At 3 pm Adrian came back home, habitually threw his bag onto his bed and entered the kitchen. He turned on TV and heated the homemade spaghetti. This was the time for another episode of “Space Travel” documentary on the nature of our universe. Captivated and mesmerized by computer-graphic depiction of super clusters of galaxies, Adrian forgot about his already old spaghetti.

At six, his parents came back, and Adrian’s mother cooked some dinner. When everyone was seated and started on their meals, Adrian’s dad began an unexpected conversation: “Son, I’ve been putting off this conversation but this is the time to talk. You listening? ” Adrian nervously swallowed the last piece of his meatball and said: “Yeah, of course dad. What’s up?”. The father began: “You know that we have a family business that my grandfather passed on to my father and he, in turn, passed it on to me. I want to do the same and I want you to operate this company properly. Fot this reason, I advise you step up your math cause you are going to study business in college.” Confused and bewildered Adrian replied: “But…dad, I hate business, I hate math, I suck at both. You know what I want to do, don’t you?” The father snapped: “It’s your astronomy, isn’t it?” Can’t you understand that it will neither earn you much money nor will give any social status! It’s a simple staring at skies and making predictions. We got clairvoyants for that! “Dad, you’re wrong! I am passionate about it! It’s something that I feel I can exceed at and…”- the father suddenly barked: ”Don’t you tell me I am wrong! I know what’s better for you! “Adrian, listen to your dad…” – Adrian’s mom softly added. Adrian’s eyes welled up with tears as he jumped out of his seat and ran back upstairs to his room and shot the door vehemently.
 

Adrian laid wide awake in his rocket-ship bed under star-decorated blanket crying into his pillow. “They don’t understand….” – he whispered, “It’s not fair, it’s my life for heaven’s sake…Oh I wish I could simply disappear.”- he suddenly stopped and considered the unexpected idea. “What if I just run off? But to whom and where? Where’d I stay?”-he thought of a few possibilities and picked one. “I know, I can run to Jeffery…he’s a cool guy and his parents wouldn’t mind.” Adrian hesitated but got up and started packing. He packed only necessary things for his journey like his loptop, phone charger, a pair of jeans, a couple of T-shirts, socks and some underwear.

Adrian waited until 3am and came out of the room. With nervous breath, squeaking floor and trembling hands he sneaked across the hallway to the exit door. Before Adrian walked out out he stopped at the door and gave the last look around the place he grew up and found his true self. He loved his parents but could not live according to thier plan. Before he turned the knob, he attached a yellow sticky note to the door for his parents and left unnoticed.

Adrian stood just outside his forsaken house breathing the summer nignt air. The path to Jeffery’s house lied through two cornfields and parts of the nearby forest. He began wading through the cornfields and then approached the woods. Before the entered the forest, Adrian decided to take a break, so he sat on a stone muching on a chocolate bar he’s stolen from the house. Some heavy thoughts began to occupy his mind. “My dad…he simply doesn’t understand,” said Adrian almost vengefully, “But am I doing the right thing?” He looked up at the night sky full of stars. “Is this the way to go? May be it is a simple staring at the night spectacle…What am I doing? I should get back.” As Adrian stood, the ray of blinding white light blasted down on him and the teenager disappeared into the air.

Adrian opened the bloodshot eyes, squinted, blinked but still could not make out of what was around him. Then he tried to lift his head but in vain. There was some strange odor infiltrating the room. He passed out. After five minutes something went off so loudly it roused Adrian from his sleep once again. Someone was banging on the door, but this time it wasn’t his mom. He heard murmuring, the kind you hear if you’re in the basement and there’s some loud conversation upstairs.

Adrian’s vision was still blurred as the lights in the chamber suddenly went on. He now could see the frame of the “door” with no knobs and something resembling a window. Adrian himself was tied to a bed from his old house by hands and legs.” He could hear some indiscriminating murmur closer as someone was haphazardly approaching. The “door” opened and Adrian made out two silhouettes of medium height with big heads. As they approached, Adrian’s heart almost stopped at the site of his capturers. They had heads bigger that those of human’s, huge black eyes, no noses, little mouth, skinny frame and grey color skin. “We come in peace, human” said one of the two identical aliens “And we need you to come with us.”

Days passed as the alien oval starship waded through unknown parts of universe. Adrian took his capture rather lightheartedly which bewildered the aliens a lot. There were only two of grey people on the ship and they, as Adrian figured, were scientists. The aliens could speak fluent English because, according to their research, English was the most used language for communication. The aliens did no harm to Adrian whatsoever, as they were simply scanning him with blue rays. Surprisingly for Adrian they had human food on the board like instant soups, noodles, chips, sodas, fruits and vegetables. He never saw the two aliens eat as they replied that human food is toxic for them.

One day Adrian was wandering around the ships communication cabin in which he saw one of the aliens talking on something resembling a radio station. Adrian waited till the creature stopped talking and asked him: “So, Nokki, when you first told me that you needed me to come with you, you never specified where. Don’t get me wrong, mate, I love it here. I’d spend an eternity here. But…I feel like I need to know where we are going.” The alien blinked with his huge black eyes and replied unemotionally: “The human curiosity. It is so fragile and so dangerous simultaneously. Adrian, we are going to my planet called Zilikioki. It is located in the Andromeda Galaxy.” “What were you doing with that thing in the room?” “I was contacting my Command Center in Zilikioki and relaying your profile to them.” said alien Nokki and turned away. Adrian grabbed the alien by his grey cold hand and asked: “Are you ever going to bring me back home to the Earth?” The alien slowly turned back the kid and pronounced with the same emotionless: “There is no Earth anymore, Adrian. You are the last human species survived. That is why we are to bring you to our planet.” At first Adrian did not believe but then burst into tears as the alien showed him the video from their alien base on the Moon. The scenery looked terrifying as the Earth was plunged into a great wildfire.

“Humans, why did you destroy?” asked the alien. Adrian was standing beside his room’s illuminator watching cosmos spectacles. “I don’t understand.”-replied Adrian without interrupting his watch. “Why did you continuously destroy, deforest, pollute and cripple your own planet?  Moreover, you were belligerent and hateful to each other. You destroyed your own kind. Weren’t examples of the co-called Holocaust and World Wars enough for you to cease any warfare and globalize? Because of your human ignorance, and greed your planet now is burned to ashes.” Adrian turned his head to the alien and coldly replied: “It was in our nature. But you are wrong, Nokki. Humanity not only destroyed, it also built, helped, prospered, freed, educated, liberated, planted, raised, grew and fed.” Nokki looked away and replied: “I am sorry, Adrian, but it seems like the Universe doesn’t not think so. Apparently, your kind did more evil that it did good.” “Do you mean God doesn’t think so?” The alien blinked and slowly replied “I mean the Universe”.

The spaceship was finally out of the hyper-space and simply floating in the direction of green-glowing spot on the horizon. Adrian was resting on his bed when one of the aliens came in his room: “We are approaching Zilikioki, Adrian. Soon we will board with the Command Center and you will be delivered to Restoring chambers.”-stated the alien just as indifferently as usual. Adrian looked up from his book and asked: “What are they going to do to me?” The alien blinked and replied: “They going to inflict no harm upon you, human. We want to give humanity another chance. You are going to recreate humanity, Adrian. And we will help you.”

Adrian looked out of an illuminator in his room and was awestruck at what he witnessed. The distant-glowing spot that he noticed before turned out to be an inhibited planet between two stars, or as Adrian immediately named them, Suns. Zilikioki was a strange planet of green glow with huge things reminiscent of human skyscrapers. As the aliens’ ship was descending, Adrian could see some car-like devices flying swiftly around immense buildings making the scenery even more incomprehensible for him.
When the ship was carefully boarded to one of the huge buildings, the two aliens called Adrian to get the special suit with oxygen to breath when outside the ship. The company of three got off the ship and found themselves in a white corridor with the door at the end. In seemingly a second the door opened there stood four aliens dressed in black robes. They approached the newcomers and addressed the two alien scientists in their language. The scientists responded shortly and abruptly. After a conversation was over, the two alien scientists turned around walked back to the ship. Adrian was left facing the three aliens in black robes. The tallest of the aliens finally addressed Adrian in English: “Adrian Knox? Are you the last human species in the Universe?” Adrian hesitated but replied: “Well, apparently. My planet is destroyed, all my friends, my family are dead. And I am standing before you. What do you think gray-skin?” “Ignorance”- said one alien. “Arrogance”-said another. “Inexperience”-said the last one. “But we will help to build your race up once again, Adrian. Give me your hand, human.”-said alien and stretched his bony palm towards Adrian. The last human looked up at the alien and put his hand into the creatures’ as the four descended into the dark world of Zilikioki.