The Mimics

Chapter 18

Aurora POV

The steam was the first thing that felt real. It billowed in thick, white clouds, clinging to the cold tile walls and filling my lungs with a warmth that didn't hurt for once. I stood under the spray, my eyes closed, letting the water pelt my shoulders. It was hot—blisteringly, beautifully hot. It had been weeks, maybe months, since I’d felt anything other than the biting chill of the wind or the lukewarm dampness of a wet cloth.

I didn't care that the soap was a brick of unscented, military-grade detergent that felt like it was designed to strip paint off a humvee. I didn't care that the shampoo and conditioner were combined into one utilitarian bottle that left my hair feeling like straw. I was clean.

I scrubbed until my skin was raw and pink, watching the grime of the road—the soot from our roadside fires, the dried blood from the Speedway, and the gray dust of the apocalypse—swirl down the drain in a murky, dark stream. My body ached with a deep, bone-weary exhaustion, but for the first time since Austin, my skin didn't crawl with the feeling of being hunted.

I leaned my forehead against the damp wall, the roar of the water drowning out the ghosts of the monsters we’d outrun. For these few minutes, I wasn't the girl who had almost pulled a trigger in that office. I wasn't the girl who had watched a city die. I was just a body, soaking up the heat, finally washing away the scent of death that had been clinging to me and Theo since we left home.

I stayed there until my fingertips were pruned and the hot water began to fade into a lukewarm memory. Stepping out, I caught my reflection in the cracked, foggy mirror. I looked different. Thinner, harder, with shadows under my eyes that no amount of sleep would ever truly fix. But as I wiped the condensation away, I saw a glimmer of the old Aurora in my gaze.

I dried off and pulled on the fresh form fitting military black thermal shirt and cargo pants they’d given me. They were stiff and smelled of industrial laundry, but they were warm. I walked out of the communal shower area, my damp hair sticking to my neck, and found Theo waiting for me in the hallway.

He looked different, too. His face was scrubbed clean, his hair damp, and he was wearing a small-sized thermal that made him look like a miniature soldier. For the first time in a long time, he didn't look like he was waiting for the world to end.

The mess hall was a cavernous space filled with the rhythmic clatter of plastic trays and the low, constant hum of conversation. The air smelled of industrial cleaner and Salisbury steak—a scent that, under any other circumstances, would have been unappealing, but to us, it was the finest aroma in the world.

The military-grade dinner was a far cry from the cold peanut butter and syrupy canned peaches we’d been surviving on for weeks. On our trays sat scoops of mashed potatoes with a thick, salty gravy, some overboiled green beans, and a slab of mystery meat that was at least hot.

Theo didn't even use his fork at first. He practically inhaled his food, his cheeks bulging as he shoveled in the potatoes, barely stopping to breathe. I wasn't much better; the first bite of warm, savory food sent a jolt of pure dopamine to my brain. I ate with a focused intensity, finally feeling the hollow ache in my stomach begin to subside.

As the initial desperation of hunger faded, my ears began to tune into the voices around us. A few tables over, a group of infantrymen were huddled close, their faces grim under the harsh fluorescent lights.

"They're calling them Hybrids or Mimics," one of them whispered, his voice jagged with unease. "The Greys got tired of us spotting their scouts. Now they’ve got these things that look just like us—breathe like us. They’ve got our DNA mixed in with whatever hell-spawned junk they’re made of."

I slowed my chewing, my heart giving a small, nervous thump.

"I heard they're almost impossible to identify without a deep-tissue scan or a blood analyzer," another soldier added, leaning in. "They’re infiltrators. One could be sitting right next to you in a mess hall, learning our protocols, mapping our defenses, and you’d never know until it was too late. They're like cuckoos in the nest, man. Parasites with human faces."

I looked down at my tray, the warm food suddenly feeling heavy in my gut. We had spent so much time looking at the sky for ships and the horizon for Changelings that the idea of a threat hiding behind a friendly human smile was a new kind of terror.

I looked at Theo, who was now happily picking at a piece of chocolate cake, oblivious to the conversation. I reached out and squeezed his hand under the table. The soldiers' words stayed with me, a cold draft in a warm room: You'd never know until it was too late.

I leaned against the doorframe of the rec room, my arms crossed, watching Theo. He was actually laughing, his face flushed as he chased a deflated basketball around with a group of other boys. It was the first time since the world went to s**t that I felt something resembling "normal". Seeing him act like a kid again—not a survivor, just a kid—made the tightness in my chest loosen for a few precious minutes.

Eventually, I made my way down the hall to the women’s bathroom. The space was crowded with female soldiers and a few civilians of all ages, the air thick with the smell of industrial soap. I headed toward a stall, but a soldier propped against the sinks shifted, blocking my path.

"Hey, girly," she said, her voice gravelly and blunt. "When’s the last time you got your period?"

I froze, stunned by the sheer randomness and directness of the question. I cleared my throat, feeling a flush creep up my neck. "About... two weeks ago," I managed to say.

She nodded, unfazed by my hesitation. "What’ve you been using? Tampons? Pads?"

I gave a half-shrug, leaning back against the stall door. "Whatever I could find while scavenging," I said. "It’s not like the local drug store has a selection anymore."

A few of the other women chuckled, the sound echoing off the tile. "I like her," one of the civilians muttered, rinsing her face at the sink.

The soldier who’d stopped me chuckled too. She reached into her bag and tossed me a box half-filled with heavy-duty tampons. "Here. Mine just ended, and I’m scheduled for a procedure to get my 'girly parts' removed next week," she said, making a scissors motion with her fingers. "I didn't plan on having kids in this economy anyway." She smirked at her own joke. "And this way, I can stay out in the field longer."

I tilted my head, looking at the box and then back at her. "Out in the field longer? Why would that matter?"

The soldier pulled a cigarette from behind her ear and lit it, blowing a thick puff of smoke toward the ceiling fan. "Yeah. Female soldiers are locked down in the bunker when it’s their time of the month," she said, her expression turning grim. "The Changelings... they can smell blood from miles away, just like a f*****g shark. We lost a few good men and women because one girl wanted to 'do her part' and went out on a scout while she was bleeding. Those things tracked her right back to the rendezvous."

She tapped an ash onto the floor. "Don't ever go out there if you're leaking, kid. It's a death sentence for everyone with you."

I looked down at the box in my hands, a new kind of weight settling in my stomach. I hadn't even thought about that—how my own biology could be a tracking beacon for the monsters outside. "Thank you," I said quietly.

The woman gave me a sharp nod, her eyes disappearing behind a veil of smoke. "Don't mention it. Just stay smart."

I leaned against the wall as the conversation in the bathroom shifted. One of the younger girls, a civilian who looked barely twenty, shook her head at the idea of surgery. "I'm keeping my parts," she said, her voice defiant. "Someone’s going to have to repopulate the world when we finally win this war. Might as well be us."

The room erupted into a different kind of energy then—looser, more desperate. "Repopulate? Honey, I’m just trying to get through the night," a woman at the mirror scoffed, reapplying a smudge of cheap eyeliner. "Though, I will say, the standards have definitely dropped. You can’t be picky when the world is ending."

The stories started flying like shrapnel. "I had s*x with a guy from the motor pool the other day," one of the soldiers said, laughing as she leaned back against the sinks. "He had this crazy lazy eye. I’m riding him, and I swear, I didn’t know which eye to look at. One was on me, and the other was looking for Changelings in the corner of the room."

The bathroom echoed with raucous, jagged laughter. They shared "end-of-the-world" stories like they were trading ration cards—encounters with guys who hadn't showered in weeks, guys who cried afterward, guys who were just happy to be alive to get some.

The woman who’d given me the tampons—the one getting the surgery—blew a ring of smoke and turned her sharp gaze on me. "What about you, Austin? You got any desperate, end-of-the-world stories to share with the class?"

I felt the heat climb up my neck. I hesitated, the silence stretching out just a second too long. "I... I've never actually had s*x," I admitted, my voice sounding small against the tiled walls.

The room went dead silent. A collective gasp rippled through the group. "You’re kidding," a woman in the back said, her jaw dropping. "But you’re so beautiful! Men should be throwing themselves at you, even in a bunker."

The soldier who’d given me the tampons stepped over and threw a heavy, muscular arm around my shoulders, pulling me into a side-hug. "Don't you worry, girly," she said with a wink. "We’ll find you someone decent for your first time. Someone with two eyes looking in the same direction, at the very least."

I chuckled nervously, my heart hammering. "I, uh, I should probably get back to my little brother. He’s probably wondered where I went." I held up the box of tampons. "Thanks again for these."

As I walked out and the door hissed shut behind me, the laughter resumed, but the lightness didn't follow me into the hall. I felt a strange, hollow pang of sadness. I was eighteen years old, and in a world that was rapidly running out of time, I was still a virgin. I had spent so much energy just trying to stay alive that I’d missed out on the one thing everyone else seemed to be using to feel human.

I thought about the "what-ifs"—the boys back in Austin, the high school dances I’d skipped to study or train. Now, those opportunities felt like they belonged to a different species. In this new world, s*x wasn't about romance; it was a desperate anchor. And as I walked back to the rec room, I couldn't help but feel like I was carrying a secret weight—a piece of girlhood that didn't fit the soldier I was forced to become.