16: Memory

Diego Ballesteros

by Diego Ballesteros

Story

After falling asleep on my way to surgery, I woke up in a white room, a white world. For a moment, I thought I was in heaven and felt immense relief, so much relief, but nothing happened. I walked for hours, maybe years, finding nothing—no gates to heaven, no steps to hell, just empty whiteness. I curled myself into a ball, trying to sleep, but couldn’t. I felt like I had been there for a century, and nothing ever happened in that century. I closed my eyes, hoping my thoughts would eventually vanish, but that never happened. I couldn’t dream.

Suddenly, my face was stomped by a shoe. I rose up quickly and with a smile, excited to feel pain again, only to find one of the aliens I’d seen on TV a thousand years ago hovering above me. It was larger than any building I had ever seen, and its legs were longer than any mountain I knew. Confused, I looked around to see who had stomped on my face.

It was Names, and she was furious.

Before I could say anything, she began punching me in the face, striking my teeth and ears, blow after blow, until her knuckles began to bleed. She was crying, and Archie stood behind her, staring at the alien, lost in thought.

“Where are we?” Archie asked, ignoring the beating. That was the first sound I had heard in forever.

“All three of you are projecting,” said a voice. We all instantly turned around and saw a tall woman floating down toward us from the head of the alien. She had long, glowing red hair and blue skin. She was absolutely beautiful in a way I couldn’t comprehend. Names immediately demanded to know who she was, but without a word, the woman walked up to her and hugged her so tenderly she hugged her back.

“In your language, we would be called the Nanamites,” she explained. “We originate from a planet two galaxies away from yours—a very small planet. As you can see, we are big beings by nature, and our planet simply couldn’t sustain us all. Searching for means of survival, we developed technology to travel to other planets, and we found out that our universe is full of planets filled with food. Food that is alive. As we ate more and more, we grew bigger and bigger in size. We consumed two whole galaxies before arriving to your beautiful planet.”

“So you came here to eat us all?!” exclaimed Archie.

“Not yet,” she stated plainly. “We are not monsters. Just like you eat chickens and pigs because they are inferior beings with no ability to process complex emotions and create things of value, we eat entire races alike. However, we understand that the existence of some races across the universe is valuable, being able to feel and give knowledge and kindness. That is why we send one of us, a conduit, to be born inside every potential food source to experience what it means to be part of that race. We sent a conduit here to Earth to experience human life, and now it’s time for that conduit to tell us if humanity is worth eating, or if it is worth saving.”

“Why are you telling us this?” Names asked.

“Because you, my dear Names,” said the beautiful being, “you are our conduit.”

© Diego Ballesteros 2024-08-02

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Novels & Stories