He woke to see them standing crookedly before him. Their skin was black and slick like that of a stone that has been smoothed for years by the gentle touch of a river. Their heads bobbed slightly when they walked almost like they were disconnected from their spines. This made the boy shiver. He’d long ago realized the futility of a name for himself, for what’s the validity of one’s own name if there’s no person with whom to communicate. He tried to clear his mind and focus on the issue at hand as his computer had instructed him to do in times of stress. He couldn’t. The hideous trio of beings with their balloon-like heads bobbing ridiculously as they grew closer kept working their way back into his thoughts like a song that cannot be willed out of one’s own mind until it is forgotten.
He knew that he would most likely never forget this night. He looked to his computer for reassurance but the monitor was dark and unresponsive to his pleading gaze. None of the creatures made any sort of gesture save for the one in the center. It began to shuffle forward as the other two remained stationary a few meters away. As it approached him, its head began to swell and he could see strange lumps forming at the surface and then reforming to the black ambiguity of its face. It was on him. Its head touched his and he felt a warm oily substance oozing from the creature’s brow. Only then did he realize that the terra forming process was soon to begin and he had been selected. He was disoriented at first as these thoughts entered his mind forcefully. Then he realized that the inception of these thoughts stemmed from the creatures’ - no the visitors’ minds.
They told and showed him that he was not alone; there were many others living in the compound with him, although they had different schedules so they would never come into contact with one another. He was told that the computer that taught and nurtured him was a friend of the visitors and now it was time to go. He along with other ‘humans’ – they showed him the word - would be taken to another world to begin the terra forming process for the visitors. Once their work was done in a few centuries the visitors could live on the world and he would be disposed of. He didn’t like the word choice. Hadn’t his computer taught him that dispose meant to get rid of, discard or even kill?
Suddenly the connection ceased. The creature withdrew its head from his and produced something that gleamed metallically in the dim light of his room, placed it on his neck and began to drag the serrated edge over the boy’s throat carving a gushing smile into the boy’s flesh. The trio then left the room and entered the room of an older boy with a slightly lower success rate. Intelligence was a necessary trait in the humans that would help terra form Cerberas-6, the planet that was selected the millennia following the colonization of Earth and the enslavement of the humans for terra forming purposes. The humans must not learn the intentions of the visitors or their attempt at establishing a friendship would be in vain. It was with this thought in mind that the trio approached the room 294B. It would be a long night that would produce many bloodied smiling corpses reflecting the light of the artificial sun when dawn finally broke within the compound.