They Came in Peace

I can’t even remember the Sun.

......

It had been the strangest thing when the aliens had landed, because very little actually changed. We felt them in the vibrations of the earth long before we heard them. We heard them as a low thrumming drill deep in our skulls long before we saw them. They flew in in their great grey spaceships by the thousand. Each as large as a city and perfectly cuboid, their steely surfaces glinted evilly in the sunlight as they hovered, before descending as vast metallic falcons upon their prey. Their perfectly straight edges fit against each other like roofing tiles until they seemed to create a sheet around the whole world. For the briefest moment of sheer terror, there was almost utter darkness, but it was short-lived. The soft blue-white underlights of the craft turned on, bathing the earth in their artificial glow, as great pylons extended out of the base of each ship, settling underneath them. Ramps began to filter gradually out amongst the pylons, and the aliens began to descend to their new home.

There was some initial alarm on account of how similar to us they looked. As they descended from their craft in their droves, the resemblance to your average subway escalator at rush hour was uncanny. They were, on the whole, just slightly too pale to be human. Slightly too slim and slightly too tall. They all looked different from each other, as we do, but just slightly too different. Like each face was a brand new face, with no components shared. As they milled around the crowds gathered in awe, they would incline their heads and say “We come in peace” to each human they passed in turn. It took several days, probably, though they seemed tireless. Their tone would never falter nor the incline of their bow, and they left no one out. The Earth shook with the fervent refrain of “We come in peace” echoed by a billion slightly-too-human voices. 

The vast majority of them had returned up their ramps into their craft when the greeting was over, and the ramps had shot up behind them. The scattered few that remained on Earth had clearly done so for a reason, and they went off their separate ways, blending in just a little too well to our way of life. The easiest way to be sure if you passed one on the street was to say “Hello” and see if you got a “We come in peace” in response, or at least it was until humans started saying that to each other for a laugh.

But aside from that, nothing was any different about the way we lived our lives. We ate, we shat, and we went to work. We kissed our loved ones and grumbled about our co-workers and scoffed at the idiocy of contestants on game shows.

Except there wasn't any sun. There wasn't any moon. There wasn't any night or day at all, just the same incessant ambient blue-white glare from the aliens' ships. They had completely blocked out the sky. Flags across the globe hung limp and useless, flowers wilted in their arid patches. Animals began to behave very oddly, confused by the endless light. We hardly fared any better. How do you sleep when the sky has become like a giant computer screen staring you in the face? We had become like guinea pigs in a lab, trapped under the shining lights, waiting in ignorance of what experiments lay in store for us.

But nothing happened. It seemed no experiments were in store for us. Three months on, and apart from wrecking my sleep cycle and once or twice startling me in the street with a "We come in peace", the aliens have done me no harm, nor anyone else as far as I can tell. They are nothing but pleasant and courteous, if they interact with you at all. Our lives have continued just as ever they did, only now under a spotlight.

It's driving me insane. They must have come here for a reason, whether "in peace" or not. Why are they parked on our planet, blocking out our sun? Most of them have stayed in their ships anyway. What business have the ones who came down here, filtering into our offices and communities? What does the sun look like? What does rain feel like on my face? A slight breeze? They've rendered our existence sterile.

These are the thoughts that assail me as I come wearily into the office today. I know I look like shit, but fortunately, so does everyone else. A good night's sleep has become a long-forgotten thing. I see Bob heading towards me. He's worked here for years, almost as long as I have, but we've never been particularly chummy. He looks a little clammy, which is no big surprise. "Hi Bob." I say as I pass him, "Good weekend?"

"We come in peace."

I barely pause. "Haha. Good one Bob!" I laugh, adding under my breath "You freak." He's always had an odd sense of humour I could never really gel with. Shaking my head to myself, I head to my cubicle and get set for a day of mind-numbing dullness.

Bob's hysterical prank proves to be by far the most interesting event of the day, and I sign off in no worse a mood than I ever am. This is obviously too good to last, however, as on the walk home I see ahead of me one of them, walking right towards me. By now, I can occasionally spot them from a mile away. The paleness is no longer such a factor as it used to be, since we're all living in the same vacuum now, but their eyes... their eyes give them away. Every human I know has the look of someone who hasn't slept properly in three months, because that's what they all are. They have black bags that leave them looking like a handless boxer. But the aliens look as pristine as the day they landed. The fuckers.

"Hello!" I greet it with exaggerated exuberance, taking some petty delight in mocking it without it realising. "How fare you today, good sir?"

"We came in peace".

The response comes hollow and dull in the breezeless air, and hits me like a cannonball. For the first time in months, I feel something real.

"Pardon me?" I stutter, sure I've misheard him, although I know that I haven't.

"We came in peace".

"I'm sorry?" I say incredulously.

It looks up at that, and meets my eye perfectly.

"We forgive you."

......

A couple of days later, the ramps come back again. The noise is unbelievable, and people are flocking out of their houses to see what all the commotion is about. As the ramps touch down, the aliens start to descend them in their billions, and I'm reminded of the day they came. They flit around us with the same dogged efficiency as before, inclining their head perfectly the same each time, and greeting each human in turn:

"We came in peace".

The earth shakes with the chorus, "We came in peace", and I see the other humans looking around at each other, perplexed, startled, horrified. The whole affair takes, I imagine, a few days again, although without the visible cycle of day of night, it's hard to judge, and time has become a very loosely real concept to me now. The moment each in turn is done, without ceremony, they start to return to their ships, flooding up their ramps into their cuboid metal ships like busy commuters with a place to be. As the tumultuous crowd around me gradually begins to thin, I see Bob, standing opposite me, looking me directly in the eye. Against the tin-tin-tin of their feet rapping against their ramps, the flustered muttering of the bewildered humans around me, and the ongoing mantra of "We came in peace", I hear him like a gunshot into the void, clear and crisp as bone snapping:

"We came in peace. I'm sorry. We forgive you."

He turns to make his long way up the nearest ramp, into the daunting vessel above us. The chorus changes around me.

"We came in peace. I'm sorry. We forgive you." They all begin to chant as they take their leave. Soon the last few stragglers are making their farewells, "We came in peace. I'm sorry. We forgive you." and we are left looking around at each other, bereft. I feel no relief, only confusion and fear. The earth feels suddenly empty.

The lights on the undersides of their ships go out, and we are left in perfect darkness. After the eternal ungodly sunlight of their tenure, it's the most terrifying thing I've ever known, to be suddenly robbed of my sight.

But just as when they arrived, the darkness is short-lived.

The lights begin to glow a deep red, and the earth is in hellish gloom. The very air looks drenched in blood. Their engines turn on in unison, and the noise is literally deafening. A monumental crash of sound and then I can't hear anything at all, only the ringing that is always in my ears, and I can't see anything, only blurry red.

The earth begins to shake, and shake, incredibly. I am thrown to the ground like a ragdoll, and feel the people around me tumble too, limbless and weak. I stumble around blindly, groping at the ground as it quakes beneath me, feeling the tremors surge up my arm and seem to rattle my organs from within. My heart stutters and my head swims in protest, and I vomit spectacularly, retching my guts all over my hands.

The heat begins to swell dramatically. Of course, I realise, their engines are about to propel them off the planet. And we are trapped in here, like guinea pigs in a lab. And it seems the experiment we never realised we were in is finally coming to an end.

Sweltering, blind and deaf and powerless in a gloomy red inferno, I know that I am in Hell. This is where it all ends for me.

And I can't even remember the Sun.