Seeds of the Alien Creatures

I looked down at the knife in my stomach. It was a kitchen knife – old, rusty and with a chipped blade. The person holding the knife was someone I knew very well.

Kim Kihoon. Thirteen years old. A boy I had spent a lot of time with. The moment our eyes met, I had a completely inappropriate thought for the situation: that his eyes were beautiful.

“You will die because you deserve to die.”

The boy who stabbed me spoke. His voice was stiff, as if he was terrified, but his expression was calm. It was a clear sign that he didn’t regret what he had done. Far from regretting it, he gripped the knife even tighter, driving it deeper into my stomach.

I reached out to grab him, but he stepped back, out of my reach. My hand swung through the empty air before dropping back down.

“Why…? Why did you stab me…?”

The pain made it hard to get the words out. My body, swaying unsteadily, hit the wall of the building before collapsing to the floor, all strength drained from me.

Without hesitation, the boy turned away, picked up his bag and walked away. That was it. No goodbye. It was such an empty farewell that it was hard to believe we had spent so much time together.

“Kim Kihoon…”

I called to the boy.

“Kim Kihoon.”

I called again, but he never came back. Left alone, I looked around at my surroundings. Half-collapsed buildings. Cracked asphalt roads. Rusty, overturned cars scattered here and there. It was a scene straight out of a disaster movie.

A world brought to its end by an invasion of alien creatures. Scenes like this were so common now that there was nothing surprising about them.

Satisfied that no one else was around, I reached for my stomach. My hand found the kitchen knife and I took a deep breath before slowly pulling it out.

For a human, such a wound would be fatal. But it wasn’t a problem for me. A wound like that would heal in a few days with some rest. That didn’t mean it didn’t hurt. The pain was sharp, not just in my body, but in a corner of my heart, as if a part of it had been cut out.

‘Why did he stab me?’ 

Had he found out I wasn’t human? No, that couldn’t be it. I was in my human disguise. There was no way he could have known I was an alien. So what was the reason? I began to go over the past, piece by piece, trying to make sense of it all.

I met the boy on the street and we stayed together after that. I liked the boy. He liked me too. In this ruined world, we relied on each other to survive. Was it all just my imagination?

‘I wish Kihoon would come back.’ 

The moment I thought that, I felt a presence. Was it the boy who had returned? Maybe he was here to apologise and help me up. My eyes lit up at the thought, and a reflexive smile crept across my face. But my hope quickly turned to disappointment.

The sound I had heard was just a rat rummaging through a nearby rubbish bin. The boy who had left never returned. The empty street, without a single person, felt like a reflection of my own feelings.

‘It feels so empty.’ 

It had been a long time since I had been exiled from my home and dropped on Earth. But for the first time I felt truly alone.

* * *

I am an alien. A creature who can read minds and replicate cells through physical contact.

I could turn into any creature as long as it was the same sex as me. Saying it like that might make me sound like an extraordinary being. But I wasn’t. I was just an ordinary organism, often used in medical experiments on the planet where I was born.

I was five centimetres long, semi-transparent, robust and had several legs – a long-bodied creature. If I were to compare my appearance to Earth organisms, I would say that I resembled a shrimp. The difference was that I didn’t swim in the sea; I floated through the air.

I was born in a large research facility. I lived there for seven years, regularly injected with mysterious substances. I didn’t know what I was being given, but I could make an educated guess: it was probably something to do with intelligence.

My species was originally devoid of any form of intelligence. But after receiving the injections, at some point I began to develop the ability to think. I remember the day vividly. One day, as I was eating, a thought suddenly occurred to me.

‘This is delicious!’ 

That was my very first thought. It happened about three months after I was born. From that moment on, my ability to think began to develop gradually, as if a door had been opened in my mind. Delicious. Sleepy. Full. I’m beautiful. I’m male. In the beginning, these were the only simple thoughts I could form.

‘I am dignified.’ 

As I looked at my reflection in the water bowl, I had such thoughts. The simple thoughts I once had became more complex with each passing day. By the time I was fully aware of myself, I could think as skilfully as I do now. Whatever was in those injections, it was fascinating how they seemed to effortlessly bring different pieces of knowledge to the surface of my mind.

The knowledge I accumulated over time reached an impressive level. Even unfamiliar words I had never encountered before came with an understanding of their meaning.

Although I had never left the research facility, images of cities and the wider world would occasionally flash through my mind. It was all a result of the countless mysterious injections I had received. Seven years of my life passed in the research facility.

‘I am now seven years old.’ 

I had now reached adulthood. Seven years old. In human terms, that would still be considered a young age. But by the standards of my species, I was already an adult.

A species with a short growth cycle but a long lifespan – that was what I was. To someone like me, age might not have meant much. Still, I counted the years, if only to show that I could.

To whom? I didn’t know. There was no one to show off to, for I was alone in my cage. There were countless cages around me, but the creatures in them, unlike me, had no intelligence. So there was no one to brag to.

Was it loneliness I felt? No, it wasn’t. On the contrary, I was proud to be the only one with intelligence. I indulged in the illusion that I was some kind of extraordinary creature.

Perhaps I didn’t feel lonely because I was not a species that lived in groups. A solitary creature by nature, I had no particular complaints about life in the cage.

Life in the research facility was quiet. Researchers in what looked like space suits would come at certain times to administer injections. Each time I received one, new knowledge would emerge and swirl in my mind. The constant flow of information left no room for boredom. One of my pleasures was to define and understand myself.

‘I am seven years old.’ 

That’s how I counted my age.

‘I can wiggle my legs.’ 

That’s how I kicked my feet in the air.

‘I can even hit the bars of my cage with my tail!’ 

Looking back now, I can’t help but feel embarrassed. But at the time I was intoxicated by the idea that I was brave and formidable. Given that my mental age was only about seven, it was probably inevitable.

Sometimes I even pretended to be dead to fool the researchers. When they probed me to see if I was alive, I’d stick to their fingers or slap the back of their hands with my tail. I enjoyed these pranks, although the researchers clearly found them annoying.

“Seriously… you can never predict what these creatures will do. Why on earth would they play dead?”

“They’re the kind of species that play dead when they feel threatened. Or they turn into something else… maybe that’s got something to do with it?”

No, it wasn’t. I was just messing with them. I thought it, but of course I didn’t say it.

“Did it bite you? It doesn’t have any venom anyway, so just ignore it.”

With that, the researchers left the room. They didn’t know I was intelligent. That was something I had hidden from them. Maybe in some way I felt a distance between myself and the researchers.

It wasn’t that I didn’t like them, but I subconsciously noticed the line drawn between a subject and a researcher.

‘But they’re all nice.’ 

The researchers never treated the subjects harshly. Food was plentiful and bedding soft. Occasionally, music echoed through the facility. Although I was born in a cage, I didn’t dislike the environment in which I grew up.

As soon as the research is finished, they’ll let me go. I can bear it.

I held on to the hope that one day I would be free. The kind behaviour of the researchers made me believe it.

The vivid image of a bright blue sky would pop into my mind unbidden. Surely the day would come when I could see it for myself. Flowers and grass – I would be able to experience them first hand. I let my imagination run wild, dreaming of freedom. It was a hope I could only cling to because I didn’t know what would happen to the creatures once the research was finished.