Post by Radrook Admin on Feb 19, 2023 19:35:20 GMT -5
Beware when you smile!
I am the last of the extraterrestrial humanoid creatures that humans call Slarenim. I am hiding deep underground on your planetoid Ceres to avoid being slain as humans have slain all the others of my kind. No Earthling, we have not harmed anyone. Neither did we seek nor did we merit this. We Slarenim, natives of the planet which you humans call Alpha Centauri B, have always been lovers of peace. Read your own archives and you will see that they bear ample testimony to that fact.
So when you arrived, on our world, we welcomed you hospitably and totally without malice. Gladly we provided your exploration teams with the needed supplies to ensure their survival. Gladly we sheltered them within our humble abodes until they could eventually establish their own.
Yes, in our ignorance, we initially believed you to have been gods, for in our simple minds, only gods could have descended from the heavens in the manner that you humans had done. Only gods could perform the miracles that you humans were so easily performing. Yet, when we finally realized that you were mortal, we still did not harm you, but chose to continue to assist you instead.
In return, you revealed many marvelous wonders to us. Things that we considered magical. Communications with each other at unimaginable distances, even from one world to the next. You introduced us to your wondrous machines. You showered us with many technological gifts, and in turn, we believed you to be noble of heart, and our trustworthy friends.
So when more of you humans began descending from our skies, we gladly welcomed them as well. Soon, you had established a places of dwelling of your own on our planet. We rejoiced and celebrated those accomplishment along with you, and were looking forward to many years of friendship, and you, in turn, thanked us effusively for our assistance.
Yes, you seemed as fascinated with us, as we were with you. You marveled at our twelve-foot stature, our purple epidermises, our ability to breathe underwater, and to survive via epidermal photosynthesis. We, in turn, continued to marvel at your intellectual technological accomplishments.
But then, one day, when we attempted to mimic what you humans call a smile, you began gazing at our teeth as if mesmerized. We were baffled at your obsessive fascination. It was as if something about them immediately induced some altered human state of mind or trance. We repeatedly requested and explanation. But you humans always nervously looked away from us in response, as if responding would have revealed some horrible truth.
Yes, we did, secretly speak about it amongst ourselves. Also, we spoke about how suddenly, your communication with Earth had frantically increased. Yet, for a while, things continued as usual between us. Then suddenly, more of your ships appeared in our skies. No, not the kind a as before, but larger, with black menacing, gleaming hulls, and long, protruding frontal swiveling tubes controlled by uniformed humans seated behind them.
They landed perilously close to our abodes, scattering sand, rocks, and pebbles everywhere as their screaming engines gradually whined down. For the first time in our entire existence, we felt menaced. It was a totally alien feeling that confused us. Yet, still trusting in your benevolence, and your smiling assurances that all was well, we gathered to welcome these new human visitors.
We gladly gathered produce from our fields and gardens to offer you as gifts. We played our reed musical instruments and our drummers beat their drums in order to entertain you as the doors to the ships hulls gradually opened. But the humans who emerged were different. They wore helmets with visors, and were attired in black leather uniforms while wielding what looked like weapons. Instead of the friendly smiles we were familiar with, these humans glared about menacingly from behind their transparent visors, as if angrily seeking something to kill. Shocked, we dropped our gifts as they began marching down the ramps in formation towards us.
Halfway down, they suddenly halted, as if waiting for some signal. For a long while, there was only silence between us. Then suddenly, after a high-pitched siren sounded, they began cutting us down. We fled towards our abodes for safety, but found the humans, we had believed our friends, armed and waiting to cut off our escape. We attempted to flee past them, without harming them, for we are not violent creatures, but consider all life sacred.
Hundreds of us fell during that first barrage. Then, when the ship batteries opened fire, thousands of us were mowed down, and our emerald sands became littered with our mangled dead and dying bodies.
As I fled in terror, I glanced back and briefly saw humans kneeling over our dead and dying. They were wielding metal calipers, rapidly removing their teeth, and saving them in leather pouches. Some humans were raising them and inspecting them by the light of our setting red-dwarf star you humans call Proxima, laughing hysterically, as if envisioning some glorious future that our teeth would somehow make possible.
Yes, we survivors continued to flee until we could flee no more. Yet, still driven by this mysterious alien urge, you humans pursued us relentlessly on your small anti-gravity machines. Desperately some of us sought sanctuary in the distant granite mountains, but you humans quickly followed. Others among us sought sanctuary amidst our dense southern jungles, but you humans quickly followed us there as well.
You continued to descend on us from our sacred skies by the thousands. Your machines were inescapable. No compassion was shown. Some of us were divested of our teeth while still alive and crying out for mercy. Our sick, our elderly, our young were never spared. We had known nothing of cruelty before your arrival. We had known nothing of selfishness nor hatred. We perished in total ignorance pleading to know why you were treating us this way, but were always immediacy silenced.
Soon, under your relentless butchery, when our planet had been completely overrun by your rapacious kind, and our species had been decimated, we began dying out. But this did not seem to affect you. The fewer there were of us, the more effusively you hunted us down with a fanatical passion.
Now? Now there remains only me. The last of Slarenim! Here! Hiding in fear of being discovered deep underground on this barren planetoid you call Ceres. Hoping that your kind will never find me, and that if they finally do, they will at the least kill me before harvesting my teeth which they refer to as diamonds.