Brecht's Incredible Journey to Tryloren

The day started like any other. I woke up in my apartment, got dressed and had a bowl of cereal. I was half way through the bowl when suddenly my lights flickered and died. I shrugged it off and finished my breakfast in the dark. When I finished eating, I felt an alien presence on my balcony.

I jumped at the suddenness of it all and whipped out the plasma pistol I kept by my bedside for just such an occasion. The alien was vaguely humanoid, about seven feet tall and hairless. It had two arms that ended in vaguely hand-shaped things, but with no fingers or thumbs to speak of. Its eyes were on stalks and both pointed directly at me.

"I mean you no harm," said the alien through what sounded like a speaker system. "I am called Zorchchk."

"Do you mind?" I asked, gesturing to the pistol. "You're kind of freaking me out."

Zorchchk's strange eyes widened (as far as they could) in what I assumed to be concern. He made a noise that sounded like an electrical shorting out, then spoke again in his strangely mechanical voice: "Ah, yes. My apologies."

A click came from Zorchchk's body as he retracted his eyes back into his head with a soft whoosh of air blowing against my face. A moment later, he began covering both his ears with his hands and let out another electronic screeching sound that confused me for a moment until I realized he was speaking in English again: "Please forgive me for startling you."

"No, no it's fine," I lied as I slowly lowered my gun from his forehead, but kept it pointed at him just in case he tried anything funny. "But can you tell me what you're doing here? And how did you get in anyway?"

His eyes flashed open again before retracting back into their sockets with another whoosh of air. "My ship is outside your atmosphere," he replied bluntly. "And we are here to speak to you about-"

"Really?" I interrupted him with a chuckle as I reeled myself back from the edge of panic; this guy might be friendly after all. "Because if you wanted to say hi, all you really needed to do was text or email instead of sneaking onto my balcony."

Zorchchk looked down at the floor awkwardly for a moment before replying: "To be honest...I am not sure how humans communicate." He looked back up at me with those eerie glowing eyes that seemed to stare right into my soul without blinking once. They were unsettling to say the least, but something told me he wasn't lying. As far as space invaders went, this one seemed nice enough so far even if he looked like he'd be more comfortable on an operating table than on a planet full of carbon-based lifeforms like myself and everything else around me that wasn't Zorchchk himself.

"That makes two of us," I shot back with another nervous laugh as I put away my gun; he seemed harmless enough after all so why not give him the benefit of the doubt? "Mind telling me why you're here?"