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The Aliens

We found them. We brought them here. And as we watched our cities burn we realized what they were. They were monsters.

Since the beginning, we had scanned the cosmos for any evidence that we weren't alone. One day a team of researchers found that evidence. Soon we had pinpointed their planet and every expert we had, set out to find a way to make contact. Eventually, we did. It was a very crude system and there were many messages received that made no sense. After years of deciphering the communications, we stumbled upon the solution and were finally able to understand what the aliens had been saying. They wanted to meet.

We worked together after that for years sharing our technology and learning so much from theirs. Until finally the time had come. The aliens would travel the huge distance to our planet on what they called a "Peace Keeping Mission".

The first of them arrived and met with our governments. They were so odd-looking. Honestly, I was terrified of them. But they weren't hostile. Not at first. Many other spacecraft began to show up. Each carried more of them. It became normal and we became complacent. That's when the war started.

We have no idea how it began. Who knows what causes a war anyway? Fear maybe. Fear of them. Their fear of us. Either could have set things in motion. But before we knew it our homes were burning. Our children dead in the street. Everything had been taken from us. And all because we found them. All because we let them know we were here.

There are few survivors. A pocket of resistance here and there but that's all that remains. And me. I have survived by hiding. I wouldn't fight in the war because, frankly, I'm a coward. I ran horrified as the first firefights broke out in the sky. It's probably the only reason I'm alive today. But I can't really call this living. I've been alone for so long I've begun to talk to myself in the mirror. Silly I know but my reflection is my only friend now and after almost three years of being alone I have to speak to someone. Even if it's myself. We have full conversations and sometimes I swear I can actually hear his responses. We even have little jokes we bounce back and forth each trying to one-up the other.

I told my reflection today I was going out for supplies and asked if he needed anything while I was out. I didn't hear anything back so I spoke a little louder in a high pitched voice, "Why so quiet honey? Have I hurt your feelings? You don't love me anymore?" I glanced at the mirror reaching for the doorknob. As I looked back, my reflection smiled wide exposing his tongues, winked three of his eyes, and blew me a kiss. My reflection cracks me up sometimes.

🛈 - Posted on r/shortscarystories. Thx for reading!
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