The 5th Wave

Aliens—the Others—have invaded Earth. They are intelligent and determined to destroy humankind.

Cassie Sullivan is alone in the woods and thinks she might be the last human alive. She thinks about her name, Cassiopeia, and how no one but her father would call her that. She remembers when he first showed her the constellation Cassiopeia in the night sky; she questioned why it was named Cassiopeia when it is shaped like a “W.” Cassie reflects on how naive she was back then and sometimes wonders if she has gone insane.

Cassie crosses the highway once a week to get supplies from a couple of convenience stores. She’s afraid to drink water from a nearby stream because the Others might have poisoned it, so she collects bottled water. She goes at dusk to avoid the drones that fly overhead. When Cassie enters one of the stores this time, she senses something is different despite nothing looking disturbed. She has an M16 rifle that she has only used twice, but it makes her feel secure. She hears a noise and pinpoints it to a particular corner.

Cassie finds a wounded soldier. She orders him to drop his gun and raise his hands. The man does as she asks—but only raises one hand. When Cassie demands he raise his other hand, he explains that he’s trying to hold his guts in. She cannot trust that this man is human and not Other. The soldier says he knows she is human because she didn’t shoot him right away. Cassie understands that he is likely not an Other for the same reason. However, she still demands he raise his other hand. She sees he is holding something and instinctively shoots, afraid it is a weapon. However, it’s a crucifix.

Cassie worries that the Others’ next wave of attacks will be the inability to identify them. They look and act like humans, sewing distrust among the few human survivors of the previous waves. Cassie realizes she must move on but is reluctant to face the dangers of moving.

The Others’ ship showed up 10 days before the first wave. Some people fled the cities, but most stuck to their routines. Cassie actually had a date at the time and learned that most of the school knew about her crush on Ben Parish.

Many people assumed the aliens weren’t malevolent, but this was before they knew the Others wanted to kill them—“All of us” (40).

As Cassie walks, she recalls the first wave. She was in calculus class when the lights suddenly went out. It wasn’t long before the students and teachers realized their phones were dead. The students gathered in the gym to wait for their parents to pick them up. Cassie sat with her best friend, Lizbeth. Lizbeth lamented the idea of dying a virgin and urged Cassie to tell her crush Ben Parish how she feels about him. Cassie balked at the idea.

As Cassie eats a Slim Jim and dreams of having a cheeseburger, she recoils from a bird. She’s hated birds ever since the third wave hit.

Cassie sleeps in abandoned cars at night. She fears the drones have the ability to see her heat signature but makes it to morning. She can smell Cincinnati a mile before she reaches it because of the fire, smoke, and scent of death. Cassie has a bad feeling about Cincinnati that increases when she finds bodies on the road.

There are three bodies on the road—a man, woman, and child. As Cassie checks them, she realizes the man’s blood is fresh and the woman is still warm. She looks around for a drone but doesn’t see one. She feels pain in her leg and realizes she’s been shot. Cassie pulls out her gun and dives for a nearby car, sliding underneath. When nothing happens for several minutes, she realizes the sniper is using a high-powered rifle, meaning he’s up to half a mile away. She ties a cloth around her leg to stop the bleeding and continues to wait, wondering if the sniper has left.

During the second wave, the Others dropped a metal rod that caused massive earthquakes and tsunamis—taking out the United States’ east and west coasts as well as parts of Australia, “Japan, Hong Kong, London, Rome, Rio” (60). The third wave came from birds. They were infected with an airborne version of the Ebola virus, killing 97 percent of the remaining population—including Cassie’s mother. Most people abandoned the cities during the third wave, but Cassie, her father, and her brother Sammy remained barricaded in their home.

The day Cassie’s mother died, her father bathed and buried her in the garden. He told Cassie that they needed to leave for Wright-Patterson Airforce base about a 100 miles away.

Sammy is Cassie’s five-year-old brother. The last time she saw him was when he was taken away by school bus from a camp—later referred to as Camp Ashpit—they joined about 20 miles from home. Cassie’s father heard about the camp just as his wife got sick, but she refused to go. The family arrived at the camp and found a well-functioning community with food and medical support all—led by a US Marine named Hutchfield. Once the family was accepted into the community, Cassie’s father was offered a weapon, but he refused, stating that guns would be ineffective against the Others. At the time, Cassie understood her father’s argument, but now sides more with Hutchfield, who was attached to his rifle.