Release Me

“Resistance has failed. Subject is set for termination.”

He hit the crates hard, his naked body bruising as he felt the spears of dozens of festering splinters from the old wood. He rolled through the rough hay. It stuck to the cold mucus that covered his body, enveloping him in a coat of yesterday’s chaff.

His feet finally found purchase on the dirt floor of the barn. Breathing in halting, ragged gasps he stood slowly; keeping his back bent and legs tense should he need to flee again. He blinked profusely, forcing his eyes to adjust to the bright light that streamed through the wide door of the barn.

He wiped mucus from his eyes, finally able to see the dark silhouette of the figure standing in the doorway: Head bulbous, arms holding a weapon that did not belong to Earth.

“Subject 3337, confirm your mandate.”

The voice was uncharacteristically warm for such a callous statement. He stood fully, chest puffed out against the cold and the fear. There was hardly a sound but the night wind through the fields outside.

“On what grounds am I sentenced to termination?” His voice sticky with nervous saliva, he set his shoulders and repeated the question.

“You have been sentenced to termination for not complying with proclamation 3.4.1 by order of the Jiddii Empire,” came the reply, throaty and sincere, “All those who cannot comply are sentenced to termination. That is our way.”

“Listen to you! Not a month in and you are already speaking as though you are one of them!”

Off to his left he heard a short sniffing sound. He glanced over to the cow who nonchalantly stood at the gate of her stall, watching the conversation as if it were a weekday soap opera. Her eyes wide as she glanced back and forth between the two creatures.

The voice came again, colder this time, “We both swore when we left here that we would do it to seek a better life. A life of peace among the stars!”

“Yeah, but that was before genetic manipulation became part of the package deal!”

He could feel himself spitting the words, more out of fear than of anger. When he had decided to leave this farm and board the floating city he was more excited than he had been in his entire life. But now, after seeing what became of the humans who joined the Jiddii Empire, he had a hard time believing that it was for the greater good.

The creature across from him calmly reached up to the side of its helmet, pressing a button that illuminated the face within. Inside were stretched, black eyes which stared endlessly from a sea of stars. A thin slit of a nose ran down to a lipless mouth. He had seen it all before.

“Jack,” the mouth spoke, “The Empire is giving us a second chance. We both know that those of Earth will destroy themselves in the next 12 years. Joining them is the only way that we survive.”

“At what cost?” Jack pleaded, “Look at you! What happened to my brother?”

“He did what we promised each other we would do!” the first hint of anger rising up from the helmeted visage, “We wanted to join, to grow, to live. Don’t abandon me now!”

They were both silent. A distant truck passed by, causing them both to shift uncomfortably.

“If we don’t stay as humans,” he started again, “Then what is the point of being saved?”

The creature tilted his head in a sign of bewilderment, “If we die as humans, isn’t that just as pointless?”

He sighed, realizing that deep down there was a part of them that was right.

“So you just want me to comply? To be changed? To go with you?”

The creature looked at him simply, “That is all I ever wanted.”

When the strange light left the barn that night the two figures were gone, the wind rustled through the fields outside, and a slightly bemused cow settled back down to sleep; blissfully unaware of its own future impending doom.