Some hundred years ago our planet found, and made contact, with an “alien” civilization, hundreds of thousands of miles away from earth, so, we made contact. At first it was difficult, the language barrier was difficult to get around, most things ended up being drawn, or they would speak gibberish, in hopes the foreign planets dictators and supreme leaders would understand us, and in a non we-want-to-kill-you way.

Everything went as planned for the first couple months, we maintained frequent contact with what we dubbed the “Huron Galaxy”, and we learned that they were much more technologically advanced than us, and had been to neighboring galaxies, which included ours. Knowing this didn’t make us feel so good, but they hadn’t attacked us yet, so we figured we were on their good side for now.

Little did we know, the past months we’d been communicating with them, they had been tracking and planning an attack, on our little planet known as “Earth”. It all started somewhere around April 19th, the year I can’t remember, I was mopping the floors of the facility I work at, I’m a janitor, if I haven’t already said that, can’t remember. Anyways, I was mopping my building, which so happens to be a cryogenic facility, the place where they freeze people and wake them up, hundreds of years later, and they haven’t aged a bit. My facility was actually top secret, hence why I knew about the space talk, and we froze a new prototype of super-human soldiers, in hopes that one day when we need them, whenever that may be, we had them ready to use.

I was mopping the floor where they housed all of them, not really humans, but robots in human bodies who behaved like humans. I was mopping next to an open pod when the first shockwave hit, and also the last I remember, because it knocked me into the pod, and detecting a body was in the chamber, shut me in, without any emergency open button, effectively locking me in to be awaken whenever they felt the need for me. And that need would come a few hundred years later.

When I was awoken, I was greeted by a hundred or so of the things they called “super-humans” already awake and preparing for what I would soon to learn as the “Fight to Revive Mankind” as they called it, even though it wasn’t that professionally named as good as I would’ve wanted it to be, I mean we were trying to revive mankind, and that’s all they could come up with. I stepped out of the chamber and started speaking with all my new comrades, they all had normal names, Steve, Carol, Carlos, and many other names that you’d expect to hear on television. They were all the superhumans, and didn’t know I wasn’t one of them, despite being a good six inches shorter and 50 pounds lighter than even the smallest of them. We all were talking when a man, who I’ve never seen, but looked to be in charge, called in front of everyone,

“Ok guys, we’re all here because we were woken up, for a reason greater than us. 190 years ago, a foreign planet invaded us, effectively wiping out 99.9% of the population, and only left a few million people left in the world, spread out throughout seven continents, and thousands of miles of land. We were almost wiped out completely if it weren’t for the thousands of hillbillies in the south, preparing and waiting for this day, guess they were right, and they were prepared more than anyone else in the United States. So 90 years later, here we are, in a dystopian society awaiting the day they decide to come back and make their final push to finish us off for good, so give it your best, we move out in the morning.”

With that I was a soldier, still technically a janitor but no one had to know that, to these guys I was a cool and mean fighting machine. I didn’t need sleep, since I was just sleeping for the past while, so I sat all that night, pondering what I got myself into, by being a janitor, something so small as that, could’ve got me into such a bad situation.

The next morning we were gone, and en route to a heavily forested area around the Appalachians, because someone intercepted comms that they would be landing and deploying a squad of them deep into the forest. It was really just washing over me what I was getting myself into, these people may have laser guns while we are stuck with regular guns and bullets, fighting an uphill battle, and probably losing. Everyone's spirits were high, despite us not knowing what were doing or where exactly where we’re going, and I couldn’t blame them, if I had a robotic body with a nearly indestructible exoskeleton, I wouldn’t be very scared either.

The first few nights were uneventful, and by this time we were deep into the Appalachians, close to the estimated location of the drop, when we heard a piercing screech, not like an animal, but not human sounding either. That was our first encounter with them, there was five of them, all standing similar in height, about what we would call 5’8, they didn’t see us at first, and we all went silent, not wanting to alert them, the first people to shoot missed, effectively making them aggravated, and they charged us, going for the first guy in sight, a small but bulky man, I knew as Hector. He took the bullet, figuratively, these things didn’t have weapons, they had their clubs, or hands as we call them, and were incredibly strong and fast having hit Hector with such a force it knocked him back. One thing we noticed, was these people didn’t have a good tolerance for bullets, and stopped them pretty quickly, I stayed back the whole time, I’m still a janitor at heart, I’ll leave the fighting to the real superhumans.

After the first fight everything was a blur, more fighting, more camping, and more of me not knowing what I’m doing. No one ever found out I wasn’t one of them, and no one seemed to notice when I ran away one night, because I never saw one of them again, but what I can tell you is that they must’ve done considerable damage to the aliens, I haven’t seen one in months, and more and more people are showing up in my small town. I’m back to cleaning, picked up a job at a small gas station, only two other workers there, so had to do a lot of janitor work, like I should have been doing the past year, and not fighting on the front lines. I found a little cabin on the outskirts of town, and an old Toyota Tacoma from my time, that someone had kept in pristine condition up until they came, and it never saw light until I came across it. It did take some time to get it running, but after that it was reliable, and I love it.

About a month ago, a man came into town, said he had been on the trail for at least three years, only coming off for supplies and human interaction, but I knew who he was, he was with the group when I was, I didn’t really talk to him, but I knew him as the name of Chris, and I always had an idea he wasn’t like the rest of them.