Conquered

I placed a handful of wildflowers in Grandmother’s hands as two burly men in black suits approached to close her casket. “WAIT,” I cried out. The men stopped, as I reached down and carefully removed the silver, heart-shaped locket from around her neck, and placed it around my own. I locked eyes with the men and nodded my approval, and they closed the casket. I began choking on the lump in my throat, overwhelmed with the grief that I would never see her again. Not only was Grandmother the only parental figure I ever knew; she was also one of the few ties left to the old world.

As I began my long walk home to store, I reminisced about how Grandmother always used to tell stories of her life before the Xons arrived. Lucy and I would sit on the floor cross-legged and wide eyed, catching each of her words like they were raindrops in a drought. Grandma lived through the golden age of mankind when humanity reigned. “Humans were apex predators,” she used to say. Grandma described all kinds of subordinate creatures that used to live on planet earth- large ones, small ones, slimy ones, and even some that could fly. At times, Lucy and I wondered if Grandmother was making it all up, as it was hard to imagine such things, but deep down I wanted to believe that she spoke the truth. It brought me great comfort to hear these stories. As a child, I dreamed of running through a field alongside these incredible creatures, and these dreams brought me great comfort. Of course, each of these dreams would end, and I would wake up to a world where the only creatures who walked the planet were ourselves and the Xons.

I arrived at the store and #5849 greeted me. She was my favorite shop worker. She was kind and gracious and notified me of Grandmother’s death. She also allowed me to leave for the funeral. Although all Xons stunned me with their exquisite beauty, #5849 was far more beautiful than the rest. She stood 10 feet in height and her golden skin glowed as the rays of sunlight kissed it from the shop window. I couldn’t help but stare as she walked me to my cage. I said hello to Jeffrey, my cagemate, and curled up on my small blanket. Despite my best efforts to fall asleep, my grief kept me awake. Eventually my mind drifted to Lucy. Beautiful Lucy with her multicolored eyes. I wondered where she was today, and if she had even heard the news about Grandmother.

I must have eventually fallen asleep, because the next thing I knew, #5849 was nudging me to wake up. I opened my eyes groggily, and she escorted me out of my cage to the back area. An Xon couple with a small child met me there. Their child smiled with delight as he approached me, then looked to his parents. “We’ll take her,” they said.

#5849 walked me to the front of the store and checked them out. The couple then helped me climb into their drone and began driving me home. I had never had a home before. Grandmother, Lucy, and I were wild ones. Grandmother told us that it was important to move through the wilderness, and that we should avoid the Xons. She was prejudiced against them and spent most of her days resisting assimilating into society. Of course, Grandmother was set in her ways from the old world and did not understand. By the time I was captured, Grandmother was old and frail and had given up her rebellious ways. She moved inside the city limits, trading her treetop roof for sturdy bridges. Xons would put food out for her, and occasionally she would visit me in the shop.

The drone came to a stop and the couple helped me out. I lifted my eyes and gazed at my new home for the first time. It was tall and grand, embellished with precious jewels from the many Xon planets. The couple took me inside and showed me my new bed. The wife embraced me, “You are too cute!” she said. Of course, I knew I was cute. That was the reason I ended up at the shop in the first place. Xons kept the cutest humans as pets. At first, I felt hopeful about my new life. Pets were beloved by Xons, and I knew I would always have a roof over my head, food in my stomach, and love in my new home. That was until I stepped foot in the parlor. Above the couch, mounted on the wall, was Lucy’s head.

I felt my heart stop and I immediately began vomiting. Just then, the wife entered the room. “Poor baby,” she said, “too much stress from changing environments.” She took me upstairs, cleaned me up, and put me to bed. The next few hours were a blur. I felt numb and intoxicated, barely coherent from the shock. Although, looking back now, I shouldn’t have been surprised. Lucy’s multicolored eyes were a rarity, one green and one blue. She would’ve been the perfect trophy for any avid hunter. While I knew that hunting was a reputable sport, I also knew I could not live in that house. I waited till the family fell asleep and escaped through a window.

My journey was slow, as I had to stop and hide repeatedly, to avoid being seen. I clutched Grandmother’s locket and reminded myself of the stories she told. The stories about humanity’s strength and dominance in the golden age. These stories gave me the power to carry on. I am not sure how many days went by before I reached the forest. It may have been 6 or 7. Truthfully, I was rather absent from my body. Between the inconsolable grief, the hunger, the thirst, and the fear, I am not sure how I made it out. My legs knew the way even though my brain shut down.

Living in the wilderness brought me great comfort as I tried to recover from the worst day of my life. I thought a lot about Lucy and Grandmother and the life we once led. I spent several weeks there, using the daylight hours to forage for plants and nuts, and silently crying myself to sleep in the night. I did not know how I would ever recover. I had gone through the biggest trauma I could’ve possibly gone through, or so I thought. In hindsight, I probably should’ve stayed at the Xon house as a pet. Pets were the lucky ones. They were adored by the Xons. However, pets and wild ones were not the only two categories in which humans could fall. As I mentioned before, aside from Xons, humans were the only creatures on earth, and Xons had to eat.

I don’t remember much about the day I was captured again. It was a blur. However, I ended up in a large meat factory alongside thousands and thousands of humans. It was a free-range factory. Although we technically had “free range,” we were packed far too tightly to move. We were forced to stand at all hours, as the room was too crowded for us to sit. The ground was covered in blood, urine, and feces, and the stench made tears flow from our eyes. We lived in complete and utter darkness. My section was fed a diet of olives. This flavored our meat and was favored by the Xons. I tried not to think about my impending doom, or the screams I heard from the slaughter room. I was far from my harvesting age, and something inside me told me that I would escape before my day came. Grandmother’s stories of the resilience and strength of humans empowered me. Whether they were fact or fiction, I told myself that we were once the apex predators, and that the strength of my ancestors was within me.

Each day I took a miniscule step to my left. I was able to move 5 inches per day give or take. The passage of time was difficult to keep track of, but it probably took me 4 years to reach the left wall. Once I arrived, I began looking for the door. I knew it was on the left side, because the Xon caretaker came in each day to fill our feeding troughs. However, it was disorienting to live in the darkness, and it was therefore difficult to recall which side of the left wall the door was on. I decided it was foolish to waste time shoving people aside only to move in the wrong direction, so I chose to go to sleep and wait for morning. When the morning came, the caretaker entered through the door, and I saw it. A beacon of light in the darkness on the rightmost corner of the left wall. Luckily, I was not too far away. After a year of moving one step at a time, I eventually made it.

If escaping had been easy, everyone would have done it. I knew that my position near the door did not guarantee my escape. The Xons did not even have to try hard to prevent humans from exiting through the door. The humans prevented themselves from escaping by fighting and attempting to climb over each other. It was rare for anyone to escape in the few seconds that it was open and unlocked.

I knew from Grandmother’s stories that although humans were once apex predators, they were overcome with the diseases of greed and selfishness, which was in part, the reason it was so effortless for the Xons to conquer planet earth. Based on these stories, I knew that attempting to team up with my fellow humans to plot an escape was futile. Without Grandmother and Lucy, I was on my own in the world. Each night as my fellow humans fell asleep, I would grab the neck of the person next to me and suffocate them quietly. I kept doing this until I was the closest person to the entrance of the door. Finally, feeding time came. As the caretaker opened the door, I punched him in the groin. He fell to his knees, and I punched him in the face as hard as I possibly could. All the anger I had boiling inside was channeled through my fist, and he lost consciousness. With tears streaming down my face, I ran into the unknown. I clutched Grandmother’s locket, and just kept running.