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I'm on a makeshift cot, staring into the pitch black of the night sky. Each passing moment slowly creeps on as I slowly get used to the silence. I am slowly getting used to the fact that I am alone. It's the first time in a long time that I have been able to be at peace and it is incredible. I can't help but smile. It feels good. I look around me and I can see a soft glow from the fires from the encampment across the road, but otherwise I am surrounded by complete blackness. I am holding my hands up to the sky and I see the black of space, dotted with millions and millions of stars. I had almost forgotten what this is like, and the minute that I get used to the silence, I am overwhelmed by the sounds of the environment. I stand up quickly, not wanting my senses to get used to their natural environment, and I look out over a sea of dust, illuminated by the firelight over an encampment. I hear a low chuckle and I turn around, trying to see who it is. The only thing I see is a pair of arms raised up in the air, moving towards the darkness. I am still scared of the darkness around me, but I am not scared of them.
After all, they are here to protect me, are they not?
I look down at my leg. I can't see anything. Neither can I feel anything, but I know that it is there. I can remember how it got here. I can remember when they came to me...
“I need to get my leg amputated.” I say as I shuffle back into my tent where Jonas is waiting. Jonas is the only other human that I know of in our camp, but the only person I actually talk to. I feel like he'll understand. The wound is angry and red. The flesh around the wound is an unnaturally pale red, and there are black spots where I am concerned that the infection is starting to move into my blood stream. It has been getting worse for weeks. I've been losing weight, and I find it hard to keep food down; half the time I do not eat at all, and the other half I spend a day vomiting.
“I think you might have to.” Says Jonas.
He didn't have to look down at my leg to know that I was about to die. I knew that, even if it meant that my life was going to be taken, I was going to be safe from all the experiments that the aliens were inflicting on the rest of the survivors. Sure, they had saved us from what happened before, but they also asked us in return to be ground zero for their experiments. They would cut us open, they would put poison into our bloodstreams, they would even inject us with microbes that were entirely foreign to the human body. In exchange, the aliens promised us immortality, a promised that they probably thought that was impossible to keep. So we were left to fend for ourselves.
“Okay, mister.” He says to me and he's right, I am most likely infected. Jonas was one of the first to figure it out, and every time I saw him, I would see that he was getting visibly thinner and he was getting weaker. He tried to stay strong, but I know that the infection had started to destroy and eat away at parts of his body.
“I guess...” I start to say, but I hear footsteps approaching us and I turn around. It wasn't exactly common for us to have visitors, but it wasn't uncommon either. We had been having more of them recently, and I think that it was because people were beginning to realize that the infection was starting to spread.
“Hey, guys, what's up?” I ask as two aliens walk into the tent. They have big eyes and have big noses like Pinocchio and noses like rabbits. In fact, the only thing that makes them look otherwise human is their flesh. They are both wearing black uniforms, but they are not wearing any helmets. They both look at me, neither one of them saying anything until the lead alien hands me a piece of paper and a pen. He looks at me, and then he looks at Jonas, nodding. It looks like they are giving us some kind of order. I look at them, but I just shrug, not really caring what they want, I just want to get rid of it. I look at the paper and I put an “X” next to the names of two children, both of them near double my age. I feel myself begin to tremble, but I tame it down. I know what they want. I already thought that monsters were inside me, and I knew that death was right around the corner. I got the paper, but I didn't sign it.
“What do you think you are doing?” Says Jonas, coming over to look while I am engrossed in what the aliens want from me.
“I'm doing what the lead alien told me to do.” I say calmly and I feel Jonas take a step back. He looks to the lead alien, who is towering above us, but doesn't lift up his hands in a stopping motion. The aliens were very intimidating when they wanted to be.
“Marshall...” Says Jonas, but he doesn't say anything else.
“I don't care who these people are, I would rather die than have the virus infect another person.” I tell him.
“These people, Marshall?” Says Jonas.
“Uh, yeah, I mean...”
“They are not people. Marshall, they are not people.” He tells me, almost like a plea for me to sign the paper.
“Yeah, actually, if you're going to stay here, you might want to believe that.” Says the lead alien.
“We were given probation for a reason.” Says Jonas, defiantly.
“You're in no position to be defiant.” Says the lead alien, and his eyes narrow. I see it. I see the claws starting to grow in, hidden beneath the tough, marble skin. I look like I believe him, I see it in his eyes, but I've seen those claws and they are not friendly. I see what is going to happen, I see what the aliens have done to Jonas in the past, so I know that they don't care about our wishes and what we'd like to do.
They don't care about life. They care about the experiment.
“Marshall, please, you are dying...” Says Jonas, but I put my pen down and I stand up, walking into the tent. Jonas follows me.
I never told Jonas the truth, but he'll have to do. I don't want Jonas to go out like I'm going to. I come back out after several long minutes, and I march over to Jonas with my hands on my waist.