[ WP ] An alien race encounters the most terrifying predator imaginable . A lone , unarmed human .

A Tegulon raiding party walks into my castle. Naraleyeh takes a moment to rub her neck, the gill-tech feels weird. Naraleyeh likes to explore planets, she's been looking up at the stars since before she was born. Their squad leader is Tengkun. Tengkun is stronger than the strongest body builder and about equal to a racehorse in terms of speed. For this mission, he has learned to speak English, Mandarin, and 10 other earth languages. They've got those big tusk-like teeth like the Orcs in Warcraft. Beside Tengkun and Naraleyeh there are three land-troopers: indistinct, nameless, replaceable, like the stormtroopers from Star Wars. Aliens are coming. They're all over the universe and now they're here too. They find me, and drag me out of my bedroom into the antechamber. I'm shoved to my knees, one trooper behind me with a rifle. They want to talk. I've seen this in a movie too, I forget where. Kill Bill. 
 
 I am an unarmed human. I am a famous novelist. I am a bored tween. I am a sleeping schizoid. I am an arsonist with dwarfism. I am a nervous homemaker. I'm a scientific genius. I am alone, and I am the most dangerous thing in this universe by far. Tengkun speaks, Naraleyeh listens. 
 
 
 “ Hello human. We have read your history, we have studied your brain chemistry. By this time next year, Earth will be ours. A sample of your race shall be preserved in our Museum of Extinct Races. This is the how your kind will die. ” How am I supposed to feel? What do I say? 
 
 “ I'm sorry. Please, if you spare me I'll be the best exhibit in your museum. I'll memorize human poetry and music and put it on display for all the politicians and celebrities visiting your museum. Please spare me. ” I finish my grovelling. I do n't know what they're going to say next. Talking is such hard work. What are they going to say next? Wait, now that I think about it, would n't they preserve the captured races in suspended animation? Otherwise you run into inbreeding problems after a few generations. Maybe they can like, rejuvenate people's biology, so they just make the exhibits immortal. Yeah, that works. 
 
 “ I played Dungeons and Dragons once. My character was a dwarf fighter, I think. It's a good game, you get to tell stories with your friends. I do n't know why I stopped playing it. I do n't know, a lot of the plot was predetermined, that's a problem. And dice-rolling is n't a particularly appealing game mechanic. I burnt down a tavern one time, that was an amusing little conceit. Childish though. ” The aliens stare at me blankly. There is a long silence. None of them understand, and what a heavy tax I would subject on them if they did? No, let's find out. I imagine that they know, and they do. Naraleyeh bursts into tears. No that's a bit misogynistic is n't it? Let's say Tengkun is weeping soundlessly. One of the stormtroopers, or land-troopers ( what were they called? It does n't matter ) blinks out of existence. 
 
 Me and Naraleyeh stare at each other for what seems like a long time, but really is n't that long at all. How many times has this happened before? “ I read once that humans are constantly fantasizing, simulating scenarios without realizing it. Not just in their sleep. Thousands of dreams every day, forgotten just as they are being thought, skirting the periphery between con and sub-con, passing in the blink of an eye. And in these dreams all our insecurities, desires, and insanities are made manifest. But for a limited time only, I'm afraid. I am not sentient, I am a byproduct of sentience. I exist only slightly, and you even less so. Somewhere beyond this dimension is a human. Sometimes he imagines he is great victory, sometimes inexorable defeat. Aliens appear in the books he reads and in the movies he watches, so they appear in the static of his imagination as well. Not static in the sense that it's staying still, right, I mean more like television static. Chaotic noise. He's never had that thought before, and he is unlikely to remember it. ” By this time Naraleyeh had disappeared, in fact, the conscious mind had already forgotten her existence. The human is going to sleep. The dreams will continue to form, and they will continue to be shed. 
 
 I do n't like thinking that there's a part of me that lives in my imagination that's constantly dying and being reborn in meaningless scenarios. Now I'm imagining how tiresome and painful that existence would be, if that existence were aware of itself. The hypothetical is unpleasant to me, it's like a vision of hell. I've brought the thought to far into my conscious mind, I ca n't forget it now. I think I shall take a nap.
