Eric Thompson stood gazing up at the large dome that protected the city and its inhabitants inside. The lights of the city within the dome sparkled like a clear night sky. It was night, but the lights in the dome made the dome glow like a giant light sphere. He had to admit that it was beautiful.

As Eric watched the dome, he saw one of the tall green aliens looking down at his group with what appeared to be binoculars. Smiling, Eric pulled his firearm out of its holster and aimed at the green alien, then fired.

Pulling the trigger, the gun's loud bang echoed through the night. The bullet hit the dome, making it flicker before bouncing off, and was crushed by the impact, falling to the ground outside the dome.

Eric, seeing where it had fallen, walked over, slowly picked it up, and studied it. The bullet was flat from the force of the impact. Nearly resembling a coin that had been left on a train track. Frowning, he dropped it to the dirt and looked up at the green alien to find he was no longer there. For whatever reason, the alien was no longer watching them.

Shoving his weapon back in its holster, Eric turned to his group. "Don't waste your ammo. The bullets won't go through the dome's barrier," he told them. He wanted to save the ammo for when they were face-to-face with the aliens, and with nothing standing between them. There were a lot of aliens, and not much ammo. He decided, since the dome was blocking his shots, they needed to conserve their bullets for when it was time to go into battle.

Steve Johnson, Eric's second-in-command, approached his leader. "If we can't shoot through the dome, how do we take control of the city inside?" he asked. He couldn't think of a way to enter without someone opening the doors to let them in. They had thought that since it was an unknown energy, the bullets might at least disrupt it. It didn't, which left them with little to no options.

"We want to do more than take control of the city inside the dome," Eric told his second in command. "We want to kill everyone that isn't human who is inside."

Steve looked at his leader. "Do we have spies inside the dome?" he asked. He wasn't sure if Eric had already found a way to place someone inside.

"Not yet. I'm working out a plan to get someone inside, though," Eric told him. "We need to know what's going on inside that thing."

Eric pulled his long black hair back, tying it in a ponytail with a leather strip. He hadn't cut it since before the aliens invaded Earth. He was infected for a while; The time had passed slowly during that time. He and his people had gone to a hidden city that a map they had found led them to, only to discover that it was crawling with zombie-type humans. It didn't take long for him or his friends to get infected.

Eric and all his people were those residents of the hidden city who had gone there to escape the chaos of the invasion. However, two weeks ago, they suddenly changed back into ordinary humans without knowing how or why.

Like a tidal wave, all their memories had returned, finding they had been attacking and eating humans because of whatever infection they had contracted. It was something that they were all disgusted by. He knew that the infection was because of the aliens. He wanted to make sure he or anyone else from this planet didn't contract it again or something similar.

He and his group had traveled outside their hidden city, located in the tunnels of the water plant, to find the large dome. They had found evidence that there were three domes just like it; a total of four domes. One of them had only been finished a couple of days ago.

He and his second in command had watched through the main dome to find that there were humans among them. There were also humans with a light green tint to their skin. Eric couldn't fathom what disease they caught to turn their skin a light tint of green.

He had played with the idea that it was a second race, but tossed it aside, thinking maybe he and his people had been changed for so long that mating between the two races made the humans with green-tinted skin. It didn't matter to him. They were still humans. It was the tall green ones with black eyes that needed to die. All of them so they could take back the planet. He just needed to figure out how to do it.

Steve looked at his leader. "Are we setting up camp or going back to the city?" he asked. "What are your orders?"

Eric thought about it for a moment before smiling widely. "We set up camp, create a barrier, and kill anything that exits the dome that isn't human."

"And the green-tinted humans? Do we kill them, too?" Steve asked. Not sure if his leader wanted to kill them, even though they were half-alien.

Eric turned to Steve, one eyebrow raised. "You just answered your own question. I told you we kill anything that isn't human. They may have a green tint to their skin, but they're still human. We don't kill humans even if they're a product of alien and human mating."

Steve nodded in understanding, then headed to give the order to the others to set up camp in front of the entrance of the dome.

Eric continued to watch the dome. The green alien who was watching them earlier had yet to return. He needed a way inside the dome without raising suspicions. He needed spies, but knew they wouldn't let them in. He needed a plan.

After they had been cured, they looked around for supplies and weapons. They had found old military weapons but no handheld radios or walkie-talkies. If he was able to send someone inside the dome, he didn't have a way to communicate with his spies once inside.

He also didn't know if they could come and go freely once his people were inside the dome. The aliens appeared to have phenomenal security. He doubted that they would be able to come and go as they pleased. They had found an old AM/FM radio, but it didn't pick up anything. It turned out to be useless. He guessed that the aliens had taken out all the satellites. He wasn't sure, though; it was only a guess.

Eric turned around and headed toward his people, who were busy setting up the camp. He needed a plan. The alien's technology was too superior. He needed to find a way around it. He just didn't know what way that was. He decided that he was going to study the aliens while looking for an alternative way into the dome.

One of his men created a bonfire. It was getting cold outside, so they pitched their tents all the way around the bonfire to help stay warm. A large pot hung over the fire, heating the water inside. Once the water started to heat up, they threw cut-up vegetables and meat inside the pot of heating water, making a hobo stew. For the meat, he had some of his men hunt rabbits to add their meat to the stew.

On their travels from the tunnel city, they found some properties where there were no longer any homes that remained intact, but with overgrown vegetable gardens, untouched by the attack. It was clear the plants had died, and the seeds had replanted themselves from the old fruit and vegetables.

Eric had his people collect squash, tomatoes, and peppers. He even found patches of sunchokes. The invasive root was nearly impossible to spot unless you knew what you were looking for. It looked like sunflowers. Each year, the patch would grow larger with more of the root vegetable.

They had collected a bunch for dinner, making a note of where they found it. They wanted to collect more when it was time to plant. It was so invasive that they would have plenty in no time at all.

It took nearly an hour to set up their camp. The bonfire raged in the center, the pot steaming with hobo stew: a mixture of meat and vegetables they had. Once they had camp set up and were ready to eat, they passed around bowls of stew and ate quietly. Eric had put someone on watch, keeping someone observing the dome's gates for any aliens leaving out of the gate.

Eric had set up a security perimeter around the camp, not wanting anyone or anything to sneak up on them. He was afraid that when they went to sleep, the aliens would ambush them.

Eric stood at the door of his tent. His bowl of stew was in one hand as he gazed up at the dome.

Eric wasn't sure what to do, he only knew that he needed to do something.

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