"Welcome to Tzar! My name is Tra G'mlashtikam, but you can call me Tra, for short." The Tzarian host flashes his perfectly square teeth, I guess they don't have any fangs?

"Hello, my name is Kate, nice to meet you." I smile back at him.

"You're dismissed," he nods to the guard. "Now, shall I show you your room? Well, you only be sleeping in it for tonight, so I guess there is no need for you to unpacked all of your stuff." I walk along with him, climbing some stairs.

"What time will the event begin?" I ask him.

He looks at me and smiled. "Are you nervous? Don't be. We are very grateful for your presence here. You're the first of your kind so I understand there will be a lot of confusion about how are things going on here. Humans are the first race we discovered since the last discovery, and that was before my grandfather was born." He pushes open a smaller door and clasps his hands.

"Bed, table, wardrobe," He said pointing at them one by one as if mentally ticking off a list. "Bathroom is behind that door, you can drink the water from the tap."

"So is it true then, that you haven't had any baby born here for the last 50 years?"

Is it true then, that your kind is desperate enough to reproduce, you risk some of your men's lives to look for another race in the hope to find a compatible woman to carry the next Tzarian genes?

He looks at me before he nods slowly.

"Not sure what have we done to deserves this, Tzarian are known to be just to other races, we treat nature as our God and respect every living thing inside and outside our planet." He looks at me briefly and smiles . "Maybe your kind can give us insight on how to fixed our problems, I heard statistically every family has four to five children on Earth?"

Wrong.

"I hope I can help." I gave him a small smile.

"For you to agree to join tomorrow's event is already a big step. I will leave you now, if you need anything please don't hesitate to say so. I will be somewhere downstairs assisting other females, if you can't find me just yell." He closes my door softly and left me in peace.

Or not.

Now I'm alone and have no distraction, my mind flies in lightning speed. I sit on the cold marble floor and pressed my forehead to my knees.

I left Earth.

To start over.

To leave all things that hurt me behind.

To be free from all the chains and whips and nightmares.

But everywhere I go, I still can feel them on me, in me.

I rub my eyes with the palm of my hands. It feels like running in a circle. I don't regret a single thing, leaving Earth, coming here. I'm me, at last. But why do I still feel like I'm trapped?

After a while, I got the hang on how to operate the shower. Everything is a touch screen. Unlike on earth, the water doesn't come down pouring like the rain, here it's more like a mist coming down from the walls. The soap and shampoo they have are more like powder instead of liquid, surprisingly, when the mist cleaned my body, I left with squeaky-clean feeling.

I decide to go downstairs and look at what other females up to. It doesn't take a lot for me to find what looks like the common room. It has several single chairs and comfortable sofas, in the middle there are two coffee tables with plenty of what looks like fruits.

What strange looking fruits.

I looked closer and they look almost like... beating.

"What are you?" A voice greets me.

I look up to find myself one eye, very skinny, very tall, four fingers, bright red skin female.

"Hello, I'm Kate, and I'm human from planet Earth," I explained to her.

"What? Where in the universe is that?" Another female decided to join our conversation. She has two eyes that keep moving in different directions, budging almost out of her sockets, reminds me of fly's eyes...

"Uhm, well, I'm not sure how to explain that to you. I'm the first to travel here, our kind doesn't have the advantage to travel through the black hole."

"Blackhole? You mean the Time Tunnel?" Another female joined us. She looks similar to Qe.

"I guess yes?" God, I never realize how primitive humans are compared to the rest of the races.

"So what is so special about you?" Qe looking female asks again.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, I'm a Hwouf, I can sense movement and noises with my Ghart." She said as she brushes her tentacles looking hair.

"I'm a Plorgh. I can see objects, I can see sounds, I can see frequencies." Said the one eye female.

"And I'm from planet Frosh-Enken," The tall female said, "I'm the fastest race. What is so special about humans?"

What is so special about humans?

"I'm not sure..." I say honestly.

"Humans can breed more than once in their life, at times, they can produce two, or even three babies in one pregnancy," Tra says as he is standing by the door with his arms clasped behind him.

I heard the other females gasped loudly.

"Sadly, they only live for a very short period," Tra added.

"How old are you?" Qe looking female ask.

"I'm 26 years old."

I hear an even louder gasp.

"You are a baby!" The tall female shrieks.

"Umm, no, I'm an adult." I don't know why but I feel defensive.

"This is not right! How do you expect a baby to reproduce! Her body isn't fully grown yet!" The one eye female stood up angry.

"Umm, actually, humans can starts reproduce as young as 12 years old, I guess, I knew few women have their first child at age 18."

"18?!!" The one eye female now very upset. Is she some kind of inter-galaxy feminist or something? "That is a newborn age!"

Tra walks to us. "My guests, please, I can assure you that our guest here from the earth is not a child. Tzar has been thoroughly investigating the human race for some time."

"What is a human's life expectancy?" Qe looking female ask me.

"I don't know for sure but if I have to guess I'd say something between 80-85 years."

And no sound is heard. It feels like all of them holding their breath.

"What is the time cycle on Earth?" One eye female asks.

"Well, we have 24 hours a day, 30 days a month, and 12 months a year." I can see all of them are calculating, perhaps converting earth time cycle to their own.

"Holy nature!" The tall female said.

"You'll be dead before the year turns!" said One eye female.

Err... okay.

"Now, that is enough," Tra injected. "Why don't we go to the dining room and have dinner instead? Tomorrow is a big day for us, we can go to bed early and start the day fresh."

I heard a few murmurs from all the females and seems like they agree and walking out of the common room. I follow them to the dining room, and my jaw drops when I see the longest dining table ever. It can easily seat 50 people in one course. People are starting to take a seat and I chose one next to the one eye female.

"Eat all you can, human. You won't be here next year." She says.

How long is one year on this side of the universe?

Parsh, the one eye female, is kind enough to tell me if the food is sweet, or salty, or spicy. Most of the dishes are some kind of vegetables, mostly purple and red, there are some poultry looking dishes which I have no courage to touch, that thing looks like it still breathing. Turns out those birds are reserved for three female at the other end of the table, according to Parsh they are a carnivore, they cannot eat vegetables, and I've noticed that the rest of the females are eating vegetables.

The dinner finishes in no time, and I'm surprisingly full. It was nothing like the food back home but they do taste nice, so I'm not complaining. Some of the females are staying in the common room after dinner but I found myself very tired after flying from the other side of the universe. I bid some familiar faces good night and climb upstairs to my room.

As soon as my head hits the big fluffy pillow, I'm gone.