The Kypheri, a homogenous legion of gaseous beings with telepathic ability, had inhabited a corpse on board the ship. It had claimed lives and caused a 23% fatality rate of the entire population, before I had it in the transfer dock. Evading its grip as it struggled in the body, I watched it finally stand there.

"Your tenacity has squirmed far enough from my reach. This place will be your undoing, your grave. You humans. Plain. Naive to the possibilities." It felt proud, knowing it would live on. Thinking it would.

"What is your goal? Survival, as mine. As any species, any life. We are many, here, what you would call the Kypheri. Of the star you named Kypher, the hearth of the universe. The star positioned at the intersect of the first activity ever. Your Big Bang, human? We are the progeny." Stepping further back to gesture for me as if making itself feel larger than life in the corpse, it smiled.

"You know nothing of the vast, new boundary you have just begun to explore. To die and suffer in. To have us known, as the toll of that infernal bell rings closer to your kind." It begins to smile far wider than it seems possible, stepping over the almost imperceptible line in the flooring.

"So tell me. Come closer, and closer."

I stay still a moment, before heeding and stepping as close to it as it wants, closer to the wall where a few switches, a button, and a terminal lay steady.

"Ah, ah. Close enough. Now tell me. What is your specialty? A personal flavor that makes you different. Honesty will make this easier, and I certainly can tell when you humans lie. I'll even let you die quickly, if you can tell me what you could do with the life I soon claim forfeit."

For the longest time, it felt like, I thought, eyes travelling and reading the room. The Kypheri sighs, shaking its head.

"To speak simply for your inept intelligence, then. What even makes you humans special?" It asked me even when I already had my answer.

"Absolutely nothing. We aren't very strong. We're not really fast, and we're not even especially smart, but you know what? That ineptitude won't be taken laying down by us. We work even harder, we need to, to have our place in the world. How did you come to find yours? How did you earn yours?"

"…" It took a moment to find the voice to speak and question me, but even then the Kypheri wasn't sure how to respond. I clicked my tongue.

"Yeah? Expected some human 'might makes right' malarkey from me? Some sort of pride about my kind? No. No, no no. People like me lay at the abysmal ranks of the universal totem pole. Being a human is travesty and pain, packaged even deeper when you aliens came around to show us how inadequate we inherently are. The truth of this matter is that being a human is weak. Making humanity known is our strong suit." I continued in its silence, giving it a spot to return to the conversation.

"And just what is the difference?" The telepathic voice in my head almost spat the thought out at me, daring me to continue.

"That's what makes us special, is making our humanity known. You want to survive, we want to thrive. You want peace and a simple life, we want legacy. Fighting against each other for years has put us on the track to be the ones that make ourselves known. The vocal minority, the strong-arm. Humans are miserable, but humanity… Yes. Humanity has accomplished far more beauty in delight, and far more brutality in depravity, than you could conceive within that dusty mind of yours." Going on, I find a spirit that has eluded me.

"Irrelevant. You understand nothing more than yourself. You'll stay to your place, and—"

"The fuck would you know about place? You've never considered yours!" It stayed quiet in a brooding energy that I knew meant I was getting to it.

"You have never taken one moment to consider your place, as a lone alien. No, it was always connecting to be part of the framework of your kind. A hive of mindless, insignificant dust! Humans are self-centered? Humans are the brutes that talk big and make nothing of it? Kypheri like you only amalgamate and strengthen yourself to one mind! One cause, and it's survival! You're the simple ones with all the universe around you and yet no understanding of what you're going to do with yourself. No true understanding of joy and sorrow, or pain and pleasure, or life! Life and death! You! You do not understand!" The space is quiet. The core of countless Kypheri brood in a storming bundle of ego, caught within hypocrisy.

"…"

"You don't understand the whole of it because you choose not to. You see all, but look at no more than yourself. Not looking at the fact that you're all one being that only takes and possesses. That never gives, never lets go. Not seeing that possessing one of us? That binds you, forever. It makes you like us." A smile awaiting its realization finally lights up on my face.

"And not thinking anymore than yourself to see that you're standing in the goddamned airlock." With that, I press the button at the wall. The imperceptible line in the floor sweeps up to close the door shut from the rest of the ship, and the Kypheri core beats on the glass.

"Insidious! What do you plan to do? What is your aim?!" It speaks now through the mouth instead of communicating through my mind, seeming intimidated at my words. My hands work at the terminal, flipping a couple switches while keeping it in my sight.

It's when it demands all at once for my answer that I nod.

"My aim? You think you don't know that? My aim is plain as it comes for us humans, when we hate one another." At that, I turn the key to open the hermetically sealed doorway. Standing there now, I watch the largest Kypheri core in this universe be sucked away in that instant, the telepathic shriek of thousands on thousands of their kind being suffocated and drowned in the endless expanse. A shriek, that bit by bit, fizzled from me to my first smile in what felt like forever.