One of Us

“I believe in aliens. I don’t believe

they want to be friends if they know us.”

— A personal diary of a nine-year-old.

“There are no aliens, okay? Sure, there’s some form of extra-terrestrial life in the vast universe. Maybe even intelligent and technologically advanced. But not here! No interstellar visitors. No little skinny grey men with huge heads and big black eyes.”

A woman with short, curly hair pouted and turned toward the car window. There was nothing to see except the streetlights streaking through the summer night.

The man behind the wheel chuckled. “So, you don’t trust those photographs?”

“Easy to fake!”

“Okay, but you’ll believe your eyes. Eva, I’m telling you—a real dead alien is lying on your fish bench.”

“Did you bring a rubber dummy to our home? Richard, are you playing me again?”

“Eva, it’s too early for Halloween. Tonight, you will see a real alien. Darling, a whole body! I bet the poor thing was alive and crawling just before I found it on the shore. Tomorrow, I’ll look for the saucer it arrived in.”

Eva didn’t answer until they pulled into their garage and the engine stopped humming.

“Come on, come on!” Richard looked excited, almost dragging his wife toward the door.

A minute later, they stood in the workshop, and Eva’s face said something like, “Okay, but I still think it’s a dummy.”

On the wooden workbench lay the body of a creature that looked much like those she had seen in films. It was about four feet tall. Its only clothing was a black, solid collar around its neck, shaped like a doughnut with short slits. The creature’s skin resembled a frog’s belly—pale and lacking pigment, especially at the front. It appeared excessively dry, stretched, and almost cracked.

The naked body was frail. Its arms and legs were thin, with five long fingers—but the toes appeared even longer. The head was twice the size of a normal person’s. It had no visible nose or ears. A small mouth. The lidless eyes were truly astonishing—though not as large or black as artists often depict. Covered with some kind of protective lenses, they had the depth of semi-precious stones. Eva leaned in and felt those eyes looking straight into her mind.

Richard patiently waited as Eva pulled rubber gloves from her desk.

“So, darling? What do you say?”

“It looks remarkably convincing. You said it died recently? Its skin looks almost mummified,” Eva replied, delicately exploring the creature’s stomach. There were no external sexual characteristics.

“But the grass it crawled on hasn’t yet sprung back.”

“Where did you set the camera? If you laugh at me, I swear…”

“No, Eva… No. You can trash my sci-fi video library if I’m lying. I found it on the way back from our fishing pier. As for the camera—that’s a good idea. I’ll use my new phone! The footage will be priceless.”

“Well, let’s say I believed you. What do you want me to do? Why didn’t you call NASA… or some scientific institution?”

“They’ll take it away, and we’ll never know anything. Everyone knows the truth about unearthly visits is hidden. We have a lucky chance to gut it like a fish and see what it’s like inside. You’re more than qualified.”

“I’m not a doctor or forensic expert. I’m just a biology teacher. I don’t have any equipment—only knives for scaling and gutting our catch.”

“They’ll do just fine.”

“Wouldn’t we get in trouble? Like… breaking some law? If it were a human corpse…”

“But this is not a human. We didn’t kill it. We found it and conducted an investigation—one we’re happy to share with the whole world. Think of the money we might make. Besides, I doubt NASA laws apply here in Shoeburyness.”

Eva sighed. But curiosity is a powerful thing.

“Okay. Bring me cling film, paper towels, and the sharpener from the kitchen, please.”

About 24 hours later…

Fifteen-year-old James stood frozen with fear. The stranger looked half-mad, his eyes wild, his hand gripping James’s like a lifeline.

“Do you understand? Just don’t lose it! It’s very important!”

He shoved a tiny memory card into James’s jacket pocket, locking eyes with him like a man passing on the secret of fire.

Blue police lights flickered beyond the trees, but the fire’s glow overpowered them. Somewhere in the chaos, a woman screamed. The man let go and dashed toward the burning house.

James didn’t wait to see what happened next. His curiosity had evaporated, replaced by a cold, instinctive fright. He leapt onto his bike and pedalled down the street toward the station. Fast. No one had seen him. No one knew he’d come from the neighbouring town to spy on a girl from school—she walked her dog at ten, and James had planned to “accidentally” cross paths and maybe ask her out.

Another time, maybe.

On the near-empty train, James slumped into a corner seat and pulled the card from his pocket. He slid it into his phone with trembling fingers. Nothing but a few photos. Some video files.

His gut churned.

He remembered those school talks about internet crimes, and how really bad men recorded very bad things. His imagination filled in the blanks: something grotesque or illegal. Though, to be fair, his dad had a memory card once—hidden under his toolbox—with a video of dancing women in suspiciously bouncy bikinis. His dad didn't know that James had secretly watched it twice. Possibly three times. Mum finding it would’ve caused both more trouble than the police.

But this?

This felt different.

He could bin the card. Easy. But the man had begged to pass it to the press. Post it online.

Nervous, James glanced around. No one is watching. He opened the photo gallery first.

What? Seriously?

He frowned, swiped, then put in his headphones and played the first video.

“Now don’t make me laugh… Okay,” said a woman with curly hair in her thirties, wearing a dark blue lab coat.

James’s eyebrows launched upwards.

He paused the screen.

That face. Of course! The new GCSE science teacher from his school! What was her name again? Miss… something Spanish? French?

Mrs Delgado. That was it.

He pressed play.

“I’ve never done such a dissection before,” she said with a nervous chuckle. “This is my husband’s oyster knife.”

She held up a leaf-shaped blade. The camera panned, and James finally saw what he’d mistaken for a doll in the earlier photos.

Mrs Delgado made an incision in the skinny thigh. The flesh parted like stiff paper. A thin trickle of dark red fluid oozed out.

James let out a breathless laugh. Was this some next-level prank? A fake autopsy video? If he posted this, it’d go viral in seconds. He could already hear the comments. He’d be a legend.

But then he remembered:

— the blue lights.

— the man’s haunted eyes.

— the flames rising behind the trees.

— the scream.

Was it her?

James didn't laugh anymore but kept watching, a little taken aback by the woman's comments. Now he couldn't quit. She wasn’t some stranger anymore. He no longer felt like a bystander.

“…and the blood appears similar to ours. Since I don’t have saline, I’ll drop this dehydrated skin sample into water and see if it softens. Don't expect much, but diffusion alone might reveal something. Some cells may still be alive.”

With these words, Mrs Delgado dropped something that looked like a tiny piece of cardboard into a mug.

“Richard, I don't like calling it—it.”

“Okay,” James heard the man’s voice, now closer to the microphone, “Let’s name her.”

“Her?”

“Didn’t you notice? No member. Not even a puny one.”

The woman laughed, and James’s face relaxed too.

“No mammary glands either,” she said. “Not even nipples.”

“Okay, darling, let’s call it Dan. Could be short for Daniel or Danielle.”

With that, the recording ended. James almost missed his stop.

Halfway home, he pulled over and opened the next file. A ceramic tile came into view, bearing something that looked like a cube of grey terrine floating in a shallow pool of water.

The teacher’s voice resumed:

“In just twenty minutes, the sample absorbed water and swelled considerably. The concentration in the tap water was too high, but you can see the cell membrane hasn’t lost permeability. The tissue is now jelly-like and unquestionably belongs to a living organism. While waiting, we measured and recorded Dan’s parameters. His weight with the collar—I’ve no idea how to remove it—is 19.3 kilograms, height...”

James impatiently skipped forward. The length of the alien’s toes impressed him, though. A sensation! His school teacher was dissecting a real extra-terrestrial visitor! Ha! No more working for a girl’s attention. Soon, the whole world would buzz about him.

Meanwhile, the male voice said, “Into our bath?”

“Well, what else? Our pond?”

“Okay. Let me carry Dan there,” Mr Delgado replied, and the recording halted.

James checked the time. Cats—perhaps as numerous in Wickford as its human residents—darted through the evening bushes. He rushed home, only to be greeted by the kind of parental confrontation he'd never experienced before.

“We were worried sick! Why didn’t you answer your phone?”

“The batteries are flat,” James explained, honestly surprised.

“You haven’t heard the news, then. There was a terrorist attack in Shoeburyness. Arson. A boat business owned by a fishing club has gone up in flames. There are human casualties. The police are searching for a suspect. A neighbour saw someone suspicious on a bike near the site.”

“Well, am I a terrorist now?”

“Of course not, but...”

Later that night, in bed, James stared at the ceiling. Human casualties? Were Mr and Mrs Delgado hurt tonight? Was it because of the alien? Terrorists wouldn’t target a fishing club. The situation felt heavier than he’d imagined. What to do, what to do? Stay silent, or expose it all online? Either way, he needed to finish watching the recordings.

The next video opened on a windswept meadow outside town, a few metres from the sea. The tide had risen, and someone fished off a short pier.

But the camera focused on trampled grass. A voice whispered, “As if a herd of cattle ran through here last night. Did his ship crash into the bay? How did Dan end up here? Didn’t he fall from the heavens? Where else? Ha! I’ll have to Google ‘aliens in Essex.’ They won’t suspect a curious science fiction fan.”

The footage jumped. Back indoors.

Mrs Delgado sat on the bathroom floor beside the tub, one hand submerged, smiling faintly at the camera.

“Yesterday, we left the body soaking in freshwater at room temperature, and I emptied a whole pack of salt into it to alter the concentration. You know, I became a teacher because being an ichthyologist required too much travel. I’m a homebody. I wanted to settle. My husband runs a fishing business, and I’ve gutted enough sea creatures to support him and my passion. My colleagues—if they’re watching—will back me up.”

She splashed the water gently.

“Movies often say beings like Dan came from other planets. But why is Dan humanoid? Why the same bilateral symmetry? Two eyes on a head, four limbs with digits—why not eight legs, like spiders? Why upright, not quadrupedal?”

She looked into the water.

“Anyone who understands evolution knows symmetry is largely a roll of the dice. If conditions had shifted differently, radial symmetry like a starfish’s might have prevailed. Earth’s environment has changed repeatedly. Life nearly vanished, then bloomed again—again and again, always in new forms. We resemble other life here because we share a long evolutionary journey. But for another distant world? I don't have enough imagination to suggest how it might support life, intelligent or not.”

She leaned closer toward the camera.

“Our guest is too much like us. He could have been a cephalopod, or a giant ant, or some spiral amoeba. It’s a pity I don’t have DNA-testing equipment. I’d bet my job he’s not an alien, but an Earthly relative—closer to us than apes, just hidden away in oceanic depths we’ve never explored.”

She paused.

“They might be advanced. Curious. We build submarines; they build vessels to study us. We take them for aliens. But maybe they know us better. Perhaps they’re vulnerable, but wise. How could this happen? Could Atlantis have been a cluster of islands that sank millennia ago, around the time the first upright humans emerged? And those early survivors returned to the sea, leaving only myths of mermaids behind. Generation after generation, adapting to the abyss, their bodies changed. Their heads grew, but the ocean bore the weight. They no longer need lids for blinking. They see in darkness. They don’t wear clothes—it would not keep them warm. Maybe they aren’t even mammals now. Fertilisation could be external. Dan has no lips but...”

She broke off.

“Look what else has unfolded… his feet, too.”

She reached into the water and lifted the creature’s hand. Between the fingers—webbing. James could see it clearly.

Off-screen, her husband asked, “So, will you check if Dan has the same internal organs as us?”

“I suppose we could. But I still think we should—”

A scream. Her scream.

The camera jolted. James managed to see only that five webbed fingers had seized her wrist.

The screen went dark. The sound... almost the same scream James had heard from Shoeburyness.

He yanked out his headphones. His heart thudded like a kick drum in his chest. Past midnight. He wouldn’t sleep until he saw the final recording.

In the final footage, the couple argued, and apparently neither was aware of it being accidentally recorded. James saw nothing except the white ceiling.

“I don’t care about money,” Mrs Delgado hissed. “We have to do this.”

“Buy how? In broad daylight?” her husband whispered, nearly shouting.

“Dan can’t walk... Did you see the blinking light in her collar? What does that mean?”

“Eva, calm down! I can carry her to the bay—but it’ll look like I’m dumping a corpse. Wait until it’s dark.”

“No, I didn’t like that phone call. We have to hurry. Oh... she’s unwell. I must stitch and dress the cut first.”

“Wait! What was that—Oh my God!”

Then silence. Someone picked up the phone. Recording ends.

James didn’t sleep at all. He replayed every file, every photo. He couldn’t stop thinking about the teacher, her husband, and Dan. Did they manage to return the creature to the sea? Would Dan regain strength—or was it too late? Had the authorities found them? Destroyed the evidence?

Someone would be after this memory card, too. But who? NASA? MI6? The European Parliament? American intelligence? James had no clue.

Tomorrow, there will be sad news at school about the tragic death of the teacher. For some people, secrets were more important than human life.

In the worst-case scenario, James’s own life wouldn’t be worth anything.

He got up, dressed, and quietly left the house. It was about two in the morning.

The dangerous evidence was now in James’s pocket. He walked along the dark street, trying to think where to hide the tiny thing.

Destroying it would be wrong. It was too precious.

Someone should be able to find it.

If something happened to James, someone had to discover the recordings one day and show them to the world.

“Meow,” said the ginger cat near the green bin.

James looked up—he’d walked almost to the end of the street.

He crouched down and called the cat. It came over, friendly and curious. James scratched behind its ear and felt around its collar. A pink pendant hung there.

He opened it. Inside was a tiny piece of paper with a phone number and the cat’s name: Maxine.

Very good.

James folded the paper and slipped it into his back pocket. Then, carefully, he locked the cursed card inside the pendant. It fit perfectly, and the clasp clicked shut with a soft, satisfying sound.

He didn’t remember coming home. Didn’t remember falling into bed.

He was so tired that he didn’t wake when the doorbell first rang.

Not even when someone started knocking.

Then came the shouting:

“Open up! Police!”

The End