The reptilian alien race known as the Ekid, who secretly rule the human race, have granted us another year of life due to good behaviour.

Speaking on a top secret frequency to the world’s leaders, their representative said:

“You guys have done really well over the last few decades, especially in the area of ‘pollution’. All those chemicals will make great fuel for our death machine when it stops off at Earth on its way to destroy Alpha Centauri. It seems you guys really have listened to our secret whisperings, and it’s not gone unnoticed with the bigwigs back home.”

This will come as a relief to the human race, as we had been scheduled for destruction sometime next week:

“Our death machine always needs dead flesh to feed its officers, and the human race was next on the menu, but I have to say we’ve been really impressed with what we’ve seen, so we’ve put the extermination on hold for at least a year to see how things go.

“It’s not just your pollution production we’re impressed by; we are also keen on your general bloodthirstiness and willingness to kill the weak and the different. We thought you were getting soft, but lately you’ve made us proud, and if we like what we see next year, you could be getting a call from the big boys back home.

“Keep up the good work!”