He squeezed his eyes, then tried to open them, but he couldn’t. He shook his head a little but stopped immediately. It hurt too much. He tried to bring his hands to his face to help himself open his eyes, but his hands didn’t cooperate. They hung limply at the ends of his arms, his arms hanging over his head. It didn’t make sense. His arms were hanging up. He tried to remember what had happened and where he was. He remembered being in an Army supply truck with American soldiers and with Leah, the Swiss girl from his hiking club. They had driven through Eastern France and into Switzerland. They learned the aliens hadn’t spared even the neutral Swiss. He remembered Basel. Several large craters marred the once beautiful city, the industrial section of town vaporized by a meteor that struck it. Smaller meteors had destroyed government buildings and both rail hubs. The American soldiers speculated that the aliens wanted to isolate parts of the continent from each other and the rail hubs in Basel were key connection points.
