The Mimics

Chapter 10

Aurora POV

The world was spinning. Every step I took sent a fresh wave of agony radiating from where the leader had struck me. My vision was a fractured mess of smeary greens and browns, and the coppery tang of blood in my mouth wouldn't go away.

"Rory, keep going! Please!" Theo’s voice sounded like it was underwater. He was pulling my arm, his small face twisted in terror, but my legs felt like they were made of lead.

We burst out of the dense tree line and into an open meadow on the outskirts of a small, quiet town. The animals were still sprinting—deer leaping over fences, foxes darting through the tall grass—all of them heading south with a desperate, single-minded focus.

I couldn't do it anymore. My knees buckled, and I hit the frost-covered grass hard. I gasped for air, my lungs burning in the sharpening cold. Theo hovered over me, his hands shaking as he tried to haul me back up.

"Just... a second, Theo," I wheezed, clutching my head. "Just give me a second."

Then, the sound hit us.

It wasn't a roar or a scream. It was a low, guttural rumble that felt like it was coming from the center of the earth. I forced my eyes to focus, squinting back toward the forest we had just escaped.

A wall was coming.

It looked like a massive, rolling cloud of white and crystalline blue, hundreds of feet high, devouring the horizon. But it wasn't just fog. As it touched the trees, the wood didn't just frost over—it shattered. I watched a hawk, late to the exodus, get caught in the leading edge of the mist; its wings didn't even flap a second time before it turned into a statue of solid ice and fell from the sky, shattering like glass when it hit the ground.

The grass at the edge of the forest turned white instantly, the blades snapping off as the moisture inside them crystallized. The air temperature plummeted so fast I felt the moisture on my own eyelashes turn to ice. This wasn't weather. This was a weapon.

"The town!" I screamed, the cold air biting into my throat like a serrated blade.

The adrenaline hit me like a lightning strike, momentarily numbing the pain in my skull. I didn't just stand; I lunged for Theo, throwing him toward the first row of houses.

"Run, Theo! Don't look back! Run!"

The cloud was moving faster than a car. We raced toward the brick buildings, our boots pounding against the frozen dirt, as the shadow of the First Frost began to swallow the sun behind us. The world was turning white, and if we didn't find shelter in the next thirty seconds, we were going to be nothing more than ice sculptures in a dead field.

The rumble outside intensified until it wasn't just a sound; it was a physical vibration that rattled my teeth. The air grew so thin and brittle it felt like breathing in needles.

"There! Theo, there!" I screamed, spotting a rusted pair of slanted metal doors in the backyard of a small ranch-style house. It was an old tornado cellar, the kind built deep into the Texas clay.

We scrambled toward it, my boots skidding on the grass that was already crunching like glass under my weight. I wrenched the heavy doors open, the metal groaning in protest. I shoved Theo down the concrete steps into the darkness and dived in after him, pulling the doors shut with a violent clang. I threw the manual deadbolt just as the world outside went silent—a heavy, suffocating silence that meant the air had turned to ice.

It was pitch black. The only sound was our frantic, ragged breathing. I fumbled in the dark, my hands shaking so hard I could barely feel my fingertips. My hip hit a wooden shelf, and my hand brushed against a small, rectangular box.

Matches.

I struck one. The tiny, flickering flame was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. By its light, I saw the cellar was a cramped square of concrete filled with old crates and burlap sacks.

"Help me, Theo! Anything that burns!"

We moved like manics. I grabbed old newspapers, a broken wooden chair, and several dry burlap sacks, piling them in the center of the floor. I struck another match and held it to the paper. The flame took hold, licking at the wood, casting long, dancing shadows against the walls.

I knew the smoke would kill us if I didn't vent it, but the thought of opening anything to that cold made my stomach turn. I found two small, rectangular ventilation windows near the ceiling. I stood on a crate and cracked them just an inch—enough for a draft to pull the smoke out, but narrow enough to keep the worst of the frost at bay.

The second I clicked the latch on the last window, the cloud hit.

It sounded like a thousand crystals shattering at once. A horrific, high-pitched creaking filled the cellar as the metal doors above us contracted in the flash-freeze. I watched, paralyzed, as white frost began to spider-web across the glass of the tiny windows, thick and jagged. The temperature in the room plummeted instantly, the heat from our small fire struggling against the encroaching wall of ice.

"Rory!" Theo whimpered, his teeth chattering so loud it sounded like a frantic telegraph.

I jumped down from the crate and scooped him up, dragging us both as close to the fire as I dared. I wrapped my arms around him, pulling him into my lap, trying to shield him with my own body. We huddled there, two small souls pressed against a flickering pile of burning trash, while the world above us was erased by an alien winter.

We were safe. For now. But as I looked at the frost thickening on the glass, I realized the Earth wasn't our home anymore. It was a hunting ground, and the climate was the weapon.

The fire, flickering light that made the shadows of the cellar stretch and warp like monsters on the concrete walls. Theo’s head was heavy in my lap, his breathing finally deep and rhythmic, though he still let out a tiny, hitching sob every few minutes in his sleep.

I stayed awake. I had to.

The throbbing in my skull had shifted from a sharp, white-hot spike to a dull, rhythmic hammer. Every time I blinked, the room seemed to tilt a fraction to the left. I knew what it was—a concussion. Dad had always told me: If you get hit in the head and feel like sleeping, don't. You might not wake up. So I stared at the frost on the vent windows, watching the way it glowed blue in the moonlight, forcing myself to count the seconds between my own heartbeat.

My mind kept drifting back to the ravine—to those men. I could still feel the phantom sensation of their filthy, calloused hands on my skin, and the memory made my stomach turn with a violent, oily nausea. It wasn't just the fear of what they were going to do; it was the realization of what they were.

The Greys were monsters from the stars, but those men… they were monsters from home.

It killed something inside of me to know that this was the world Theo was inheriting. He was supposed to be worried about second-grade spelling tests and whether he could get a new skin in a video game. Now, he was learning how to hide in cellars and how a man’s eyes looked right before he was shot. I looked down at his messy blonde hair, and a cold, hard resolve settled in my chest, more permanent than the ice outside.

I adjusted my grip. With my left hand, I held Theo tight against me, feeling the warmth of him through his jacket. My right hand was wrapped around the grip of the handgun, my finger resting just alongside the trigger guard. I had lost the rifle in the fall, and the weight of the smaller weapon felt insufficient against a world this dark, but it was all I had.

I wouldn't let them take him. Not the men in the woods, not the things in the sky, and not the cold. I had to be the soldier now. I had to be the wall.

I squeezed my eyes shut for a second, then forced them open again, staring back at the dancing flames.

"I've got you, Theo," I whispered into the silence. "I've got you."

The transition from the fevered dark of my memory to the stark reality of the cellar was a disorienting jolt. I blinked, my eyelids feeling like they were lined with sand. I didn't remember the fire going out. I didn't remember my head nodding forward. I just remember the cold—and then, suddenly, the gray light of morning.

My skull felt like a cracked bell being struck from the inside. When I reached up to steady myself, my fingers brushed a localized swelling on the left side of my head. The moment I touched it, a white-hot spark of agony lanced through my brain, making me hiss and pull back. The knot was hard and tender, a brutal souvenir from the man in the woods.

The panic didn't set in until I realized my lap was empty.

"Theo?" I called out, but my voice was a dry, sandpaper rasp. My heart began to gallop, the adrenaline making my head swim in dizzying circles. "Theo!"

"I'm over here, Rory."

His voice was small, hollow, and came from the dark corner of the cellar behind the water heater. I scrambled to my feet, bracing myself against the cold concrete wall until the room stopped tilting. "Don't do that, buddy," I breathed, clutching my chest. "You nearly gave me a heart—"

The words died in my throat. I walked toward him, and as the shadows receded, I saw what had him mesmerized.

It was a body.

An older man, maybe in his late thirties, slumped against a stack of canned goods. He looked like he’d been prepared for a war; a shotgun was gripped in his left hand, and a pistol lay loosely in his right. It didn't take a detective to see what had happened. There was a jagged, blackened wound at his temple, and the wall behind him was stained in a way that made me want to gag.

"Don't look," I whispered, lunging forward to pull Theo into my side, shielding his face with my jacket. My hands were shaking again. I grabbed a moth-eaten wool blanket from a nearby shelf and draped it over the man's upper torso, covering the worst of the gore.

As I tucked the blanket, I noticed a piece of yellowed notebook paper near his boots, weighted down by a discarded shell casing and speckled with dried, dark droplets. I picked it up, my eyes scanning the frantic, shaky handwriting.

If you found this, I'm already gone. Don't let the infected touch you. A scratch is enough to turn you into one of those things. I wasn't so lucky—got bit. Bites are faster. The fever takes hold before you can even pray.

But watch the skies. The Greys... they aren't just in ships. They can shift. If they taste your blood, they take your shape, your memories, your life. Look for the tells: they don't show emotion. They rarely blink. If they go too long without blinking, their eyes shift to solid black. That's the mask slipping.

Take what you need. I won't be needing it where I'm going. God bless.

I lowered the paper, the note trembling in my hand. They can shift. The monsters weren't just the giants in the sky or the twitching things in the woods—they could be anyone.

I looked around the bunker. He’d been a prepper. There were high-calorie bars, a few jugs of water, and boxes of shells. I looked at the small ventilation windows; the ice was no longer spider-webbing across the glass. It was dripping, melting under a pale, sickly sun. The flash-freeze had passed.

I moved with a grim, mechanical efficiency. I found two sturdy backpacks in a corner and stuffed them with the supplies—high-calorie bars, water, and the man's extra wool socks. Then, I turned back to the body. I took a deep breath, reached under the blanket, and pried the shotgun from his cold fingers. I gathered every box of ammo I could find.

Then I reached down and picked up the pistol he’d used. It felt heavy and cold, but I knew I couldn't leave it. To my relief, the handgun was a 9mm—the same caliber as my own. Having a spare meant I had a backup if mine jammed, or even a weapon for Theo if things got truly desperate. I tucked the extra pistol into the back of my waistband and slung the shotgun over my shoulder.

I handed Theo his pack. We stood at the bottom of the concrete stairs, looking up at the metal doors. I checked the weight of the two handguns against my spine and the cold steel of the shotgun against my back. I felt like a walking armory, but in this world, lead was the only thing that felt like security.

"Ready?" I asked, my voice sounding older, harder.

Theo looked at me, his face pale but his jaw set in a mirror of my own. He nodded.

I reached for the handle and pushed. The metal doors groaned as I shoved them open, and we stepped out. The world outside was waiting, and now I knew exactly how to see the monsters coming.