I still clearly remember the day when they first came to us. It was merely a matter of few days ago when their ship hung low over the moon’s orbit. Their approach was deliberate as hours of apprehension went by only to be met with a benign fluctuating statistical noise of radiation emission. A careful observer or an act of fear mongering? I could not tell.

Ten hours later, they entered our planet. Skies in the western hemisphere darkened as the massive dreadnought cast an umbral stroke of doom upon the atmosphere.

When the news finally came to us on the other side of globe, many went into a state of upheaval. Others were celebrating it with joy as they remarked the eventful day as a proof that we weren't alone in this universe. Those who lived near the city decided to take pictures with the aircraft. Soon millions of pictures had circulated around social media. Others decided to put signs on the beaches and atop skyscrapers, welcoming the arrival.

The others were decidedly more apprehensive about the uninvited guests. Millions of people in my city decided to take it out onto the streets. Prayer mats were lined up along the sidewalk as they tried to reconcile their last moment with their creator. Many chose protest, demanding the government take the first step but nonetheless the decision on how to deal with our guests was put into dispute.

Despite the obvious threat, at least as we perceived it, and the continued decline of two-way communication, no one was that stupid as to provoke our guests much less to attack them, at least not yet. Even I wouldn’t descend into that path yet. But instead those people who were in a state of panic chose to take their paranoia out oneach other. Many people went to loot and plunder as they feared the judgment day was upon us. Having their hands tied, many states declared martial law to contain the upheaval. People were killed, power shifted and economy crashed while no one has the better idea on how to proceed. We were consumed by the fear of the unknown. That was all that it took to destroy us.

Despite all their efforts of contact, the ship remains stationary. A low humming noise was all that it could emit as the elongated shape of metal remains anchored above the city, taunting us.

Amidst the pandemonium that ensued, it wasn’t until four days later that our visitor decided to break the impasse. All it took was a simple radio broadcast and six explicit words to break the world “Volunteers. Leaders. Meeting. Midnight. Ship. Desperate”.

For days we had demanded an answer and now the harbinger had spoken to us with sudden clarity. As glad as the leaders were because the guest had pre-empted them with their proposal, one question was etched into everyone's mind. It was exactly one word that held us by the throat, denying us a sigh of relief.

The last word in the message to us was especially baffling, something just doesn't add up. If anyone was desperate, it was going to be our people. It was obvious they were biding their time. The gaping anticipation of the unknown. Those hours of uncertain, fearing calamity were what we were forced to go through. If this was a battle of resolve, the game would’ve been rigged from the start. What did our guests know about fear or would they even understand such a concept? This could very well be a bait but nonetheless it was our best shot at understanding our enemies.

I wouldn’t have been so anxious myself if it weren’t for the fact that I was one of the very people being summoned. When the hour finally came, there were fifteen others. They were more apparently concerned with the fact of assimilation, of bridging our culture with theirs. I held no such thoughts of compromise for I wasn’t born a diplomat but a tyrant. It only took my own experience to know something was amiss.

We are talking about creatures born somewhere unfathomable within the infinite expanse of space- different evolution, different culture and different history. It was naive thinking they would share a common concern with us. The only thing that binds us together as living biological beings is the fact that nature prefers those who are most adaptable. Our own planet has taught us many things about this. Those who are most fit to survive are able to spread; those who aren’t so lucky will perish. If they have gotten this far, surely they were very adaptable indeed to survive the biological filter in their world. The same cannot be said about us; our next few hours could very well be the filter. Even I could deduce that this simple fact of natural selection is the only thing that holds true to every living species on this universe. This was what we should fear.

The fifteen others unfortunately didn’t share the same disquiet even though the continuation of our species was at stake. They had only the notion that if a species was so advanced as to be capable of achieving interstellar travel surely they would be intelligent enough to understand negotiation, the building block of modern civilization. This was the naive belief that we were comparable to them. I know enough about where I came from to know that this wasn’t always the case. Given enough time, there are always those who would abuse their superiority. Perhaps prolonged exposure to peace has made the leaders weak, that was all I could do to justify their nonchalant manner.

The time had finally come. The sixteen of us were standing aboard their vessel. Other personnel as well as weapons weren’t allowed inside. A couple of figures descends slowly from the dimly-lit corridor that leads further into the interior, separated only by what I can assume was an atmospheric depressive chamber. They were bipedal, cloaked in a skintight crimson red space suit and a helmet with a black visor. As the chamber began finishing what I can only make up as a decontamination procedure, the transparent door that separated us slid open with the cold rush of air that follows.

What follows next wasn’t at all that we had anticipated. There wasn’t going to be negotiation, there was never intended to be one. When the president of a neighboring country that stood right beside me hit the ground, we all knew what is going to happen next. The moment after we inhaled our first breath, lightheadedness followed. The inside of my stomach felt like it was being pushed open from the inside. Before I could scream or gasp, I saw the horizon spiraling out of my reach. The air all around became my prison. My arm was thrown into the air as I try to catch the fleeting light. All I can hear was a voice spoken with coherence.

“Thank you for volunteering”

Before my eyes closed I saw the two figures standing before me taking off their helmets. They were creatures of hair and fur, their contour alien but with a facade lying beneath. Their motive was unknowable at this point but the expression that hid beneath wasn’t as unresolved as their origin, in fact it was all very familiar to me. They were faces of desperation.

----

Two days had passed ever since that day and there I was sitting upon the space station, overlooking the graveyard of billions. It was a very swift end. By the time everyone realized what had transpired, the virus had shut down their nervous system, robbing them off their ability to feel pain. Everything happened simultaneously around the globe, the ‘Reaper’ was what they were calling it. A living nano-sized weapon synthesized from the volunteers; our genetic makeup to be used against ourselves. The rapid and sudden scale of such extermination was meant to be the best method of euthanasia they could have granted us.

“We had obtained enough genetic samples from the fifteen to finish the weapon; as such we will spare you. What happens next is up to you. We’ll have what we need and we’ll be taking it from here” they said to me last.

They spoke at length about the reason why they were acting as they did and why they needed our home; of how rare it is for a life-supporting domain to emerge even within the Goldilocks zone but it all didn’t matter to me. An imperialist would still be an imperialist regardless of their reason. It was all fair and game in the eye of the natural order. One species dies; the others thrive. In the end, I was wrong about my previous paranoia; they were indeed comparable to us. If our people were in the same boat, we would have probably done the same to surpass the filter but I can’t nor will I ever forgive them.

Those damned humans...