Geoffrey spent almost every waking moment in the backyard measuring holes. He’d dig the holes first, usually with a spoon, which took a great deal of time of course. Then he measured them. He calculated their volume, after taking down their circumference and depth. He analyzed each one carefully for soil erosion and texture. He compared one hole to the next, intent on finding even the most minute differences.

This behavior of Geoffrey’s worried his parents. Maybe the boy was autistic. Maybe he was preparing for an alien invasion. Whatever it was, this wasn’t the behavior of a normal 2-year-old.

It was a Saturday morning when it happened. The flea market regulars arrived just after daybreak and found the entire lot filled with lamps. They came in all shapes and sizes, some barely recognizable as lamps at all.

That was when the invasion began. It seems normal now, but in the beginning, no one could have dreamed of an alien race that looked like desk lamps.

This story was written in response to this photo prompt.

First contact with an alien life form came in 2015 when the pods landed. They entered the Earth’s atmosphere across the planet. They landed in empty fields and busy streets. They filled the oceans and eventually washed up on shore.

The creatures took three years to mature. Once they started breeding, the enslavement of the human race began.

Hernando lowered himself into his chair and began the painful process of unbandaging his feet. The mines took a lot out of him and the thought had crossed his mind many times that surviving might not be worth the effort anymore. He winced at the bloody mess. Even if he’d once been the one lecturing his friends on the need to keep fighting, no matter how small the act of resistance, he was now reaching the end of his resolve.

But if humanity was ever going to win back its freedom from the outerworlders, Hernando could not abandon all hope.

Today’s Story was based on a prompt from Lillie McFerrin Writes.

The first documented invasion of Earth occurred prior to the Revolutionary War in the mid-eighteenth century. The aliens had achieved interstellar flight through a complicated series of hydraulics powered by steam. They were an industrious species but their eagerness to rule Earth was not matched by their technology.

The new world might have been destroyed then and there had it not been for Benjamin Franklin and his invention of electricity.

Alice couldn’t speak. She could only sing. Even as a baby, her cries came out as melodies. Her parents were afraid to send her to school because not only the other kids, but also several teachers, made fun of her and treated her as an outcast.

When the invasion began and they learned that the only way to appease the aliens was through song, that’s when everyone realized they were trapped inside an M. Night Shymalan movie.

At first, the mushrooms were viewed as a plague. Every time one sprouted, the townspeople would vigorously clean the location with the heaviest grade of industrial cleaner, the kind you have to wear masks and gloves to use safely.

But when the town survived the alien invasion, people stopped complaining about the mushrooms.

She was a freak, her hands impossibly tiny. They all shunned her.

They still shunned her. Even her grandmother. Her purpose had been served, praise be to God.