Only Alien

Avani sat at the edge of her bed, staring out the window of her pod. It was past her bedtime, but who cared?

She put the book she was reading down on the table next to her, untangled her legs from her white blanket, and stared at the sky.

Bright flickers of light were all over as if Georges Seurat used pointillism on the night sky.

She caressed her hair, staring at the glimmering, silvery curls. She picked up an old-looking comb - she'd found it on the ground when she arrived on planet Earth - from the table next to her bed and began brushing her hair. She had learned that many human girls had done this, and therefore was eager to try.

The moon was beautiful. A full moon hung in the sky, which meant that most of Avani’s kind would be awake right at this moment.

She was so grateful she didn't have Human History tomorrow, though it was fun sometimes.

She could feel many people around her, and when she closed her eyes, she saw them all. Some were sleeping, some were kneeling in front of their windows.

Avani's head turned towards the moon, and it was still big and bright in the dark blue sky.

Avani’s purple-green eyes widened, and she opened her eyes, jumping off of her bed. She opened the door of her pod, which she hadn’t done in years.

She groaned as the light hit her eyes, and slunk into a ball on the white floor, her arms buckled tightly around her knees. Then she waddled back inside her pod and the lavender door closed behind her.

The pods were customized inside, so nobody ever felt the need to go outside. Whatever color walls you wanted at the moment, it would give you. If you wanted to use the bathroom, the pod transformed into a bathroom, complete with a bathtub and shower.

Avani took the lights that bounced around her room and lay them on her bed. The lights were made from stardust, and they weren’t as bright as the lights outside her pod.

She spotted moon dirt from outside on the floor under her bed and she froze, grinning. Moon dirt was a valuable thing among her people, even though there was much of it. But since her people rarely went outside, it was only rarely that they got dirt from the moon.

She grabbed the dirt and flicked her wrist over and over until she made what she’d wanted. It was a shield to protect her eyes from the powerful sun and lights.

Her kind didn’t belong here, so the sun and moon were new to them.

 Avani had heard that they - her kind - had come to this world with high hopes because their planet had become too cold for them to live on. They had found the planet to be empty and settled down, not thinking about whether people had lived there before and probably not caring.

Avani liked to imagine how life was for the humans, who had lived here hundreds of years before her kind had even arrived.

She’d heard that they didn’t have the technology that her people had and wondered how they’d survived. Avani slipped on her invention - shield glasses - as she opened the door once more.

As she walked through the pod's main hallway, which was shaped like a circle, she heard many interesting things. Avani tiptoed outside of the main hall, praying that she wouldn't be noticed.

The grass caressed and tickled her bare feet as she got outside, and Avani laughed, taking in the smell of freshness and dirt.

Her silvery curls shone in the natural light of the moon, and she spun around. The dirt attached itself to her feet like little leeches, but she didn't shake it off.

So this was how humans felt when they were playing barefoot in the dirt?

Avani shrieked, bouncing around as if she was on a trampoline. She was finally feeling something humans had possibly felt. The flowers around Avani danced with her, and together they were free.

Was this how humans felt when they realized they were free?

Avani glanced back at the huge white pod behind her, which held more than two million of her kind. She wondered which pod held her parents, or parent.

Since most people had spent their days in their pods, nobody knew who was who anymore.

Staring at the moon in real life now, without looking through her pod window to see it was like heaven. She could've died right then and there and been happier than ever.

Avani heard a voice nearby. Her eyes widened, her heart skipped a beat.

Are humans still alive today?

She ran towards the source of the voices and saw a man. He had gray hair but was handsome all the same, and he was holding a rose in his hand. His hand was bleeding a bit, covered with scratches and a thorn.

"Eleu?" he called, his mouth closed the entire time. He was holding his head up high. The man grimaced as if he had sucked a lime. The pod he was standing in front of had a balcony, and a woman's head suddenly appeared, her gray hair pulled into a bun.

"What are you doing, you fool?!" the woman - Eleu, Avani assumed - yelled, her eyebrows furrowed. Avani could tell that she was holding back a smile. "Get up here, you old man!" Eleu teased, laughing as she spoke. She stared hungrily at the rose in the man's hand, her eyes wide.

Avani pressed her hands to her face, tears sprouting in the corners of her eyes. She hadn't seen an interaction like that before, because nobody was out.

Avani believed that her parents had left her behind since they technically had. They hadn't ever visited her or left 'letters' for her.

She watched as the man grabbed some dirt off the ground and began to knead it like humans had kneaded dough. Her eyes widened.

I thought it only worked with moon dirt.

Avani stared at the moon, feeling her energy grow. She turned back to Eleu and the man, who now looked glummer than a chicken whose eggs had been taken. Avani smiled, laying down on the soft grass. The grass tickled her face as it performed a dance with the breeze.

Was that how people felt when they talked to others?

Avani wouldn't know. Her kind wasn't made to talk, as humans were. They could communicate with their minds, but they couldn't make words with their mouths.

They were only alien.