The Visitors

I remember the day they came. At first we were greeted with kindness, under the guise that they wanted to study our planet, learn our ways, become friends. We trusted them after time, and our planet was thriving as the visitors taught us their ways. I remember the day they brought their priests, teaching us new religions and “science”. Before that time, we lived in total harmony with our planet and our creator, who often visited us. But their kind words and smiles fooled us. We were led away from the love and care we held for our old ways. We gave it all up in order to become what they called “enlightened”. As they taught us, there were ones that dissented and questioned the visitors. They warned of what could come about with abandoning our creator and our reverence for the things made by her hand. At first we did not believe it; how could these visitors hurt us after years of cohabitation? Slowly, the warnings quieted, and as I look back now I am ashamed that we did not notice the slow but steady silencing of those speaking out. How could we have been so blind to not notice our own kind being brought down until there was no one left that questioned the visitors?

Once this happened, they started asking things of us. They asked us to let go of our beloved creator god in pursuit of their truth. They shamed and mocked those who did not want to release her from their hearts. Soon, we were all laughing at the absurdity of our “ignorance”, as they called it. Once our god was silenced, they came for our planet. The first time they ripped into the ground with their machines and extracted our minerals, I wept, hearing the planet cry out in pain. I am a symbiont on our planet, and so when they tore into the roots of a great tree, ancient and wise, I felt its life force fade and disappear, heard it cry out to its sisters and brothers around it, felt as it begged it’s creator to help it. But we have abandoned this world’s creator, and so she does not come. That day was a black stain on our history, many of us saw through the visitor’s veil then, but we were too scared to speak up. If we did, we feared we would also be silenced just as our brother had been a few days ago, this time publicly, but they had said it was an accident.

As I remember these days, and the horrors that have happened since, I feel a shiver run down my spine. My spirit hurts and I cry out to our creator to help us, but remember that we chose the visitors and so she left. We now worship the leader of the visitors. She is strange, able to act sickeningly kind, but then also quietly brutal, enforcing herself always under the guise of “progress”. Every day we must worship, and swear our allegiance. Every day more people are led away or beaten in the streets as they refuse and cry out to our creator for help. They have stripped us of everything.

A soft hand touches my shoulder and I am jolted out of my reeling thoughts, and the faces of all my fallen brothers and sisters who have been murdered slowly dissipates from my view. As I look up, recognizing the touch of my love, I am jolted to attention. His face is covered in bruises, his lip bleeding, and a look of pure terror in his eyes. I stand quickly, knocking back the stool I was sitting on, and I don’t even hear it’s heavy thump. I am caught up in his eyes and the vision he gives me when I lay a hand on his chest. My symbiont abilities allows me to see into the minds of people, a gift that should have been used to bring praise and worship to our creator, and keep our world in balance, had we been loyal. Through his mind I see them beating him with such force I am surprised I do not sense any badly broken bones besides fractures on his ribs and the hand he held up in an attempt to ward off the blows to his head. I gasp as my vision begins to clear, and wrap my arms around him, eliciting a sharp inhale and grunt from him with pain.

“Are you okay? Why did they beat you?” I ask.

“I gave my rations to one of the others. They needed it more than me,” he says through a bloody lip, and my heart hurts for him. This man is as weak and skinny as the rest of us, yet he is always trying to give his food away to the others. I walk over to the bowl of clean water sitting on a makeshift table he made, and cup some in my hands so I can clean the blood off his face and assess him better. Tears well in my eyes, and my heart cries out to the creator for help for the hundredth time today. She has been quiet since we allowed them to rip her sanctuary down into the dirt, and they proceeded to grind every bit of it into the ground so we would not “dwell on a fallacy”. When I pull away to look at him again now that the blood is mostly gone, I am relieved to see his hand took the brunt of force meant for his face. He will be okay, albeit very sore. For this I am incredibly thankful to the creator.

“I was so scared they would kill me this time…” he says as he pulls me to his chest, kissing the top of my head as best he can. I pull away and look at him, fear jumping into my throat. “what would make you think that?” I ask, and my hands start to tremble. He pulls me back to his chest and runs his good hand through my hair. I notice that his breathing is very shallow, but I do not sense any damage to his lungs. His heart speeds up then, and I wonder why, but assume it is from pain.

“How is Kara?” he asks, changing the subject. I study him for a moment, but his expression is veiled. I do not understand why, he has never closed himself off to me before. “where is she?” he then asks, glancing around the room. His voice is different now, almost urgent. He has a strange look on his face, and I reach out to touch his chest so I can assess him again, but he steps back a little, and my fingers only graze him, but it is enough for me to get a flash of his emotions and I’m immediately on alert. Something is very wrong. I feign ignorance, but start to assess my surroundings. The visitors have hunted me for years at this point, because of my abilities; being able to connect to the creator. I am a threat to them. I notice the ambient noises from outside have quieted, and dread sinks in. I have to hide Kara.

“I have a present for her, since it is her birthday,” he states, looking around the room, searching for her. I won’t tell him that she is playing in the hollowed out tree a few yards from the house. I use my ability to send a silent jolt of emotion towards where she plays. She is also gifted, and so she will be able to receive my message and stay quiet. I fight back my fear and do my best to act unaware. I think they have gotten to him. His heart rate is elevated, I feel the guilt and terror radiating from him.

“What is the present?” I ask, my voice surprisingly not giving away my own emotions. He starts to fish in his pocket, but before he can bring it out the door bursts open. Visitor soldiers pour in, their guns trained on me. “Don’t hurt her, that was the agreement!” I hear my love say but they ignore him. I send another jolt to Kara’s location, in hopes she will run deep into the forest. They grab me then, forcing me to my knees. My love starts to rush towards me, but they slam him down to the ground, and the gift he meant for Kara lands close to me, half wrapped in a crumpled piece of cloth, but I can not tell what it is.

“We have orders to execute them both,” one of the soldiers state. Both, so they don’t know about Kara. Short lived relief floods through me, and I think of her sweet face, her happy giggle, and endless playfulness before the white hot pain of a bullet ripping through me brings me back into the moment, and the force of it throws me onto my back where I feel blood begin to pool. They have shot me in the stomach, they want me to suffer for my connection to the creator. They hate her. Tears well up in my eyes and blur my vision, but I refuse to give them the satisfaction of hearing me scream. They shoot me again, this time I can’t help but moan in pain, and they laugh, enjoying themselves. My love looks on helplessly but screaming. I have to focus to understand what he says.

“No…You said you wouldn’t…We agreed…Please…” I hear as my consciousness begins to fade.

“Shut him up, will you?” the guard over me, the one shooting me, killing me, says. One of the others pulls a knife and walks over to my love. He passes me, kicking the crumpled cloth and revealing a small, child sized heart shaped locket, meant for our Kara for her eleventh birthday. Today. Her birthday is today. Another memory of her sweet face and prior birthdays flash before me, but they are getting dimmer. Another gun shot, and I feel my body jerk again but this time I can’t feel it, my only solace. I watch as the guard with the knife pulls my love up by his short blonde hair, and a gurgled cry escapes me as I am forced to watch them kill him, cutting his throat. I hear a sickening sputter come from him, and blood spills from his mouth, but he’s gone moments later. I hear muffled laughter. Another gun shot, and I feel my lifeforce slipping away, and I turn my gaze back to the gift meant for our daughter. As I leave this world and travel to my final rest, I think of her, and pray to my creator that my sweet Kara did not see this.