content warnings: murder, blood, character death

She nodded, slipping under notice as she so often did, a shadow in this monster’s plush home. She smiled mindlessly as she set the tray on the table, delicately indulging in the idea they all held of her. Human, weak, stupid. She had two arms, two eyes, thin wheat-colored hair, and an inferior mind. They would never guess what she’d done this morning. They would never find any link between her, the helpless servant girl, and the Murew corpse seeping lifeblood out of a brutal knife slash to the torso on Jefferson Avenue.

She stood by the door, a nameless, faceless, invisible shadow to everyone there but him—the traitor. She narrowed her eyes, then coughed, and when she covered her mouth, she curiously kept two fingers up. It was brief, missed in the blink of an eye or three for any Murew, but the slight twitch in the corner of his mouth told her she hadn’t missed it. He nodded imperceptibly, then laughed at whatever not-funny joke his alien brother next to him was sputtering about. She rolled her eyes, again, quick enough to be missed, quick enough to survive, and ducked out of the dining room, into the kitchen.

She nodded to the supervisor there, and brushed arms with someone going into the room. She squeezed their hand. They shared a smile, a heated moment, faces unbearably close, but later. Not now. Now was the time for action, for a moment the world had been building to for centuries.

Humankind might be a weak race, but it was also a stubborn one, a stubbornly believing one. It didn’t take kindly to being oppressed. Sooner or later, things would revolve back from peaceful uneasiness to the bloody, violent soup it usually was, and the Murew were delusional to think that enslaving them would change that.

She ducked down next to someone else she knew, the poisons expert. They spoke in small gestures those words that were too dangerous to speak with voices, lest the sounds be caught by unfriendly ears.

_ You’ve got it?_

_ Yes. Right here. _A small flick of the hand that could be mistook as brushing foodstuff off their apron, but was actually a gesture to a slightly bulging pocket on their outfit.

_ Careful. Can’t blow it now that we’re so close._

_ Any suspicions?_

_ No._

They wiped their face, sweating from the steamy heat of the kitchen, but only managed to get onion juice near their eyes. They burned red and stinging, but they knew they wouldn’t be excused, so they held back the cry of pain and dumped the latest bit of vegetables into the big pot. The other person dumped unidentifiable meat chunks in as well, and she felt her vegan stomach lurch at the pink shapes. Who knew what those aliens were eating. It was enough to almost be glad for the tasteless ground flour crackers that their diet consisted mostly of, and to know that their wish for normal food still didn’t extend to meat.

It was time. They gave a flick of their hand, and the Expert’s hand ghosted over their apron. When they lifted it, a deadly, glittering black powder was visible for a moment, before in one smooth motion, they released it while reaching for the stirring spoon. It melted and bubbled under the surface, and she had to hold back a small, wicked, triumphant smile. It promised a slow and painful demise, just like those their people had suffered from for generations.

It didn’t feel right, per se, ending violence with more violence, but it didn’t feel wrong either. She had watched, raw, as people were whipped, killed, punished, shot, screamed at, treated like animals, starved. When you roughed up the pads of your fingers enough, they formed callouses, the human body adapting. It was how people played guitar, so play she would, plucking a dangerous song with her calloused hand. Inevitably, there would be wrong notes, missed steps, mistakes, which was the reason for the cooling body on Jefferson Avenue, but there was no room for error now, at the bridge, the climax of the song. Tonight was It, or It would never be in their lifetimes.

She held her breath as she plastered on a glassy expression, bringing the soup in.

The King licked his lips as she set it down, and he reached out, but the eldest prince held out one of his lower arms, his third eye flicking to her. “Hold on,” he drawled. “Shouldn’t you taste it first?” She froze, heart plummeting. She had known it was a possibility, of course she had, but it was the worst case scenario. Still…

there was a reason she’d volunteered for this job.

“Well?” he peered at her.

“Of course,” she smiled pliantly, not missing a beat.

“Almost forgot about poison, another human trick,” smiled the King jovially. “Good thing we’re free of war or hate, like they engineered us to be in the first place. The perfect race. Agreed?”

Everyone around the table toasted to that as she took a sip of the deadly soup.

There was also a reason it took a few minutes to kick in.

They all seemed to accept that it was safe, and dug in, taking large portions. She felt it trickle down her throat,

_ I’m sorry_

__

burning her insides,

_ I know I promised you we’d have a future, but I took an oath_

__

killing her. She began to cough and retch, but the others had long since noticed. She saw spots, and everything was starting to fade. She couldn’t stop coughing, her system trying to expel the poison, and soon the noise was all around her. Flecks of red flew into her palm as her throat was aflame, and she collapsed, clutching her middle. Despite it all, she smiled a bloody smile through the cacophony of death, and she choked out, “F-for a better tomorrow.”

As the “superior race” of torturers fell from their thrones, she fell to the floor, and further still, until she was gone, gone, gone…