Dead people, dying people.

I held my hand bag against my chest, kept my head down, and strode as fast I could through the dark and somber alley. Melancholy, despair and rage filled the air.

'Screw those filthy bastards!' a hoarse voice startled me. I kept my head down.

'Keep going. Just keep going,' I chanted to myself.

All of a sudden, an slender but firm arm reached out for my ankle, stopping me in my tracks. 'Look up! Look. At. Them,' a young woman with a glare that could slice through iron demanded.

I looked up and saw that we were not alone. We were sandwiched between two buildings of about three storeys high. In each building were pairs of elegantly dressed men and women, sipping away at their wine glasses and savouring their scrumptious dinners. With chandeliers hanging from the ceiling and candles resting on the tables, I reckoned that they were probably fine-dining.

Another hand grabbed my other ankle. And the next thing I knew, dozens of hands were wrapped around my legs. Dead people, dying people. With a unified pull, I was dragged through the earth, as I tumbled through a hole that was forming rapidly in the ground.

I woke up in a different land. I was surrounded by old people, young people. They wore the exact same thing - a grey robe that extended till the ankle. I was wearing it too. People were coughing, crying, sneezing, and vomiting. The man behind me bumped me forward. 'Move, young lady.' I realised I was in a queue.

'Wh...what are we queuing for?' I asked the man.

'The physician? Get out of the queue if you're not here to see her!' he replied

I walked around, clueless, in an attempt to make sense of what was going on. The people here seemed rather listless and sometimes angsty - although not quite as angry as the alley-people I had previously encountered. I found out a few things: one, these people were ill and waiting to see the physician. Two, there were no 'filthy bastards' here. Everyone wore the same thing, ate the same thing, and saw the same physician. Perhaps, that was why they were less resentful than the alley-people. And three... about half a mile away, I could see a pile of bodies reaching up to the sky. Dead people, dying people.

'Who are they?' I asked the child beside me.

'They are the ones who never got to see the physician... Who knows? I might be next,' replied the child, as he inched forward in the queue.

That was when the horrible stench gave me a sobering slap in the face. I opened my eyelids and found that I was back in my room. Praise the heavens, it was just a dream.

I crawled out of bed, turned on the radio and grabbed my toothbrush.

'The people have voted. All hail our great and wise leader. As promised in her campaign, all aliens will be executed if they do not leave this town by midnight.'

I scurried around the room, packing my luggage as fast as possible. I had an entire day to gather my fellow alien friends together and leave for another town. It would be fine.

I ran out of the house and headed towards the campus. It was too late. It was all too late. Dead people, dying people. The town people had already begun to cleanse their homes of aliens.

Capitalism, socialism. Democracy, autocracy.

Everywhere, people are dying. No matter what we do, people are always dying.

I felt a huge blow across the back of my head. I fell to my knees, and then to the ground, as my knees gave way. Blood trickled down my forehead, and I was gradually surrounded by a pool of my own and my fellow aliens' blood.

I hope that this time, I will wake up in a better place.

The end.