The roof offered no shelter and no safety. With soldiers surely not far behind him Jacob ran to the edge and started making his way around the half wall perimeter of the building's roof. Circling his way around for any means of escape, he eventually came to a stop and stared across the rubble of the town he once called home. Feeling his skin burning around his neck, Jacob untied his sweater from his waist and draped it over his head to shield himself. With the sun to his back, Jacob looked out from the roof top of the six-story building. Alone on the rooftop, a feeling of defeat came over him as he listened to the sound of gun fire echoing throughout the air.
Among the buildings in the distance, Jacob could see large aircraft with a rough patchwork exterior of tarnished sheet metal and rivets, kept aloft by two large horizontal propellers at either side. As Jacob watched he could not help thinking how the air-ship reminded him of a bee flying from flower to flower collecting nectar, as the rotor-craft moved frombuilding to building, hovering briefly above their rooftops as lines of people were herded into the ship. Trapped and helpless, Jacob slouched to the ground in the blistering heat with his back against the wall. Watching the ships in the distance move between buildings collecting their harvests, he wondered how such crude looking ships could have come from the stars and if Alex could be among them. Unable to move from the heat and exhaustion, Jacob played visions of his mother's last breath and his brothers’ abduction over in his mind before drifting into unconsciousness.
Partially opening his eyes to the sound of the door to the roof slamming, Jacob sat motionless as three soldiers rushed across the roof at him with their rifles at the ready. Jacob, dehydrated and extremely fatigued drifted in and out of consciousness, remaining helpless to resist the advancing soldiers. Moving both fast and slow simultaneously, Jacob watched in a disorientated haze as the soldiers bounced and blurred across the roof, before coming to a stop a short distance in front of him. The soldier in the centre handed his weapon to another as he reached down to grab Jacob by the arm. Feeling the tight grip of his chaser clamp down on him, Jacob weakly tried to resist with little affect before giving in and excepting his fate. Now with a soldier at each side pulling him up, Jacob felt himself rising off the ground before falling back down, as a loud bang tore through the air. Hitting the floor hard, he felt a warm splash across his face as one the soldiers fell beside him, leaving Jacob to stare directly into the man's lifeless eyes encircled with brass, brightly reflecting in the suns light. The other two soldiers quickly turned around, as the air filled with the sounds of gun fire. Too weak to move, Jacob stared off into the distant sky trying to avoid the still gaze of the deceased soldier. Succumbing to the heat, he drifted into a deep dehydration induced unconsciousness. The last image he saw on that roof top was something burning up as it streaked across the distant sky.
VII
Jacob awoke lying down on a dusty sofa in a room lit by candlelight. Noticing people standing around a large table across the room looking at scattered papers, Jacob listened as they talked in low voices. Sitting up, he still felt disorientated from the prior ordeal. The room was small with walls of stone, although it was hard for Jacob to see much in the low light. Evenly spaced wood beams ran across the roof above him and down the walls, as the musty smell usually found in basements filled the air. Feeling his sore arm, Jacob noticed his wounds had been bandaged and an intravenous line had been inserted into his hand just below a cloth wrap. Following the tubing to a bag hanging from a hat rack behind him, he could see an elderly couple holding hands while sitting on an old wooden bench against the wall behind the sofa. Reminded of his grandparents by the couple, Jacob watched them sleep for a moment. Comforted by the rhythmic sounds of their breathing as he watched their chests rise and fall.
“Your awake,” said a familiar voice.
Across the room, Jacob could see Darren standing around a table with two other people, looking at some papers in his hands. For a moment Jacob did not respond, unsure if he was happy to see Darren or angry that his old neighbour left them in the apartment before it collapsed. Before his mother died and Alex was taken. Putting the stack of papers on the table, Darren made his way across the room towards Jacob, sitting on wooden coffee table in front of the sofa.
“Were you with anyone Jacob?” Said Darren, after a brief pause.
Jacob looked down, fighting back the urge to cry, when he felt Darren put his hand on his shoulder. Unable to hold back his emotions, Jacob burst into tears as Darren pulled Jacob tight against him.
“I watched mom die when the building collapsed, then they took Alex.” Said Jacob. Offloading his feelings through the tears.
Several seconds past before Jacob pulled away and composed himself, noticing others in the room now looking at him with sombre looks. The pain and loss they had each experienced in the last few days evident among them.
“What are they? What do they want? Lucia said you knew, before everything happened...” Said Jacob, his words trailing off as he realized Lucia was probably dead as well.
“I don’t know... We don’t know what they want, or why they are here,” said Darren.
“I saw their ship,
