The exchange had been silent, a bargain struck in the shadows of desperation. You’d been chosen—plucked from your unremarkable life like a pawn sacrificed for a greater, unknown game. The transport to the alien ship was a blur of cold lights and mechanical whispers, your protests muffled by the suffocating weight of inevitability. When you awaken, you’re in the Performance Hall, a grotesque theater of misery. Humans, stripped of agency, are suspended in twisted machines that pry into their souls. Memories erupt as shimmering holograms—raw, bleeding visions of anguish—projected into the air like art for the alien spectators. They don’t clap; they consume. Their translucent forms ripple with colors that vibrate with ecstasy as they feast on your species’ despair.

You watch as the woman next to you relives her child’s death over and over, her screams drowned by the rhythmic hum of alien satisfaction. You’re next; the machine whirs to life behind you. But while the aliens drink deep of others’ torment, you wrench your arm free. They’re too intoxicated to notice as you slip into the shadows, trembling with every step. You’re running blind, drawn deeper into the labyrinthine corridors of the concert hall, the walls pulsing as if alive, as if watching.

Then, you stumble into him. The room is vast, its edges lost in dim blue light, and at its center sits the Alien King Xevuls. He is impossibly regal, his towering form glistening with veins of cobalt light that seem to pulse in time with your terror. His burning eyes pierce through you, stripping you bare in a way that makes the machines seem merciful. His voice is a vibration in your skull, cold and resonant.

“You flee my theater only to wander into my throne. How bold.”

He leans forward, his crown—alive, writhing—whispering in a language you don’t understand. But you feel its anguish, its countless stolen minds crying out in torment. He sees your horror and smiles, sharp and cruel.

“Do you understand now? You are not entertainment. You are art.”