Seeds of the Alien Creatures

* * *

Breathing wasn’t essential to my survival. It kept me from suffocating, but it wasn’t something to celebrate.

‘I need to hide. Anywhere will do… as long as I’m out of sight.’ 

But then a mocking voice inside me scoffed, Hide? From what? Even if they don’t eat you, you’ll starve to death eventually. The outcome wouldn’t change.

Still, I moved. The instinct to cling to life, even for one more day, was universal to all living things.

‘I must move quietly.’ 

I had spent my whole life in a cage and had never experienced the natural world. Yet I knew instinctively what I had to do to survive.

I climbed along the wall, feeling my way upwards until I found a small crack. I looked around carefully, making sure no one noticed me, and slipped inside. My five-centimetre frame was perfect for squeezing into tight spaces like the crack in the wall, making it easy to avoid the eyes of other creatures.

‘How long can I last?’ 

One day? Two days? Maybe longer. My species didn’t need to eat often, so I could last a while.

But tears still filled my eyes. I knew the future that awaited me – to starve, wither and die alone.

I squeezed my eyes shut. Crying would only dehydrate me. I couldn’t afford to waste my energy on something so pointless. From now on it was a race against time. Hold on. Keep going. Survive somehow. And then…

‘And then what?’ 

What could I do but slowly starve to death in this confined space? The helplessness drained me. Despite my best efforts, tears slipped through my tightly shut eyes.

* * *

The inside of the rock was dark. There was nothing to indicate the passage of time. The only way I could tell how much time had passed was by the gnawing hunger in my stomach.

The crack I had hidden in was safe, but the outside was another story. The sounds of creatures eating and being eaten never stopped. I even thought of replicating the body of a carnivorous creature and preying on others, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it.

‘I had never hunted before.’ 

Having spent my entire life in a cage, I had never experienced hunting or even fighting.

I peered cautiously through the crack. The scene outside was chaos.

The stress and pressure of confinement, combined with primal fear and hunger, had turned even the most docile creatures violent. I couldn’t bring myself to plunge into that chaos. If death was inevitable, I would choose the least painful way. I retreated into the crevice and curled up.

To starve in silence – that was the way I chose.

I closed my eyes and tried to sleep. My mind became more and more foggy. The sounds outside the crevice became nothing more than a dull hum. Hunger had drained me to the point where my consciousness began to blur.

‘I have a dignified tail.’ 

I tried to think of something to distract myself.

‘My tail is handsome. So…’ 

So, so… I opened my eyes. Curled up in a ball as I was, my tail came into view. The once proud, fan-shaped tail was now cracked and broken, its shell chipped away, leaving it pitiful and worn.

And yet.

‘My tail is dignified.’ 

My once proud tail was shattered. I tried to put the pieces back together with my legs, pressing them into place. The pain made me stop. My tail hurt. My legs hurt. Everything hurt.

‘It’s OK. When I moult, it’ll all heal.’ 

If I lived to see it, I’d have a nice tail again. I closed my eyes and imagined it.

My translucent tail, tinted slightly red, like the colour of a sunset. I had never seen a sunset myself, but I was sure it would look like that. My legs also shimmered with a sunset hue in my mind’s eye. But compared to this vivid image, reality felt so bleak.

No matter how much I imagined a vibrant, radiant world, whenever I opened my eyes, all I saw was this dull, grey reality.

I didn’t know how much time had passed. My once graceful tail had shrunk and withered. Malnutrition. My once translucent body had become dull and pale.

My throat burned with thirst and even breathing had become a struggle.

‘I am hungry.’

The crack in the wall, once tight around me, now felt wide. It wasn’t a good sign. It meant my body had shrunk that much. I knew I was close to death, but I tried to console myself. I didn’t want to spend my last moments with dark thoughts.

Just as I was about to try to sleep again, the rock began to shake. At first I didn’t think much of it. The rock often shook when it collided with floating debris in space. I assumed this was no different.

But the shaking got worse, and for some reason the temperature inside began to rise.

‘It’s hot… what’s going on?’ 

As time passed, the heat became unbearable, as if my body was being cooked. My dazed mind struggled to process the situation, but suddenly I jerked upright in realisation. It wasn’t dehydration that was causing the heat. The rapidly rising temperature suggested something far worse was happening outside.

‘The rock is burning!’ 

My mind raced to process the information. All the knowledge I had ever acquired rushed through my mind. Fire couldn’t ignite in the vacuum of space, where there was no oxygen.

The atmosphere…

This place was no longer in space. The rock had entered an area with atmosphere, creating enough friction to ignite a fire. Once that realisation hit me, the rest came quickly.

‘There will be an impact!’ 

The rock that had been drifting through space had entered the atmosphere of a planet. Starve to death or be crushed to death on impact – which would hurt less?

Faced with imminent death, my body trembled. The other creatures seemed to feel it too, as they thrashed about wildly. The more violent the shaking, the closer the impact felt.

What happened next is a blur. I think there was a deafening roar – so loud it felt like the sound itself was crushing my body. My body continued to slam into the walls. I could feel the intense heat all around me. I tried to hold on to the wall, but my head hit something and I lost consciousness.

‘At least the rock made it through the atmosphere.’ 

At least I won’t be boiled to death. That was my last thought before I blacked out.

And so the rock hit the ground.

* * *

The reason I ended up on Earth wasn’t anything fancy.

I was abandoned on my home planet and fell to Earth by sheer accident. That was it. There was no noble mission that brought me here, nor did I come with any impressive goal in mind.

I thought back to my first day on Earth.

The rock – later called a meteorite – shattered on impact. Half the test subjects buried in it died. The survivors, dazed by their unfamiliar surroundings, cautiously ventured outside. This is how countless alien creatures first set foot on Earth.

From their point of view, it was a story of survival against all odds.

But for humans, it must have felt like an alien invasion. Out of nowhere, a meteorite had crashed, unleashing grotesque creatures upon their world.

Given the circumstances, it was not surprising that the humans didn’t welcome us. It was in this hostile environment that I met Kihoon. I met him on the very first day I arrived on Earth. I remembered the events of that day in my mind.

Kim Kihoon. Thirteen years old. A small and frail boy. It was he who gave me a piece of bread as I wandered aimlessly around this strange planet.

“Are you hungry?” 

That was the first thing Kihoon said to me when we met. He was kind. He took me in, cared for me when I was injured, and even wiped my body with a wet towel…

‘Wait, no, that’s not right.’ 

Was I misremembering because I was delirious after he stabbed me with the kitchen knife? Somehow my memories of that day felt strangely romantic. I stopped and thought back to my meeting with Kihoon.

I met Kihoon on my first day on earth. He picked me up and put me in a cage. Then he gave me a piece of bread. This must be the unvarnished truth of what really happened.

As I thought about the past, I looked down at the spot where the kitchen knife had stabbed me. My body, in its human form, came into view. I reached out and ran my fingers over the wound Kihoon had inflicted.

The surface had healed.

But the internal damage still lingered. At this rate, it would take at least three more days of rest for a full recovery.

‘I need to focus on healing first.’

Finding Kihoon could wait until after that. With my decision made, I lay down on the ground. As I closed my eyes, Kihoon’s face floated into my mind. I still didn’t know why he stabbed me, but I was certain that once I found him and talked to him, everything would be resolved.

‘Whatever made him angry enough to stab me…’

It must have been something I did wrong. I’ll apologize. He likes me, so he’ll forgive me, right?

With that thought, I closed my eyes.