You yawn and stretch as your day begins. The sun is peeking through the tiny gap in the curtains that your wife accidentally created, but it only makes you smile. You stand and pull the curtains apart to reveal a peach sky. With a beautiful start like this, how could today not be a good day? Your wife grumbles in the bed, shielding her eyes. She receives a good morning kiss and the promise of a hot cup of coffee before you leave the room for the bathroom.

As always, the priceless few moments of quiet that you get to yourself fly by. You are barely out of the shower and decent before the first child appears. Though you muster energy from deep inside of you, the laughs shared during the morning routine are genuine. The chaos hushes for a brief moment over breakfast. You take the time to share a joyous grin with your wife, the sunlight streaming in from the window behind her and gifting her a golden halo. Both of you revel in how wonderful your little family is that you have constructed. No matter how hard some moments may be, you wouldn’t change any of it.

The moment passes and you all depart the house to go on separate journeys for the day. Your wife chaperones one child to daycare on her way to work, while you drop the other at school. As always, you pause for a few seconds to appreciate your bundle of joy as he bounds off to play with his friends. He’s still so innocent, so carefree, so enthusiastic about life. The rest of your drive to work is filled with futile considerations of how you could protect him for the rest of his life. It is simply not an option to forever shield children from the horrors of the world.

The warm sun arches from the right side of your office’s window to the left as yet another day passes. Your job isn’t boring and still challenges you on occasion, but you can’t help wondering if the time for a change is on your horizon. Nonetheless, you are content with your day’s achievements as you walk out the door. You have earned your dollars, and your family will be fed and have a roof over their heads because of it. What more could you fundamentally ask for?

You have to shade your eyes from the sun’s glare as you step into the parking lot. Your other hand is reaching into your pocket for your car keys when the thunderous crack ripples through the air, robbing the peacefulness from the start of the evening. In sync with the noise is the pain that you feel. In a split second, it enters your mid-back and tunnels through your liver before shattering into a rib. A shriek is loosed from your lips as you collapse, legs no longer functioning. Your trembling hands come up to your shirt as it soaks with blood. Something feels horribly wrong in your core. You gasp for breath, unable to call for help.

A shadow falls over you. The blazing sun low in the sky behind the two figures’ heads means that it is difficult to make out their features, but their ears are elongated into points and their skin is pear green. One hoists a heavy rifle over its shoulder.

“What a stunning specimen!” the one without the gun observes, feverish with exhilaration. “Look at how wonderfully groomed his beard is! He must be a male of good health!”

“I can’t believe I hit him! What a shot! I was certain he was going to see us hiding! He was so close when he walked by!” the one holding the rifle describes with a shake of its head. “This is a hunt for the story books, my friend. I will have to employ the best taxidermist on Palokcil to preserve him, no matter the cost.”

You manage to gulp despite having a remarkably dry throat. Even with the strange fog increasingly clouding your mind, you somehow manage to fit the pieces together. You have been hunted by aliens, and they plan to display your corpse as a hunting trophy.

It suddenly becomes harder to breathe. You’re not sure if it’s from the pain resonating deep in your torso, the realisation of your horrid fate, or from the agony you feel as it sinks in that you will never see your family again. They likely will never know what happened to you. You will have vanished from their lives, never to return. Somehow you have been punished for simply existing. You had carved out a tiny section of the world to be your own, then to share with your loved ones, and now your peace was being forcefully ripped from you.

The thought would have made you physically sick if you were capable, but your insides are too busy flooding with blood. You would have cried out and demanded an honest reason as to why this had happened to you, but your lungs no longer have power in them. The only action that your body has enough strength left to perform is to shed a single tear. You mourn the loss of your simple but happy life. What a pointless reason to die, to become a prize for an alien. You had a right to live. No one had the right to take that from you, yet they did anyway.

The sun sets as your last breath leaves your body, and the aliens claim their trophy from the hunt.