22nd January 2014 (23:36)

Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus, the creatures are something else. 

"You listen to me you son of a bitch. I know you can understand me." The special detective yanked the creatures jaw up wards, levelling its eyes with his own. "Now. Answer. My. Question." He put extra emphasis on each word to make sure the monster knew he was serious. As if the severe beating, experimentation and illicit torture wasn't enough to demonstrate his seriousness. 

Detective O'Connor was part of the newly formed task force set up and run with the sole objective to find out where the creatures came from. The creature knew that the real question on their minds was 'will they attack again' but no one dared utter such lunacy. At least not until there clear up had been completed and people could start pretending that aliens never invaded the world and killed close to 7 billion people. Not to mention countless cities and towns, setting infrastructure back a couple of thousand years. Perhaps further, at least the Romans had roads. 

The creature stared into the Detectives eyes. It hadn't uttered a single word of any language and the only proof O'Connor had that they could even understand English was a crackpot scientist who claims he heard two of them talking to one another. Of course this came from the same man who spent the better part of two weeks in a flat talking to his dead wife, but O'Connor didn't care. If you asked any number of the men who had previously served under him (no one would dare say a bad word about him if they still needed to report to him) they'd all say that he liked to doll out as much pain as he could and sit back and watch you suffer. 

When the Prime Minister heard this, he knew he was the man for the job. 

O'Connor struck the creature again. It's hardened exterior didn't reply and the creature simply rolled his head to one side. I'd suspect that this was more to cushion the blow that O'Connor felt on his hand which now dripped with blood from his cracked knuckles. 

"How dare you." He got his face in close to the creature. How he stomached the fowl smell I'll never know. It smelt like a strange half way point between burning magnesium in a methane gas chamber and bleach. "This is our world. How dare you come here and kill countless innocent people and not expect to be punished. We deserve to know the location of your home. We deserve to know when another attack is coming." 

"As do we." The creature spoke. It wasn't perfect English by any means. It was gruff and the words sounded foreign and slurred on the creatures younger but everyone I'm the room understood. The six people who stood on guard, the scientists, the spectators in the gallery above, even O'Connor stood with his mouth gaping open. 

O'Connor tried to speak but the words came out more gruffly than when the creature tried to formulate a sentence. "We came to this world to love. We watched from the stars above you and we saw compassion and we were hopeful. We have crossed the galaxy for many years and we grew restless." The creatures eyes flickered side to side as he spoke but his face stayed perfectly still. Even when he spoke his mouth barely opened. 

"When we came, you humans were new. And we loved you. We tried to care for you but you grew fearful and so we retreated. But this fear turned into hatred and before we could intervene you were killing one another with weaponry that we banned on our home planet after it almost became uninhabitable." 

"So you are here to take over!" O'Connor pushed his chest in front of,meh could barely contain the pride riddled grin from his face. 

"No." The creature grunted. "Just to love and protect you. But you became impossible to protect and then you started developing interstellar flight and we knew that you had to be stopped before you take your killing skills across the galaxy. To out home." 

"So you launched the attack, to kill us all? You heartless bastard" 

The room fell quite. "Yes, I'm afraid we did. It was either you, or us." He bowed his head. "I'm sorry for the damage we have caused but you will eventually destroy yourselves anyway. We figured our planet was more worthwhile saving." 

The creature seemed solemn. I understood where he was coming from. After all what human wouldn't do the same if they ----- BLAM!

BLAM BLAM BLAM! 

The creature died almost instantly, O'Connor lowered his gun, his stupid face and his stupid grim clearly ecstatic as hitting the weak spot on a captured being. 

"Son of a bitch." O'Connor said as he spat on the ground. "Tell the commander to go ahead with the attacks, the creatures are of no use to us and they're no longer a danger."

20th January 2014 (21:30) (21st January 2014 failed to upload -app error)

Revenge is like a heavy hammer... When it hits you, it hurts.

The bridge out of the city stood as the only way across for either side. Despite the creatures advanced weaponry, power and clear technological advancements, since they landed they had no more say over the forces of gravity than humans did. With countless civilians trapped in the ruins and no way to get them out or get them clear, a bombardment was out of the question. 

The army had set up camp on the road and the surrounding grasslands. High on the hill sat their base. A permanent structure once used as a training facility. More recently it had served as a hospital and strategic command centre. Since the start off the debauchery there had been only one advance made by the creatures. A corporal and her commanding officer had caught it early and they had been driven back beyond the bridge. No one dared go after them. 

The base was one of only a dozen stationed out side the city. One of only two and a half dozen left in the country. Positioned around the lesser cities the length and breadth of the land they did their best to contain the creatures. But hey knew it wouldn't be. Long until the creatures made it out. The cities who had already fallen were prime example of that. Their surrounding counties had been over run and it wouldn't be long until they attacked from the rear. 

Soon humanity would fall. Every officer and private knew that. This was their last hope. One final outlandish attempt to destroy their attackers. And if they failed in their mission, their names would go down as valiant heroes. Not that anyone would have time to learn them, they'd be dead soon after. 

These were the thoughts of Colonel  Matthews as he stared down at the bridge from behind the muddied glass. The men were like boys from his view high on the hill. Boys sent to do a mans work. A man too afraid to go out and do it himself. 

Matthews sighed. He was going to entrust his race with the last few boys who were chosen simply because they could hold a gun and stand up straight. "Jameson. Bring me my gun and tell Corporal Grane to bring a jeep." 

Jameson looked at his commanding officer with an air of confusion and cowardliness. War had revealed his true colours. He'd have been better suited for a job in IT. "Sir?" 

"Don't question me Sergeant. Despite all this shit that is going on I am still in charge around here and if I tell you to do something it isn't asking you a goddam favour. IT'S AN ORDER," Jameson flinched at him raising his voice and quickly salutary and scurried out of the office door.

Matthews retuned to the window a smirk on his face. He caught himself smiling and realised his folly. <em> Smile all you like Adrian you damn fool. You'll die soon enough.</em>

21st September 2014 (23:28)

Easy like Sunday Morning

"Darling!" The words leaps from my lips I can hardly contain myself. I haven't been this excited about news since they announced the Tories were back in power. "Darling,listen to this." I touch her arm, shaking from the adrenaline. "You'll never guess what!" I wait, only a moment passes but I can't wait for her to give me an answer. "They've done it darling. They've fought back and won." I pirouette on the spot, hands spread out above my head. "I don't know how but they've done it. The reports say that they're going to get back into the city in a matter of days! We'll finally be saved." 

I catch the words before they formulate but they slip from my grasp. "We can get out of here." I look up at her face. "I'm sorry dear, I..." I bite my bottom lip, holding back the tears. "I'm sorry." 

I stand up again, happiness washing over me. "I just can't believe it. What's the date today?" She doesn't answer, she's mad at me for what I said. "The 16th? No, no. It must be later than that. Oh heck I'd forget my head if it wasn't screwed on... Anyway what does it matter how long it's been. Just two more nights, three more at most, we'll be saved. They'll fight back the creatures and sure enough we'll tell the grandchildren..." I can't help but wonder if I'll ever get the pleasure of grandchildren. But I daren't tell dear Viv that, not after she lost Tony. Ah Tony, I'm glad you died when you did otherwise you'd still be fighting just against a new enemy. "The grandchildren will love it. The month the aliens fell to earth." I touch her hand gently, flinching back at first as her cold touch startles me. 

"Oh Viv, you're cold!" I rub my hands together and try to pass some of my heat on to her. "There. And then once the stories have been made and the world turn right way up again. Then things will go back to normal." I look at her face and feel sick. I've done it again. 

I look in the empty sockets of my wife's face and look at the features that hadn't been effected by the bullet. If I had come to her with the news I had this morning, would she have still killed herself? I'd like to think not, but I couldn't say for certain by any means.

18th January (16:24) - error in the app meant it failed to upload

The Drugs Are Gone 

Sweet escape. Blissful minutes of beautiful colours and soft sounds. Expositions of blues and greens and golds. Never reds. Red is bad and there is no bad here. Just sweet peace. 

The flicker of the lighter, the crackle of the paper. The glorious aroma and I know I am not too far. 

I spend hours in my wonderland. Nothing can hurt me here. I see my friends and my family. They are alive and well. More alive than they ever were. 

Love feels more real here. Soft touches and gentle kisses. 

But it's coming to an end. And I know how I can make it last. Again, the crackle of the lighter. But the sweet aroma is less potent. The buzz less strong. 

And then it's all over. The colours disappear from my  life and I am alone. 

My friends walk away, my family shimmer into light. Their explosion is dark. 

I am left with an empty heart, an empty world, and creatures more hideous than any bad trip could imagine. 

The world has become a scary place whilst I've been away.

19th January 2014 (22:24)

Taking out the Dead

Lily struggled with the weight of Mrs Francis' legs. The wound had made turned them into festering lumps of meat and threatened to tear away from the rest of the corpse if she pulled too hard. 

Niamh had taken the rest of the children into the back room. She could hear her now, talking to them as though she were one of the adults. Even other Jonathan's harsh breathing, Niamh voices was angelic.

The stories she told were her favourites. Tales of beautiful princess and brave knights. But she liked making them her own. Quite often it was the prince that would need rescuing because he'd gone up the wrong tower and gotten stuck whilst the princess had to climb down her own tower and then figure a way out to save him. 

Lily admired her courage. It was only surpassed by her creativity which worked in tandem to create beautiful lands where the children could escape, if only for an afternoon. From time to time Lily wanted to join them and drift in wonderful colours on the back of the daydreams of a child. 

"Lift the legs more." Jonathan hissed at her. His teeth were tightly clenched and his face scowled with the tension of lifting the heavy corpse. Harriet's mum had died the same evening that Jonathan arrived. Luckily the children were asleep so they could figure out a way to break it to them gently. The last thing they wanted was to attract attention to themselves by a load of children crying their eyes out. 

"I'm trying," she hissed back. "They're going to split if I squeeze them any tighter!" Jonathan reached the first step and started tilting her head upwards, putting more pressure on Lily. There was a slosh from within Mrs Francis' stomach. The last of her remains that would never be digested. Despite the smell, Lily's own stomach rumbled. Their food supply was on the brink of empty and soon the would have to venture out into the world.

Jonathan had told her what it was like out there. As far as she could tell, society was finished. Sent back further than cavemen times, she knew it was going to be hard to move on from this. That's if they ever got the opportunity to. She had made Jonathan stop talking when he got onto the subject of the creatures. She knew those all to well and the memories clung to her brain like a virus. Something things you can never unsee and they will remain with you, like a scar on your retinas.

Half way up the stairs and Mrs Francis was starting to groan. The skin that so finely stitched her legs to her torso could be heard tearing. The effects of the creature had started to take its toll on her carcas and soon she would distinergrste. 

"Hurry up Jonathan, I thinks she's going to burst." 

"My neighbour did that. He died right down in the street and then a few days later. Splat. His body opens up and suddenly there's a million little crab like things and two parts of his body." 

"Do as you're told and hurry up the ." Their whispering had become a little too load and she could hear Niamh stop her singing to listen to the two of them. They doubled up their speed and were through the cellar door before any of the children saw the dead body. They had been sheltered from the horrendousness thus far and as far as Lily was concerned they weren't going to have to witness a human being, let along one of the girls mums p split open and spew baby creatures all of them.  

Jonathan pulled down on the handle with his back and the door swung gently open. Lily let out a gasp when she saw the state of the city she has lived in for most of her life. The grip on mrs Francis legs gave way and one of them hit the ground with a slap. 

"Watch it"! Jonathan growled. He looked down the road and saw the coast was clear. "Come on let's get this dumped round the corner, that way they shouldn't be able to find us for a while. Be quick though." 

They edged over the rubble and into the funnier street, cautious of how exposed they were. The city had a cold silence to it. Even before it still felt like there was going to be life above her head but Lily was painfully away that her small girls and her gay guest might just be all that remained. 

Jonathan slipped backwards as he miss placed his foot on a rock. He stumbled to the floor and Mrs Francis flopped on top of him. He clenched his eyes closed and his face turned a burgundy red. 

"It's alright Jonathan! she's in one piece still. Carefully roll her over and get out from underneath her." He did just that. mrs Francis lay on the floor with a look on her face and the blue glint of the sky in her eyes hat said she was resting. 

"Perfect, now let's get back inside before those things show up." 

Lily looked down at the mother. She hadn't been with her class for very long. She had been elsewhere but with her losing her job she couldn't afford the more expensive sclssses  any longer. Lily sighed as she realised that death was open her body. 

"we can't leave her there. She was a dignified lady. Can we move her. Please?"

"Look, I'm not being funny because I knew her all of five minutes but no matter how dignified and  lovely she was when she was alive, she's dead now so can we please just go."  

"I'll give you half of my food tonight if you help me move her over to that wall. Just so she can sit down in peace." Lily looked at him with expectation. 

"Fine. But hurry the fuck up." He went down to lift her torso back up. "And I get the canned stuff. You get the packet stuff." 

Lily looked at him with a coy smile. She knew that he wouldn't let her starve and he'd give her her share regardless of what deal they made out here. As soon as he calmed down he'd realise it too.

Lily bent down and grabbed the dead woman's legs. A little too roughly. 

The body ripped in too like freshly baked bread. Her organs spewed in the air and coated the pair in a green bile. Whilst they clued and spluttered at the smell of hype dead, the most frightful thing occurred. 

From the intestines of poor dead Mrs Francis erupted millions of tiny monsters. Like their parents they had an appetite for human flesh and like their parents, they struck immediately. 

As though the bile were a beacon, the tiny creatures swarmed Jonathan and Lily. Their flesh was soft and delicate and the tiny parasitic creatures feasted on it as though it were the only meal they had ever had.

Less than a minute after Lily had promised her diner to Jonathan, they were both dead. They didn't even had time to scream. 

Down in the basement below the ruined building, Niamh finished her story of the beautiful princess and the brave prince. Soon her childhood would be over too, and she would need to become the hero of her own stories.

17th January 2014 (23:54)

The Bigger they are...

Steve fell to the floor. His body detached from his head, the last of his brain trickling through the open neck wound. 

Jonathan fell against his body, using his former lover, partner, friend as a human shield. 

The creature loomed over head, looking at the bodies, entangled. Jonathan was hidden and the creature moved on. Without anymore humans to harvest, he left the corpses for his lesser brethren to strip clean. 

Jonathan rose, searching for somewhere to hide. He knew he didn't have long before they came. Came to rip flesh from bone. He gave a silent farewell to the man he never really loved and ran to a building on the corner. 

The roof had mostly fallen in and the windows shattered like monstrous teeth. But the ground floor looked stable. 

He burst in through the wooden door that hung loosely in his hinges and slid a table hard against the entrance. Trapped inside was better than being at the mercy of the pickers. 

He'd seen it once before, on a run back from the roof. They had defended on the four dead humans that lay in front of Steve and his flat. He hadn't let them in and his punishment was to watch their remains desecrated. 

Jonathan scanned the room. The back wall towards what remained of the stair case was rubble and plaster. To his right much the same. Towards the ceiling on this side there was a ago large enough for a creature to scuttle in but he was confident that he'd have time before they went on a proper hunt. 

To his right was a corridor that ran to the left wing of the building. He rose up and slowly crept down the long winding path. His feet barely made a sound, only the sweat squelching in the bottom of his show have him away. 

At the end of the corridor was a door. He pulled the handle down and revealed several steps down into a murky darkness. 

"Hello?" He called. "I'm human and I'm coming down." He licked his lips. He knew go hostile people could be. How hostile he had been himself. To turn away kids had broken his heart, let alone the parents who wanted to keep them safe. 

"Hello?" A little voice called back. She sounded young but clearly had a grown up manner. "Mister?" 

Jonathan stepped down the stairs. He took one at a time, ready to turn away and bolt it out of the room should this be a cruel trap. 

He made it to the bottom of the stairs without an attack from the source of the voice or any hidden conspirators. 

Now he was underground he could see faint lights from dying candles in the far corner of the room. 

He did a quick head count; two female adults, one old and sick, she didn't look like she had long, a young attractive woman, she looked like she was holding it together but as Jonathan started to approach her, he noticed the flickering of fear in her eyes. She wasn't the most confident in the group. 

Just then a little girl came up to him, a smile on her face wider than any smile he'd seen. His heart broke at her innocence. 

"Are you going to be Lily's boyfriend she's very scared at the moment and she needs a knight in shining armour and you could be him and we could get rescued and then we won't need to be scared or hungry or frightened anymore."

16th January 2014 (00:39 and 23:19)

The Lord Giveth and He Also Takes it Back 

"The scientists call it extra terrestrial. The religious call it Gods reckoning. The spiritual call it The Earths Revenge. The scared call it a threat. The brave call it a challenge. The stupid call it a hoax. The alien lovers call it a long time coming. 

"But, dear children, it is non of these. It is simply..." He looks around the room. His church. At the faces who stare back at him who have put their faith in him. Trust his promises to save them all. "The end." There is an outbreak of middle class muttering. They can't believe their trusted leader is threatening them with the unwanted sudden prospect of death. He holds up his hand, drags it in the air above their heads, bringing a hush back to the group. "Children, we knew this. We have always known it and we are the ones to survive." 

He walks down the steps approaching the audience. He strokes the cheek of a young girl in the front row and let's his finger linger on her soft skin. "When God told Noah that he needed to build an ark, he warned him of the flood that would drown his fellow man." He continued down the aisles, looking to each patron individually. "Drown all those who were not like minded to Noah and his family. When Gods creatures came to us, they came in a torrent of rain. Not on the day of the Red Dawn, but for months prior, there had been floods in almost every Asian country, all across Europe, the UK, even my own home could not stand the Great Storm. But no one realised, because no one is pure enough." He had reached the back doors. Every member of the church has their necks craned tightly so thatcher can get a good view of their hailed leader. 

"But that is not the case with me. I am worthy, and I have saved you all from your doom." A round of applause rippled across the room into a thunderous clap. Again he held up his hand and bought silence to the group. "When God first drowned the Earth, it was enough to kill the impure. But now, he must do more and so he send his Creatures, his fallen angels to rid the world of evil. And we must help." The group cheered in agreement. 

The man walks to the front of the room, slowly, taking in the adoring faces. The fans he craved for so long. "We must fight with the fallen, side by side to rid the world of evil. Those who are not hear in this room, who were not able to make it here with us today, are the unworthy. God gave them the chance to repent, and they ignored their creature." 

"Here here!" Cried a man from the crowd, a few echoes of appreciation rang through the group. 

"So we shall take the Lords work and help him complete his grim task." He smiled. "For the good of mankind."