The night was lit up by the purplish blue light spiraling around my arm. Tendrils of electricity danced around my fingertips, sending tiny currents tickling down my skin. The silvery moonlight, usually a comforting presence, did nothing to appease my jumpy nerves.
  The ancient language carved into my skin was gently brushing away, being replaced by another. I stared at the alien words inscribed upon my arm.
  We are rising.
  Three simple words.
  Not exactly the best of starts.
  Somewhere buried deep in my heart, stacked away in a darkened corner, something even I wouldn’t like to admit to myself. I feared the dark, damp prison they had set up just for me. Alone in the darkness, enveloped by black walls on every side. A claustrophobic feeling overwhelmed me and I willed myself to concentrate on what I was supposed to do.
  A prick on my right arm brought my attention back to the message.
  Gradually, the purplish light started to detach itself from my arm. Twisting and coiling like a crystal white serpent. I held out both my hands, allowing the silvery strands of light to coalesce centimeters above my cupped hands, forming a sphere of light.
  An image twirled and turned around the sphere, a woman with weirdly pale white skin and sleek black hair cascading over her shoulder. The black streaks marred the perfect white of her skin and clothes. I noticed those other aspects afterwards for the whole of my attention had been drawn to her eyes. They were colored by a crimson red hue and had light specks of orange dotted hither and thither. It looked as if the sun was ablaze within her irises.
  A ghostly whisper escaped her lips and I could barely make out her words.
  We are rising. We are rising. We are rising.
  The repetition of words sent trickles of fear echoing throughout my body. I shivered despite the warm air. I have nothing to fear, I told myself again and again. Nothing.
I took one last glance at the projection of the woman in my hand; it was hard to tear my eyes away from her face. The silvery wisps of light blew away as my hand slumped to my side.
******
  When I was a child of barely ten, I loved hearing stories of old earth religions, of little green men called “aliens”. It was those stories that tainted my childhood nightmares and crept into the reality I am in now.
  Extraterrestrials -not of the little green kind- had come tramping into our lives. In the year 2223, aliens had taken over the earth, exterminated all human beings, well, all except for me. But then again, I suppose we didn’t register as humans with the machine part gnawing away at our brain.
  I was a cyborg, half human, half machine. The purplish lines around my wrist allowed me to communicate with the other cyborgs. We were given our implants at the age of thirteen, allowing us the curse of immortality, the chips in our brains constantly repairing every cell in our body, denying us the ability of dying.
  Yes. Dying is an ability.
  The aliens that had invaded us, however, didn’t know that. Despite their advanced weapons and technology, they had rather primitive understanding of earthlings, for they had never encountered such a species. They simply thought the bulging mass of metal on one side of our temples was our biological makeup. So they killed the human beings and stacked them away, at least for a while.
  We are rising. We are rising. We are rising.
  The words of the woman still rang clearly in my ear as I sprinted through the forest. The moon had hid behind the shelter of trees and complete and utter darkness descended upon the world. The woman’s blazing red eyes were the only thing that my eyes could see. I focused on them, letting the robotic part of my brain take control of navigation.
  Small scuffling noises came from behind me. I sighed, knowing it was only a matter of time when the alien government caught up with me, they wouldn’t just let a human run lose. I scanned the area for heat signals, and sure enough, three alien figures stood out against the dead cold night.
  I heard a strange buzzing sound, first barely noticeable but getting louder and rising in pitch by the second. I clasped my hands tightly to my ears, forcing myself to focus on the forest path ahead.
  One. Two. Three. Four.
  One.
  Two.
  Three.
  Four.
  The heavy thumps of my heart seemed to echo my every move, every twitch of my eye, every shallow breath that runs through my nostrils, every tiring step I take.
  It was only a matter of time before they caught up, and kill me.
  I stopped abruptly and turned my face towards my pursuers. I could hear their footsteps slam to a stop and sensed the weapons pointed directly into my face.
  “We are rising.” I said deadly calmness. Death, was no longer a fearsome thing.
  We are rising,
  With fire in our eyes,
  We don’t fear anything,
  Because we’ve already died.
  I closed my eyes and embraced the darkness, the darkness people used to call death.