I lie in the corner of what remains of the store manager’s office, hidden behind two filing cabinets. The thing is tearing up the ruins of the supermarket floor below. I hear endless crashes and thuds, the shattering of glass. I imagine it ripping down the few shelves that are still standing and digging through all the rubble as it searches for me. I keep perfectly still.

I’m sure it knows I’m here, trapped. When I heard the clicking of its damaged ship I should have found a place to hide right where I was outside. But I’d been so close to the store, I thought I could make it back to my supplies and cover without being seen. Just as I’d been slinking through the hole in the wall that I’ve been using as a door for the few days the supermarket has been my home base, I heard the familiar clicking and then saw the little ship fly overhead. I saw it clearly enough that I could see the burn mark on the ship’s side from whatever had hit it. A rare act of human resistance, maybe? If I could see the ship that clearly then there’s no way it hadn’t seen me.

Stairs. I can the metallic clank of its boots coming up the stairs now. The second floor isn’t much: just a hallway, two offices and a breakroom. This is finally really it, after everything I survived. The invasion and brief conquest followed by the months of being relentlessly hunted by that thing. The clicking noise of its damaged ship, I’ve never been able to get away from it for long.

All of the close calls, the improbability that I’d be one of the last humans alive. All of it for nothing, everything for nothing. I will die today, unremembered, in the same way that everything humanity has ever done will be wiped away. 

The things had been thorough in their destruction; no city, town or tiny village had been spared. That’s what all the radio broadcasts had said in the early days before they’d all gone silent. I’ve seen enough ruins myself to believe them. Recently I’ve witnessed the things clearing away the ruins, erasing the final shattered remains of human civilization to make way for their own cities, ones of impossibly tall, slender spires and great wide pyramids.

What had everything that had ever happened in history been for if it had just added up to this? Every war fought, every country built, every novel written and every discovery made. There had been no point to any of it. Maybe it’s better that it’s finally got me. 

And yet, and yet, and yet.

I hear the filing cabinets lifted and tossed away. The thing towers above me in its armor, its gas mask emitting a foul-smelling gray exhaust with each breath the thing takes. It points its gun at me, the gun makes a buzzing whine as it charges up for one great, big final blast.

I close my eyes.

There’s an explosion, so unlike the muted laser blast the gun usually makes. I’m sent backward into the wall from the force. I sit crumpled in a daze seeing only dust. I cough and gag. Eventually I recover and the dust settles.

Most of what had remained of the ceiling looks to have been obliterated. I open and close my mouth and twist around my jaw. I can’t hear anything. Just as I’m wondering if I could be permanently deaf, I hear a ringing in my ears and not long after the faint sound of metal hitting tile.

The thing. It’s covered in dust and convulsing on the floor. Its gas mask is gone and for the first time I can see a bit of its flesh. Its skin is pink and soft, vulnerable. I see no teeth behind its lipless mouth as it opens and shuts. I realize the thing is gasping as it suffocates.

I look around. First, I see its gun lying in pieces by a wall, I think it must have backfired. Then, I see its mask. It’s to the right of the thing, barely a foot away from its outstretched hand. I don’t see any visible damage to its armor, so I don’t know if the thing is injured or if without its mask it doesn’t even have the strength to move just that little bit.

I sit there for a while, sure that I’m watching the thing die. All this time I’ve been hunted, I’ve imagined how satisfying it would be to kill the thing, to kill all the things. But watching it suffer now, I find myself wanting to look away.

I’d thought the things were invincible, but if that were true why had the thing been flying around in a damaged ship for so long? Why had its gun backfired? Had it asked for replacements and been denied by its superiors? Do the things have to live under budget constraints? How very human.

Does it have a family? A life in one of the new cities? Would it be missed?

I don’t know why they did what they did. Maybe their world died and they needed a new one. I think I know howthey did it though: it’s much easier to do something terrible when you’re only doing it to things.

I don’t know why I’m still alive, if there even is a reason. If there is one, I know it wasn’t for me to become this.

Before I can stop myself, I cross the small office, retrieve the mask and put it over his mouth. Slowly, his hands rise up and snap the mask firmly into place. The gray exhaust returns.

He leaps up, towing above me again. From his armor, he pulls out a small pistol-like gun and point it at my head. He pauses.

Pauses.

Pauses.

He slowly backs out of the office and then turns out of sight. Soon his footsteps grow faint.