said. “We’re having a little celebration.”
“Oh?” I said.
“Yes.” Mi-Yao looked at me, and showed off her hand. Around her wrist, there was a gold bracelet with a pink stone. “I’m engaged to be married.”
The news stunned me. Tiffany let out a little scream, and grabbed onto Mi-Yao’s arm to inspect the jewelry better. “It’s so beautiful,” she gushed.
Mi-Yao beamed. “We were promised to each other already. But now, it’s official. He’s a prince.”
“Shut up,” Tiffany cried.
“Watch your tongue, human,” one of the guys with Mi-Yao blurted.
“It is alright, Blaete,” Mi-Yao said. “She is only expressing excitement.”
Tiffany looked at Mi-Yao and her friends funny.
“He’s next in line to the throne of Tyroqonne,” Mi-Yao explained.
Tiffany nodded. “Tyroqonne. Is that like, part of Europe or something?”
“Sure,” Mi-Yao said. “Why not? Now, let us go out and celebrate, shall we?”
“We would love to,” I said. “Except we’re in the middle of packing, and—“
“Peter!” Tiffany cut me off, and gave me a stern look. “She’s family. Of course we’ll come out and celebrate with you. Just let me grab my coat.”
I bent over to whisper something to Tiffany, but she was already on the move. I sighed, and one of Mi-Yao’s chaperones stepped forward.
“We insist,” he said.
So, that was how I found myself in an underground club at eleven pm on a Sunday night. There was something off about the place; I could feel it the second I stepped in. The first giveaway was the bar. It was uncomfortably similar to the kitchen set-up I had seen on Mi-Yao’s ship years ago, with its tubes, bulbs and valves.
The second giveaway was the people. In the simplest of terms, they were…weird. Even on a physical level, the bartenders, the bouncers, the drinkers, the dancers, their features were misshapen, their physiques noticeably disproportionate—like beings wearing suits that didn’t quite fit.
The third giveaway was the fluorescent symbols on the walls. They looked like lettering, but I felt a nagging certainty that they didn’t belong to any language indigenous to Earth.
But it was when I noticed one girl in a shirt—a shirt with glow-in-the-dark paint splatters that morphed incessantly into different shapes, much like a Rorschach test—that I knew.
I was in an alien club.
“Dammit Mi-Yao,” I muttered under my breath, scared.
We found a dark booth in the farthest corner of the room, and sat down.
“Is it just me,” Tiffany whispered in my ear, “or is this place giving off a major eerie vibe?”
“Just be cool,” I whispered back.
Mi-Yao ordered us drinks, and they came in the form of shot glasses filled with a luminous, vaporous blue liquid.
“Drink up!” Mi-Yao ordered, over the blare of techno music, and everyone at the table but me threw back a shot.
Tiffany gagged, and shook her head hard. “Wow, that is strong.” She tried to laugh, before her features went limp and her head fell to the table with a thunk!
I panicked and tried to shake her conscious.
“Relax,” Mi-Yao said, throwing back another shot. “She’ll be up again in three…two…one…”
Tiffany threw her head back up, gasping.
“Are you alright?” I asked her.
She nodded, wide-eyed. “I want another one!”
I blinked. “What?”
As Tiffany downed another shot, Mi-Yao told me, “I probably should have mentioned that this drink is highly addictive to Terrans. She’s going to have to sweat it out, and the three day withdrawal period is brutal, let me tell you.”
“What do you want?” I hissed.
“Tiffany, do you mind if I borrow your boyfriend for a bit?” Mi-Yao asked her.
Tiffany was gulping down her fourth shot, oblivious to her surroundings. As Mi-Yao led me to the dance floor, I looked back at my fiancée, worried.
“She’s in safe hands,” Mi-Yao assured me, taking me to a private room. Here, after she’d closed the door, the music was much quieter. She pinned me to a glittering pillar, and started to dance around me, running her fingers through my hair, over my face, across my chest. Her lips brushed my ears every time she needed to speak.
“Do you know what kind of party this is, Peter?” she whispered.
“I thought it was a nightclub,” I said.
She smiled. “It is. But tonight is a special night. It’s themed. That’s why everyone is wearing human costumes, you see?”
I swallowed. “What’s the theme?”
“End of the world.” She stopped in front of me suddenly and grinned, leaning forward till her lips were inches from mine. “Guess which world?”
I stared into her eyes, breathless. Any moment now, I knew she would pull away and say, “I jest.” I waited for her to do it. She didn’t.
“You’re lying,” I whispered.
She cocked her head at me, and lifted her fingers. She snapped them.
In that instant, the walls, the floor and the ceiling detached from each other, dissolving into glittering shards and melting into the darkness behind them. My breath caught in my throat, as I beheld the sight before me.
The earth, a soft blue, its misted surface swirling with masses of clouds; it hung in empty black, but for the brilliant glare that gilded its curved horizon. Along an entire longitude, the sun was just beginning to rise.
We were standing thousands of kilometers above ground. But I could breathe and, though I could not see it, feel the carpeting beneath my shoes. So, this was what? A simulation?
“Three hundred and sixty degree projected surveillance,” Mi-Yao explained to me, kneading my hand in hers. “This is your planet. In real time,” she added.
“Oh,” I breathed.
“Now, to the naked eye and your planet’s own satellites, Earth is nice and cozy and safe in its little pocket of black,” she continued. She looked up at me, and her eyes sparkled with excitement. “But—“
As she spoke, I felt a presence behind me. I turned around to see a massive hulk of glass and white metal, floating towards us. Like a squid, it bore an orbicular head, dragging behind it seven or eight writhing tentacles. Its movements were so calculated, so fluid, that for a moment I thought it was a living creature. But as the ‘eyes’ that covered its surface started to glow, I began to understand that I was looking at a machine.
This was a ship.
Then, suddenly, hundreds and hundreds more of them flickered to visibility…above, below, around me, and a number of them, particularly those to my right, flashed wildly in the rays of the sun.
I could hardly breathe. Then, when I finally managed to speak, all I could utter was, “Why?”
She turned me to face her, and then toyed with my top button. “Because my husband-to-be loves a good garden. And I want to give him one. So—” She bopped my nose with a finger. “I’m going to take every single nation, city, and village your people have constructed, and I am going to tear it to the ground. Your planet will be one giant mulch heap by the time I’m through with it. Then, I’m going to transform it into the most beautiful reserve in the tri-galactic system, and fill it with every rare and exotic plant from every known planet.” She looked at me. “Doesn’t that sound like fun, Peter?”
“Y-you can’t do that,” I whispered, and even as the words rolled off my tongue, I knew they were a lie.
“Oh yes.” She nodded, solemnly. “Oh yes, I can. Those men and women we came here with? Top experts in terraforming and cross-galactic botany. So, how about that?”
She danced some more, winding down to the floor, and then standing up again.
“Seven billion people,” I said.
“Well,” she said, playing with my hair. “Seven billion minus one.”
I stared at her.
She sighed. “I mean I want you to come with me.”
/>
“Why would I do that?”
She shrugged. “Maybe you don’t want to die? Maybe because you’ve said it yourself a hundred times that your world doesn’t understand you? I don’t like guessing games.”
I didn’t say anything.
“You deserve better, Peter” She had stopped dancing now. She was only standing before me, speaking. “We can be better for each other.”
Still, I didn’t say anything yet. After a long silence, I asked a simple question: “Are you still off your meds?”
She stared back at me. Then, she smiled. “Don’t be a fool, Peter.” She offered her hand. “I can save you. Take a chance with me.”
I looked at her hand. And then, I took it, drawing her into an embrace.
“No,” I whispered into her ear.
“What?” She tried to push me away, but I wouldn’t let her.
“One of the things you said to me the last time you were here was that I like to feel sorry for myself,” I continued. “And you were right, Mi-Yao. I thought everyone had rejected me when, really, I was the one who had rejected everyone. And when I opened up, I found a few people who were ready to accept me. That change in attitude has transformed my life in more ways than you could imagine. Mi-Yao, you already saved me. And now, I’m going to save you…by walking away.”
I pulled out of the embrace, and looked into her face. She was glaring at me, her eyes brimming with fury and tears at the same time.
“You are not alright,” I said. “Get help.”
With that, I turned around and started to walk away. As I did, the projection faded away, and we were once again inside a small, private room.
“I’m going to destroy your world, Peter,” she cried after me. “I’m going to turn it into dust.”
“Do what you