Years ago, eight metal cubes appeared like magic around the world, bringing with them dark, swirling vapors that curled around their corners and clung to the still night air. Inside each of these cubes resided a being whose name could never be pronounced in any Earthen tongue. Soon, they would be given new names and whole new languages to speak.

All these cubes, these pods, opened easily as time went by, save for the last one.

The eighth pod landed in an unfortunate spot: right under the nose of a stray dog. This dog had no idea why a metal box suddenly appeared in front of him, he just knew it was weird and he was going to claim it for himself. So no other dogs could see it, he hid it in his favorite hiding place, the children's playground. There was a hole there that he had been digging at all week that was just perfect. Dropping the cube inside and covering it up, this dog thought he had been very smart in hiding his new toy, but little did he know that a human had been following him and had him tied up to be shipped to the pound the very second he stopped to inspect his work.

This pod didn't get any heat or sunlight for days, weeks, months, years. It couldn't open up and the pod was starting to take desperate measures, even probing out it's fuel storage in search of heat. The plant-like material should have been able to find sunlight no problem, but the dog had buried it too deep. For five whole years, this pod had remained buried.

Human children are often stubborn, curious creatures. A child, seven years of age, started noticing that there were treasures buried in the playground. He had found a number of shiny objects during rainy days when the hard-packed dirt became soft and squishy mud. Following a hunch, this child went way out to the outer edge of the playground and started digging near a tree with a stick. Prying away rocks and working hard in this one spot, he never expected to find something green under all the mushy brown. It looked to be a kind of fabric, but the fabric was weirdly thin and soft. Pulling out this prize to see what it was, he was surprised to find something solid inside. It was a cube and it was fascinating to the boy.

Now, human mothers are also stubborn creatures. No matter how much the child begged, his mother would not let him keep this filthy thing he found in the mud. It could be covered in germs, it could be something dangerous, it could be something missed.

“Taemin, put that thing down and go wash your hands!” she ordered, baiting him with promises of ice cream if he did as told. No kid would turn down ice cream, so the cube was dropped in the middle of the playground, still wrapped in the strange green fabric.

This was how Kai was found by a lone teenager with deep dark circles under his eyes.

After learning human languages and seeing what the outside world had to offer, Kai couldn't help but sneak out of the house when Tao was at school. He wanted to explore and learn everything he could before he was to leave. Making contact with another of his kind had only fueled this curiosity more. Xiumin had told him that they'd already gathered all the information they needed, so he was free to do what he wanted. He knew Tao wouldn't approve. Tao wanted Kai in his sight at all times; he would even take his alien pet to school with him if he could.

Kai made these trips into the world without anyone else knowing, except for a child, seven years of age, who he found drawing curious little doodles of a grey square in a green blob on the sidewalk. This child would often tell his friend, Moonkyu, about the cool cube-thing that he was sure, absolutely sure, wasn't from Earth.

“It had to be alien!” he exclaimed excitedly. “What if it was really a spaceship and there was a tiny green alien inside?”

“Who says the alien is tiny?” Kai had asked the first time he discovered this pair. “It could just be that the spaceship grows.”

“That's impossible. The inside would have to be bigger than the outside or the alien would have to be able to shrink!”

“Shrinking isn't as hard as it sounds.” Kai shrugged. “You lose your muscle memory for a bit, but it all comes back eventually.”

Taemin and his friend stared at this young man who talked to them as if they were adults themselves, speaking of very normal, everyday things. They liked him, they decided, and chatted with him about alien worlds whenever he stopped by to visit. Taemin always wondered where this strange man went when he stopped visiting, but his talks led him further into his fascination with the cube he once found.

Years later, as a pimply teen in a prestigious high school, Taemin followed his gut instinct when he saw a flyer outside a college campus nearby advertising the need for human test subjects. He overheard rumors of the employers being a bunch of weird young scientists with far too much funding for their own good. This sounded exciting and the moment he saw a small metal cube lying on the desk of the one named Luhan, he accepted immediately, even though he couldn't quite understand what they were telling him to do.

They told him he was just a kid and this procedure could be dangerous, but he insisted on being a part of whatever it was they were doing.

This was everything he had ever wanted. He didn't even have any plans after this.

Meeting Minho, a real life alien, had changed that. Taemin wanted something more in his life now, but he wasn't quite sure what. Either way, he knew that following his gut instinct had brought him to the end of his first goal. He intended to follow his instincts wherever they led.