Encounter



  Encounter

  ENCOUNTER

  Copyright © 2013 K.Z. Freeman

  Image Copyright © 2013 Ramses Melendes

  All Rights Reserved

  ISBN: 9781301705719

  https://www.kzfreeman.blogspot.com

  In 2148, first contact for the human race came in a somewhat expected way. Most had hoped the aliens would simply descend onto the planet to some public arena and walk out of their craft in numbers. This is what eventually happened, but not in any way that we had previously envisioned. Because when it finally happened, we had no choice but to shoot the bastards.

  But before I get to the grind of it, allow me to say one thing first. Never, ever, trust anyone that brings an energy rifle to a diplomatic meeting. This might seem obvious to anyone with half a wit, but, apparently, the collective human race has less than half of such commodity.

  That very rifle is what has wounded me, and as I now lie dying, logging this in my mind-banks to distribute over the world-link, I can only hope my story will reach as many minds as possible. I have no idea why they left me and haven’t finished me off. My only thoughts on the matter, are that they knew my wound was fatal and so saw it fit not to waste any more energy cells.

  They had cleansed the building where I run to, floor by floor, room by room, compartment by compartment. Why they didn't simply bomb it from orbit was beyond me. I could only assume they actually enjoyed doing it by hand and were after me in particular. And from what I had seen, I had a vague idea why this might be the case.

  I now sit propped up in a corner, in a room on the two hundred and thirtieth floor, thinking these words and storing them in my mind. My blood is slowly pooling around me, warm and dark. I had programmed a routine that will post this message, or rather, story, in all social networks and email them to 79 billion different mind-mail accounts.

  We all know how it began, we have all seen it, but few truly know the extent and the length to which we have gone to prevent such an outcome. You can say the world is dead, and that we killed it. Or it may indeed seem that it was the aliens who spelled our doom, but, ultimately, the truth is rather different. I have seen the enemy. And the enemy is us.

  Chapter 1 – Arrival

  They came from the sun. At least, that’s how it looked like. Thousands of small vessels, luminous orbs that coalesced above the skies of central Europe, China, India, Japan, South and North America, Canada, South Africa and Australia. They waited for an hour and a day, then began their travel over our world. Slowly, the orbs passed over all of the continents, all the countries. They were seen by all. Millions of digital images and no fewer videos and holographic estimations were taken to attest to the reality of this event.

  What we collectively perceived were thousands of bright and trailing comets. They were too far up in the upper atmosphere to see from up close by our craft, and our instruments could spot nothing but light when looked and zoomed in upon the objects.

  They merged over England. They merged and transformed from brightly colored orbs into a singular, black, utterly black derelict. For it looked like a derelict at first. A black sun blotting out our own Sun as the thing swam between the clouds during daytime, and blocked the stars at night. It just hung there, like a second Moon. Silent and unmoving. It appeared to spin, the clouds circling about like an accretion disk. It agitated the waters of oceans with its mass and the tides rose, rivers spilled and flooded large parts of London. It followed the Earth – always in the same position.

  A small panic-state ensued across the world.

  We had scrambled our own craft to look at it from up close, but it was like it was surrounded by some barrier ten kilometers thick. Nothing could penetrate it and no signal whatsoever escaped it, or got to it, all navigation systems would simply fizzle out and die. Aircrafts would plummet and could only restart their engines only upon exiting the field around the dark vessel. The roundness of the derelict appeared to be perfect, until, on its side, a lump the size of an apartment block split like a cell dividing. It was equally as perfect, symmetrical, a sphere of utter black. We followed its descend towards London, to France, to Budapest and back to France where it stopped. It then floated above the Eifel Tower for exactly 9days 9hours 9minutes 9seconds 9… It then shot back up and merged with the black ship again. It was then that it became somewhat obvious that the intelligence inside the vessel was examining us. It was assessing us, monitoring us and, as it later turned out, trying to figure out if we’re even worthy to live on this planet.

  When the first alien appeared in the middle of the European Parliament, we were shocked to say the least. It was an ugly, crude thing. It floated above the ground, suspended on what seemed like the currents of its own will. Waves of heat haze flew from its head and to its feet, a head that was nothing more than a triangle with a single, large and ugly eye.

  I was there when the thing appeared. I was there when it silenced the room with its speech, words that shook the walls. I was there when my colleagues shat themselves. And I was there when grown men began to weep and cower out of fear. The alien was naked, larger than two of the tallest men, with a body seemingly composed not of muscle tissue or skin, but out of a grey, almost black form, like a statue. Its shape was a paradox. For it looked to resemble stone and what could have been its muscles looked angular, as though it were composed of triangles, or pixels. Yet it was almost opalescent. To look upon it was like looking at the stars. Within its body, light would twinkle inside black, boiling liquid that sloshed and moved as though alive, magnetized. Its head was two dimensional. I tried to look at it from different angles, but it would always, always show itself from but the front, perfectly triangular and overly large even for its titanic body. The thing seemed so huge it felt like it sported its own gravitational field as it floated in the middle of the large room. It reached to half its height. The eye in the middle of its black ‘head’ was lidless, always staring and strangely human looking, intense. I find it impossible to describe the utter terror I felt while looking at that emotionless stare. It was an enlarged, never-blinking eye, which gazed at you no matter where and from what angle one looked at it. We soon discovered it stared at us all, like a mirror, simultaneously.

  Its words were so simple, so familiar, yet felt so vile. The alien said what we were hoping someone would say for untold millennia. And for the first time, the sentence came out of someone who could actually be what it claimed to be, and that filled us with the uttermost dread. The three short words rang inside our minds and made our ears bleed.

  “I am God,” it claimed, it’s voice like mountains colliding.

  Our shock turned to awe. In deference, some fell to their knees or simply stared, dumbfounded and in trance. The hall bristled with whispers and doubt. I was not sure most even saw the strange device the being held across its lower chest. Well, not until what at first seemed like a peaceful meeting turned into a scene of carnage. The energy rifle spat fire without warning. Its sound tore through the air like a razor of jagged reality.

  My field of vision shook as light enveloped all of existence for a second, then another flash, then another, then countless more. Screams and shouts, feet milling and the sound of bodies exploding, desks shattering and chairs melting. I looked at the God spewing tormented fire the color of madness and oil and my knees began to shake. What had before been a sense of adoration and hope, turned into a full blown hatred for the being that stared at me and wished nothing but my demise. Its blank gaze remained motionless, yet the space around it shook when it spoke again. It felt as though the whole building was rocked by its word. “Die.”

  Why a being, or beings so advanced should be so violent I only later understood. Only I could understand it, since somehow, either by some act of fate or dumb luck
, I alone managed to survive every subsequent attack. I had hid myself under a shattered pile of desks that were flung aside and just kept still. Like a corpse. A very dead corpse. But I could not close my eyes. I watched as the being watched me but did nothing else. It did not attack me or wound me further, neither did it do much but stand and wait. It waited until a slit in the air, like a curtain drawn to its side manifested beside it. Within the slit, I could see what I imagine was the interior of their vessel as the thing stepped through.