Indigo Robertson sat on the lumpy futon in her dorm room, reading a romance novel about aliens from far-off worlds. It had been written a decade ago when the idea of aliens had still been science-fiction. Everything was different now.

Her roommate Molly burst through the door and flopped on her bed across from Indigo’s. The willowy blonde was Indigo’s complete opposite. While Indigo was curvy with cocoa skin and kinky black hair, Molly was fair and skinny.

Indigo might be curvy, but she was on an athletic scholarship for tennis. She blamed the extra padding on her heritage, but the truth was, it was all muscle underneath.

Molly sighed. She had a date almost every night with a different guy. Molly wasn’t easy, but she did have a lot of guys buying her dinner. Not that Molly ever ate anything.

“I really liked this one,” Molly said. “Why do guys have to be such jerks?”

“I have no idea. I don’t even bother,” Indigo said.

She hadn’t had a boyfriend since high school and didn’t want one either. She was too busy with her schoolwork and tennis practice to get involved with the annoying dudes around campus.

Since the economy had gone into recession several years ago, the only guys who ended up in college tended to be entitled, self-absorbed jackasses. Unlike Molly, Indigo didn’t want to have anything to do with that scene.

“But don’t you ever get lonely?” Molly asked wistfully. She brushed a long strand of blonde hair out of her face and flopped on her back on her fluffy pink comforter.

“I have you,” Indigo said. Molly could get a little obnoxious with her flighty wistfulness, but she was a good friend and a sweet girl. At the end of the day, Indigo really did love Molly. They’d been roommates for two years and had become best friends despite their differences.

“Indigo, you’re so sweet. Any guy would be lucky to have you.”

“They’d have to catch me first,” Indigo said, holding back a snort. She set the romance novel down on her nightstand. Her book boyfriends were all that she could handle right now. Human men just couldn’t compare.

After the Draconians, the dragon shifter aliens, had landed on Earth and offered advanced technology in exchange for human cooperation in their mating lottery, millions of girls had lined up for their chance to win.

When Indigo had turned eighteen, she’d entered the mating lottery herself. The seven-foot-tall dragon shifters not only offered five hundred thousand dollars to the family of any girl who was chosen, they were also superfine in every way imaginable. Indigo had never seen a Draconian up close, but from what she’d seen on television, those guys left human men in the dust.

Since the advanced technology that the Draconians had brought to Earth had sent the human economy into turmoil, people needed the money from the mating lottery more than ever. Indigo’s parents certainly could have used the cash, but she hadn’t been genetically matched with an alien.

She was offered a tennis scholarship to her university, and she’d jumped at the chance to get a college education and play her favorite sport. Maybe after college she would even become a pro, who knew? For now, she was focused on her studies and planned to become a fitness trainer.

In the last several months, the Draconians had become more involved in Earth society after a series of terrorist attacks. But things still hadn’t improved all that much on a day-to-day basis for the average human. Molly clicked on the television with the remote and started flipping through channels until she landed on the news.

Breaking news: the Earth is under attack. The Earth is under attack. An unknown alien species has landed on the planet. Several cities have been bombed. New York. London. Paris. Stay indoors and stay tuned for updates.

“What the hell?” Molly asked. “Have the Draconians turned against us?”

“Why would they do that? They want to mate with our women. They need us to revitalize their DNA and save their own species from extinction. Hurting us would hurt them.”

“These are different aliens?”

“I guess,” Indigo said below her breath. Things had been bad enough since the Draconians had arrived. Human consciousness had to expand to incorporate the reality of alien life forms.

Not only did aliens exist, they were seven feet tall, hunky, and wanted to make babies with human women. There had been mass hysteria and fear of global nuclear war. When the Draconians offered advanced technology to humanity in exchange for entering the mating lottery, the gap between rich and poor had widened more with each passing year.

Now, humanity would have to contend with a new alien species who obviously wanted to do them harm. Indigo shook her head and bit her lip. This was totally messed up.

“Change the channel and see if there’s more information somewhere else,” Indigo said to Molly.

Molly flipped through the channels and landed on another news station showing a video of a group of aliens shooting up a university in Chicago. Indigo and Molly went to school in Los Angeles. Chicago was thousands of miles away, but that was nothing for aliens who had traveled across the universe to destroy them. Who knew how long it would take for the aliens to arrive at their door?

“Are those lizards?” Molly said, her face full of terror.

Indigo stared at the television as the video played over and over again. A group of giant lizard-men wearing skintight orange uniforms walked into the University of Chicago and shot up the students there. It was a bloodbath. The lizard aliens’ laser rifles were more powerful than any weapons humans had. Their skin seemed to be impervious to bullets. They were unstoppable.

“Why do they want to hurt us?” Molly said, her voice quivering.

“I don’t know, Molly,” Indigo said, standing from her own futon to cross the room to where Molly sat shivering on her own bed. Indigo put her arm around her friend and held her close. Molly seemed to be on the verge of a breakdown.

“Why is this happening? Why is this happening?” Molly repeated the phrase over and over again as she rocked back and forth in Indigo’s arms. Indigo patted her friend’s hair and tried to calm her down, but Indigo was freaking out, too. Just when she thought she was getting her life under control, a new species of aliens landed on Earth and started killing college kids.

In the midst of Molly’s whimpers, the lights blinked out. Screams and shouts erupted from down the hall of the dormitory. People were starting to panic.

This is bad.

Really bad.

Indigo knew that she had to be the one to help people who weren’t as strong as her. People like Molly. But what was she supposed to do? She was a twenty-one-year-old girl herself. She had no experience with fighting aliens.

“We need to get the hell out of here, now,” Indigo said. ”Where your car keys?”

Molly handed Indigo the keys, and Indigo yanked Molly up from her bed. Her friend was stunned and could barely move. She was shivering and crying, nearly hysterical. Indigo had to get her out of there fast or whatever was making the rest of the dormitory scream their heads off would get to them, too.

Indigo looked Molly in the eye, then slapped her across the face. She didn’t want to hurt her; she just wanted to stun her into silence.

“Pull it together, Molly. Let’s go.”

Molly sucked her sobs back and nodded her head, holding her cheek where Indigo had slapped her.

“Okay,” Molly whispered, following Indigo to the door.

Indigo peeked through a sliver of the open door. It was dark in the hallway, aside from the overhead emergency lights that glowed red over the bodies of panicked college students running back and forth. A boy Indigo knew from one of her exercise science classes passed, and Indigo reached out to grab his arm.

“What’s going on? Are they here?” she asked him.

“I don’t know. I don’t know.” The boy was terrified, shaking his head back and forth. He yanked his arm away and ran down the hall.

“We can’t go that way,” Indigo said, closing the door. She went to the window and opened it, looking outside. There were emergency sirens blaring, and she could hardly hear herself think. An emergency ladder under the window extended to the ground below.

“We’re going to have to climb down,” Indigo said.

“I can’t,” Molly said, shaking her head vigorously.

“If you don’t come with me now, I can’t protect you.”

“Okay, I’ll try.”

Indigo pushed the screen out of the window and swung her leg over the windowsill, hooking her foot in the first rung of the ladder. She slowly lowered herself down and waited just below the window to make sure that Molly made it out.

“Come on, Molly,” Indigo urged, her voice sharp and demanding. She wasn’t going to leave her friend there to die at the hands of some freaky lizard-men.

Molly was still crying, but she lowered herself out of the window and climbed down behind Indigo. They both made it to the damp grass. Students ran screaming in every direction. The emergency sirens wailed through the night air.

Indigo grabbed Molly’s arm and ran across the lawn to the parking lot. She pressed the button on Molly’s car keys and her car’s lights flashed. Indigo unlocked the door and shoved her friend inside. Molly hadn’t stopped crying for a second.

Somebody had to keep their cool. That certainly wasn’t going to be Molly. Indigo jumped into the driver’s seat, jammed the keys into the ignition, and pulled out of the parking space with the sound of screeching tires. She threw the car into drive and sped out of the parking lot and onto the street. Indigo flipped on the radio, hoping to get more information about what was happening.

Most of the radio stations were silent. That couldn’t be good. She had to think. Where should she go? What should she do? She continued flipping through the radio stations until she landed on one that was still broadcasting.

What we know now, is that the Draconians’ ancient enemy, the Mulgor, have landed on Earth. They have already invaded numerous cities throughout America and the world. These creatures are seven feet tall and look like lizard-men. If you see these creatures, do not approach them. Do not allow them to see you. Go into hiding. Get as far away from populated areas as you possibly can. Los Angeles is currently under attack. We will continue to broadcast as long as we can. Stay safe. God be with you.