My voice vanished and any word that I tried to speak then came out as a gasp of air.
“What’s going on?”  A voice called out, “why are we here?”
I could only shake my head as I breathed out the words, “I don’t know.”
“Bullshit!” another voice called out.
“Tell us the truth,” cried another.
“Don’t be stupid,” came another, “look at her, she’s obviously got no idea, just like the rest of us!”
More voices began to chime in, another and another, until there was no way to tell one voice from another.
A hand on my shoulder shocked me so much that I let out a low squeak in shock.  I turned to find Jennifer pulling her hand quickly back. 
“How's it going?” her overly cheerful yet commanding tone was the same as ever, however it still caught me off guard.
“Going?”
“Laura, are you alright?” Sylvia asked, her motherly concern for me usually just extended to threatening people who had wronged me, however the look on her face at that moment showed more concern than I had ever seen from her before.
“I don’t know how to answer that.”
“This is all ridiculously surreal isn’t it?”  Julie had always had a knack for being able to take my mind off of things, yet she was understandably struggling to find the right words to say.
“I guess…”
“Surreal, Julie?  Seriously?”  Phoebe had always been a realist, she formed firmly held opinions based on facts and logic, the one thing on her mind for that particular retaliation was probably the opinion that Julie was being useless, as was the usual consensus since they fell out years ago.
However, I know that ultimately, her thoughts were on me in that moment and on how much I hate it when people simply state the obvious. 
(If there is nothing to be said, then it is better to say nothing, especially in such a situation)
She put her arms around me, “seriously, are you alright?  Is there anything we can do?”
I looked over her shoulder at the expectant faces of each of them, before extricating myself from Phoebe’s embrace.
They each in turn gave me hugs.  Such a simple thing calmed me to such a degree that I was able to regain coherent thought.
My last hug came from Amelia.  If I have mild social anxiety, hers is much more severe.  She rarely allows body contact let alone hugging, so to receive one from her meant so much to me. 
She gave me a nod of encouragement, “you’ll be alright, you’ve got us.”
I took a deep breath and managed a half smile, “I need to know what’s going on; why we’re here and what it’s got to do with me.”
Nods of agreement circulated between us.
“We just need…”
Before she could finish speaking, Sylvia was cut off by the lights dimming.
All save those that covered the platform dulled into a dull beige, leaving only just enough light to be able to see by.  The women and I instinctively stepped down the slope a little, relieved to find that the lights did not follow us.
Instead, a door opened.
As tall as it was wide, the door appeared as if from nowhere, although it became quite clear that the seams of it were always there, simply hidden by the lights.
Through the door came three cloaked persons.
The robes they wore were pale blue and covered them completely from head to foot with a meshed section over where their eyes were, not dissimilar to a full burqa.
They stepped up to the low wall of the platform, the door closing directly after them.
Silence fell across the room.
The tallest of these spoke.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” his voice, for it was a he, was amplified across the space by some hidden device.
“We apologize for the manner that you were brought here and the confusion that followed, I am here to clarify what is happening.”
His voice had an accent, yet one at I had never heard before.
He began with me.
“Laura MacPhaid,” he turned to indicate me to everyone before turning back to the crowd, “as you have likely realized, is the reason that you are all here.”
I found myself slowly crouching down to the ground, without the wall to lean on, sitting felt like the wisest choice at the time.  Whatever was coming, I suspected that standing up was not something that I was going to be able to continue.
“I would like to impress upon you all however, that, although she is the reason, it is not her fault.”  The voice continued, “she was selected at random when we first learnt of what was to come.  We then utilized her neural link to locate and extract everyone here.
“In English please!” someone cried out from below.
The cloaked person tilted their head momentarily before saying, “it is difficult to explain any more simply than that, allow me to try.  Every human being has a neural link that connects them to other human beings that they know.  When one thinks of another and that other thinks of them, a very weak telepathic connection is made between them.  If one thinks of another but that other does not think of them, then there is no connection, no link, only a lost signal.  Using nanotechnology we used Laura MacPhaid’s link to pinpoint the location of each of you, so that we could use the beam to lock onto your DNA and bring you here.”
“Yeah,” Jennifer spoke this time, “we still don’t quite get it.”
“It means,” said Phoebe, “that they used advance science to bring anyone that Laura recognizes and that recognizes her back up into space.”
Sounds of oooh and aaaah and, “I get it,” murmured around the room.
Thank goodness for Phoebe’s in-depth love of sci-fi.
I spotted Amelia speaking quietly to Sylvia, who spoke out, “you referred to us as human, are we to take it that you’re not?”
“That is correct,” he replied, “I am not human.”
“So you’re an alien?  Is that why you’re hiding under that tent?” asked Jennifer.
“That is also correct, I did not wish to cause alarm or fear, considering the confusion that you all must be suffering at this time.”  He raised a gloved hand to scratch the back of his head, “however the term ‘alien’ is incorrect.  One is only alien to a place they do not know or belong, therefore, it is currently your species that is the alien race.”
“How dare you!”  An angry voice calls out from below, “you abduct us from our homes, from our planet, and you call us the aliens!”  I recognized the voice coming from Chasity Bryne, a woman that I once volunteered with, a rather, shall we say, single minded person, with strong opinions that she assumed could never be wrong.  I get on well with her daughter, Emma, who is the same age as me, who, at that time, was trying to shut her mother up by saying things through her teeth and under her breath, rather unsuccessfully.
Our host did not seem to mind her attitude, perhaps he had expected aggressive responses and so would not let it phase him.  He shook his head, “by definition, an alien is another being from another place, it is simply a descriptive word, I shall not use it hence forward if it offends you at all.  Please allow me to extend my apologies.”
A few clustered giggles spread throughout the room, Chasity simply stood seething away whilst Emma attempted to wipe the smirk from her face.
“If you don’t mind my asking,” said Phoebe, “what race are you?”
“I am tharat, as are my companions,” he twisted his body to indicate the two silent beings who nodded slightly, “You will find that the majority of people on board this ship are also tharat, save for a few of the other Community races here and there where they are needed.”
I heard a voice not far off, I think it was my cousin Amber, say to the person next to her, “whatever's going on, I hope we get on with it soon, my kids are probably freaking out right now.”  A voice replied to her, “yeah, my girlfriend won’t know what’s happened to me, she’s going to think I forgot to meet her or something.”
In that moment, it occurred to me, just how many people would be missing the occupants of that room.  Many people would have been seen when these were taken, others must have simply disappeared.  The thought of the commotion and upset that their friends and loved ones must be experiencing pierced my heart.
I managed to force some words out of the bone dry hole in my face that I usually refer to as a mouth.
“Excuse me,” my words sounded raspy and cracked yet our host somehow heard me.
“Yes, Laura MacPhaid?”
The attention of the whole room shifts back to me.
I am fairly certain that my heart stopped beating for a split second.
I swallowed a couple of times in an attempt to remoisten my mouth, “um, I was just wondering, why we are here.  Will we be here long?  I know everyone has friends and families and things to be getting back to.”  I clear my throat, glancing around at the encouraging looks that my friends were giving me, and continued.  “There must be a lot of worried and scared people, both here and back home.  It would help to know what exactly is going on.  Please.”
Our host bowed his head a little and speaking slowly he said, “forgive me.  I am unsure of the right way to tell you all of what the situation truly is.  I believe that it will not be taken well or it will not be believed at all.  It will be simplest to show you.”
An image of the Earth appeared, stretched across the entire wall through which we had arrived.  Whether it was a window, a projection or a giant screen, I am still unclear. 
Our blue planet was slightly silhouetted against the distant brightness of the sun.
My heart froze.
I suspect it was the same for everyone in the room, at least for those that were quick enough to understand what was going to happen.
Silence fell.
Every head was tilted upwards, every eye straining to take the scope of our world in.
Had it been under other circumstances, we would all have been talking about how amazing and beautiful the Earth was, how incredible it was to see it like this.
However, few words were uttered.
I could hear the voices of a few children talking excitedly, asking questions and trying to figure which continent and countries we were facing.
A few minutes passed.
Nothing appeared to change.
Voices began to whisper.
Breaths were let out.
Eyes were lowered.
Amelia, who was sat on the ground next to me, leaned over and whispered, “nothing’s happening.  Perhaps these guys made a mistake?”
“It has yet to happen.”  Out host apparently had very good hearing, either that or he had been monitoring me.
“What are we waiting for exactly?” I asked him, whilst suppressing the tremor in my voice. 
“You will see.”
“That…”
Before I could utter another word, there came a blindingly, bright flash.
Anyone that was looking at the world was forced to shield their eyes and look away, as everyone whose eyes were not looking, were drawn to the sight that was unfolding before us.

The bright flash had seemingly come from within the planet itself.  The light escaped its depths as it tore through every fault line that it could find.
Across the surface came thousands of smaller, harder to see flashes, followed by dark clouds so large that they covered entire countries.
The whole globe began to shake and fracture.
Then came the explosion.
From beneath the surface.
The crust splintered into a million different pieces and was thrust outwards, into space.
Whatever gravity that the core held was fading fast as the explosions looked to have annihilated both the mantle and most of the outer core.  As the core became unstable, the inner core began to rapidly freeze causing what was left to solidify.  More light flashes followed as the gasses burnt up around it.
Pieces of the Earth flung out in every direction, the inferno flames that consumed them were quickly extinguished in the vacuum of space as the atmosphere dispersed.
Chunks of rock headed towards us, yet were stopped short by some unseen barrier.  Pushed back in the opposite direction they collided with others, shattering against each another as their temperatures dropped to subzero.
Our planet was gone.
In a matter of minutes, it had been completely obliterated.

All that remained was us.