The Invasion

Lagos is invaded by aliens in the distant future

Before the wind turned fierce and cold, before the mothership emerged out from darkening clouds, before the eletric pole came crashing down in loops of dangling wires, I knew our lives were over. I told myself several times that I was only having a bad dream, and that I would open my eyes to a world of familiar normalcy: morning sunshine, the warm dent made by my husband's head on our pillow, my daughter's tinkling laughter, her toys scattered across the carpet. I don't know if they are dead or alive. An emotional surge rose up in my chest even as I pushed past the throng of bodies running, leaping, doing whatever to be out of danger. My lungs burned. Collapsed buildings, their walls crushed and hollow, appeared as grotesque skeletal figures under the fading light. Beyond the hungry flames that licked around the rear of a car whose side was unbelieveably bashed, St. Peter's Catholic Church stood like an Egyptian pyramid, promising refuge behind its closed doors. Here, the road glistened, the smell of fuel thick in the air. Another explosion echoed in the distance. Few people ran ahead of me, they flailed their hands as they did so, but they came to their deaths when two aliens ambushed them. I only saw their backs, these aliens, fused carapaces that reminded me of a crooked crayfish, long pincers hanging down from their heads. I shuddered, took a different route to get to the church, but was stopped by the sight of a little girl squatting at the entrance of what used to be a bookshop. She stared at me for a moment and sniffed into her dress. Then she burst into tears. More aliens were around me now, making a constant din of noise. I closed my eyes, balled up my fists, and followed my maternal instincts.