disturbed by her sister, Jessica.

“Here, the civilians made some soup using those canned food you guys found earlier.” The professor handed her sister a small bowl of warm soup then sat down next to her. Jessica herself had another on her hand. “Tell me what happened?” Asked Jessica, she always knew when her sister felt bad.

“Mike’s team died, so was D.O.”

“Sacrifices are needed to win a war.”

“But if I hadn’t ordered him to use the grenade back then, he would have been still alive. It’s my fault.”

“Soonkyu, you are judging yourself again. It’s not your fault. You did what you had to do.”

“But …”

“No but baby.” Jessica cut her sister off. “D.O died, it’s the truth. His death is only meaningful when you keep moving forward, keep fighting and win this war. Got it?”

Soonkyu slightly nodded. She put the empty bowl onto the ground and turned to face Jessica. “Thanks sis, for slapping me.”

“You are welcome.” Jessica smiled and offered the latter a hug when someone entered the tent.

“Er … leaders, the commander wants to meet you two.” It was Yoona, Yuri’s girlfriend. Jessica nodded and answered the new comer. “I told you many times not to talk formally with us when it’s out of the commander’s sight.” The professor then stood up. “Let’s go Soonk-”

“SIS!” The short blond suddenly shouted out loud and glared at her sister which made Yoona gulped hard. It was the sisters’ ability to make others shiver to death with only one glare. Usually it was Jessica who did it but the short blond sometimes shot glares, too, especially when it came to her real name thing. She felt okay when Jessica talked to her using her real name Soonkyu, however she used to state that the name made her feel older so she preferred her nickname Sunny to her real name when she was in front of others.

“Ah, okay Yoong, you go first, I and Sunny will catch you up in no time.” Jessica smiled awkwardly to Yoona and signaled the girl to leave first. The sisters gathered their stuffs and left minutes later.

As Sunny and Jessica arrived at the commander’s tent, leaders of others groups had already gathered. An old man who was the commander of the local division looked up from his desk and welcomed the two in.

“Come on in, girls. We are going to start the discussion soon.”

The man then stood up and collected his belongings then stepped to a small table located in the middle of the tent. “As you’ve heard, this city’s lost, so we’re on the move.” The commander spoke up.

“We can’t leave this city. We need to stay here, and we need to fight commander.” A soldier snapped back, his face showed lots of anger toward the decision of the commander which he considered to be unnecessary.

“Listen to me this time captain Lee. You are the best captain I’ve ever had, you’re skillful, brave, but we don’t fight against human this time. We are in a war between human and aliens. The difference between two sides is too big. Yes, might be you can fight, but how are the others? So this is the final decision, we’re going to split up into units of around 250 and 300 people with one third of them are fighters each.” The commander paused in a minute looking at the leaders before continuing his talk. “Sergeant Matt, your unit will go to the North, captain Mac and I will go to the East and captain Lee will go to the West hoping for the help from other cities. All the food stores, supermarkets and drug stores have been marked on your maps. They were all intact and secure as of last week’s recon. Now go and prepare.”

When the commander dismissed his men, he specially asked for Sunny and Jessica to stay for a while.

“You will be Captain Lee’s second-in-command and I also give you my daughter, Tiffany. She is better being with you than me. Please take care of her.”

“I will. But, I still wonder about the plan. Splitting up means we will be weaker, if they attack a unit, we …”

“Sunny, if you’ve got a better idea, I’d damn sure like to hear it right now. Going to find the help on our own is better than staying here and fight till the last fighter. Moreover, as you can see that the mother ship is not in our planet right now so the number of Crabs here is less than before. And we don’t know when the mother ship will get back so for now, we have to do as much as we can. We can’t face and fight these things until we know how.”

“I know how.” Sunny snapped back.

“No, you don’t. Nobody knows how, and that’s the problem. Incriminatingly firing toward them only helps to ruin out of your ammo. Therefore, that’s the reason why we’re gonna split up and run. We’re gonna hide and we’re gonna survive.”

“Okay. And how about the harness situation?” The short blond girl asked as the commander looked at Jessica gesturing her to answer. The young professor nodded and started.

“We are still working on it and as for you to know, we lost three more kids this morning when we were trying to get the damn things that controlled their bodies off. About the purpose, it’s very high ability that those monsters are using the kids to pioneer our resources.”

“Well, it helps a lot. Thanks professor. Any questions?” The commander clapped his hands together looking at the two girls in front of him.

“No, sir.” They answer in unison.

“Good, get back to your people. We move out in the morning and I’ll let you know the exact time.” With that, Jessica and her younger sister left the tent.

At the same time, in an abandoned school in West Los Angeles.

“Suddenly, our peaceful life was destroyed by aliens. We were at school that day and suddenly a very huge ship appeared on the sky. It landed minutes later and sent out many many smaller ships and monsters which looked like Henry J. Waternoose III in a famous cartoon 49 years ago – Monsters Inc: half-crab monsters with many eyes. They have six legs and the other two are their hands. They are very fast that the soldiers could not chase them. People called them ‘Crabs’. They blew up most military bases all over the country so mom and dad had to give a hand fighting against them, too.” A teenager boy kept his gaze upon the sky telling the story while another girl was drawing based on what the boy told. They were sitting in one of the classrooms of an abandoned school. After the first attack of the aliens, public structures were used by the remained soldiers to gather survivors and protect them.

“Within several days, they broke down electronic system, electronics stopped working. No computers, no TVs, radios, cars, everything. They attacked houses, killed adults and kidnapped children then put on their bodies a divide called harness things and controlled them. Alive civilians were gathered into groups that under the protection of the fighters but it seems like meaningless since day by day, more and more people died …” The boy paused and took a deep breath waiting for his sister drawing. He looked at the sky from left to right. “Sis, which stars stand for parents?”

The girl stopped what she was doing and shifted her vision into the sky as well. “The brightest ones. Look Joon, they will forever protect us wherever we are. So don’t be sad, if they know you are sad, they will not feel happy either. Do you want to bother them even when they’re gone?” The boy named Joon shocked his head as the girl continued. “Good.”

“Hey, I’m Taeyeon, a doctor. What are you doing?” The kids’ conversation suddenly was disturbed by the presence of a young woman. She was quite short and she had a cute yet dorky face. Her pony tail hair helped to stand out her childish even more.

“Drawing diary.” The girl shortly answered. It was clear that she was still afraid of a stranger standing in front of her. “Drawing? I know people keep their memories by writing diary but drawing is new for me. Can I take a look of those pictures?” Asked Taeyeon gently as the doctor kneeled down to have the same eye level with the kids. The girl hesitated at first but she finally handed the latter her paintings. Taeyeon observed them carefully and noticed that there were two big shining stars in one painting that were labeled ‘Mom’ and ‘Dad’ below each of them. The doctor gave the work back to the girl and looked at the sky, too.

“My little sister is also one of those stars.” The kids did not say anything. It was not that they did not have anything to say but they did not know what to say. Seeing their silence, Taeyeon decided to continue.

“She died 3 days ago, by a crab. She defeated them when being brought away so they shot her.” Taeyeon waited for a couple of minutes more in silence before standing up. “Anyway, the commander asked me to do some check-ups for the children and it seem like you guys are okay so I’ll take my leave now. Go back to your drawing girl.”

“It’s Yeon and this is Joon. Uhm … we are sorry for your loss … y-you can be our sister if you want.” The girl rapidly stood up and shyly said to Taeyeon.

“Thank you, and are you okay with it? I mean being my little brother and sister?” Asked the doctor hoveringly as it depended on the kids after all.

“Yup. And Joon is not a boy. Joon is a girl, well, a tomboy.” Yeon fixed her new older sister, which made the latter stood dumbfound for a while observing Joon carefully again. “I’m sorry. So, you guys stay here, I’ll go to check the others then get back to you later kay?”

“Okay sis.” Yeon smiled and answered Taeyeon while Joon only nodded. As the doctor started to walk away, they returned to their unfinished work: drawing.

-----------------

So, chapter 1 is here, tell me how you guys feel about it and help me to make it better :) 

thank you, i'm going to have dinner now, who wanna join with me? keke