Waking up from unconsciousness felt less frustrating than the last time. I was on the couch in the living room of “my” house. My head hurt and my limbs felt like they were still asleep but my mind was clear again. Unfortunately, that immediately got me to think about what had happened before I fell unconscious. I shot up from the couch just to almost fall on the coffee table if it weren’t for two arms to reach out for me. “Slow down, little human. I’m glad you’re awake but it would be better if you rested for a bit longer,” Tryox said in a soft tone. He placed me back on the couch while I just stared at him.

“You’re green,” I mumbled. Maybe my mind wasn’t as clear as I thought but the green of his skin still confused me the most in this situation.

He chuckled, “You’re not going to sleep again, are you?” Before I could reply, he went to the kitchen. When he came back, he had a cup in his hand that he slowly handed to me. I gave him a slightly weary look because the liquid in it smelled horrible. “It’s good for you and not as poisonous as the fruit you ate.” A dry laugh escaped my lips before I took a sip. “Another bite would have surely killed you,” he added while standing next to the couch.

“You didn’t call a doctor, did you?” I asked, giving him a worried look. His expression showed confusion and he seemed to study my face for a moment.

“You almost died but hope I didn’t call a doctor?” I nodded softly, making him shake his head in disbelief. “No, no doctors involved.”

“I don’t want you to get in trouble because of my stupidity. And it looks like you saved my life, so I guess I owe you an apology and a thank you,” I mentioned, continuing to sip the tea-like drink.

“An apology? What for?” I sighed and slowly moved to one side of the couch to make more space for him to sit down. When he didn’t get the hint, I gestured to the free spot and he sat down hesitatingly.

“We had no idea what was going on in this world that we were thrown into. I was more than ready to get accustomed to a different culture. Nobody told us there was a whole town made for us or that we’d get paired up with natives of this planet. We are grateful to not have to find our way on our own but it seems there was a high price to pay for this comfort. I had assumed all of you were volunteers who offered their own homes.”

This time, Tryox let out a dry laugh, “Most of us didn’t even have a home before all of this.” My confused look made him take a deep breath and continue explaining, “We come from the lowest classes of our society, poor people who often became criminals because of their situation. When they announced that another more insistent species was on its way to us, more and more of us disappeared from the cities.”

“What about your families? Friends?”

He shook his head, “They probably never knew where we ended up and died decades ago. We were taken from our lives and sent to unconsciousness until last year. The government made sure we were taught everything about you and promised to set us free once we had fulfilled our job: making sure the “intruders” stay in their town, not bothering the rest of this planet.”

“Why would they allow us to stay here if they don’t want us here anyway?” I asked, trying to process all the information. He just shrugged, a new kind of emotion in his eyes - sadness?

“Maybe they were worried you’d come anyway and destroy our world more than if we let you stay here on our own terms.”

“Right, because all we can do is bring destruction,” I mumbled, placing the empty cup on the table. I was cold, sad and still weak. All the new information didn’t help make anything better. We had destroyed lives before even landing on this planet.

“Not everyone thought that. My sister was sure that you’re going to be a great addition to our society,” he mentioned to reassure me but that failed. I could see the sadness quite clearly in his eyes now - he missed his sister greatly.

“So, you know the others here?” I asked, turning a bit away from him.

He shook his head, “We come from different decades and they kept us in small groups during the training. We were meant to learn, not make new friends.” That was what completely broke me, resulting in the first tears streaming down my face slowly. “The general belief was that you had told our government to do all of that. Apparently, we were as unaware of the truth as you were.”

“It’s our fault, we shouldn’t have believed those robots and videos of officials from centuries ago,” I muttered, my shaking voice alerting Tryox of my emotional state. When I looked at him again, his red eyes seemed to soften even more. Nothing reminded me of the angry guy he had been the day before.

He carefully placed a blanket over me while saying, “Those of you who are here now didn’t plan any of this, I know that now. You should sleep a bit more to let your body deal with the poison.” I pulled the blanket a bit tighter around me but didn’t lie down. Tryox stood up and grabbed the empty cup, “I still can’t believe you put my freedom above your life,” he mentioned quietly, almost inaudibly. I decided not to react to it because it seemed like he said it more to himself than to me.