Eyes, dark as the night that held them, skin that had never seen sun. The veins of a being who had lasted thrice longer than it was supposed to, but, perhaps not in this case. Bulging, pulsating the flow of black blood visible due to the contrast of white, translucent flesh. Ten metres away, it stood, three feet in height. But the distance may as well have been the height and the height the distance, for how small I felt in the presence of this stranger was incomparable to that which I imagine David felt at the feet of Goliath. It had been raining, I think, until I’d caught the eye of the stranger, and then even the rain appeared to have been taken aback in shock, unsure of whether to fall or fly. I was scared, at first. But my fear began to overlap with and convert to excitement in time.
I must’ve stood for an hour staring at the stranger, before I took my first step; it fell heavier than it usually would. But my second was easier. I can remember whispering words of comfort to myself, although what they were I cannot recall. But as I grew closer to the stranger, I saw that it too was scared. It shivered violently, and it was at this point that I noticed it was still raining. The liquid enveloped the humanoid shape of the stranger, and sank into its smooth looking skin. Those beautiful black pearls of eyes sat inside a large egg-shaped head, which was placed on a neck no thicker than a pencil, which in-turn was host to a body resembling that of a human who had been starved for a year. Its shivering made me think of it momentarily as a small child who needed warming.
I knelt down and its eyes followed mine as I crouched before it, as though I was bowing to its magnificence. And I suppose I was, in a way. But then came the moment that causes me to believe I was both blessed and cursed. The rain and the shivering had caused that oldest human emotion of sympathy to effect my actions. I embraced the little being, shielding it from the weather. In that minute of silence I gave it the gift of warmth and in return I received a thought. The thought that I was the first human to have both seen and touched an alien. The tears that overwhelming emotion of happiness brought to me then had caused me at first to ignore just how cold the being was. Its temperature was similar to that of the ice its skin resembled. And as some of my warmth transferred to it and it no longer felt quite so frozen, I let it go. And it fell limply to the ground. As in the shock of the moment, I had forgotten one, vital thing: I was the xenomorph here.
This exotic land had played a foul trick on my mind, for it resembled my home, yet it was not my home. My home was now among the stars of this globe, and I among the stars of my home. But in the eternal night of this now dying world, I had thought of it as home. The illusion was not the cause of my action; it had merely opened the door to allow it. I had forgotten that it was unlikely my own biology matched that of any indigenous species. And in that innocent, ancient act of sharing warmth; I had not only seen and touched the first extra-terrestrial life form ever discovered by the efforts of mankind. I had killed it through hyperthermia. And as I stood back up from my crouching position; I wept in the face of the irony.
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