Silenced

It was 2133 according to the invaders. We kept track of time differently, though they made us abandon our native ways. They invaded only about 1 year ago and had already tried to integrate a great deal of their culture into ours. They acted as though they were gods. They treated us close to peasants who must learn to speak like they did and convert to their beliefs. They started naming everything in their sights with strange new names that we then had to then memorize.

We Paigeen(/pāj-ēn/) were peaceful creatures; we settled disagreements as sensibly as we could, we were raised with strict consequences if we ever acted selfishly, and we treated our world with care and preservation. They were creatures of hatred and greed, only thinking of themselves when acting and destroying their world making, it nearly uninhabitable. I had seen pictures of the aliens' planet which looked nothing like our own. Ours looked alive and healthy; theirs looked dead and poisoned. They said our planet was beautiful and perfect, and that was why they were all going to live here, too.

"Knox. Knox! Knoxfinn!" I awoke with a start to Creedith's face obscuring my view. We were sitting atop a well established merchant's post and had a great view of the parade, without being part of it. "Dude, you dozed off! This very well may be our last festival, and you're sleeping through it!"

"Sorry," I grumbled, wiping the sleep out of my eyes and waiting as they adjusted to the vibrant colors and lights. "You know I'm not into this sort of thing, with all the..."
I gestured to the large crowd and bright lights. "Everything."

"Oh, you'll live." xe sighed with faux exasperation. This festival was created to honor our traditions, history and our home, Paigin(/pāj-in/), with celebrations lasting about one week in our time. The celebrations always start when Lyra, our day sun, sets, and Avi, our red dwarf sun, rises. I never liked being part of large groups of people in one place, so I usually just ignored it, though I celebrated some at home. But this time, it was different. Creedith made me come because xe knew, no, we all knew, this was likely to be our last festival.

Several months ago, in our time, they started to enforce rules surrounding what we could and could not do. We weren't allowed to worship our Deities, we couldn't talk in our mother tongue and we weren't allowed to go about many of our daily activities. There was talk about our oppressors planning to cancel the festivities this Paigeen year or the next. "Knox! Look!" Creedith said as xe pointed toward the beautiful, deep red, slightly star-speckled night as colorful lanterns started to float up into it as they always did on the ninth night of celebration. "Marvelous, isn't it?"

"Very."

"I wish they didn't have to take it away. I wish they didn't take our culture, our way of living, our rights as living beings away from us!" Creedith declared, suddenly mad. "Why do they have any right to just come into our lives and mess everything up? They don't! It isn't fair what they do to us! I despise those 'People From Earth'!"

"Creedith!" I cried, jumping up to stop xyr angry pacing. Speaking in such a hateful way in our society alone is cause for punishment, but if you speak in such a way about the 'People From Earth,' as they call themselves, and one of them hears, well, no one knows. Some people have openly talked badly about these new people but they vanish. No one sees or hears from them again. Some say our unwelcome guests take those who don't cooperate. "Please do not speak of people that way! No, they may not treat us like they treat their own but this is no reason for rash decisions that could get you hurt! We will get through these hard times somehow, just please don't do something out of anger! They don't understand our way of doing things, but hopefully our leaders will be able to persuade them to leave us be."

Xe sighed. "OK fine, I'll stop." As Creedith sat down xe mumbled under xyr breath, almost too quiet for me to pick up.

"What they don't understand they fear, what they fear they hate, what they hate they seek to destroy."

~*************~

Festivities continued the next night and Creedith had persuaded me to meet xem at the merchant's post again to watch the second parade and the last day of the festival. I got to the planned position before the sun change so I thought little of Creedith's absence. After a short period of time, the second parade began but xe was still missing. I knew xe wouldn't miss it on purpose so I started to worry.

Time passed and I made up my mind to look for xem. I figured xe would probably either be at xyr dwelling or somewhere lost in the crowd. Hating the idea of looking for xem in the latter, I decided to head towards xyr dwelling. When I reached the destination, I knew something was off. I went to knock on the door, only to find it already open slightly. I poked my head inside, not wanting to intrude but also not wanting to wait.

I drew in a sharp breath as I was greeted by a room that was once a welcoming dwelling but was now reduced to looking like a natural disaster had come through. Glass was shattered, tables were overturned, chairs and sofas shredded and apart, and a deathly silent throughout the entire place. I knew then and there, that Creedith was gone.