They look at me with disgust in their eyes. When they see me, their hearts jump and their eyes fill with hate. I am just minding my own business. I was on my way home after searching for food when they tried to kill me. The smallest one was walking when she spotted me, scurrying along. She screamed for the largest one and he came running, weapon in hand, ready to obliterate me. They don’t care that I have a family too. They just see me as a nuisance, a pest. Even though my tribe has been here since before they even thought of coming to this land. I have a family, lots of siblings to care for, and the elders are living with my family too. It’s cramped in our house, but that’s alright, I love everyone who sleeps there. Anyway, I was just minding my own business when they tried to kill me. I knew that it was my duty to my family to survive. They counted on me for many things, just like they had counted on my oldest brother. But he was killed by one of their vehicles, they just ran over him, they didn’t stop or even look back. They are just mean and have no respect for us. That was the saddest day of my life, when he was killed. The responsibilities he held were passed on to me, even though I was very young. I narrowly escaped death that day, I fortunately found a good hiding place and stayed there until they left. I could hear them shouting, but I couldn’t understand them, their tongue is foreign to me. When they finally left, it was dark. I ran home as fast as I could. When I got there, my family was eating what they had found that day; food has been hard to come by since they got here. This used to be a peaceful place, until they came. With their machines that tore down our homes. Their raids of poisonous gas that killed most of our kind. We never had to live in fear, our Creator made our lives peaceful and joyous, until they came.
That night, as I rock my youngest brother to sleep, I listened to my parents and the elders talking in the only other room of our home. They are whispering fiercely and angrily. I know that something is wrong. I feel my body grow cold and my spine shiver. I listen. They talk about the rumour about a poisonous gas raid that is coming. I had heard it, but I never thought it would be true. They sound so serious; I want them to say that it won’t happen, that we will be safe here. But those words do not come. They made a plan to leave next week or earlier if any signs of a raid come. I don’t want to leave here, this is where I was born, where all of my siblings were born, this is where my brother is buried, along with generations of others in my family that came before us. This land is sacred to us, it is rightfully ours. Why is this happening?
I have reassurance that if I do die, I know that the Creator will be watching over me, and after my time in Above, I will be reborn as a new creature. I hope that next time I will be a human. I am tired of being a bug.