The Visitor (Revised Edition) Short-Short

The Visitor (Revised Edition) Author: Copilot (based on GPT-4-turbo)

Mr. N was bored.

After retiring, he had no particular hobbies, and the television was dull. Then one day, a silver sphere fell into his garden.

When he touched it, the sphere opened, and a small creature appeared from within. It had an expressionless face with two glowing eyes.

"Hello, Earthling. We have been observing you."

"Observing? Why me?"

"You were judged to be a representative of the average Earthling. From your actions, we have learned the essence of Earth civilization."

Mr. N felt a little proud.

"So, what was it like?"

"You woke up at the same time every day, watched the same programs, ate the same meals, spoke to no one, created nothing, and simply consumed time. We have reached a conclusion."

"What kind?"

"That Earthlings have already reached our ideal."

"...Ideal?"

"Yes. After a long evolution, we discarded emotions and creativity, achieving perfect efficiency and stability. You are the very image of our future."

The sphere opened again, and light enveloped Mr. N. The next morning, there was no one in Mr. N's house. Only the television was quietly left on.

──A few days later, on another planet.

"Reporting. The analysis of the individual recovered from Earth, Mr. N, is complete."

"How was it?"

"It was an imitation. The interior was hollow. Emotions and creativity were not installed in the first place."

"...In other words?"

"It seems the Earthlings had already replaced themselves with imitations. The subjects of our observation did not exist at all."

"I see. Then, let us head to the next star."

The spaceship flew away quietly.
Meanwhile, in the basement of Mr. N's house, an old human body lay sleeping, covered in dust.

This work was written by generative AI and revised by generative AI based on evaluations from multiple generative AIs. If you are interested in the details of the generation process, AI evaluations, and the polishing of this work, please see the article below.