Pesticide

Something was wrong. Even in her sleeping state her body knew it. Her throat was sore and there was a foreign shape in her mouth, something squishy that her tongue couldn’t push away. Even stranger, the air was wet and heavy, and she could no longer feel her soft sheets against her skin.
She tried to roll on her side but something sticky was wrapped around her wrist. Panic washed away the drowsiness, and she opened her eyes to total darkness.
The streetlight normally shining in through her bedroom window was absent. She felt around with her tongue. There was something plastic inside, a tube forcing its way down her throat, blocking her attempt at screaming. She tried to grab the tube in the dark but realised both her hands were held in place by warm — soft but strong — binds. The same was true for her feet, and she flailed around hopelessly as she tried to wriggle and wrestle her limbs free.
As she breathed out through her nose, she felt bubbles streaming out from her nostrils. To her horror, she realised that she was submerged underwater.
Her attempts at escape slowly faded into helplessness as her body grew tired. Her wrists ached, her throat swollen from trying to scream.
All she could do was wait for this realistic nightmare to end, but it stubbornly dragged on for what felt like hours. She had experienced sleep paralysis before, but never like this. She even wet herself, dreading having to change her sheets when she finally awoke.

After an agonisingly long time in the silent dark, the water around her stirred. A strong tide pushed her back with violent force, but the binds held fast.
A small green ring glowed before her — then another, and another — until a full circle formed, then dimmed.
Her body locked, eyes wide despite the dark. Where was she, and what else was here with her?
The waters were still for a few moments, but then she felt a current pushing against her face. She turned her head instinctively, right before something smooth and cold pressed against her cheek. Like wet rubber, it slid over her face. The way it moved felt intentional, alive, but also gentle.
She shook her head violently, but the thing ignored her protests. Numbness spread throughout her face, seeping through her skin into her muscles. It did not paralyse her; she continued to thrash head side to side. Were it not for the tube, she would bite at the slippery surface. But alas, she was trapped and defenceless.

The blanket of slick skin against her face tightened, clasping her head still. Then, something sharp pressed against the side of her nose — light at first, then insistent.
To her horror, it began to cut into her, first along her frown lines, then across her cheek. The process was painless, but she could feel the intruding object slicing through her skin.
The sharp object traced towards her eye, and she squeezed it shut, trying to scrounge her cheek and brow together to protect it. Thankfully, the cut steered away, tracing her cheekbone until it curved back to the first incision.
The unseen creature pulled at the skin on her cheek, stabbing at the tissue underneath until it came loose. It withdrew, taking her skin with it. She could feel the cold water against her exposed flesh, but if it was salty, it did not sting.

Several more minutes passed — silent, still, and black. Yet the presence in front of her was tangible.
With growing dread, she wondered what fate awaited her. She focused on her breathing, in through the mouth and out through the nose. Shortly, she would wake up, she told herself.
Periodically, more rings shimmered in the void before her — some flaring up quickly and brightly, others blinking drowsily. The rings glowed in different dull colours, and they appeared attached to a wall a few meters away. A wall that rose like a skyscraper.
The rings pulsed in clusters of five or more, their rhythm like a beating heart. She couldn’t help feeling there was meaning to them, a pattern she needed to solve.
She counted the number of rings glowing together, tried to correspond them to letters of the alphabet. All she got was: HEGFFFILI, as well as a couple of numbers too large to count before fading.

Following another long, tense wait, the water shifted again. This time it pushed against her right side, like a thick breeze. Then, a current pressed down on her body from above. She feared something was moving closer, but knew there was nothing she could do to stop it.
The water stilled, but her heart raced on. The cloth-like, rubbery mass that had stripped her skin now stroked her forehead, placing something hard, flat and round against it. The creature withdrew but the disc remained, held in place by something in the middle that suctioned itself onto her skin.
Then, green light pierced the darkness before her. More rings appeared, smaller and brighter. There was something artificial about their light; they beamed instead of glowing. It took her a couple of seconds to realise that the circles were arranged into letters, spelling out:

“DO YOU HAVE ANY DISEASES”
She tried to scream but the tube robbed her of her voice. The words in front of her changed.
“SPEAK NORMALLY AND I WILL UNDERSTAND”
Her mind raced. How could she speak underwater, with a tube in her throat? She tried to focus her vocal cords and say, “help me, please.”
The tube was soft and squishy, but she flexed so hard against it she cut off the airflow. For a second, she panicked, her throat tightening even further. The tube pushed back, forcing her airways open. Above her eyes, she could see stark green light shining from her disc. She couldn’t see what it said but the other text changed in response.
“NO”
Yellow rings flared up all around her, much larger than before. She tried again, silently yelling for help. The text remained unchanged for a few seconds while the other rings faded, then it was replaced by the same question as before:
“DO YOU HAVE ANY DISEASES”
She shook her head, salting the water with her tears. The text remained until she finally formed the word “no” in her throat.

The screen retreated, pulling a strong current with it. As the text vanished, she was once again drowned by the darkness. Silently, she screamed:
“Wait! Who are you? Where am I?” Gradually, the answer spelled itself out in the green rings.
“THIS IS RTHLNDA”
“THE NAME IS DERIVED FROM OUR WORD FOR WATER SAME AS YOU CALL YOUR PLANET EARTH”
“WE ARE GTHRNA AND I AM A BIOLOGIST”
Terror mixed with a strange relief — now she knew for sure she was dreaming. She had heard stories of people experiencing alien abductions as part of sleep paralysis, but this felt so real she worried something more serious was happening.

“Am I in a coma?” she asked, afraid of the answer. Coma awareness could be a horrible thing, but she dared not even consider the alternative.
“NO”
She felt the water pressing against her chest as she asked:
“When will I wake up?”
“YOU ARE AWAKE NOW”
She refused to believe it. Perhaps her subconscious mind was lying. Yet, lurking on the edge of her sanity was a growing fear that all of this was real.
Her arms struggled against the binds.
“What do you want with me?”
“SKIN”
“DNA”
“Why?”
“WE NEED IT FOR THE PESTICIDE”
“Pesticide?” The silent word tasted like salt in her mouth, slowly sinking in her mind and landing with a deep thump.

The water stayed black before her, sitting heavy atop her frame.
“What pesticide?” she eventually asked.
“A PESTICIDE AGAINST HUMANS”
She was frozen in silence as she processed the words. Her mind swirled like the water around her, and nausea fought the tube for space in her throat.
After a long, dark pause another message emerged.
“I KNOW HUMANS USE PESTICIDES TOO”
“Why?” was all she could think to ask.
“YOU USE PESTICIDE TO RID YOUR NESTS AND FOOD OF INSECTS YOU CONSIDER HARMFUL”
“But why make a pesticide for humans?”
“YOUR PLANET IS RICH IN LIFE AND RESOURCES BUT HUMANITY WILL SOON DESTROY IT ALL”
“WE WANT THOSE RESOURCES FOR OUR ECONOMY AND SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY”
“WE CALCULATED THAT THE GLOBAL ECOSYSTEM IS NOT DEPENDENT ON HUMANS”
“YOU CAN BE SAFELY KILLED WITH A POISON THAT ONLY TARGETS YOUR SPECIES”
Terror flushed over her, cold as ice. She hadn’t accepted her reality yet, still hoping to awaken in her soft bed at any moment. But inside, something deep and primal tore through her denial, demanding that she face the truth and fight for her life — for all of humanity. With no way to free herself, her only option was to plead for mercy, an emotion she wasn’t sure if her captor could even feel.

“But you can’t!” she pleaded.
“WE CAN”
“NOW THAT WE HAVE YOUR DNA WE CAN RELEASE THE PESTICIDE WITHIN A FEW HOURS”
“But there are billions of people! They have lives, families. My mom died a few weeks ago, my father needs me. I’m all he has!”
“THE PESTICIDE WILL BE SPREAD THROUGH THE AIR”
“ALL 8000000000 HUMANS WILL DIE”
“YOUR ECOSYSTEM CAN NOT SUSTAIN SO MANY HUMANS”
There was a brief pause. Purple rings dimly flickered across the massive wall.
“THE POISON IS PAIN-FREE”
“EVERYONE WILL SIMPLY FALL ASLEEP AND NOT WAKE UP”
Chills ran down her arms and legs, and not just from the cold. The prospect of her family, friends — everyone she’d ever known or could ever know — dying in a matter of hours was starting to feel unbearably real. And what would happen to her? Would she die like the rest of them or be kept alive for dissection and probing?

“What about me?” she summoned the courage to ask.
“WE WILL KEEP YOU AND A FEW OTHERS ALIVE TO STUDY”
“THE EXPERIMENTS WILL NOT BE PAINFUL”
Her stomach clenched despite the words. She had no faith in the ethics of their experiments.
“WE HAVE SANCTUARIES FOR ALIEN ANIMALS”
“I am not an animal!” she pleaded, tugging hard on her binds. There was another pause. Patches of soft orange rings spread across the wall.
“YOU ARE A GREAT APE A MEMBER OF THE ANIMAL KINGDOM”
“But I am not some mindless beast! I am intelligent, all humans are.”
The orange clusters returned.
“THE DEVICE COULD NOT TRANSLATE THE WORD INTELLIGENT”
“CAN YOU EXPLAIN ITS MEANING”

She thought for a moment, not an easy feat given her rising panic.
“Intelligence is the ability to think, to solve challenges, and to learn and discover new things. Your species is intelligent and so are we. We have scientists like you, we build great machines and buildings, and we have discovered many important things!”
More orange rings, flickering in scattered patterns. She held her breath, waiting for the response.
“WHAT YOU ARE DESCRIBING SOUNDS LIKE SENTIENCE”
“IT IS A TRAIT SHARED BY ALL ANIMALS INCLUDING THOSE HUMANS KILL”
“No, it’s different!” she insisted. The text continued uninterrupted.
“YOUR SPECIES USES TOOLS BUT SO DO OTHER APES AND OTTERS AND DOLPHINS AND ELEPHANTS AND CROWS AND OCTOPI AND ANTS AND CROCODILES AND RODENTS”
Her mind spun as the creature listed off animals. Surely, as an intelligent being, it could see the difference — couldn’t it?
“YOU BUILD NESTS BUT SO DO TOO MANY ANIMALS FOR ME TO LIST”
“ALL SPECIES AND INDIVIDUALS DISCOVER NEW THINGS AND A SCIENTIST IS JUST SOMEONE WHO EXPERIMENTS TO MAKE DISCOVERIES”
“MANY SPECIES DO THAT”

There was a flicker of yellow on the wall, fast and faint.
“YOU SEE NO PROBLEM KILLING OTHER ANIMALS AND BELIEVE YOUR SPECIES INHERENTLY SUPERIOR BECAUSE OF WHAT YOU CALL INTELLIGENCE”
“BUT THAT INTELLIGENCE IS NOT UNIQUE TO YOU AND MANY MORE SPECIES WILL DIE IF YOUR KIND CONTINUES TO LIVE.”
“WE HAVE ALREADY DISCOVERED THAT HUMANS HAVE KILLED 881 SPECIES”
“THAT NUMBER INCLUDES YOUR CLOSEST COUSINS THE NEANDERTHALS WHOM EVEN YOU WOULD LIKELY DEEM INTELLIGENT DUE TO HOW SIMILAR TO YOU THEY WERE”
“AND MOST SPECIES WILL LIKELY DIE WITHIN A FEW CENTURIES IF HUMANITY IS NOT EXTERMINATED”
The yellow rings glowed more intensely now, crawling like snakes along the wall.
“WHY SHOULD WE SACRIFICE YOUR BEAUTIFUL PLANET TO SAVE YOUR KIND WHEN YOU WILL ALSO DIE OUT IN THE FALLOUT”

“You don’t understand,” she implored. “We are like you!”
“We have technology, computers and the internet. And medicine that saves lives. We can even travel into space! Give us a few centuries and we will be as advanced as you.”
“WE HAD YOUR TECHNOLOGY MILLIONS OF YEARS AGO”
“MANY OTHER SPECIES OF OUR PLANET DO”
“YOUR COMPUTERS AND THE INTERNET IS NOTHING BUT A WAY TO STORE AND SHARE INFORMATION”
“THE OTHER ANIMALS OF EARTH ALSO COMMUNICATE WITH EACH OTHER AND THEY TOO HAVE WAYS TO DEAL WITH DISEASES”
“AS FOR YOUR SPACE TRAVELS MANY SPECIES HAVE A THIRST FOR EXPLORATION”
“IT DOES NOT MAKE YOU DESERVING OF DESTROYING THEM”
She stared at the words in disbelief. How could a creature so intelligent, able to communicate with her, not realise humanity’s potential? Perhaps she wasn’t explaining her species’ achievements well enough. Or maybe the alien was outraged by the human race’s many moral failings. She decided to try a different approach.

“But we don’t want to destroy the planet!” she tried to explain. “Our scientists are trying to find ways to solve it. Please, we are evolving fast and soon we will find a solution!”
“WE ALREADY HAVE THE SOLUTION”
“ANY DELAYS WILL SEE MORE SPECIES DYING”
“IT IS OUR ESTIMATION THAT YOUR ALPHA MALES AND FEMALES WILL NOT PRIORITISE OTHER SPECIES OVER THEIR FLOCKS”
“No, you’re wrong! We care about the problem and are working on solutions!” Desperation coloured her words; she could tell she was losing the argument.
“YOUR SOLUTIONS ARE TOO SLOW AND SACRIFICES SPECIES FAR MORE VALUABLE TO THE ECOSYSTEM THAN HUMANS”
“Please, we are good people deep down. We care about others, and we take care of animals and…” Despair gripped her before she could finish. The creature before her didn’t care, was indifferent to the lives of billions and the survival of an entire race.
“A LOT OF SPECIES FORM SYMBIOTIC RELATIONSHIPS BUT HUMANS ARE PARASITIC”
The pit in her stomach grew ever deeper as the emotionless green words sunk into it.
“YOU TAKE FROM OTHER SPECIES TO THEIR DETRIMENT AND OFFER NOTHING IN RETURN”
“IF LEFT UNCHECKED YOU WILL LEECH YOUR ENTIRE PLANET DRY”

Her breathing was heavy, her chest weighed down by water and anxiety.
Thousands of years of struggle, death, disease and despair — all endured for the hope of a better tomorrow — would vanish in a few hours.
And there was nothing she could do to stop it. She wasn’t persuasive enough, and everyone she knew would die as a result of her failure.
She could not bear to think of her father. Losing her mom had been difficult enough, but soon she would be all alone in the world — and not even in her world. Stuck on an alien planet, forced to breathe artificial air for the rest of her life, while these things experimented on her.
She clenched her fists and jaw in unison. The whole affair was so unfair. Why had they chosen her? She was a nobody working at a retail store. What had she done to deserve this fate?
And then her abductor had the gall to lecture her about humans being parasites; the same creature that kidnapped and skinned her, that intended to kill eight billion people for the sake of resources and science.
What right did it have to look down on her? It may be more intelligent than her, but humans don’t treat monkeys this way.

The text continued in response to her previous plea, indifferent to her inner turmoil.
“AS FOR BEING GOOD PEOPLE EMPATHY IS A COMMON TRAIT AMONGST ANIMALS”
“Well, it’s clearly one you don’t have!” she snapped. In her throat, she screamed the words but no sound escaped her lips. Perhaps it was for the best, as her jaw quivered and her voice might have failed her.
Shades of yellow and orange trickled along the wall.
“WE HAVE EMPATHY BUT YOU SEEM TO EXPECT MORE EMPATHY SHOWN TOWARDS YOU THAN TOWARDS ALL OTHER SPECIES COMBINED”
“No! You’re twisting it! We don’t think we’re better than anyone, and we try all the time to preserve endangered species! Even plants!”
“YOUR WORDS CONTRADICT YOUR PREVIOUS ARGUMENTS”
“AND THE SPECIES YOU HAVE SAVED WERE ONLY ENDANGERED BECAUSE OF YOU”
She glared into the darkness, hoping the creature could see and understand the fury on her face.

“Doesn’t it mean anything to you that you can even talk to me?” she said, her teeth biting down on the tube in her mouth. “No other animals have language!”
“THAT WORD DID NOT TRANSLATE”
“WHAT IS LANGUAGE”
She felt a hot spike of frustration. These so-called “superior beings” didn’t even have a words for “language.”
“Language! Words! The thing we are doing right now! It’s how we communicate.”
“I UNDERSTAND”
“COMMUNICATION IS NOT UNIQUE TO HUMANS NOR IS VOCALISATION”
She would have buried her face in her hands if she could. Of course, the thing didn’t see a difference between dogs barking and sniffing each other’s butts, and a parliament hearing.
“But it shows we‘re intelligent! You couldn’t have this conversation with a chimp!”
“WE HAVE COMMUNICATED WITH CHIMPANZEES AND MANY MORE ANIMALS USING VISUAL AND AUDITORY CUES”
She blew angry bubbles through her nose.
“That’s not the same! You can’t give a group of monkeys instructions on how to build a house using body language!”
“MONKEYS COMMUNICATE WHAT THEY NEED USING GESTURES AND VOCALISATIONS”
She slammed her fist through the water in frustration. Why did she bother?

The orange blotches returned, interlaced with yellow snakes.
“YOU SEEM ODDLY PROUD OF HUMANITYS NEST BUILDING SKILLS BUT THIS IS ALSO A FEAT SHARED BY MANY OTHER SPECIES”
“We don’t just build ‘nests’ to live in! We build them out of wonder, to challenge ourselves and to create art that lasts for millennia! The pyramids for example, and the great wall of China, can even be seen from space!”
Even as she formed the silent words, she could hear the futility in them. Her shoulders sank and she relaxed her limbs. The water felt heavier than ever.
“I DO NOT UNDERSTAND WHY THE SIZE OR DESIGN OF YOUR NESTS WOULD MAKE YOU MORE DESERVING OF SURVIVING AT THE COST OF OTHER SPECIES”
She took a deep breath and composed herself. Hopelessness crept through the shadows of her mind, ready to pounce on her vulnerable zeal. But failure was not an option. She must try every angle she could think of.

“I’m saying that humans are more than just drones focused on survival,” she tried to explain. “We have art, religion, love and friendship. We write books and poems, we appreciate the beauty of the world around us.”
“Together, we have achieved so much, and you would wipe it all away without even giving us a chance at redemption.”
She sniffled, her hands trembling. In the water, it was hard to tell when she had started crying again. Perhaps she never stopped.
“Do I need to explain ‘art’ or ‘religion?’”
“NO”
“WE HAVE ART AND WE USED TO HAVE RELIGION”
“BUT WE DO NOT BELIEVE THESE THINGS MAKE US SUPERIOR TO OTHERS JUST LIKE HUMANS DO NOT THINK OF BIRDS AS SUPERIOR EVEN THOUGH THEY BUILD MORE IMPRESSIVE NESTS AND MAKE BETTER MUSIC”
“But you think you’re superior to us! That you are more deserving of our planet than we are! We used to have colonisation too, but we outgrew that!”
She tried to summon the fury she had felt only moments ago, but her heart and head felt too heavy. She closed her eyes for a moment, longing for a brief escape from this dire new reality.

“WE DO NOT THINK YOU ARE LESSER THAN US”
“IT IS SIMPLY AN EQUATION OF WHICH OUTCOME IS WORSE”
“IF HUMANS ARE ALLOWED TO LIVE YOU WILL KILL FAR MORE ANIMALS AND DO IRREPARABLE DAMAGE TO THE GLOBAL ECOSYSTEM”
“AND WE DO NOT SEEK TO COLONISE EARTH”
“WE WILL HARVEST WHAT WE CAN WITHOUT CAUSING DAMAGE”
The yellow lines of rings pulsated gently.
“CAN HUMANITY SAY THE SAME”
Hot anger flared up once more, an intense but brief escape from despair’s icy grip.
“We don’t have to explain ourselves to you! Who do you think you are, some hippie guardian of nature!?”
The yellow light brightened.
“I WILL NOT ASK YOU TO TRANSLATE HIPPIE AS I CAN TELL FROM CONTEXT THAT IT IS LIKELY PROFANITY”
“TO ANSWER YOUR QUESTION WE DO NOT ASK THAT YOU EXPLAIN YOURSELVES”
The temporary rush of fury wore off, leaving her feeling empty and exhausted.
“YOU HAVE ACTED IN ACCORDANCE WITH YOUR NATURE AS ALL ANIMALS DO”
“THIS IS NOT PUNISHMENT”
“THIS IS PEST CONTROL”

The words echoed through her skull. In her heart, she knew the creature was right. Even most humans would admit their effect on the world has been a net negative. But she had always believed that change was right around the corner, just one scientific breakthrough away.
And yet, she was old enough to understand how the world truly worked. Nobody would save the planet when destroying it was more profitable. The responsibility could always be pushed onto later generations.
Now she wished she had taken the threats more seriously — rising temperatures and water levels, dying forests and species — that everyone had. But time had run out. An hourglass nobody knew had been flipped.

“What will happen to me?” she finally asked.
“I TOLD YOU BEFORE”
“YOU WILL BE KEPT IN A HABITAT HERE ON RTHLNDA”
“IT WILL BE MADE TO RESEMBLE YOUR NATIVE ENVIRONMENT COMPLETE WITH A NEST”
The word “nest” felt like a slap across her skinless cheek, but she had no more anger in her body.
“THERE YOU WILL LIVE WITH A FEW OTHER HUMANS WHILE WE STUDY YOU”
“YOU WILL BE FED AND TAKEN WELL CARE OF”
“So I’m gonna live in a zoo?”
“MORE LIKE WHAT YOU CALL A SAFARI”
If its words were meant to comfort her, they failed miserably. Instead, they only hollowed her out further.
“VISITORS WILL OBSERVE YOU FROM A DISTANCE AND WILL NOT BE ALLOWED TO TOUCH OR DISTURB YOU”
She imagined grotesque creatures peering through her windows with soulless eyes, children throwing rocks, and the occasional well-meaning tourist trying to make her eat out the palm of its hand. If these things even had hands.
“YOU WILL HAVE A GOOD LIFE I PROMISE”
Empty words seeking to comfort. She dared not believe them.
“I don’t want ‘a good life!’ I want my life! On my planet!” Her chest quaked in tears, her ribs aching.
“ADAPTABILITY IS HUMANS GREATEST ABILITY”
“YOU WILL GET USED TO IT”
She didn’t want to “get used to it,” didn’t want to have to, but she knew it was pointless to tell the alien that. So she sobbed silently, feeling more alone than she ever had before.
Although she had no idea where in the cosmos she was, she knew that she must be further away from Earth than any human ever had. And she could feel it, in the marrow of her bones. A homesickness that threatened to crush her in its iron grasp.

Suddenly, a soft current pushed against her face. She flinched and gasped in air through the tube, her pulse quickening.
“DO NOT BE AFRAID”
“What are you doing?”
“I WILL NOT HURT YOU”
Strangely, she believed it — perhaps because she knew there was no escape. Soon, the creature grazed against her skin once more, stroking the cheek that still had skin on it. It was tender this time, tentative and comforting. It reminded her of her mother’s soft hands.
Too tired to resist, she leaned into the touch and whimpered softly. Purple rings formed on the rubber skin, revealing it to be a flat, round shape large enough to engulf her head. The rings spread along a tentacle-like limb, trailing back to what she had assumed was a wall until the whole shape lit up — hundreds of lavender circles revealing the creature at last.
She had never seen a blue whale before, but she imagined even one would feel small next to this thing. Its body floated like a massive balloon, outfitted with a skirt of appendages like the one currently resting against her cheek. If it had eyes or a mouth, she could not see them in the darkness, but there were two black voids on the side of its face where the rings were absent.
She tried to scream, jolting away from its touch. Beside it, she felt like an ant — vulnerable, microscopic, insignificant. Her limbs flailed in the water, weak with fear but empowered by blind panic.
But she knew it was pointless. Even if she broke free, she could never outswim a gargantuan sea-creature. And it wasn’t just the restraints anchoring her; without the tube she would drown before reaching anything but darkness.
Her breathing steadied, her arms and legs relaxing. She floated in the blackness, staring at the alien in silent surrender.

The green text, coming from a black disc attached to the creature, lit up again. Behind it, she could see a fainter green light drift around.
“YOU MENTIONED EARLIER THAT YOU HAVE A FATHER”
The words stunned her. Were they a threat? An attempt at manipulation?
“I CAN NOT PROMISE ANYTHING BUT I CAN ASK IF YOUR FATHER CAN BE TAKEN WITH YOU TO THE HABITAT”
“DO YOU WANT THAT”
She blinked, trying to gather her scattered thoughts.
Taken literally, the question was a simple one. Of course, she wanted her father — the man who had always been there for her, keeping her safe and guiding her through every hardship. Now, she needed him more than ever.
The thought of losing him was unbearable — a heavy stone in her stomach — especially so soon after her mom’s passing. But what kind of life would he have here, on an alien planet whose name she couldn’t even pronounce?
She thought it over for several long minutes, the creature waiting patiently in the dark. Despite the circumstances, she did have some modicum of trust in her captor. It had numbed her face before cutting it, promised kindness and shown sympathy when she cried.
Small gestures, but ones not born of necessity. It had no reason to show her compassion, no need to earn her trust. Many humans would not have shown such mercy, especially not towards someone they considered a mere animal.

“Yes,” she finally said, her throat trembling. “I don’t want to lose him too.”
“IF THE KEEPERS ALLOW IT WE WILL HAVE HIM TELEPORTED SHORTLY”
“YOU WILL LIVE WITH HIM IN THE HABITAT”
She looked up at the creature, still spotted with dull lavender.
Looking inward, she found something unexpected. A small seed of hope, buried deep in scorched earth. Humanity would remain, albeit a tiny fraction of it, ripped away from their planet and gods. Their history, their achievements, would live on in her — stories to be passed down through generations, she would ensure it.
“Thank you.” The words surprised even her, but they felt right. Orange blotches joined the symphony of purple.
“WHY DO YOU THANK ME”
“For keeping me alive. And for not… torturing me or anything.”
“WHAT DOES TORTURE MEAN?”
Roots sprouted from the seed in her heart, creeping slowly through her thick despair. Perhaps the future wasn’t so bleak after all.
Gazing through the still waters at the shimmering violet, she made herself a promise. She would endure. She would keep the spirit of humanity alive — honouring their greatest gift — she would adapt.