Tonight's a night like any other I have ever lived through. Walking around in the house nude, trying to find something interesting to eat or do. I'm watching some show on T.V about aliens-out of the thousands-I can't remember which. I've always sort of been interested in aliens. I cried a lot as a child about the thought that we as humans are alone - because that terrified me. Don't get me wrong, I'm not some conspiracy theorist writing for hours about lizard people, fantasizing about the government and aliens - I just find the subject interesting.
I decide I'm bored with T.V and move to turn it off. Just as I do, the power goes out.
Now I live on the coast, so the power going out is routine. However, I can see my neighbors lights still on.
Strange.
Thankfully, my trusty Zippo is on the table in front of me. Flipping it open and striking the wheel has become muscle memory for me now, and even in the dark it is as easy as touching my nose. The room, sparsely decorated with nothing but a couch and t.v, looks like something from a horror movie, and now that I'm using my zippo for light, I fit the part too.
As this odd feeling of fear creeps its way into my mind, I flick out my pocket knife. Of course there is nothing in my apartment, but I'm human. I stop and laugh at how silly I'm being. I almost sit back down before I see it.
My cat.
He is hiding underneath the couch, softly growling. Without the white noise of the T.V any longer, it is the only noise in the apartment. My cat has never made any noise but one soft meow in his entire life - it's his only saving grace that he is essentially mute.
"Buddy?"
I know he can't speak, but it was worth a shot. Now I know something is going on.
A dozen things run through my mind. Robbers, ex girlfriend, alien. It doesn't matter though- they all have the same answer.
My fucking knife.
I think about calling out to whatever is in my home. My home. The thought of anything just coming into my apartment without taking me seriously fills me with anger. I'm not a very big guy, but I make a point to take care of myself, and always have my knife. Suddenly, I start to feel rage. I quickly walk into my kitchen and look around.
Just my normal kitchen. The fridge, counters and everything else is where it should be. The lights slowly come back on, one by one. I realise how dumb this all is. Me creeping around the house without clothes, carrying a worn hunting knife and lighter. It could have been a raccoon, or just the house. When it gets this cold out houses move around. But that didn't cut it.
Something just felt wrong.
I didn't think much when my eyes grazed it. Like it was in my very DNA to see it as normal, I just kept moving. After a few seconds in the kitchen, it hit me. There was someone at my back door, in the kitchen.
A person. With big, black eyes, and small, thin shoulders. Grey skin.
I froze.
It wasn't a particularly scary being, especially with it's slumped over posture, and look of pain in its eyes. I stared for a while longer.
She. She had a very small frame, adorned with small hints as to her gender. Lines of paint were dashed around her eyes and upper-body. It was odd, but even in this amazing situation my brain found it attractive. After seeing an alien for the first time, my first thought is that it's sexy!
I relaxed for a second, but soon realised myself. I was holding a knife and a lighter up to a being that traveled farther than I could literally imagine. I put both on the counter, took a deep breath, and opened the door.
She stood in the ice cold snow, shivering just as much as any human could. Some of her skin was frost bitten, and her almost-convulsions led me to guess she had been out here for a while. I struggled to think how to greet her. How do you greet a being that is beyond royalty, beyond any queen or king, saint or myth. How do you say "hello" to a god?
I slowly bended at the waist, with my arms at my sides. A bow. If she has seen anything about humans, she understands this, a smile, and Coca-cola!
Finishing this extremely slow, purposeful bow, the tone changed.
I had been feeling a sense of fear, and sexual confusion as I looked at the small grey alien. I felt the need to help her. To do anything, be it kill my own parents or break my own leg - I needed to help her.
My body rushes outside. I can feel and sense everything in this odd state, and the cold air drives itself through my bare feet to the top of my head like lightning. My arms slowly wrap around her, and pull my body closer until we are wrapped together like long-time lovers. Her thin,frail arms come up give me a squeeze.
I'm suddenly on the couch. I struggle to wake up, and immediately know what's going on. She was about to die from hypothermia. Where's the nearest source for warmth? Me.
My arms are around her, and it takes everything not to pull her closer. I feel love for this thing I'm embracing . Why?
It doesn't feel like it is a manipulated feeling. Just as if I've met my soulmate after years of being apart. I feel as if I know every inch of flesh and thought that is hers.
Just as I think this, she jerks to life. As if she was awoken by a nightmare, her legs kick out, and jaw tightens. Out of reflex, I bring my arms in around her torso, and tuck my head into her neck and she thrashes.
"It's okay! Please don't kill me!" I shout into her.
Motion stops. I can feel her grabbing my hand, and breaking my left pauses, and begins to inspect my hand. Her soft, long fingers grabbing each of mine and posing them, looking at my fingernails and feeling over my scars.
I'm paralysed in fear. That hurt. a lot. If I move, she'll probably break another. She quickly turns around to face me. This couch isn't that big, so her face is now 2 inches away from mine.
Her hand comes up to touch my nose. Ouch. She must have broken it when she woke up. I think a rib or two is cracked as well.
I sigh.
Her hand clasps my cheek, as if she has been my companion for years.
I have been alone for 3 years now. Believe it or not, humans need other humans. I'm deprived of all interaction due to work. 9 out of 10 days I'm in the middle of nowhere, photographing some bug in horse shit for a few hundred dollars. It pays well, but my only company is the occasional bushman and mosquitoes. I've been very. very lonely these last few weeks.
A small, betraying tear creeps down my cheek into her hand. My eyes are closed. I'm just happy to feel somebody's affection. Why do I love her?
She freezes when she feels the warm salt water hit her skin. I open my eyes and remember that this isn't a run-of-the-mill cuddle - she is a goddamn alien!
She has a soft, loving look on her face, which quickly turns to a confused, somewhat angry gaze when she refocuses on me. I can see the thought cross her eyes.
"He is a goddamn human!"
Was she going through the same struggle? Is she lonely too?
Two of her beautiful arms turn into rock-solid quarterstaves, and launch me across the room with a push. I feel something enter my lung, and blood pool in the back of my throat.
I begin to cough uncontrollably. I can feel myself dying. No oxygen, no life.
At least I went out like a badass. "Killed by hot alien babe after unsuccessful seduction" My tombstone will read. Suddenly, I realise somebody crouched over me, grabbing at my face and throat. Gentle pokes to my eyes, rubbing my face. Even in my last moments, I giggle at the cluelessness within the movements of these hands. Just before I die, I feel her pulling me out of my house, into the cold, bitter snow.
There's a thing that looks kind of like a chair in the corner of the room. It's the only thing that isn't made of metal it seems. The bed I'm strapped to, the bindings around me, everything. What scares me most though is that there are no doors. Not a hatch, window, or even vent. I guess this is where they take people to experiment on. I woke up here, and my chest is numb, so its safe to assume that they fixed me up. I've been here for 2 days now. No food, no water.
I've been thinking quite a bit about that alien girl. I still feel the same way. Maybe she was controlling me. But that wouldn't explain why she stayed on that couch. I don't know. A soft hum begins to reverberate around the room, and suddenly a doorway forms on the far wall. For a second, nothing, then she walks in.
I almost shout with happiness as soon as I see her, and I can't stop a warm smile from forming on my face. She seems sad, which worries me. Accompanying her is a very tall, slender person with no face. A robot. It's made of the same metal that everything else is made from.
My favourite little alien takes a seat, and looks down at the floor, while this odd, liquid robot begins to inspect my chest and neck. First, looking at my chest, it taps something metallic, and turns a dial. I feel a bit of a pinch just under my skin, and wince. What the Hell is going on?
Without warning, it digs its hand into my stomach. I feel my flesh rip open, and it's hand home in up my ribcage and start feeling around my heart. I scream.
"Ahhhh! F-fu-.."
My eyes roll up into my head. The pain of whatever this thing is doing is more than I can take. Is this my life now? To be cut open and stitched back together by some robot for all time? As much as I hate it, I begin to weep. Soft, weak sobs - mainly due to this thing molesting my lungs.
I feel an innocent, slow hand grab mine. Soft, warm skin. I look up to see her. Those big, gorgeous shiny black eyes look more melancholic than anything I've ever seen. Some of her paint streaks are smeared, and she has a small bruise on her cheek. She was suffering just as much as any one of my loved ones ever could. I held her gaze long enough to beg for help. For release.
She slips something into my hand. I know immediately what it is - how could I not? Cold, rock solid metal sharpened to an atomic level. My Kershaw model 1950. My. Knife.
My gaze goes dead when I realise what she just did. If she's doing this, she must feel the same. Why?!
"Why d-do I love you?.." I choked out between coughs.
She bends down and presses her forehead into mine. I close my eyes, and my thoughts drift elsewhere.
A lonely, red-headed girl walks through a hospital. She is young, maybe nine or ten. Walking around the crowded corridors, calling out to her parents. I feel how scared she is. Eventually finding a tall, broad man in a doctors uniform, she tugs on his pant leg, yearning for some sort of affection. He quickly kneels down and hugs her, then points her in the direction of the waiting room.
"I'll be done soon sweetheart, okay? Your dad and mummy are helping lots of people today - there was a very big accident"
"Why can't we just go home?" The girl squeaked out - amongst all the noise and panic, it was barely a whisper.
"This has to be our home for a while sweetheart, the world needs us. Worlds need us."
Suddenly, her father turns to a man on a hospital bed. His chest open, ribs exposed. The girl is older now, maybe 17 or 18. Wearing a doctors uniform, she seems broken. Stern. Unfeeling. Her beautiful red hair tightly braided onto the back of her head. Her arms robotically moving around inside the man, using logic and muscle memory over thought and love. She suddenly walks out and sits down inside a small office. Tiny plants and pictures litter her desk, all covered in dust. Everything but her computer monitor. On the monitor, a man running through woodland as fast as he can. She begrudgingly brandishes a notebook, and begins writing furiously about what she is looking at. A report? It seems like she is studying him, filling out charts and graphs.
After a while, she decides whatever she wrote about the man is satisfactory and puts the paper in a small basket to be picked up later. She continues watching the man, changing angles and viewpoints, until he stops, and crouches without warning. Years go by of writing these reports, studying every move the man makes. Every move I make.
Eventually, she stops writing the reports, and just watches. Week after week, month after month. Staring at the wildlife, the trees. Me. Her superior comes in, and begins yelling. Picking up the empty, dusty basket and throwing it, showing performance graphs on her patients long forgotten.
She is depressed. Wanting freedom.
Crying near a balcony. I feel her utter sorrow. Her loneliness in being the only person to want freedom, to question the way of life everybody has adopted so freely. She looks out at the world. Parks, schools, houses, but unable to leave - that area is forbidden for her kind. The sadness makes a final push, and sends her off the balcony.
Flying down to Earth, encased in metal. She is crying more now, pressing buttons and pulling levers. Holding up a notebook, and pressing a couple dozen buttons, she begins to laugh. Then cheer.
I snap back into reality. I'm me again.
So she knows me. She has been studying me. All those months and years where I thought I was alone, but she was with me the whole time. Guiding me, making sure I stayed alive and on the right path.
Without any hesitation, I kissed her. It surprised her at first, and unsure how to respond she just stayed still. Her eyes wide, and hands wrapped around mine - she was frozen. She skittishly leaned in closer, and pursed her small, perfect grey lips against mine. Just as I feel her big, beautiful eyes start to close, she suddenly and wickedly reels back and cracks me across the jaw. Hard. Her body is so small and dainty-looking, the power behind her left hook dumbfounds me.
Excruciating pain. In my head, like the worst headache possible. Another person walks into the room, followed by other men. A huge, overbuild man. Smaller eyes, and a larger mouth than the girl. Muscles on more muscles. Dad. He is focusing on me, like he is trying to make my head explode. I hear voices inside my head as he turns to his "sweetheart".
"What is wrong with you?! It is a beast, no more than any other animal! We pick them up, encode, and then put them back down. This one is no different!"
The voice echoed in the back of my head like a walky-talky running out of batteries. He sounded like an old man from the U.K. Tired and hoarse from overuse, after shouting at anyone who pissed him off. Sweetheart seemed mortified. Looking down at the ground, hands clasped together in front of her. I wanted to get up and hug her - tell her everything was somehow going to be fine - even considering these seriously fucked up circumstances.
There comes something within me. A strong pull towards Sweetheart. She is in trouble, and no matter what I have to help her. If I die in the process, or blow up half of this building, no matter. I need to be with her, and protect her.
I can feel my eyes and brain heating up with this feeling. My chest is making odd noises that kind of sound like a bicycle switching gears. Small red lights are blinking around my right wrist, where the knife is. What did they do to me? And why? Her large beast of a protector moves toward her, and she flinches slightly. It was the recoil of an innocent girl afraid of her father. A girl who grew up without compassion and still tries to have mercy.
"If you f-f-u ..touch her, I'm gonna' kill you.." I manage to choke out. It feels like there is a gorilla just beneath my skin, screaming in rage, begging to take the wheel with this new power. Both of them look over at me, expressions moving into shock. Dad looks me up and down, staring at what I imagine is a hole in my stomach, and clockwork jammed into my chest. After seeing my "upgrades", he quickly grabs Sweetheart by the jaw.
"You wasted resources on this thing?! We have others who need these parts, J'ish! You just condemned dozens to death because of your stubbornness!" Frothing with rage, he strikes her. As his arm comes back to his side, things begin to get...weird.
I let lose whatever was chanting for freedom within my weak human frame. I see the thing in my chest as I get out of bed. It looks kind of like a cellphone, grafted into the right side of my chest. It's flashing a lot, sifting through levels of chemicals in my brain and muscles, taking away some and administering more. I see my knife go into the bigman, and then out.
Everything becomes quite. No more distractions. The liquid robot disappears, and the other guards rush me. The first one to get within reach drives a scalpel into my stomach, and immediately has a Kershaw buried in his head. I hear Sweetheart scream in horror behind me from the sudden brutality. The other two guards come into view, and I suddenly can't with this fight.
"We're leaving." I quickly belt out to Sweetheart.
Running. I'm sweating, and bleeding from everywhere. A large hallway, made from the same liquid metal that the other room was. After falling, I try to get up, but my body doesn't respond. Unable to even move my hands, I start to panic. I can see from here that my legs are missing chunks of flesh, and covered in burns. My stomach has a teacup-sized hole in it, and my intestines are visible. Great.
"Sweetheart?" I loudly call out. If she has a name, I don't remember what it is. Jill, Jess...Trish?
"Trisha!?"
Much louder this time, I can hear the word echo through the hallways. A large, familiar head quickly darts out from one of the rooms along the hall.
"Trish!" I scream
There is still a need to be with her. Everything in me is still screaming to go to her. But I can't move.
"I'm sorry if that scared you. But, if we want to get out of here, that is what needs to happen. I don'-"
The dehydration is starting to take affect.
"I don't doubt those were good people, but we need each other right now. I want to know what the Hell is going on between us, and I think you do to."
The wall in front of me starts to turn black, and I realise my brain is shutting down. No water, no life. Just as the last few seconds of consciousness leave me, I feel the same familiar warm hands on the back of my head. She is crouched over me, and badly injured. Burns cover her body now, and she is pouring blue liquid into my mouth. Once the container runs dry, she begins to put small vials into the cellphone on my chest.
"This is called a Kyeshi." She chokes out.
It seems to be hard for her to speak. Like she is sick with a cold, her voice comes out hoarse and cracked.
"It makes you better, but needs medicine and chemicals to work. We usually put it in our livestock, but..you would have died without it. Humans don't give themselves credit for how durable they are. Most of our bodies cannot handle implants"
I put my arm over her shoulder, and bring her closer, underneath my arm, resting my head on top of hers. We are both exhausted, and panting like olympic runners. I want to say something, but nothing suave or useful comes to mind, so I stay silent.
Her hand rests on my chest. It's very thin, and delicate-looking. Three long, bony fingers and and a thumb. The only thing that stops them from being perfect is the small cut on the back of her hand. I pick it up, and begin cleaning the cut, wiping away ash and crusted blood. It feels good to hold someone's hand.
"I know just as much as you abou-" Trish begins coughing loudly, spitting up ash.
She needs water,or whatever their form of the stuff is. I give her hand a squeeze, and slowly get up off the floor. I figure the room that she was in houses medicine and water, so that is probably the best place. Once I get there, I'm greeted by a large room, filled with shelves paired with boxes on them. It looks like a police evidence locker, with labels and notes covering every surface and box, like a notepad exploded. After some painful rummaging around in the room, my shaking hands find the small bottles she used to resuscitate me with. Quickly hobbling my way back to her, she gives an attempt to stand when she sees me approaching.
Of course, with all of her burns and cuts she falls back against the wall behind her, giving a small wheeze of pain in turn. It's hard to see her like this. Something so magnificent, laying on the ground in chambles. As I quickly approach, she flinches and recoils in disgust. Despite this, I try to pour some water into her small, grey mouth. Begrudgingly, she allows me to help her.
"Why did you give up so much and travel so far, if you are just going to sit there pissed off at me for no reason?!"
"I thought you were intelligent, and you might be able to be in our slave-class, but after that massacre, you have proved to be just another advanced chimpanzee.."
She sounded incomprehensibly disappointed. It burned to know that she didn't love me.