The Givers

January 31st 2017 The watch on Steven Hargreaves wrist read 3.30am; he sat enveloped by the darkness of his now very sparse bedroom. All his possessions have slowly been confiscated over the years and all he was left with was an old armchair given to him by his late grandfather and a single metal bunk bed, the comfort of which felt like a prison cell bed. He knew he was breaking the rules by being awake so late and that should he be discovered, the consequences would be dire, especially since he was now on a third warning from his Giver. Steven Hargreaves sat, unable to even glance out of his window because if he did, they would be watching. He thought of how different things used to be, before The Givers had broken their promise. He remembered how good things were in the beginning, when they first came. When they had vowed to serve at humanity’s every behest, offering things that were impossible to refuse. The memories flooded Steven’s brain like a tsunami and as he sat, alone, the thoughts spinning in his mind, unrelenting, he recalled the night of November 3rd 2014. November 3rd 2014 The night that they landed was the coldest night that London had experienced in a decade with temperatures hitting as low as -5. The time was 11pm and Steven was walking home after having a few drinks with work colleagues. The night was harsh, and Steven reprimanded himself for forgetting to bring his hat and gloves. He was just about to head into Charing Cross underground station when suddenly the most intense white light appeared and was accompanied by the most piercing sound that made Steven feel like his eyes had been charred from their sockets and made his brain feel like it had liquefied inside his head. Once that fleeting moment had passed, it was then that Steven saw the spaceship. It was a large, oval shaped dome that filled the night sky; the ship was an array of colours, all blending into one unidentifiable shade. It was an effect that Steven could scarcely describe. It lacked the identifying characteristics of a run of the mill, science fiction labelled spaceship that Steven had read about in many books and stories, it was not disk shaped, nor did it resemble anything close to a saucer. Steven could not see any doors or openings; the ship was just a solid fluorescent object, gliding gracefully along the night sky. Once the vivid light had finally diminished, London was besieged by complete and utter darkness, the likeness of which Steven could barely imagine existed in this world. It was as if all the lights in the whole city had extinguished simultaneously. He heard the screams and the terror in the voices of others and he heard another terrified shriek that seemed to be coming from within him, it was a voice that he didn’t even know existed, a horror that he didn’t know could be felt by a human being. The people on the streets of London were overcome with an overwhelming fear that the end was nigh. Steven saw police, reporters, journalists and the curious public flooding the streets where the ship appeared to be landing in anticipation of what was about to be the first alien encounter in the history of mankind. The ship landed, almost soundlessly despite the sheer size of it. Steven and the thousands that had joined him stood in silence, waiting, watching, and praying. A portion of the ship seemed to dwindle away into nothingness, it didn’t open or close, it just ceased to exist in a shape of a square door and Steven along with the other bystanders were once again assaulted by the engulfing glare of that white light. It was then that they first appeared, they stood, enveloped by the light of their strange ship and at that moment, their appearance was concealed, unintelligible. Then the light slowly diminished and earth laid eyes on their visitors for the first time. There were three of them to begin with. They were incredibly tall, with lengthy torsos and long, scaly arms. Steven could count four arms, with eight fingers on each hand. Their strange appearance reminded Steven of the blue dragon sea slug – due to their extended additional appendages and how their arms resembled curling tendrils. In the darkness of the evening and the barely visible streetlights, Steven did at first think that the aliens were of a dark emerald green colour but upon closer inspection, Steven soon realised that their skin shimmered and changed colour, albeit very subtly. They went from a deep, dark green one moment to a pale, pastel blue the next and so on and so forth. It was extraordinary. The visitors were not small in size; however, Steven was surprised at how short their legs were. It was as if their development was stunted and their legs failed to grow more than 2ft. Despite their odd shape and the number of arms they had, their legs were the only seemingly normal feature because they only had two of them and Steven thought it was the only thing he could relate to. Steven felt no fear when looking into their faces, they seemed pleasant, elegant and not a trace of malice emanated from their glowing eyes. The visitors had defined tendrils growing on either side of their heads, which seemed to flow, calmly like a smooth river on a clear summer’s night. It felt to Steven as if their eyes burrowed deep into his mind, reading and searching through all his thoughts and his most buried secrets. Steven managed to tear his eyes away, looked around and realised that he was not the only one entranced by the gaze of their new visitors. Many others that surrounded him seemed to have fallen under the same thrall that grasped him. No one could move and yet, no one dared to. It was at that moment that they first spoke.