We are the monsters

'Earth is not a nice place to get stuck in'

Erythian thought as he told the girl aiming a gun at his head, for the second time, that he would not hurt her. Her eyes were cold, ruthless, nothing of the child she was in them, probably a result of the recurrent raids of the past 3 years. He also knew she did not believe him for a second, not when so many humans had become mere prey to his kind. But he had to try. He had no idea how long he had before the taint of the Earth's atmosphere would drive him insane, but he would try, with everything he had, to find that wretched piece of ancient junk so he could see home again, so Mother would bring him home again.

The shutters on the windows of the abandoned warehouse they were in shuddered as the wind howled outside and he said to the girl

"Mother gave me directions. One of the Deiz is in this location. I only intend to retrieve it. I mean you no harm"

Gemma looked at the thing, ticking off boxes in her head- male, average height, non-manic. She was weighing her options to see if she should bring the beast down right there or bring it back to the lab so the nerds could learn some more about where to poke and for how long, to make these savages howl. Its glistening scales were a dark black indicating that it would remain stable for quite some time as opposed to the grey of rot it would slowly turn into as the mania broke. The pale death grey scales of the numerous other beasts she had the pleasure of killing these past few years- she tended to forget how many- flashed before her. She spat at the ground and replied in an even voice

"Oh, but I do"

It was hard to find much sympathy for the beasts that killed and ate your family. Gemma knew, from all the data collected in the horrifying years after these things started pouring in by the hundreds, seemingly out of nowhere, that the beasts had no control over the change. It was the Earth's atmosphere that made them rabid. She also knew that the supreme ruling consciousness of their planet, this cursed Mother of theirs had sent them to Earth to collect pieces of the Deizem- a relic of theirs, lost on one of their intergalactic travels that was now scattered over the Earth, or so they claimed. This was all information collected in the first year of the invasion. The first raid batch of beasts had turned rabid faster than the ones that came in now. The carnage they wreaked, the blood and gore that overtook the world in those days. . . Gemma faintly remembered having nightmares, but all that was left of that girl of eleven was her mother's brown hair. All the rest she buried somewhere and forgot where. All she knew now was killing. She took pleasure in spilling Pherion blood, the screams of the beasts she made bleed a sweet lullaby in her ears.

Erythian tensed. He willed his snake-like features to calmness before reasoning with the child.

"I have not done anything to provoke you. We have already told you people what we are here to do and how we have no choice in it. We are stranded here with no way to go back unless we find the Deiz. Please, I have not seen my family in two years, I don't know how long I have. Let me search this place, let me take what I came for, let me go home"

The way he said home made something twist in Gemma's gut. She had no home anymore and she could not remember the one she did have, all because some damned old thing somewhere wanted her favourite toy back. No. She would not have it, Gemma decided. Mother can rot in hell for all she cared and a cruel smile formed on her lips as she said

"I'll help you look for it"

Erythian was sceptical. He knew of the Archers, the humans dedicated to helping the Pherion people, his people, find the Deiz, if only so that their beloved planet would be rid of the danger plaguing it sooner. They weren't the most benevolent of beings but they did help and the ones they helped got home faster. He had a feeling that this girl wasn't one of the Archers. For one she pointed that gun at him even though she saw he was stable and held it there long after he told her he meant her no harm. Then there was that cold smile on her face. A child's face. No, this girl likely belonged to that other faction of humans. The ones that were trained to hunt his kind, hunt and kill or drag back to their labs where many of his brethren were tortured for information, information they would've given freely. His thoughts on those humans, this violent breed of hateful creatures were not the best. No matter. She said she would help and he wasn't about to turn it down. He would just have to stay alert and not get his head blown off or dragged away to be poked and prodded because he had decided to trust a human when all his instincts told him otherwise.

"It's that way" he pointed to a door behind her, hanging loosely on its hinges.

Gemma lowered her gun and turned her back to the thing. She knew it had a name, all the beasts did, but she refused to call them anything other than thing or beast or some blend of the two. The door creaked as she pulled it open and walked through, not looking to see if it followed her. The thump of scaly feet on the floor told her what she needed to know. The air was stale inside the room, like the air in most buildings- abandoned on the arrival of these things and the horrors that went down in those days, the terror that still gripped humanity. An even layer of dust covered the cardboard boxes. Gemma opened one of them, glass jars, she vaguely remembered pineapple jam, yellow and sweet with a bit of tang to it in jars that looked like them.

"Do you know where to dig or do you have to ask mommy for more directions?" she said coolly, a slight, she knew. It was a great dishonour to refer to Mother as anything else, but she had found she did not care, had not since the day her father's warm blood sprayed on her face while the beast tore him to pieces. The only reason she had survived was that it had died, convulsing on the ground. As it took a final heaving breath it had stretched out a scaly hand towards the sky, fingers reaching up as if it could almost touch the place it called home.

Erythian bristled but did not speak as he knelt to the ground and began digging. He, like his brethren, did not need to carry much while they searched for the Deiz. A shovel was all that they needed. The food and water of the Earth were poisonous to them as well. And that was how they searched, hungry and thirsty and longing for home. He knew a human would have died much faster under those conditions, but Pherions survived. He had survived. Even when he knew the air he breathed would turn him insane, that once he turned he would hurt and kill or be killed by one of the humans, he survived. And the survival would soon have meaning. Once he found a Diez he could go home. Mother would let him come home. So he kept digging.

He knew better than to put his back to the girl. Scrawny as she was, he did not doubt she had enough sedative in her pack to render him unconscious and he did not savour the idea of waking up to fluorescent lights, bound to a table. He noticed her slowly edging closer, the gun at her side ignored too pointedly for it to be casual. She was playing with the chain around her neck, a heart-shaped pendant hanging from it. Restless. Whether to kill him or be rid of him, he couldn't tell. His strong muscular hands had dug up the cement floor and then some, more than a human could've done in that time. Yet, he found himself digging faster, if not for the girl with ice in her eyes moving closer to him then for the sweet taste of home. Only a few minutes had passed and he could already sense it, the Diez. Yes, he would be home soon and he would eat the warm meal Yerin would cook for him. They would go out into the meadow and watch the two suns setting over the horizon. He would stay till the stars all came out to play and he would be content. Safe and content.

"How old are you?" Gemma asked the thing. She could feel the thrum of the Diez through her feet. She would let the beast haul it up, let it touch its salvation, and then she would take it away from him. She would shoot him full of sedatives and drag him to camp with an extra gift for the nerds, a Diez. So she tried to engage it in conversation- a distraction.

"Older than you. Much older"

"Why does Mother abandon you here to decay?"

"Mother does things because they need to be done. She would never willingly bring harm to us"

Gemma only snickered. If this wasn't bringing harm, then she didn't know what was. A faint red light now illuminated the thing's face. She could see the elation in its eyes, the thought of an end to suffering, of finally going home. She moved closer to peer into the hole it had dug and was standing in now. The red light shone brightly as the thing wrapped its hands around a flat pentagon-shaped disk and pulled it from the earth. It glowed a bright shade of the deepest red, the light inside pulsing now and then like it somehow recognised the one holding it, how they both came from the same place and perhaps would go back to that place. The thing made to get out of the hole and Gemma drew her gun at it. It whimpered. The sound like honey in her ears. Gemma could see it in its eyes, the confusion, the terror.

"You see, I was never planning on letting you leave this place, vile thing"

Throat bobbing, eyes filling up Erythian asked "why let me get this far? Why not just let me go home?"

The helplessness of the beast in front of her, its squirming and utter hopelessness, it made her smile, the action a twisted parody of what she knew was once beautiful on her face. She took aim.

"Because I wanted you to touch the key to your freedom before I ripped it away"

Gemma pulled the trigger and the thing did not even try to run.

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The next morning as Gemma walked down the halls of her camp she heard screams as she often did. If they belonged to the thing she brought in yesterday she did not know. There were too many pleas, too many voices to remember and she would always bring in more anyway.