Entered into #JustWriteBits - May 2019

Genre: Science fiction

Prompt: Tell us about your first time meeting an alien. Describe the situation when you realize that it was a baby.

To the Omaha Police Station,

I write this report to plead guilty for the crime of first-degree murder. I might be given the death penalty, but it is my moral duty to turn myself in, as there were no witnesses. I will recount the circumstances.

I prepared to go into a tent with Suu for the night while camping with friends when we heard the sound of a woman crying. Worried that someone had been caught or kidnapped in the very woods we had retreated to, we wandered out of the tent.

At a distance from the camp, there was no woman. A small thing, brilliant blue like the paint on Suu's car, was sprawled out on the grass and sobbing with the voice of a grown woman. Its webbed arms and legs were speckled with hints of dark blue like a poison dart-frog, and its enormous eyes were screwed shut as it bawled.

Suu, as crazy as she is, bent down near the creature, gingerly touching its forehead. At the feeling of her cool hand, it closed its eyes gently, making noises like a drunken woman.

"It's only a baby, Michael." She picked it up. "He's so light." It dozed peacefully in her arms, cooing in a low voice.

I trembled. What is this thing? A new species of animal for me to show my biology class on Monday? I stepped forward and observed it.

It opened glowing eyes, like liquid silver. Reaching out with three-fingered hands, it caught my thumb without my permission. A jolt of electricity ran through me.

"He likes us," Suu said with a soft smile. Her long blonde hair fell over an eye as she clutched the creature. "Can we keep him?"

"He's an animal," I said, but my voice was hollow. A lump grew in my throat as the baby gave a toothless grin, beautiful in its own way. It isn't just an animal. It's something sentient, like us.

We have such a large universe that it's statistically impossible to believe that aliens don't exist.

"We have to leave," I said, trying to pry it from Suu's arms, but she wasn't having it. The mother in her had come roaring out after years of longing in vain for a child. And even if that child was an extraterrestrial being, she wanted it.

We took the alien back to our house. Suu named him Cody, and he slept in the tiny crib that we had kept in the next room, in case someday Suu became pregnant. Over the next week, she bonded like glue to the baby. Letting him drink milk from the fridge whenever he was hungry; playing with him on the floor; even letting him sleep with her at night.

She smiled more when he was around. All the tears from miscarrying before might as well have never existed. When she came home from work, she would go into his room and cradle him amidst his eerie feminine weeping.

It pains me to have to explain why I had to kill him.

For all his cuteness, Cody would not have thrived well in our society. He was the only known alien of his kind living among us, and his feminine voice would have caused him to be mistreated by his peers later on. It was unmerciful and unjust to keep him in such a state.

There were many worse ways he could have died: Death by diseases brought from humanity to his kind; someone mistaking him for vermin and shooting him; a food he might be allergic too. There is so much we don't know about his species. All in all, there were far too many variables to consider for him to survive. It was best to put an end to him before he was able to fully understand what was being done.

Last night, I took him outside to play, my body heavier than a ball of lead. Suu had been at the grocery store, and I would be keeping Cody company until she returned home. We were lucky to be alone, because as I have mentioned, a woman's voice inside the body of a tiny child is disturbing and - dare I say it? - alien.

My hands trembling and my body rejecting the reality of what I had to do, I reminded myself of the true logical reasoning behind my placing Cody in the street, where a car would mistake him for a stuffed animal and run him over. He would die quickly, although bloodily, but I didn't know how else to do it without pinning myself obviously as the culprit.

As the next car barreled forth, I shut my eyes, blocking my ears to the sound of the child's confused cooing as he said his first words. "Dah....dee?"

Longing to protect him rushed over me, but it was too late for me to save him. The car rushed forth, crushing the child beneath its unmerciful wheels, turning a brilliant blue grin into nothing but a gory mixture of blue skin and white bones and violet liquid, the lifeblood of whatever strange creature he was.

Evolution continues onward. The weaker species - Cody's - had to be weeded out by the stronger species - humanity. We cannot allow such aliens to flourish, for they might grow up themselves and take over our planet. Even one small child could induce such a shift in the order of natural selection.

Nevertheless, my body was ripped underwater as I rushed forward and picked up what was left of the baby, completely blind to the purple blood spilling over my clothes. I carried him to the sidewalk and shut his empty eyes, now no longer brilliant silver but gray like lead. Just like how I felt like lead.

The part of me that is a scientist understands this to be the natural course of action for all creatures. But the part of me that could in another universe and another time period be more than simply a lump of meat - that part of me knows that this action is morally reprehensible.

It is self-evident that Cody was a sentient being, capable of speech and of thought if he'd grown older. There is something about humans - and perhaps aliens like Cody - that is different than animals. If we kill an animal, we simply see it as how the world works; when I killed Cody, I felt like I had killed Suu or another person close to me. There could be something beyond what we know and see, but to say so would conflict with everything we have learned these past hundreds of years as science has progressed.

And that is why I turn myself in for first-degree murder. Though Cody was not a human, he was still important in some special way - a sentient being who is like a human under the law. Do what you wish with me, for that is the right thing to do.

Regards,

Michael Bates