My name is Aiden.
That's all I have ever known. I know my birth date, my age, my favorite color, my favorite snack, my pet name for my mother, and everything that comes along with that. And I know about many, many other things that I've never heard of. But there are so many things that I've forgotten.
And I don't know how. No one remembers what happened when they were little kids, how old they are, or even when they get older. No one remembers anything anymore. Nothing ever happened in those days. Nobody ever talked about it, nobody talks about it at all. If you ask anyone what day it is, they just say "November 14th". Nobody talks about it. Nobody remembers anything before the year 2245. It's like nobody remembers how the day ended. The day started normal, they say. Everybody woke up, had breakfast, went to school, played games, they watched TV, and that's what we do on Alkonost every day. Every single day. That's what life was like.
But everything changed suddenly. It changed a couple of hundred years ago, during the war against humanity. Some soldiers came to our planet. They killed many people and destroyed our planet. And they also took everything that belongs to us. Everything. They burned our houses down and stole our toys and clothes and everything else we had. They destroyed our cities. Our technology. Everything we owned.
We didn't want to fight them. I think we all knew that we'd lost the battle before it ever began. Nobody wanted to fight, nobody wanted to go out on the battlefield, and they never wanted to be involved in fighting wars anymore. What use are weapons if you don't use them? What good are they if nobody knows how to use them? What point is there in fighting if you're going to lose? There wasn't anything we could do, except try and stay hidden behind our houses, hoping that the humans won't come here. My mother stayed in the village, and my father stayed outside, hiding. I wish I could go outside, too, and join them. We'd never have to fight anymore, never have to worry about anything, just live peacefully somewhere else, somewhere far from here. I wish I could run through the woods and jump over logs. I can't remember the last time that I ran around freely, enjoying myself, just for fun. All I can remember is how afraid I am of falling, and stumbling, and falling over branches and rocks.
It isn't long before humans discover us. There are a lot of them. They call themselves the Galactic. They're different from us, because of some mysterious reason, but they're still human, and I think they want the same things as we did. Freedom. Peace. Happiness. They don't want war. They never did, I guess. It's always been the aliens' way. That's why we haven't been able to win the war for them yet. We can't beat them at arm wrestling, for example. We never could beat them. Never could win the battles against them that they fought with their weapons, and won. Sometimes we can even beat them by surprise. Sometimes we can sneak up and make them look like idiots by throwing stones at them. But it isn't easy. We fight with swords and knives. And we're not very smart, neither of us. And we're not as fast and brave as the aliens, who fly on the back of giant birds and have powerful wings, who don't care about obstacles at all.
They're much stronger. Much stronger. We can't fight them by force. We can't attack them by ourselves. It's impossible, and we know this. It's useless. And there aren't enough of us to take them on, anyway. They're big and strong. And their ships are so strong that it doesn't make sense. We can't win them in the same way we fought them in the war, and we can't kill them, either. That's why they call them Galaxies and they live there. To protect us from other humans, so they won't bother them. And sometimes they help them. And they help each other, too, but they are not very good at fighting side by side. It's difficult to see how the two sides work together. But that's okay. That's fine. We don't need to know everything about fighting to win. Only what we should use. And sometimes we don't need to know everything about fighting to win. Just enough.
