aliens are stupid • ben parish

14 (yes, its an update, yay!)

'This is pathetic! I'm not doing this anymore. We're on a suicide mission!' Ringer stands and brings her knife back of her neck and slides out her tracker. 'I'm going Dorothy.'

I gasp at what I see next. Ringer's glowing green. Everyone around me lifts up their gun.

'You're one of them!' Teacup cries.

'Hey, hey what?' Ringer asks obviously confused.

'You're kinda glowing green.' I say.

'Kinda glowing green? She's a burning ball of green!' Dumbo exclaims.

'Hey, I'm not one of them! Hold your fire!' Ringer puts her hands up in front of her protectively and in the dim light I see a flash of fear pass over her face but soon it soon fades, Ringer doesn't get scared.

'Zombie, it's your call. Do we shoot?' Dumbo asks Zombie, who stayed quiet through out the whole thing.

'She's not one of them.' Is all Zombie says and I look from him to Ringer and back again. I guess he's still in shock, his hand is still pressed to his stomach but the blood flow seems to have stopped a little.

'Wait!' I say and go to stand beside Ringer, I grab my knife from my belt and cut out my tracker too, the cold blade tingles on my skin. When I remove the tracker I hold the metal pellet in between my thumb and forefinger, intrigued.

Everyone tightens their grip on their gun.

Oh my god..

We weren't shooting aliens, we were shooting humans. Why would the Others be scared of an army of children?

'Don't you see? Green doesn't mean Other. It means survivor. Anyone without a tracker.' I say looking directly at Ringer as I say this. She's starting to understand it too.

'Switchblade's right.' Ringer says. 'Trust us.'

'How can I trust you when I'm being told your an alien?' Dumbo sounds distressed.'

'Wait, wait. I get it.' Zombie says walking slowly forward a grimace on his face. He stands in front of Ringer and I, his hands out in front of him.

'Private? What are you on about?' Dumbo asks.

'Dumbo you're smart, don't you get it?' I ask him. He shakes his head.

'Guys, we're not fighting the fifth wave. We are the fifth wave.' Zombie summarises my thoughts into two short sentences. 'Reznik, Vosch all of them. They're not human. They're the Others. They're sending us out to kill off the remaining survivors. To do their dirty work.'

'So the people we were shooting at weren't aliens?' Teacup asks.

'No they weren't. They were humans without a tracker.' I confirm Zombie's idea.

Smart boy Ben Parish has returned to torture me again.

'We need to get your trackers out. Now.' Ringer says and the three younger children in front of us nod, glassy eyed.

Zombie lifts his knife up to the back of his neck and cuts his out. Then Ringer cuts out Dumbo's and Poundcake's, I take Teacup's.