My Blue Star Flower

1. First Friend

  I open my eyes and all I can see is white, pure, and unblemished with no clear edges that would imply a room.

  The last thing I remember was a voice asking me if I want to leave Earth to explore space and my loud, "yes".

  My heart racing, I realize I'm floating. I start to panic and hyperventilate.

  "Calm down human, you will not be hurt in any way."

  "Who are you?" I ask, "Where am I?"

  "My name is Du An, I'm of Vurat race and you are in a research ship," a masculine amused voice said.

  Bits of what he said came out of my mind in whispers. "Vurat race? Ship?"

  "Wait! You, you are an alien?"

  "Yes, I am, we are." He says, as a wide grin appears on my face and my pulse starts racing even faster.

  "You really should calm down, as I said, we will not hurt you in any way," he sounded a little troubled.

  I started laughing so hard it was difficult to breathe properly. It took me a while to calm down, I could not believe my luck, it must be all the coins I picked up obsessively in my life.

  "You know," I say "my biggest wish was to explore space and meet aliens. I was right all along, we humans are not alone," I was so happy I could just explode like fireworks.

  "Is it true you visit Earth often and experiment on people?"

  I hear him huff, he sounded annoyed, I wonder what I said wrong.

  "Only you humans could think an intelligent race would experiment on another, typical. We don't visit often and no human on earth has memories of meeting us"

  "No humans on earth? So there are other humans here?"

  "Not on this research ship. Over time we did make contact with quite a lot of you, but only a few choose to stay with us after learning of the situation, most have gone back to Earth with no memory of what happened."

  "The situation?" I ask, wanting to understand why only a few of us have chosen to stay, this felt like an amazing opportunity.

  "Your human history is flawed, or better said it was modified by the containment alliance."

  "In the past, the human race was evolved technologically, it could explore space and go tens of thousands of light-years around your planet."

  "In the explored area they found a few races bound to their solar systems. They were peaceful races that wanted to develop friendly relationships with humans. Now they are nowhere to be found, extinct."

  Amazed by what I was hearing and almost not believing, the word extinct was bugging me like a red alert. Almost afraid to ask, I whisper, "what happened with them?"

  "You humans happen. Hating anything different and greedy. You waged war on them until you exterminated every last one of them, you even destroyed a life-sustaining planet; the greatest sin in the universe."

  "I can't believe this, I know we can be short-sighted, bad, and even cruel sometimes, but this, oh God, this is unforgivable."

  "I assure you it is all true human, we have lots of evidence that you can see later if you decide to stay with us."

  "How did things go from that to how humans are now?" I ask.

  "News of your brutal race and what you have done spread fast in the galaxy, an alliance was created to stop you."

  "In the end, humans were defeated, we destroyed all traces of technology, and left a small number alive on Earth. We restarted humanity."

  I was happy that they did not exterminate all of us even if we deserved it, sad and angry for what we did, anxious for humanity's future, for my future.

  "Why do you make contact with us after what we did?" I ask, curiosity itching inside me like damn ants.

  "We make contact because we hope humans change, we want at least a few among us so we can study and learn how you evolved now, how you think."

  He stops talking after, probably giving me time to filter what I've heard.

  After thinking about all this for a while I ask: "Is my race the only brutal one?"

  "No, in the past even we the Vurats have waged war around us, we learned better since," he says laughing.

  "What will happen to me?"

  "You choose if you want to go back or want to stay with us, but before that, you must understand that the events in the past are still fresh, many resent your race and wish you never set foot outside your planet, and many fear you still."

  "If you decide to stay with us, you will have to wear a device connected to our AI that will monitor your behavior and limit you in case of need."

  "So you will always know what I'm doing?" I ask in a skeptical tone.

  "No, the AI will not share everything with us except if you do what you shouldn't."

  "There will be a certain amount of freedom when deciding what planets you could visit and reside in, the device can help with language and learning fast anything that you want, you will also be allowed to work in the departments you like."

  "It will be all up to you how you integrate yourself into our civilization. Take your time to decide.

  "No!" I shout,  "I mean, I don't need time at all."

  "Nice to meet you Du An, my name is Andra. Hope you will be my first friend," I said smiling brightly.

  A black, tall, and human looking silhouette, appears in front of me with his hand extended for a shake.

  "Nice to meet you Andra, and welcome among the stars."