The Strongest Force on Earth

I look over at Jaxson as he sleeps, sprawled out on a blanket in the sand. The sun shining down on his face gives it a radiance that seems to belong there. How lucky am I that the last man on earth is so delightfully handsome? I let my eyes wander over his thin, muscular body, bronzed from the sun. In the year since we found each other, I've explored every inch of that body. My gaze slowly travels all the way up to his sandy, blonde hair. I sigh happily.

I pull the heart shaped locket out of my pocket, looking down at it. My mother gave it to me when I was a teenager. It's all that I have left of her.

She constantly reminded me, "Don't lose that locket. Only a hundred of them were ever made, you know."

I turn it over in my hand and read the strange engraving on the back of it. No matter how many times I read it, I can never figure out what it might mean.

"When placed around your neck by your true love,

Power will descend from above.

Though you don't move in space,

You'll be in a different place."

I guess Mom was superstitious. She made me promise to never wear it until my true love could put it around my neck. Even though that seemed silly, I still respect her wish. Especially now that she's gone.

I open the locket and tears well up as I see Mom's photo that rests inside. Mom is dead now. As far as I can tell, all actual humans are dead besides Jaxson and me.

My grandparents said their generation thought that the COVID-19 pandemic was the end of the world. Everyone was so focused on that, they ignored the news reports about aliens and UFOs. That is, until it was far too late.

I wasn't born yet when the aliens made their entrance. Mom said that one day, out of nowhere, hundreds of UFOs appeared in the sky. The whole neighborhood seemed to be outside, in their yards, just pointing at the sky, terrified. There was hardly a sound, because everyone was too shocked to speak. The news said that it was a worldwide phenomenon. There was no place on earth where you could look at the sky without seeing them. The UFOs never landed. The aliens were beamed down from them and landed on earth by the thousands. After that, the UFOs just vanished into thin air.

Far from being little green men, they are actually giants. The adults average seven to ten feet tall. Other than that, they look surprisingly human. The old sci-fi movies had it all wrong. The biggest difference is the aura of yellow light that shines around their heads. It creates a soft, yellow, and sparkly glow that can't be missed.

They can speak any language on earth. They had studied earth since pre-historic times, even visiting often. The stories were always there, they were just dismissed as science fiction. When their planet was hit by an asteroid, it became inhospitable to life. They knew that the conditions on earth were favorable to life, so they took over our planet.

It was easy for them to take over the earth. They're tall, menacing, and everyone was too terrified to stand up to them. The aliens were very interested in genetic experiments. That's how the hybrid species came into existence. At first the hybrids were created in labs, but later on many of them were created the old-fashioned way, if you know what I mean.

The human/alien hybrid species was named homo aliena. Everyone calls them aliena for short. They could almost pass as human. The only way you can tell the difference is that their entire bodies have the same yellow, sparkly glow that the alien's heads have.

Everyone noticed that more and more "people" had what became known as "glow." Way more aliens and aliena were being created or born than humans were. Aliena wouldn't date humans. They didn't want to water down their superior bloodline with mere human DNA.

Oddly, aliens didn't have a problem with dating humans. They actually seemed to be more attracted to them than to their own kind. Many humans chose to date aliens instead of each other too. Not only are the aliens taller, but their entire bodies are...larger.... Every year the number of humans in existence dropped lower and lower.

Mom said that when I was born, the nurses at the hospital made a big deal about me being the first actual human baby that they had delivered in a long time. Everyone in the hospital, besides Mom and me, had glow. In a nursery full of shining babies, my dullness stood out. Mom felt sad, knowing that I would never fit into this society full of glow.

When I was a month old, the new vaccine, Limenex, was created. It wasn't long before the Limenex vaccine became mandatory for all humans. Supposedly, it would protect humans from a new virus that could only infect us, not aliens or aliena.

Mom had studied Latin. She knew that limen was the Latin root of the word elimination. She felt like there was a hidden agenda behind it. Needless to say, Mom and I did not receive the vaccine.

There was little choice but to go into hiding. There were sensors hidden all throughout public places. The sensors sounded a loud alarm if they detected a human who didn't have the powdery yellow mark on their hand, indicating that they had received Limenex. I don't know what happened to humans who were caught by the sounding alarm, but I can't imagine that it was anything good. Mom moved us far away from the sensors and hid me for the rest of my childhood. Jaxson's mother had done the same thing with him. I don't know if there are any other humans out there who didn't receive Limenex.

The real purpose of Limenex was to make humans infertile. The whole story about it protecting them from a virus was a lie. The aliens wanted to fully own the earth, eliminating humankind. As far as they know, no humans exist that can reproduce now.

As far as I know, they're right...except for Jaxson and me. As if on cue, the baby growing inside of me kicks for the first time.

I gasp in surprise, shaking Jaxson's shoulder, waking him from his nap.

"Wha? Huh?" he mumbles, blinking at the sun in his eyes.

"The baby kicked!" I shout, hurriedly smashing his hand against my belly in excitement.

I smile at his big, brown eyes widening when he feels it. His eyebrows rise up, as though in shock.

"That's amazing," he says in quiet wonder.

I didn't fall in love with Jaxson right away. Actually, I couldn't stand him at first. I chuckle, remembering when I yelled, "You might be the last man on earth and I still don't want to be anywhere near you!"

Things have certainly changed. Now I know that even if there were a million other men on earth, he's still the one that I would choose. Tears roll down my cheeks in the magic of this moment. Knowing that I've found my true love, I hand Jaxson the locket.

His eyebrows rise even higher and his lips spread into the warmest smile as he realizes the meaning of this simple gesture. His large, tender hands gently place the locket around my neck.

I don't expect the world to change as he fastens the locket around my neck, but it does. We both look all around us, confused. Even though we haven't moved, we see other people nearby now. People like us. There is no glow among them.

Seeing our bewilderment, a grey-haired woman with a gentle presence walks over to us.

"What happened? Where did you all come from?" I ask her, dazed with shock.

"We were already here, my dear. You're the ones who have just arrived."

"No, that's impossible. We...umm...we haven't moved," I stumble to answer.

She turns over the locket around her own neck and reads the same strange engraving that I could never figure out the meaning of,

"When placed around your neck by your true love,

Power will descend from above.

Though you don't move in space,

You'll be in a different place."

She explains, "Only a hundred of these lockets exist. I guess you know by now that it's much more than just a pretty necklace. It's a teleportation device that can only be activated by the power of true love. Love is the only energy strong enough to give it power. It's the strongest force that has ever existed.

You've been transported to a parallel universe that's hidden from aliens and aliena. Even though it's close enough to touch, they can never see it or find their way here. Aliens and aliena can feel passion, lust, and maybe even fondness for each other, but not love. Love is a strictly human experience. That's why only humans can cross the mysterious boundary that brought us here."

Her eyes glance down at the small bulge in my belly and she smiles gently, saying, "This is how humanity lives on."