text: The first energy powered ship we created was one of the greatest moments in human history and simultaneously, the moment that ruined it forever. It was July 16th 2099, exactly 130 years after the first spaceflight that landed two humans on the moon. Everyone was watching the launch because this meant we could finally reach solar systems outside of ours with ease. When the ship successfully broke out of our atmosphere and started heading towards the edge of our solar system the whole world was ecstatic, it didn’t last long. As soon as the ship got near the border we received this message: > Beings residing in solar quadrant 835-A, > > We would like to congratulate you on achieving advanced space travel but we regret to inform you that this advancement must be retracted. Any further travel beyond this point is restricted and will be regarded as a hostile act towards your neighboring solar systems. We have been watching your species over the years and the damage you have caused to your home planet and to each other has resulted in your species being classified as a class 3 plague. Plagues in class 3 are to be monitored and kept under control as they are not a threat to nearby species and planets but with your newly acquired technology for space travel we are required to bump you up to class 2. This new class will involve a quarantine of the solar quadrant by armed ships and eventually, if the plague worsens, eradication. We apologize for the inconvenience and hope that your species is able to recover and begin to thrive. > > Signed, > Head of Containment, Galactic Health Agency This message sent the world into a panic. Everyone was arguing with each other trying to figure out what to do next. The final decision everyone agreed upon was to send an unmanned vessel across the border and see what happened. When the ship crossed the border of our solar system it was instantly shot down by a ship that had been cloaked moments before, this attack sent the world into a frenzy. Governments from around the world were trading suggestions with each other to try and determine what would be our next step. The suggestions would range from trying to create weaponry that would reach the ships, to sending out messages attached to empty ships to try and make peace. But that was all before the first ship landed in London and wiped out over half the city’s population. When the ship landed, people went into a panic but within seconds, hundreds of armed guards wearing what looked like full body hazmat suits left the ship and started shooting into the crowd of people fighting to get away. After the slaughter was over, the guards got back on the ship and just left, leaving the streets lined with corpses and terrified citizens who somehow survived. A couple days later we received another letter from the GHA saying that this wasn’t the end of the “containment” and that they were trying to help us. Like somehow killing off our species would be helping us. The next major attacks were in New York, Moscow, and then Dubai. We started off the month with a world population of 11 billion people; by the end of the attacks, we had 4 billion. The majority of the survivors thought it would be best to scavenge supplies and hide in underground bunkers and just hope that they could wait out the attacks. Others were fighting against the alien forces and stealing their tech to try and learn from them. In the end, neither choice worked. Once the majority of the population was gone, bigger ships started to land and would kidnap people by the thousands to be brought to an unknown fate. All we knew was that they never came back. I was one of the last few to be taken so I watched the aftermath, the downfall, society at its lowest point. People descended into the most primal state of mind, everything was a fight or flight situation and no one had any morals. The few of us that tried to keep society alive, tried to prove that we weren’t what the aliens said we were, we survived the longest. We thought we were safe, they were just saving us for last, it was all just a game to them. Like we were nothing, a tiny spec in the grand scheme of things. Maybe they were right, maybe they weren’t, maybe humans could have been what changed the universe. The one thing I know to be true, the one thing that I will never forget no matter how much they torture us, was the fear in everyone’s eyes as I was drug on the ship and the hope that drained from their eyes as the only place we knew to be home shattered into a mix of fire and rubble as our ship flew away.