After hitting the button as fast as possible, rather than the explosion I assumed would instantly engulf me, I felt a quick pinch to the back of my head, leading to an extreme ice-cold sensation spreading across my mind. Whatever it was seemed to coat itself to the insides of my skull. It then traveled down my spine through my body and into my extremities, ending at the tips of my fingers and toes.

I saw a flash of

...

which I attributed to being a hallucination. That subzero sensation that had gone through me had sharpened my mind, woken me up, jumpstarted my heart; energized me. The darkness receded from my vision, and the dizziness disappeared. It allowed me to take quick stock of my situation: I was sitting in the alien pod with a knife embedded in my stomach while a blue alien was lying unconscious below me. My throat hurt, I was losing more blood by the second, my thumb was likely broken, and my foot was numb and unable to hold any weight.

I was going to die.

In these last moments of my life, I looked down at the rat bastard who had put me in this condition. I wanted to at least be able to tell myself that I'd taken him with me, that my loved ones were safe.

As I gazed down past my knees to look at him, I glimpsed a section of the wall set above him that I hadn't seen prior to the scuffle. I assumed it was a handle for during a crash. I was about to dismiss it in favour of stomping on the guy's head one last time when something unexpected happened:

Showrunner (a.k.a. Rapid-descent Orbital-entry Crash-pod) Emergency Medicinal Cache Thi–

Out of nowhere, words appeared in front of me. I was shocked and, without thinking, started reading. When I reached [Emergency Medicinal Cache], I clung to their meaning like a life preserver in the open ocean. I scrambled for the handle desperately and luckily grabbed ahold of it. But the movement pushed the knife around my abdomen, shooting fresh pain through me. The darkness reemerged in my sight, and the dizziness followed soon afterwards.

I grabbed one of two handles on either side of the storage cache. The container was a bit below knee height for me, so with a death grip, I used my weight sitting back to pull the container onto my lap. I didn't have the energy to do more than that; even opening the lid was a struggle. With a hiss, I opened the cover, cold air falling across my hands. Three cylinders were in the sturdy container, surrounded by foam or foam equivalent. I stared stupidly at the contents, my mind unfocused. Perhaps I was finally going into shock. I may have died like that, salvation staring up at me, but with me too far gone to take it, if it hadn't been for the words reappearing.

The words were new, and I couldn't, for the life left in me, read it at all. But somehow, with the last vestiges of awareness, I recognized the words that would be my lifeline:

... —Medical Nanites—

I forced myself to move through what felt like molasses and slowly picked up the middle cylinder; I cognitively recognized it as a syringe. Not having a better idea at the moment—or, in fact, any idea—I, hopefully, placed the end of the syringe next to the knife in my gut, pressed firmly down, and depressed the top–like I was clicking a pen. The action was more muscle memory at that point than actual conscious movement.

Not a single thing happened. There was no pain, no relief; everything stayed the same. If I had had any awareness left, I might have panicked or felt dread and terror; I might have cried. I was too far gone for any of that. Instead, I stared mutely ahead, not seeing anything, not processing anything, no awareness at all. Again, my muscle memory kept me stubbornly 'clicking' on the top of the syringe.

As the darkness encroached and my awareness fled, even that slight movement eventually ceased.

In moments, the area around the pod was a tomb of silence.

——————————————————Line Break——————————————————

I awoke with a shallow, shuddering gasp–my entire body jumped in the seat as my back arched and then returned to its resting place. I coughed hard and desperately inhaled. After what felt like an eternity—but probably less than a minute—my heart rate slowed significantly, my breathing became less erratic, my vision cleared, and I could raise my head to look around. In my hand was a metal cylinder that I had in a death grip, except for my thumb, which had repeatedly been pressing down on the top of the tube-shaped object, oddly enough. I had to consciously stop my thumb from continuing. In my lap was a metal case. I had no clue how or why these things were there.

I spotted a section of the pod wall that had most likely held the box, located above the blue alie–'Shit! The alien!'

I frantically sprang out of the chair, the closed case gripped in one hand with the cylinder in another, only to see something flying off my lap to land on the unconscious alien's back. I tensed up, waiting for a reaction. Eventually, with no response from him, I placed the case and cylinder on the chair behind me, then picked up the object carefully from off of him. It took me a second, turning it over in my hands, before I recognized it as the knife handle that had stabbed me. That realization made me scramble and bunch up my t-shirt above my chest to feel around for wounds. But, fortunately—confusingly—I couldn't find any.

I took a long, calming breath and went over the events that led up to where I was with a clearer mind. I took stock of my previous injuries and found them missing. My throat, thumb, leg, and abdomen were completely uninjured. Frankly, I felt better than I had this morning.

After I ensured I was fine, I picked the handle back up from when I dropped it in my haste to look at my stomach wound; I made sure fuckface wasn't moving as I bent to retrieve it.

I could only examine the knife handle for moments before words popped up in front of me, startling me and causing me to drop it for the third time in as many minutes. It landed once again on the blue alien at my feet. I ignored them both.

Showrunner (a.k.a. Rapid-descent Orbital-entry Crash-pod) Hevngel MKII Utility Knife

A utility tool known for its large blade and ease in cutting through some matter to provide materials to construct shelter. The Hevngel MKII is popular amongst aggressive hunters in the early season due to its usefulness at hunting down natives. It is one of the utility tools participants can carry in the Showrunner during descent.

Broken. Missing: Blade; Handle durability: 100/100

"Oh fuck-off! Who thinks that that is just a tool?" I can't help but exclaim angrily in disbelief before dismissing the prompt. Then I froze. Was I hallucinating? Could I control those hallucinations? I hadn't intended to dismiss the words deliberately.

'Shit, is my mind more damaged than what I can feel?'

I definitely needed a check-up with Mosshead's mom when I got home.

I looked back at the knife in my hand. The handle was fine, but the blade looked like it had been cut off millimeters away from the base. Only the tiniest sliver of the blade was attached, a horizontal line too small to be anything but useless. I set it down on the container on the seat, which I looked at more intently than I otherwise would have:

Showrunner (a.k.a. Rapid-descent Orbital-entry Crash-pod) Emergency Medicinal Cache:

This small cache of medicine is present on every provided Showrunner. It is the only such cache of medicine Season: Sol 1W participants can possess before orbital entry.

Okay... so not a hallucination? I hoped. I tried dismissing the words again without success. 'Hmm, maybe if I–' The words disappeared, 'Okay, so it's a more instinctual action than deliberate. Right.'

I looked at the cylinder that I had woken up holding next:

XS-8 Medical Syringe An empty, reusable, self-cleaning medical-grade syringe that can store and instantaneously inject 100 mL of liquid and semi-liquid substances. Rated up to XS-8 on the Komenk-Dalostouk substance scale. Used: 1 times

'Huh... was this how I had survived? I don't remember anything th–

"Hello?" I called out before I froze. 'Shit, that was stupid!' I couldn't help but berate myself, 'I should not have done that.'

When I didn't hear a response, I quickly peeked my head out of the entranceway and around. And then I looked up, just in case. I pulled my head back into the pod when I saw nothing suspicious.

The noise had startled me, but it had also helped to bring me back to my current situation: namely, that I was fine, but I had a knocked-out, homicidal alien person in front of me, and I had no idea what to do with him.

On the one hand, I could end him now while he was helpless and couldn't fight back. That would be the easiest and most efficient way to deal with things; honestly, he deserved it. But no, that would be illegal. Or at least immoral since I didn't know the legalities of xenocide. Although, I wasn't a stone-cold killer. Also, I didn't know his situation or why he attacked me. There could be a perfectly reasonable explanation for why he suddenly attacked me.

Besides, suppose my hallucinations weren't actual hallucinations and were instead real. In that case, he might be the only one with the answers to what was happening. I hadn't started seeing these words until after I passed out in his space pod, after all.

If I was gonna question the man, I don't think I could safely do it here if he became violent again. Although I didn't want to bring him back to my house, that was where all the useful tools were that I needed to restrain him and protect myself. Ultimately, I hoped I wasn't making a big mistake by bringing him to my house. But it was still the only choice I could make that accomplished what I needed.

Mind made up, I put the cylinder in my pocket and looped one of the handles of the medical cache container through my belt. Then I dragged the alien further down the ramp into the dirt. As I did that, I found the rock I had previously used, now tinged with blue blood, rolling away from underneath him. I left it where it was; the knife handle would be a much better tool to bludgeon him if he became unruly.

Before I bent down to pick up the alien man, I looked at him to see if I could get a pop-up like I did with the container, knife, and syringe.

Three blue boxes with thin grey lines leading up to thicker, but still thin, lighter-grey bottom borders popped up around the blue alien. One was centered around his face, the second seemed to center around his jumpsuit, while the third seemed to center on his body itself. All said the same thing:

Error Please purchase a knowledge skill to access this information.

The more I saw these prompts, the less I thought I hallucinated. If I wasn't hallucinating, then this was real. And if it was real, I needed to gather more information. However, that was for later. Right now, I had to secure this guy before I messed around with whatever else was happening.

Now, while dragging him and watching his head bounce off every rock, root, and dip in the ground would be immensely satisfying, I couldn't risk him waking up. So, in the end, I decided to move the alien in a fireman's carry. Luckily, this was something else my sister had taught me.

I thought I would struggle to pick the alien up, but I felt better than expected, considering the ordeal I had just gone through. While he was not light, it was easier than it should have been, even with the container hanging by my belt and the knife handle in my fist.

I had gotten perhaps seventy yards from the pod when I sensed I was being watched. I stopped and looked up from the ground, where I had been watching my steps. I glanced quickly around until I noticed a deer staring at me from perhaps twenty yards away. I recognized the deer due to a white spot on his neck from where Old Man Miller had shot him before. I called him Starburst from how the healed injury had formed a pattern of white fur around his otherwise brown colouring.

The last I'd seen of Starburst, he'd been a seven-point buck and strictly an herbivore. Now he was a nine-point and had a squirrel in his mouth. He was also staring right at me, unmoving.

I blinked at the unexpectedness of the scene; the squirrel was no longer in his mouth.

He remained unmoving, in the same position, but the squirrel had disappeared during that blink. We stood in the same place, staring at each other for over half a minute.

I decided he wouldn't do anything, so I turned back towards my house and started walking.

After only a few steps, I heard sounds behind me, so I looked back and spotted Starburst, still twenty yards away from me, motionless.

I was becoming freaked out. I looked at him for another dozen seconds before resuming my trek. Again, I heard sounds from behind me. I ignored them this time so I could get out of the woods faster. I only looked behind me twice; both times, he stood stationary from twenty yards away, like a particularly creepy shadow. I picked up the pace both times.

Finally, I reached the tree line; the entire time, the sounds did not stop following behind me. I made it about halfway to the copse when the sounds stopped. When I turned to look, Starburst was standing at the tree line, still staring at me. He was a ten-point buck now. His fur was starting to look mangy. When I reached the copse, he still hadn't moved.

I made it past the small wooded area into my yard and walked up to my cellar doors. I had to set the alien down to open the cellar. We kept an emergency key to the doors under a fake rock, so luckily, I didn't need to leave him unattended. When I straightened back up after offloading him, I was surprised at how unaffected my body seemed after carrying such a heavy weight so far. I should have felt the weight from my shoulders, but I didn't for some reason.

Looking down at him, I was again tempted to just drag him by the feet letting his head hit every step on the way down. I knew it would be cathartic, but I still couldn't risk him waking up. So I gathered him from under his armpits and dragged him down into the cellar. After we reached the bottom, I set him against one of the steel load-bearing support beams. I then went and grabbed a bungee cord that had been left on the shelf by the stairs. I knew the bungee cord wouldn't keep him in place. Still, I needed something quick and easy to stall him for a few seconds while I went for much more effective restraints.

After wrapping the cord around him as tightly as possible, I removed the box from my belt and moved quickly to my brother's gun cabinet. My brother wasn't much of a shooter; he just preferred to build them, and shooting them was a byproduct.

During covid, he had turned a part of the cellar into a work area in an amateurish attempt to build his own guns. He had gotten pretty good by the time he left for a technical college. It was one of those guns I took out of the safe and tucked into a holster.

After grabbing the gun and holster, I crouched down to look into the alien's face to determine whether he was still unconscious. I realized that wasn't possible without physically touching him. After mentally reviewing the route I needed to take and walking toward the bottom step, I quickly looked back at the alien and then bolted.

I raced towards the large barn/workshop/garage hybrid in our backyard. My father was a heavy-machinery mechanic in a county that was predominantly farming industry and small factories. Sometimes he'd bring projects to work on back home, so we had all the necessary tools in the barn. Upon entering, I found what I was looking for right where it was supposed to be: a small length of heavy chain strong enough to pull a combine out of a pond. Hopefully, it would also be strong enough to keep a blue prickheaded alien tied to a steel beam.

It was incredibly heavy, but I dragged it back to the cellar as fast as possible; it was too cumbersome to carry. Pulling it down the steps, I was afraid the noise would be enough to wake the dead, let alone the alien in front of me. I set the steel links around him and carefully chained him up as tightly as possible. I locked it in place with a couple of heavy-duty padlocks.

After rechecking to make sure he was still unconscious, as best I could determine anyways, I raced up the stairs back to the barn. There I found a less heavy but much longer chain. I tightly enveloped the alien with it once I arrived back in the cellar, securing it with more heavy-duty padlocks.

I backed up a couple of steps once I was finished. However, I still didn't feel very safe. Looking around, I spotted a couple of clean-looking rags on my brother's workbench. I grabbed them and used one as a makeshift blindfold and the other as a gag. Before I was done, I returned to the gun safe for noise-canceling headphones, placing them on his head. I hoped this was enough to secure him, but I wasn't sure. I didn't like the anxiety I had just knowing this alien was here, under my house. Even if he was currently unconscious.

Before heading back up the stairs that led outside from the cellar, I grabbed the medicine cache. Even if it was useless, I took one last look back, only to see him still immobile. Although, for all I knew, he could be watching me from five feet away with his mind or some other alien fuckery.

Once I shut and locked the cellar doors, I used the back door to the kitchen to enter my house. I grabbed a couple of bottles of water after draining a third of its content. I also grabbed a couple of protein bars, again devouring a third one in less than a dozen seconds. After stopping to catch my breath, I listened to see if anyone was home, trying not to give myself away more than I had already. Not hearing anything, I took the steep, narrow servant's staircase connected to the kitchen to the third floor, moving up two at a time to quickly reach my bedroom.

Closing my door behind me, I looked at myself in the mirror and saw that I looked like shit. Originally, I was wearing a clean white T-shirt and dark jersey shorts. My tattered shorts and T-shirt were now covered in dirt and blood on top of being torn.

I took off my clothes and bundled them up in a ball, throwing them into my wastebasket. I grabbed a towel and some body wash and headed to the bathroom. After an excellent thirty-second soak in hot water, I began scrubbing away all of the dirt, grime, and blood (both red and blue) from my body. Turning off the water, I stepped out and looked at myself in the bathroom mirror.

After taking myself in, I realized I looked, in a word, better than my last reflection. It wasn't just that I was clean, although that certainly helped, I just looked more pleasing, more promising. I couldn't point to one thing and say, 'that right there is an improvement', but overall, the subtleties added to a bigger, better picture.

Again, I couldn't tell you why I thought I had improved, just that I had. My guess was that it had something to do with the alien, the space pod, and the blue screens I was starting to see everywhere.

Or perhaps, after struggling so desperately for my life, I had reached some aspect of self-love that allowed me to no longer regard my imperfections as flaws?

It was probably the former, considering that despite looking closely and carefully, I couldn't find a single scar on my body. It wasn't just signs of the last battle that I couldn't find evidence of. Every single scar collected throughout my childhood had seemingly been erased.

Bummer. I liked some of those scars.

As I pondered this information, I heard noises coming from downstairs; the sound of a bang from a door being thrown open and stomping feet traversing through my home.

Instinctively, I searched for something to use as a weapon but found nothing. I recalled having carelessly tossed my only viable weapon onto my bed earlier. Grabbing the first item in reach (something was better than nothing), I threw open the bathroom door and raced—naked—through the hallway and into my bedroom. Running up to my bed, I tore the gun out of its holster and dashed back through my bedroom door and into the hallway. I was about to clamber down the stairs two at a time and probably shoot the first blue thing I saw, when I heard the voices of my two sisters coming up; I froze in an existential panic.

Yeah, I may have been able to eke out a victory in a life-or-death battle, but allowing my teenage sisters to find me standing naked in the hallway with a gun in one hand and a bottle of shampoo in the other was not the kind of blackmail material that I wanted them to have, thank you very much.

It was with immense relief that I remembered that I had legs I could use to flee and a room to hide in.

Safely in my bedroom once more, I placed my brother's gun back in its holster and, after putting on clothes, buckled it around my waist securely. Feeling only marginally safer with the gun on my hip, I headed back downstairs. I intended to return to the cellar and stand watch over the alien. I used the main stairs this time because my parents didn't like us using the more dangerous servant's stairway, even if it was faster. I didn't need a lecture right now, even if it would be small. If I ran into them, I wouldn't have any trouble passing by; my shirt covered the holster.

That plan went out the window as soon as I passed the living room. The TV was on, and my parents watched intently on the couch.

"–of emergency. The governor is asking for everyone to remain at home and not to go out for any reason. Only essential workers will be allowed on the roads starting at 5 PM across the state. Neighboring states, and those across the US, are also declaring similar states of emergency. There is not yet a national state of emergency declared, despite experts saying that this situation would call for one, due to a lack of communication from the White House, leading many to wonder what the White House administration is doing.

Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

Despite this, many federal agencies are issuing their own decisions in light of this ongoing situation. The FAA has issued a national ground stop which began earlier at 10:03 this morning. Every branch of the military has stopped leave and recalled their members back in hopes of reaching full readiness by 3 PM. On the civilian side: police, fire, and EMS across the country have called up their members and plan to have fully staffed patrols by this evening.

If you're just tuning in: at around 8 o'clock this morning, hundreds, perhaps thousands, of black, rectangular cube-shaped structures have descended unexpectedly from space and landed around capitals and cities across the world. These structures are entirely black with no visible entrance and are reportedly above 7,000 feet tall. The Department of Defence and various agencies are asking everyone to stay away from these structures and, if found, to call the national hotline at the bottom of your screen. They ask everyone to refrain from using local emergency numbers due to a higher-than-average call volume and to reserve 911 for emergencies only.

We now have multiple independent sources verifying the earlier reports of smaller black objects descending from space about ten minutes ago, about two and a half hours after the larger structures appeared. So far, these objects vary in size: from five feet up to nine feet tall. This is early information, so it may not be to the full extent of what's out there—"

The news network had been showing various video footage of incredibly, remarkably tall rectangular prisms, from locations recognizable worldwide, including some footage in the sea and even from the research bases in Antarctica, according to the label on the screen. Some of the footage had regular people standing around looking at them. Others were cordoned off and surrounded by that nation's military or city police force. The size and scale made them truly massive. It was obvious the base of some of them would have city blocks' worth of space.

The news then switched to footage of objects nearly identical to the blue alien's space pod, only that some of them were larger or smaller than my opponent's had been. Again, they were surrounded by civilians, police and fire, or the military. They were all black and looked pristine.

The channel's 'breaking news logo' suddenly appeared on-screen. This entire time my parents, and little sister, had been discussing the events on the TV while I stood behind them, watching the anchors talk. All three had settled down to pay attention when the logo came on.

"This just in, we are getting multiple unverified reports of wildlife and family pets attacking people worldwide. We are about to show you some of that video footage now. But it is difficult to watch, so viewer discretion is advised."

With that, the screen changed to captured cell phone footage of what looked to be a squirrel, if an obese cat cosplayed as a squirrel. With two tails. This particular squirrel had fully latched onto a man's arm who was punching it squarely in the face. After three solid hits, the squirrel released the man and ran off. The next video showed a large black bird about the size of a pug with a tumor on its stomach. It was chasing a kid on a bike who fell over trying to avoid a group of three teenagers carrying sports bags. The group turned around, having heard the kid's screams, and saw the bird mid-flight. One of the teens dropped his bag and used the bat he carried to knock out the large, rabid bird.

The next video was the most disturbing, it displayed what could only be described as a hairy meatball with centipede legs and spider arms grabbing a young woman and putting her in its mouth. It was shot with a forest backdrop, and the woman had been ziplining. She was still attached to the harness on the line; when the zipline reached the end, the group awaiting there started kicking and punching at it. It eventually released the woman and fell back into the forest.

After this was more footage of people being attacked by animals that were only nominally recognizable. Each time the person, or group of people, would triumph over the attacking animals. But this was only the footage they were willing to show on national television. On top of that, this was only the footage that had been posted online. I had to imagine that things were much worse in real life.

"More breaking news, Air Force One has been spotted making an emergency landing in–"

I glanced quickly at our three dogs; Sarge was sitting watching the younger two playing. Nothing unusual, but I would keep my eye out. It was the cats that I was most apprehensive about.

My parents and sister talked this entire time while they watched the television screen. They didn't notice me standing behind them, though I don't blame them; what was happening in front of us was far more interesting than I was.

I also wasn't paying them any mind. I had far more important things to worry about. Namely, the alien in our cellar and why he was on Earth in the first place; him and the apparently hundreds of thousands, or more, like him. Not greeting my parents or sister, I backed out of the room and headed back down to the cellar through the entrance in the kitchen. When I reached the bottom of the stairs, I saw the alien right where I had left him. It didn't look like he had moved an inch. I quickly grabbed a metal folding chair from the corner and sat in front of him. I took my brother's gun out of the holster, looking it over.

While I was very untrained in gunsmithing, my brother had allowed me to watch him work, so I wasn't a complete novice. I decided it wouldn't blow up on me if I needed to use it.

Probably.

I took a deep breath and nudged the alien with my foot to try to wake him up.

Nothing.

I nudged him again, a bit harder.

Still nothing.

'Shit, did I kill him?'

I placed my finger under his nose and felt him still breathing. 'Alright, he's still breathing. Nudging him with my foot isn't doing it so...' I looked at the chains a bit skeptically, remembering how tough the sonovabitch was. 'I guess there's nothing to it then.'

I gave him a couple of taps to the face with an open hand, darting back quickly afterward. When that didn't work, I did it again, only harder. The third time, I slapped him in his stupid face as hard as possible.

'Ooh, that felt good.' I did it again. 'Yup, still fun.'

I wanted to get some oomph to this one, so I stood up to really take a swing. After a loud slap and a stinging palm, I finally saw him stir. This startled me, somehow. I hadn't been expecting it, crazily enough.

So I acted instinctually and kicked him in his face, which I hadn't meant to do.

"Oh shit, I'm so sorry! Wait, why am I apologizing to you? Fuck you!" I felt like kicking him a second time. 'I don't think kicking him, apologizing and then insulting him, and then kicking him again will get me the answers I want, so I probably shouldn't. Probably.'

Ooh, but I wanted to.

I sat back in the chair and scooted it a few inches farther away from him. Then, I waited. I didn't have to wait long. First, he groaned while rolling his head around his neck. Then, he tried moving his arms but chained as they were, he couldn't move them very far. That's when he started to panic a bit, struggling against the chains and kicking his legs out, moving his head from side to side as if trying to see past the blindfold. He also started making sounds, perhaps words—but, gagged as he was, nothing more than noise came out. The longer I let him stew, the more frantic his movements became. He was starting to strain against the chains, but they were too heavy for him. However, the more he struggled, the more concerned I became that he would shift the support beam and collapse the entire ceiling on top of him. I decided to act before it became a possibility.

"Hey, asshole. Can you hear me?"

He stopped moving around and tilted his head to hear me better. Then he made a lot of sounds which, by their tone, seemed an awful lot like insults and threats to me. I waited until he stopped, which lasted surprisingly longer than I thought it would. Finally, when he quieted down, I spoke to him again.

"All right, so I gathered that you could hear me. Now, I need to know if you can understand me. So nod your head if you can understand me."

When I finished speaking, he started making more insulting and threatening sounds. This time it took almost twice as long for him to quiet down. When he finally did, I spoke to him again.

"Okay, so throwing a tantrum like a child is not what I asked for, so I have to assume you don't understand me, or you're just dumb as hell. Personally, I bet all my money on you just being an absolute idiot. Unfortunately, there isn't a bookie around as stupid as you are to take that bet, so I have to make do without."

Did I have to insult the blue alien in front of me? No. Did it make me feel all warm and fuzzy inside? Why yes, it did. Was I going to continue to do so? Also yes. Was I sure that he could understand me? From how his hands clenched into fists and his brows furrowed, yes, I was. I don't know how he could; probably more alien bullshit.

"So, now that we've established your level of intelligence, I'll refrain from using any big words. Here's what's gonna happen, I'm gonna take my dirty underwear out of your mouth and–"

Oh, he did not like that. He was thrashing around like a fish out of water and jerking his head around while making sounds like he was trying to spit something out. I just grinned in self-satisfaction. This was for me.

Finally, after several minutes of him moaning, groaning, bellyaching, and cursing, it ended. I'd already been down here for almost ten minutes without anything being accomplished. Despite that, I felt fantastic. Better than when I made my way down those steps, anyways. While patting myself on the back in self-congratulation, I remembered the footage I'd seen upstairs. My mood instantly soured, and I berated myself for wasting time and not getting answers quicker.

'Alright, Aiden, you got your petty revenge. Now, stop being a prick and get your shit together. It's time to be an adult and stop acting selfish.'

"Listen up, jackass, this is the last time I'm going to indulge you in your childish antics—" 'Pot meet kettle,' I rolled my eyes at the intrusive thought. "—so stop acting like a baby and listen. I have a gun. I don't know if your pea-brain understands what a gun is, but it's dangerous and pointed right at your head. Now, I'm gonna take the gag out, and I'm telling you not to bite me. If you do bite me, I will shoot you. Probably in the leg or something. So don't bite me."

I shifted forward, reaching for the gag, when better sense hit me. Instead, I got up and retrieved a metal hook I had seen earlier. It was from a school play when my sister played Captain Hook in the 3rd grade; it was solid metal and surprisingly heavy. I sat back in the chair and carefully used the metal hook to extract the clean rag from the alien's mouth.

Just as I expected, as soon as the gag was free, he lunged forward to try to bite down on my hand, except what he bit down on was solid steel. With a cry of anguish, he jerked back his head and unintentionally smashed the back of it into the steel beam he was chained to, eliciting a grunt of pain from him. On reflex, I bopped the metal hook into his nose. Hard. Again, there came a cry of pain from him.

"See? I told you not to bite me! This is what happens when you don't follow instructions. You end up hurting yourself. This could have been easy. Now I nee–"

"Will you shut up?" He surprised me with his interruption. "I have enough of a headache without your uncivilized bleating making it worse." He muttered, "I swear, the natives get worse every season. Where do the producers even find these savages at?" He had a strange accent, like someone's Bostonian uncle had worked in a New York factory before retiring to the Australian outback to fight the local wildlife.

I don't think the man understood that I could hear him; probably a concussion, but I wasn't willing to interrupt him if he gave away something important. Unfortunately, I couldn't understand the context of his words. Before he could continue his rambling, he went to rest the back of his head against the steel beam but then jerked forward with a hiss of pain.

"Fuck! My fucking head hurts!" I was already tired of his complaining.

"Again, if you weren't such a prick, you wouldn't've gotten hurt. Next time, how about you don't attack the first person that's trying to help you?"

"Help me? Do you think I'd allow a barbarian like you to break into my showrunner and kill me, let alo–?"

"KILL YOU?!?! I wasn't trying to–you know what? Whatever. Nevermind. Let's just acknowledge that you're the asshole in this situation and move on. Now, what are you doing here on Earth? You and your friends? Why have you invaded? What is going on with the animals?"

When I started with my questions, he froze for a few seconds, then gave me a big shit-eating grin. I got the feeling that he wasn't taking me seriously; it was a really punchable-looking expression. As in, I really wanted to punch him in his stupid fucking face. Unfortunately, I still had the hook in my left hand, the gun in my right, and no free hand to punch with. So instead, I used my foot to kick him in his side where I had previously speared him.

'Ah, catharsis.'

He gave a grunt of pain and cursed me. He exclaimed loudly, "When I free myself, I am going to gut you, you cow-whale!"

'Now, what the hell is a cow-whale? Is his translator not working? Or is whatever the hell a cow-whale thing is not easily translatable? Does it matter?'

"Okay, first of all, you shouldn't talk about your mother like that, very rude. Now I realize she's probably disappointed in you and your life choices, but that's just not acceptable, man. So suck it up; you'll never be able to free yourself. The quicker you accept that, the sooner you'll stop yourself from getting hurt."

He opened his mouth, probably to curse me again, when I interrupted him, "now I want you to answer my questions, so I'm going to take off the blindfold so you can see that I'm serious. This time, try not to hurt yourself again."

I slowly reached forward with the hook again. I carefully got the end of it around the makeshift blindfold. I wasn't willing to get my hand in reach of his mouth. Besides, one side of it was still covered in blue blood that had soaked through. Which I was not going to touch. As soon as I got the blindfold off, I saw him glaring at me with his funky eyes. They were as strange and alien as the rest of him. They were also easily understood; there was a desire for murder there.

His eyes briefly looked over to my brother's handgun, then they went back to glaring at me.

"Good, I see that we now understand each other. So, answer my questions."

The alien continued his glare for several seconds before finally speaking, "I do not see a reason why I should answer any of your questions, considering you will all be dead in a matter of days. Though I suppose a few of you savages may be too stupid to die immediately. Some of you might even survive for a few months. But, there will be so little of you left that you may as well accept the fact now that your entire species will disappear off the face of this planet."

He showed me a smarmy expression as if he was winning right now and not the one chained up in my cellar.

"What do you mean we're going to disappear? What's happening? Does it have anything to do with why so many animals are attacking people?"

"Oh? It's already started, then?" I didn't think his face could become more punchable, but I was wrong. He had the look of intense schadenfreude as if he knew something, many things, which were to my disadvantage. I wanted to punch and kick him badly, but I knew that if I assaulted him again, we would just go back to name-calling, and I wouldn't get any information from him.

"Oh? What has 'started then'? What is happening to the animals?" Instead of answering, he just kept that stupid look on his face.

I was starting to reconsider my stance on hitting him; I wasn't getting any useful information from him anyways. I had to close my eyes and take a deep breath; when I opened them again, I decided to try a different tact. If I asked him something else, he might let something important slip. Plus, I just had to know.

"Alright, fine. You don't want to say. Probably because you don't know. No one's going to tell anyone anything, after all. So tell me this, what was in that syringe from your medical cache? Can humans take it?"

"Hmph," He harrumphed. He actually harrumphed at me! "Those syringes contain some of the best M-nanites in the early Season, and if you're thinking about using it, don't bother." I waited for him to explain why I shouldn't bother, but I realized he wasn't going to tell me anything. I was hoping it wasn't because it would kill me if I injected it, as that probably meant I was as good as dead.

I decided to ask him another question instead, this time having to do with my, hopefully, sanity.

"Okay, then, can you tell me about the blue screens I've been seeing?"

The response I received was a tilt of his head and a quizzical look. I don't think he knew what I was talking about. Which was honestly annoying, considering I was pretty sure I got it from those M-nanites, or whatever they were called. I gestured wildly around me as if to point to everything as evidence. All I got back was more confusion from him.

I looked intently at him, willing the blue screens back into being. They popped up almost before I could finish my thoughts on summoning them. 'At least it's intuitive.'

Error Please purchase a knowledge skill to access this information.

"See? Right there. Blue screen. Says, "Error, information unavailable" and to get a 'knowledge skill.'"

I saw his eyes widen in realization as a furious expression appeared on his face. He lunged at me, straining at the chains binding him. After realizing he couldn't break through the chains, he started unintelligibly yelling at me. It was a few seconds before he seemed to find his voice again.

"WHAT?! Impossible! You're lying to me. You cannot possibly have access to the show system. Natives cannot have access to the show system. It is impossible." After his initial outburst, he seemed to settle down, confident in his 'knowledge'. "It's impossible," he muttered under his breath.

"Show system? What show? What system? Look, buddy, all I know is you stabbed me; I injected the nanites. The next thing I know, I have a useless knife handle in my lap and blue screens popping up everywhere and about everything. All I want to know is if I'm hallucinating."

When I talked about him stabbing me, a glimmer of recognition passed through his eyes. He looked back at my stomach where the knife wounds should be and seemed to realize that I had been moving this entire time without a problem. Unlike if I had had a severe wound like what he had given me earlier. His eyes then went from up to my face and back down to the wound again.

His expression, again, displayed incredible confusion. He seemed to struggle with the facts as they were presented. He spoke to me through grit teeth, "No. You are lying to me. The nanites can't even give you access to the system. That's not how that works. I don't know how you survived that injury or how you know about the system, but I am telling you, it is impossible."

"Look, I don't know if that concussion is making you stupider than you already were, but I want to know more about what these blue screens mean. I don't know how I got 'access'," and I made sure to use air quotes as sarcastically as possible; I don't think it translated. "but what I do know was that when I woke up in your space pod, I was healthy and had an empty syringe in my hand, and those blue screens were everywhere."

My insistence seemed to set him off. He kept looking between my eyes and my wound while cursing me and telling me what I suggested was impossible and that I was obviously lying to him. I waited for him to settle down, but he hadn't even after three minutes. He just kept reiterating, "This is impossible. This is impossible. This is impossible."

While he wasn't in a rage anymore, he still seemed unable to accept my words.

After a certain point, he settled for mumbling to himself at a volume I couldn't pick up. But the look he gave me made it seem as if he was at least thinking over the facts. Maybe the concussion was letting up. If it was even a concussion, I didn't know alien physiology.

Ultimately, he seemed to reason out the truth and accept the facts. But if I thought that that would improve his demeanor, I was dead wrong. He seemed to become even more agitated instead. Incredibly agitated. Once he had accepted that what I said was true, he was foaming-at-the-mouth mad. Said foam was a black purple which was weird to see.

I felt a bit guilty, considering he acted like I had just eaten his firstborn.

Of course, rather than discussing with me calmly, he started spewing insults and threats against me, everybody I ever loved, and my entire species. Several times, he strained and pulled at the chains, trying to break free. The first time caught me entirely by surprise at the force he used to try to break free. I jumped out of my chair, knocking it back, and pointed the gun at his head, afraid he was about to break free. When he couldn't, I calmed back down but chose to remain standing. I did glance several times at the ceiling, nearly convinced it was about to come crashing down on us.

I'm not proud of it, but he eventually started to piss me off. So, I began arguing back with him. I don't know how nobody from upstairs hadn't heard me so far, but they seemed glued to the TV.

What I gathered from his mad ramblings and the back-and-forth insults between us was that he sunk a lot of resources to not only be able to participate in this 'Season', but he had also employed incredible foresight–his words, not mine–into utilizing the best strategy to maximize his gains while also keeping him safe. And I had messed it up, losing him the time and resources he had invested. Hence the insults and threats.

'Whatever, like I care. Cry me a river you big baby.'

I tried to steer him to answer my questions about the other rectangular prisms and space pods that had landed on Earth, but he never answered me. With anything he did say, I didn't understand the context.

At this point, I was incredibly frustrated and absolutely exhausted. Overall, this was an intensely mentally-taxing day for me, and the disappointment I had that I couldn't get any answers from the alien while he simultaneously yelled at me, further pushed me mentally and emotionally. Especially when he wouldn't stop making his empty threats. But eventually, we got somewhere.

"Wait, wait, wait! What did you just say?"

"What? That we're here to kill you all? That's what I've been saying this entire time! You, your loved ones, and your entire race will be killed. By me, if I can help it."

"No, no, no. Go back. You said' we'?"

"Yes! That's what I've been saying! We're all here to kill you! That is our goal here!"

"No, you have been saying you, not 'we'!"

"Obviously, I can't kill all of you no matter how much I may want to or how much pleasure it would bring me. Don't be an idiot. I would never be able to live it down if someone this stupid was able to capture me, no matter what advantage you had. So, get it through your underdeveloped, uncivilized, barbaric mind that we are here to erase every last piece of evidence of the existence of your unwanted species from the annals of history. And do me a favor, would you? If I cannot witness it, please at least try to die as pitifully as possible. Because that's how I'll be imagining it, and that's how I'll be retelling the story. Don't make me out to be a liar."

I stopped paying attention to his rambling after he confirmed my question. Mainly from the blood boiling in my ears, or so it seemed. But I needed confirmation.

"So let me get this straight. You're saying that when you tackled me out of that pod and tried to kill me, it wasn't because you were disoriented. I could have been anyone. And in fact you have deliberately set out to kill everybody you see. You and your asshole buddies in those pods. And now, somehow, the animals are becoming fucked-up and attacking people, which is your fault as well. And when you say you want to kill every human out there, that isn't bluster. You and every other alien intend to kill every human you come across for some sort of contest. Am I right so far?"

"Yes. I have been saying that." He was talking to me through grit teeth, as if interacting with me at this point was incredibly painful, "If I knew that the natives were going to be as stupid as this, I would not have spent so much in order to protect myself from you." He grumbled before reverting to a louder volume, "For the last time, and I only say this again to truly see your despair, we are here to end your race. We will not take prisoners. You. Your loved ones. Your race. Every other living thing born on this backward planet. Will die. This is guaranteed, you truly cannot understand the breadth and scope of what is happening here. It is beyond your imagination."

Standing above him while he spoke, I increasingly lost control of my emotions. My mind flitted back to that battle with him. To the struggle. The dread. The despair. How awful everything about it was. I recalled those videos I watched on the news.

No. I couldn't let that happen to anyone else. I wouldn't. Not if I could stop it.

I had already dropped the prosthetic prop when he had first lunged at me earlier in his ramblings, needing the free hand to steady my aim at his head. Now, I slowly circled around to his back. As he finished his speech, I replied simply, "No one is powerful enough to beat death."

And I leveled the barrel of the gun to the back of his head and placed my finger on the trigger.

——————————————————————————Flash Back——————————————————————————

DԍzirɑiϝiuI ᖉԍwob... DEꓕAΛIꓕCA

ƧO Ciƨɑp ᘓuiqɑor... DEDAOΓ

ƧO Ciƨɑp ᘓuizirɑiϝiui...DEꓕAΛIꓕCA

Kuir ИoiƨƨiwƨuɑRϝ ⅄RɑϝԍuɑrbRԍϝui Oλϝunμ ᘓuizirɑiϝiui... DEꓕAΛIꓕCA

DꓵƧΓ Dϝr· ИɑRoმ ԍμϝ Ror qԍƨuԍcir (ΓOƧv) ERɑwϝroƨ ⅄RɑϝԍiRboRb Wԍϝƨλƨ ИOƧAEƧ ᘓuiqɑoruwoq... DEDAOΓИMOD

Kcԍμc ⅄ϝiRმԍϝuI Erir... DEƧƧAb

DꓵƧΓ Dϝr· ИɑRoმ ԍμϝ Ror Dԍƨuԍcir (ΓOƧv) ERɑwϝroƨ ⅄RɑϝԍiRboRb Wԍϝƨλƨ ИOƧAEƧ ᘓuirrɑϝƨuI... DEΓΓAꓕƧИI

DꓵƧΓ Dϝr· ИɑRoმ ԍμϝ Ror Dԍƨuԍcir (ΓOƧv) ERɑwϝroƨ ⅄RɑϝԍiRboRb Wԍϝƨλƨ ИOƧAEƧ ᘓuizirɑiϝiui... DEꓕAΛIꓕCA

Eϝɑqbn ᖉԍviRq Ɩ rqqɑ· ƧRԍviRq ERɑwqRɑμ ⌋૨ ᘓuiqɑoruwoq... DEDAOΓИMOD

Ƨĸcԍμc ⅄ϝiRმԍϝui ᖉԍviRq ERɑwqRɑμ 8૨... DEƧƧAb

ƧRԍviRq ERɑwqRɑμ ⌋૨ ᘓuirrɑϝƨui... DEΓΓAꓕƧИI

ᖉԍviRq ERɑwqRɑμ Ɩ ᘓuiϝɑqbn... DEꓕADbꓵ

Kcԍμc ⅄ϝiRმԍϝui ERɑwqRɑμ... DEƧƧAb

ᖉԍƨn ᘓuiuuɑcƨ...

ᖉOᖉᖉE

ΓOƧ :ИOƧAEƧ ui uoiϝɑbiciϝRɑb qԍworrɑ ƨԍicԍbƨ ɑ ro Rԍpwԍw ɑ ϝou ƨi ᖉԍƨn - ᘓOΓ ᖉOᖉᖉE

ᘓuiribwoc ꓕRobԍR ᖉoRRԍ... DEΓIbWOC

ᘓuiquԍƨ ꓕRobԍR ᖉoRRԍ... ꓕИEƧ

EƨuobƨԍR ᘓuiviԍcԍR...

EDIᖉᖉEΛO

DԍviԍcԍR EriroRb Ƨԍicԍbƨ Mԍu - DEWᖉIᖶИOC ;DEΛEICEᖉ EDIᖉᖉEΛO

Dԍquԍwɑ - EriroRb ᖉԍƨn

ᖉԍƨn ᘓuiuuɑcƨ...

ᖉOᖉᖉE

ΓOƧ :ИOƧAEƧ ui uoiϝɑbiciϝRɑb Ror ϝuɑRϝƨiმԍR ɑ ϝou ƨi ᖉԍƨn - ᘓOΓ ᖉOᖉᖉE

ᘓuiribwoc ꓕRobԍR ᖉoRRԍ... DEΓIbWOC

ᘓuiquԍƨ ꓕRobԍR ᖉoRRԍ... ꓕИEƧ

EƨuobƨԍR ᘓuiviԍcԍR...

EDIᖉᖉEΛO

DԍviԍcԍR EriroRb ꓕuɑRϝƨiმԍR Mԍu - DEWᖉIᖶИOC ;DEΛEICEᖉ EDIᖉᖉEΛO

Dԍquԍwɑ - EriroRb ᖉԍƨn

ᖉԍƨn ᘓuiuuɑcƨ... DEИИACƧ

ИEIbAƧ OWOH – Ɩ00-Ɩ-ƧH·И-ꓕ-3Bb-ΓOƧ ꓕuɑRϝƨiმԍR EriroRb ᘓuiqɑor... DEDAOΓ

Kcɑb Eმɑnმuɑr ИɑciRԍwɑ HϝRou Ciƨɑp ᘓuiqɑoruwoq... DEDAOΓИMOD

Kcɑb Eმɑnმuɑr ИɑciRԍwɑ HϝRou Ciƨɑp ᘓuiqɑoruwoq...

INSTALLED

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