Unfinished stories

I write fiction sometimes, but my stamina typically runs to an introduction or a paragraph. I rarely have an overarching plan for a story. However, I think it would be a waste to let these half-written bits just sit here on my hard drive to rot. I may post one from time to time. This is one of the longer ones.

You should know that I don't know what year it is. Not really, anyway. What I know is that it is now six hundred years since the Earth was overthrown. The aliens came down and just took over - our weapons didn't work, and our soldiers couldn't fight anyway. Basically we were drugged into submission. But I only know this because I can read. A few pre-invasion books survived and were kept secret. The official books - their books - tell a different story.

I was chosen to be a wrangler at an early age, which was great news for my family. We were living in the city compound like everyone else - walled in "for our own good". When I was made a wrangler, we were stepped up ... to a less densely-populated part of the city. Relatively speaking, it was luxury: three rooms, electricity sixteen hours a day and running water.

That would all be beside the point, but it's where the story really started. It's where I started to learn the true history of the invasion and the terrible things that happened afterwards.

The official story goes like this: the aliens (they have no other name) found our backwater planet in a state of accelerating decay. Wars and greedy resource management had set us into a downward spiral. Much of the animal life was already destroyed, and the biosphere of the planet was collapsing too rapidly for us to handle. Then the aliens found us and rescued us from ourselves.

They kept the environment stable with their advanced technology and new life forms were brought in to maintain the balance naturally. The aliens kept us from interfering. After many centuries, the planet was stable again. It was still our home, but different now, and that difference was to serve as a reminder to us all of the hard-learned lessons of our near self-destruction.

That's a lie. But like most lies, it carries a kernel of truth. There was widespread environmental chaos, but only because the aliens created it. And they did create the biosphere we have today, but that was all part of the big plan. We are their pets now. Their prisoners. They stalk along the walls of the city, humming those alien tunes to themselves, projecting an air of peaceful benevolence.

That's a lie too. I have seen the cruelty they are capable of, and it is terrifying. The animal fights are just a symptom of that inner cruelty. One in which I play my part like the rest.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - It came to me in a dream.
PPS - Most of it, anyway.