Not Human | Teen Ink

Not Human

April 21, 2017
By Anatati BRONZE, Coral Springs, Florida
Anatati BRONZE, Coral Springs, Florida
2 articles 0 photos 0 comments

I'm flesh and blood, but I'm not human.

I haven't been human in over three hundred years.

You may be wondering what I am, but frankly I don't even know anymore. These past centuries have been a blur, everything mashed into one, where nothing of importance even stood out. I was an observer of various historical events, yet here I am, still alive and kicking.

Honestly, I have seen enough of humanity. Can you imagine witnessing all the wrongs of a country, and seeing no attempts by them to rectify them completely even after all the decades that passed? Or seeing the world practically destroyed by its human inhabitants every passing year? No, well you're not me, so you couldn't understand. I am looking forward to the day where either they all die or I do, whichever comes first really. Except I can't die.

Present day

October 8, 2016

I'm sitting on a park bench in a small town in the state of Louisiana. The pigeons flock to me as I feed them seeds. It seems peaceful, except the honking of cars stuck in traffic behind me, say otherwise.

I stand up, and walk over to my car. Yes I own a car, I can't stay stagnant, I have to keep up with the times. It's a nice car too, a 2015 Dodge Challenger. Don't worry about how I can afford it. I just have the right connections, so to speak.

I get in and drive over to the apartment I'm currently renting. It's in a quiet part of town, I don't have to worry about being bothered. Most of the time I just sit and enjoy the silence, but I got to pay for the apartment somehow, so I have a part time job.

"Hey, where you going?"

I look to see the landlord glaring at me.

"My apartment."

"You got the money you owe me? You're three months behind on the rent, I ain't gonna let you slide no more, buddy."

I turn to walk towards her, smiling.

"Don't worry Bernice, I'll be paying you real soon."

I place a hand on her shoulder, and walk back outside. I turned my head to see her smiling and waving, so I returned it. It's one of my tricks, makes people compliant, but it wears off after a couple hours. They don't even remember speaking to me.

I get in my car and drive over to my part time job, about two hours later than my scheduled work time. Walking into the diner, I see my boss behind the counter, peeved beyond belief. I walk into the kitchen, and she meets me by the door.

"What time do you think it is, huh? Your shift started hours ago. I have had it up to here, with your crap!"

Placing a hand on her shoulder I say, "Angela, relax."

Immediately she calms down, but I continue to pacify her, and tell her I won't be late again, I'll even work a longer shift today. She buys it, and walks back to the front.

My coworker shakes his head, amazed at how I calmed her down so easily.

"You sir, have a gift."

He laughs, and I laugh with him. I'd like to think of it as more of a curse really, but humans are so simpleminded, and I won't say I don't enjoy the upper hand over them at times. The only problem, is when they snap out of it, I have to explain the missing pieces of memory. So it's best not to use it too often.

I walk over to the aprons and caps in the corner. I put on my apron, name tag and hat. Then I walk out to the front to take orders, grabbing the pen and notepad as I do.

I walk over to the nearest table with a customer, which happens to be a young woman sitting alone. She is wearing an oversized, black hoodie and a baseball cap. Something seemed, off, about her, but I couldn't quite figure out what.

"Hi, welcome to Angela's Diner, what can I get for you today?" I ask putting on my best, polite fake smile.

The woman didn't look up, but stared down at the table instead. Don't see what's so interesting about a wooden table, but as I said, she seemed off. If she's not going to order, then I got to ask her to leave.

"If you're not here to order anything, then I'm gonna have to ask you to leave."

At that, she looked up, her cold, purple eyes stared into my dull, gray ones. I waited to see what she would do, not sure how to take this weird encounter. Its not everyday I meet a strange woman, probably every few decades, but of course they always die. While I'm stuck here, forever.

"Water."

I had expected her voice to come out gruff, or weak, but instead her voice sounded commanding, powerful. I'm not sure I like this. She's different from the others I met. I nodded my head, quickly walking over to the counter, and hand Angela the order.

I go to the rest of the customers, taking their orders, not able to forget the purple eyed girl. Every so often I'd look over to her table to see if she was still there, and she was. I returned with her cup of water and placed front of her, that didn't look like it was touched since she got it.

A few hours go by, she leaves the diner, and I start cleaning up, getting ready for closing. I walk out the diner, shutting off the lights and locking the door behind me. Walking down the street I notice a presence behind me.

"Are you gonna stop following me?" I asked.

"I know what you are."

The first full sentence I've heard her say all day.

"Excuse me?" I ask confused.

"I know what you are."

"Lady, I don't know what you've been taking, but I don't know what you're talking about."

I turn away from her, and continue walking. The way she was looking at me, almost made me believe she knew. Then I felt a pressure on my arm. I turn to see her squeezing my arm. A jolt of electricity runs through my body.

What was that?

"You're just like me." She said. The electricity intensified, my body started to burn, like I was being burned alive. The pressure on my hand got heavier, then it all stopped.

I felt my body become weightless, as if I was freefalling. The air was thinning, I couldn't catch my breath. Slowly I felt myself losing consciousness as I took in less oxygen, then I blacked out.

I took in a whiff of air, rejuvenating my lungs. I sat up coughing, trying to catch my breath.

"What in the world?"

As I look around I notice I'm not in Louisiana, in fact I don't think I'm on Earth anymore. Looking up at the sky it was a mix of pink, orange and purple, and there were two moons in the sky. One was purple and the other was green.

I didn't want to believe for a second that I wasn't on earth, I immediately picked up a rock and knocked myself on the head with it.

Alright, pain, guess this is real. Wait a second where's that girl from the diner, she might have something to do with this. She had been holding onto me, before all the weirdness happened.

I roll up the sleeve of my jacket to see a symbol burned into my arm. That wasn't there before, looking at it, it sort of resembled letters, but not any I've ever seen and I would know. I've lived for 300 years and wth that time I taught myself basically every language known to man, minus the ones that are used by closed off natives.

I slowly crawl up from the ground, and weigh my options.

One: I could stay here and do nothing.

Two: I could explore and find out more information about where I am.

Option one appealed to me more, but I know how agnozing waiting and doing nothing can be, and so I went off into this new world.



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