DAY 1

 

I don’t know what I am. When I went to bed last night I was human. I breathed, felt pain, had a heartbeat, got hungry – this morning, I can do none of those things. My skin is neither hot nor cold, but it feels strange. Dead, maybe. There are no unusual marks on my body that I can see, no holes, scratches or incisions. My teeth look the same, I have a reflection, and sunlight has no abnormal affect on me. I am not a vampire, a werewolf, a zombie, the victim of any kind of abduction (alien or otherwise) and there are no pods anywhere in my house.

When I went to bed last night, I was an unremarkable 21-year-old female human being. No...I’m something different.

ONE

 

Like everything else in Texas, the expanse of sky was huge. Outside of town of Bloodstone, the desert splayed out across the horizon to horizon, and due north to the base of a long tumble of hills. Scruffy west Texas pines and brush sharing space in the hot-cold sandy earth provided occasional shade for occasional animals venturing at top speed across its dry floor. Above, the brilliant blue was blinding, peaceful, unbroken by even a single cloud, providing an awe-inspiring backdrop, a celestial curtain that was never quite the same shade from one day to the next. To Shane Collier, whose heartbeat was this vast with its subtle treasures, the changes were a source of constant, profound joy.

Only one feature marred the otherwise perfect panorama – a long, black line thinning into the distance that bisected the flow of desert. As far as Shane was concerned, this road had no more business being there than the town to which it was connected, or the motorcycle on which he sat, staring at the sweltering blacktop and wishing he was on his horse instead. But horses had been outlawed in Bloodstone – too many outsiders had moved in, people who didn’t want large animals snarling its minimal amount of traffic, who couldn’t seem to deal with the fact that horses didn’t use litter boxes, or even get the whole leave-the-land-alone-it-isn’t-yours thing.

Shane did. He’d grown up on a ranch less than a mile beyond the line of hills. The idea that man could ever own something so vast never even occurred to him when he was younger. And later, when someone had suggested otherwise, he’d laughed in disbelief.

He wasn’t laughing at the moment, though; he was disgusted. At 21 years of age, he owned 3 vehicles – a pickup truck he and his father had built together when Shane was fourteen (and which still ran well), the Harley he was riding at the moment that his father, Austin Collier, had bought him when he’d started college, and his horse. His dad, on the other hand, had long since traded in his own flatbed for a huge SUV, a decision his son had seen as a kind of betrayal. But the man still had his horse, since herding cattle with an SUV would have been ridiculous.

Shane adjusted the straps of his backpack, an item he absolutely loathed but had to wear when he rode his bike. It wasn’t like he could strap large enough saddlebags on the damned machine, and he needed to put his school books somewhere. In two weeks the semester would be over, and he’d have his degree in business management, a course suggested by his father who had said it would help Shane run the ranch when it became his, and even before that, when he would start taking over as the older man eased into retirement.

“Damn it, Clayton,” Shane muttered, thinking about his older brother who was supposed to inherit the family’s cattle business, but had more or less abdicated the year before to go marry some girl who lived in Tennessee. “You had to go sign up with that stupid dating service…never thought about how you were hurting Dad.” While Shane was okay with taking over the business instead, he still would have preferred to have Clay around, wouldn’t have minded working for him, but no. Ol’ Clay wasn’t satisfied with any of the local girls. “Shoot.”

Pulling a bottle of water from one of the deep pockets of his leather jacket, Shane took a long drink as he eyed the heat mirage-puddles further ahead on the blacktop. Part of him wanted to take out his cell phone and call Clay, tell him what an ass he was. But then he shrugged. Guess I’m more like Dad than I like to admit. Keep my feelings in too much.

Unless Austin’s emotions got too raw, he would shield his family from his own sorrows, a habit he admitted to Shane not long ago. This reminded Shane of his mother, somethone he didn’t allow himself to think about too often. “Thanks, Mom. Wish you knew how you messed us all up, selfish witch.” Sighing, he finished the water, shoving the empty bottle back into his pocket.

As he picked up the helmet resting on the handlebars, he glanced back at the town behind him. Once he was done with school, he’d have no reason to come back except for an occasional trip in for supplies and groceries once every week or two. A visit to the bar on a Friday or Saturday night was the only other reason to make a run across the black umbilical cord, and that was plenty for him.

He shook his head at the road and slid the helmet over his head, its dark tinted visor blocking out most of the hot sun’s glare. A useful bit of technology, but he always felt like he was on the verge of suffocating when he wore it.

“Whatever.” His voice sounded like he was talking into a drinking glass; he kicked his bike to life, and took off across the desert, driving in and out of heat waves rising from the tar, through and past the mirages on its arrow- straight surface.

His horse would have been so much nicer.

 

x-x-x-x-x-x-x

 

Sunlight pierced the mossy clearing around the old cottage, gold daggers slicing into a green heart. The cottage, dappled with unexpected honey-mellow brilliance, glowed in this bath, suddenly a place of fairy-tales, happy-ending legends, beautiful now, even if only for a brief while.

Inside, sweeping early summer dust from the corners, Samantha Cowles smiled at the bars of peaceful yellow, welcoming their source with a sigh of delight. The young woman put her broom aside and went out into the transformed woodland where she began to twirl in the speck-sized spotlights peppering the moss carpet beneath her bare feet. Then, raising arms and face as she turned, laughing, she was blessed that only nature and its God could see her.

Spring had been a long sentence of rain that had permitted no visitation from earth’s star. Moth grey and unbroken had been the celestial mantle for far too long.

A poet and artist, Samantha had purchased this atmospheric bit of British real estate a year earlier for its solitude and ambience, loving it at first sight. But the recent lack of sunshine had begun to affect her work in ways that were becoming tiresome, her efforts almost meaningless. Gloomy and dripping with despair, her paintings looked haunted, while her poetry needed a different muse. And nature had just supplied one.

She began twirling in the opposite direction, too elated to consider how all this spinning was going to end.

Less than a minute later it did, when she lost her balance and fell down. After a quick, involuntary shriek, she started laughing again, rolling onto her back and staring up at young summer leaves that shifted and spun as she waited for her vision to stop swirling.

“I need paper!” she exclaimed, still spread-eagled on the ground. “And my best pen! Ha!”

Those who knew her had often wondered what would become of her – at 21, she was already well on the wrong side of eccentric. She knew this, too, and didn’t care one bit. But she was getting a little tired of the constant frowns and the way people sometimes spoke slowly to her, as if afraid she couldn’t understand them otherwise. So she’d sought – and found – her own place, a hidden niche in the world where she could be herself and not worry about who thought what. An easy out for her parents who gave her the down-payment perhaps a mite too much enthusiasm.

She’d owned a laptop, but it seemed too out of place in the cottage, even though the small structure had been wired for electricity. Before moving in, she had donated it to a school and stocked up on paper, pens, and an old-fashioned type-writer.

On an ancient wooden table beneath one of the diamond-paned casement windows, Samantha had set up her work space, liking it as much as the other things with which she’d furnished the two-room dwelling. Her easel and boxes of paints enjoyed a corner of their own opposite the large windows, so that on dreary, wet days she could stand with her back to the skim-milk shade of daylight while she painted. On days like this one, of course, she would sometimes, if so urged by her inner DaVinci, bring it all outside.

But today felt like a poetry day, so when the world had settled back into place, she got up and went inside for her notebook and pen, then rushed back out and sat on a large boulder to the right of the cottage. Closing her eyes for a moment to the thoughts come, she soon began to write.

A poem of happiness and relief, the two stanzas rhymed only at the very end of each; she read it several times, changed a word or two, then scribbled her name at the bottom. Then, jumping to her feet, she cleared her throat, and read it aloud:

 

“Would a clouded heaven despoil my core of joy?

Tuck it away into its own breast,

Jealous of that which was never its own

And keep it from its rightful tabernacle,

The place of its birth?

 

“Ah, no, but the sun, too strong for thee, oh lowering firmament,

Has snatched it back,

Replacing it in its rightful depths,

Where now joy re-joys at its return,

Overflowing with indigenous mirth!

 

“How‟s that, sweet birds? Am I the only one who likes it?” She sighed, read it through once more without finding any glaring flaws. So far, all of her work had been accepted by various publications, and now this one would be added to her latest batch. At some point, she hoped, her royalties would total enough to enable her to put them all into one volume, a compendium that would make it unnecessary to sell individual poems, a book that she would illustrate in the margins herself.

The continuing cascade of birdsong and the ebb and flow of cricket-talk in the lush undergrowth was her answer. She smiled, happy with the sun, with the wildlife around her, with her sweet little home, and decided to stay outdoors until the day flowed down over the unseen horizon behind the trees.

Sweeping was a necessity, not a priority, she figured, and she could eat later on, but right now, she wanted to enjoy the warmth on her bare arms and face, breathe in the way green smelled greener when the sun was out, and maybe write another poem or two to celebrate the reprieve – even if it was probably for a short time, or perhaps especially for that reason.

Eccentricity, she decided, settling herself on the boulder again, was nothing to be ashamed of, and nothing to shun. She giggled, and got to work.

 

x-x-x-x-x-x-x

 

“I’m tired of not knowing. I’m tired of the ignorance, the confusion, the lack of logic to any of this! What the hell happened? How is any of this possible? I...I just sit in a continuous day, not moving, not noticing when daylight darkness with the shades down becomes nighttime darkness, because regardless, I can still see everything. In the dark. There’s no change. I wish I could eat because I miss the flavors, but I have no hunger. And – I wish I could breathe so I could experience once more how good a deep sigh feels, but I can’t. All I can do is draw in enough air to speak. Have you found out anything? Anything at all?”

“No. I’m sorry, Julian. You know I’ve spent the past three years looking, and I feel terrible that I have to bring you the same answer every time. If I just knew where to look, or who to ask. You know I have to be careful about that one, yes? Too many questions about something so odd could lead to a search. And I really doubt you’re in the mood to be a lab rat.”

“As if anyone could hold me.”

“True. So what will you do now?”

The rustle of cloth in the darkness indicated the young man’s shrug. “No idea. Ha. I can’t even go out and get drunk – not that I used to, but what the hell. Anything would be better than this endlessness.”

“Why don’t you at least go outside once in a while?”

“Really?” Another sound of movement, and then a lamp lit up on the table to Julian’s right.

His friend squinted for a moment in the brightness, a moment later he gasped, flinching backward into his chair.

“You were saying?” asked Julian, not even trying to soften the sarcasm.

“But – what the hell is that?”

“Strange how you can’t detect it in the dark.” Julian gave a short, unhappy laugh. And blinked, his lids temporarily flashing over eyes that were no longer human, but holes behind which sizzled horizontal black and white static.

What the hell, indeed.

DAY 1 - ADDENDUM ET OBSERVATIONS

Oh God – what’s going on NOW??? I’ve done very little all day but stare out the window, pace, look in the mirror, pace some more, and then, help me, then the sun went down and I could still see – without turning on the lights! I went to switch one on when I saw the time but realized I didn’t need to, and oh lord, oh lord, I am SO FREAKED OUT!!! I don’t know what to do. I’m not tired, I’m not hungry, and I filled up the bathtub with water and stuck my head in it for ALMOST AN HOUR! Stared at the bottom of the tub, wanting to cry. Then I got up and the water – it just rolled off my skin like in a video game and I was completely dry instantly. I can’t cry. I can’t sob. There’s no place for the air to come from. Nothing in me to produce tears. Can I kill myself? Maybe I’ll try before morning. This is too insane to live with. I’ll write a note or something, leave it with my Journal open to these two pages. I’m losing my mind, and can’t stop or change any of it. Hell!

 

~~~~~~~

 

THIS WAS THE MOST EXCRUCIATING PART, YOU KNOW, AND I HATED DOING IT.

BUT IT MUST BE THIS WAY. YOU NEVER SHOULD HAVE READ HER JOURNAL.

I’VE BEEN READING HER JOURNAL SINCE I CHANGED HER NEARLY A MONTH AGO... SO MUST IT REALLY BE THIS WAY? WRESTLING WITH QUESTIONS, DEALING WITH THE BELIEF THAT YOU’VE GONE INSANE? AVOIDING CONTACT WITH EVERY OTHER HUMAN ON THE PLANET UNTIL YOUR LEADER FINDS YOU AND HELPS YOU ADJUST?

IT MUST AND YOU KNOW WHY.

I KNOW WHY. BUT IT STILL HURTS TO WATCH. THIS GROUP IS DIFFERENT FROM THE OTHERS; I LIKE THEM.

YOU CAN’T LIKE ANY OF THEM – YOU KNOW THAT, TOO. STOP FEELING SO DEEPLY. STOP FEELING AT ALL. SOON ENOUGH THEY’LL BE AMONG US AND THEN YOU CAN FEEL WHATEVER YOU LIKE. BUT FOR NOW, UNTIL THEY PROVE THEMSELVES AND SURVIVE THIS PART, CUT YOURSELF OFF AND BE AN OBSERVER ONLY.

HMM. SO EASY TO SAY, SO DIFFICULT TO DO. FOR ME, ANYWAY. YOU’RE OLDER AND MORE PRACTICED AT BEING STONE-SOULED.

NO, JUST OLDER AND MUCH WISER. NOW PLEASE BE STILL SO WE CAN DO OUR JOB.

RIGHT.

LOOK FOR FATAL FLAWS.

I’D SAY SUICIDE WAS PRETTY FATAL, OR ATTEMPTED SUICIDE, POOR GIRL. I ALMOST THINK HER FAILURE AT IT WAS WORSE THAN TRYING IT.

THEY ALL TRY IT AT LEAST ONCE, AS YOU KNOW. THE ONE WHO IS NEARLY READY TRIED IT ONLY AFTER SIX MONTHS, BUT HE SEEMS A LITTLE STRONGER THAN THE REST. THAT’S WHY HE WAS CHOSEN FIRST, OF COURSE.

HOW CAN YOU SAY THAT? TWO OF THEM HAVEN’T EVEN STARTED YET.

NO, I MEAN STRONGER THAN THE REST OF ALL WHO GOT THROUGH.

WHEN DO WE CHANGE THE COWBOY?

DON’T BE SO IMPATIENT. LET HIM GRADUATE FROM SCHOOL FIRST. THE POET, HOWEVER, CAN BE CHANGED TONIGHT.

FINE. AND I’M SORRY, BUT I REALLY DO HATE DOING THIS.

YOU HATE NOTHING. HATRED IS BEYOND YOU. BUT YES, I KNOW IT HURTS YOU. AS I SAID BEFORE, THOUGH, IT MUST BE THIS WAY.

YES. IT MUST.

TWO

 

Somebody was knocking, the sound intruding on Julian’s eternal daydream, making him frown. Almost no one from his former life knew he was here, and those he had recently met had been warned never to disturb him. Only his friend Rémy, who had left a few days ago after giving his disappointing report, was acquainted with his whereabouts and unless he’d learned something new, had no reason to return so soon.

The knocking continued, so he got up, put on the sunglasses that kept him looking at least somewhat human, and went to the door.

Julian had been 21 now for three years, and while he hadn’t aged, he had filled out, gotten ridiculously stronger, and was a good three inches taller than his original 5’11”. But his skin looked like some kind of plastic and not at all natural, too perfect, smooth, no pores. His looks seemed to have slowly morphed into something more beautiful, too. Anything asymmetrical about him was now in perfect balance, and his honey-gold hair had grown but couldn’t be cut. It had finally stopped growing when it was halfway down his back, and now he wore it smoothed into a long ponytail.

He didn’t look like himself at all.

“Who is it?” he asked through the door without touching its surface. If he had, he would have instantly been given an image of the person on the other side, but this ability scared the crap out of him so he never used it.

“Julian Rousseau?” The voice was deep, male, the question sounding more like a demand.

“What do you want?”

“FBI. Please open the door.”

Why would – maybe his family...no, the FBI would never have been called in on a simple missing-persons case three years after first being reported. And Rémy certainly wouldn’t have said anything to anyone, would he?

“Mr. Rousseau – do not make us use force.”
Us? He undid the two locks, turned the knob and stepped back.
Four men in dark suits entered the small apartment, two of them pushing past Julian and going to the living room window for some reason. Were they expecting him to jump out or something? Another went into the single bedroom, came back out a second later, and checked the kitchen.

“Did you lose something?” Julian, unable to curb his annoyance, glared at the man’s back. As if he didn’t already have enough to deal with...

“Just you. Who else knows you’re here?”

“The landlord. The neighbor next door. Why?”
The man stared, jaw outthrust. “What’s with the sunglasses? You have a hangover? A migraine?”

The man who had first spoken had taken his phone from his jacket and was frowning at it. He looked up at Julian, shaking his head. “This is crazy. You don’t look like your photo, but you look exactly like it.” He put the phone away and took a deep breath, narrowing his gaze. “You’ve been living here now for close to three years. You almost never go out, you don’t order food in, no one in the building has heard the water running except for showers. We’d like to know why.”

What the hell?! “Are any of those things illegal? Have I done something wrong?”

“We don’t know. All we do know is that someone is very interested in people who behave the way you do.”

There are more like me? “And who would that be?”

“You don’t need to know.”

Julian shook his head. “I don’t agree. You’re the FBI and you’re asking a bunch of highly unconstitutional questions that by law I don’t have to answer, and I have a feeling you’re going to, er, ‘request’ that I leave with you. So, yeah, I’d say I do need to know.”

The man nodded at the two by the window and they came up behind Julian, the other one staying put by the kitchen door. “Actually, Mr. Rousseau, we would appreciate your cooperation. And yes, we’d like you to come with us.”

“You might want to reconsider that. I also get upset when people try to intimidate me, so please ask the two gentlemen behind me to back off. If you give me a good enough reason to leave, I might do so without a fight, but if you can’t come up with anything that makes sense, I’m staying right here.”

“I see.” The man looked down for a moment. “Uh, the fact is, you’re outnumbered, yes? So any fight you might put up will be useless.”

“Ah. ‘Resistance is futile,’ right? Maybe for someone else. Give me a reason, that’s all I ask.” It had occurred to Julian that whoever had sent them might actually have some answers for him, and that alone would be worth whatever price he might be forced to pay in terms of his freedom until he’d learned all he could. After that, he would use his bizarre abilities to leave whenever he wished.

“I don’t have to give you anything, Mr. Rousseau. Besides, I can’t tell you why your presence is being requested, so you’ll just have to come along and find out for yourself.”

“No.”

The man looked past him again at the two hulking individuals at this back and nodded. They each grabbed one of Julian’s arms and started to lift him off the floor, but a moment later, they were out in the hallway, piled on top of each other, and followed a second later by the other two. Julian, gratified that his assumption about his new strength had been right, shut the door.

Taking a step back, he crossed his arms and waited, listening to the muffled grunts and curses, followed by a few seconds of silence before one of them kicked the door open.

Julian stood, unmoving; as soon as they began to enter the apartment he said, “You are extremely rude people.” He removed his sunglasses.

The one who couldn’t move fast enough to get out with the others wet himself, tears coursing down his face.

Julian took a step closer, bent down and whispered, “Go.”

His mouth open in a soundless scream, the man pulled himself from the room.

Julian followed him out, watching him crawl away along the hall, and all but fall down the stairs. The others were already long gone. He returned to his apartment, closing the door, noticing that the jamb was damaged. Not that it mattered. What did matter, at least for the moment, was the wet stain on his carpet.

“That’s disgusting.” He made a face, loath to have to clean it up, but what else did he have on his schedule? He stepped over it and went into the kitchen to get some paper towels and the liquid cleanser.

YOU DID QUITE WELL, JULIAN.

He stopped, then slowly turned around. The voice had been in his head, not his ears, and he had no idea what to expect, but somehow wasn’t frightened.

A man of approximately the same height as himself stood at the kitchen door. He was wearing sunglasses, too, and was giving Julian a closed-mouth smile.

“In what way did I do well?”

YOU CONTROLLED YOUR STRENGTH AND DID ALL YOU COULD TO AVOID VIOLENCE. YOU HAVE SPENT YOUR TIME PRODUCTIVELY, IT SEEMS.

“My time? You mean the past three years?”

YES.

“How have I spent it ‘productively?’ By not turning into a psychopath? I’ve been living in some version of hell, and quite frankly, I don’t feel like I’ve accomplished much of anything.”

BUT YOU HAVE, JULIAN. YOU‟VE LEARNED TO DIRECT YOUR THOUGHTS, TO KEEP THEM IN LINE. YOU HAVE RETAINED YOUR SANITY EVEN IF YOU THINK THIS IS ALL AN INSANE DREAM. YOU HAVE SUCCEEDED, AND NOW YOU’RE READY TO TAKE THE NEXT STEP.

“Great. Well, I’m not stepping anywhere until I get some kind of explanation. I want to know why I’ve changed and how it happened. I’d also like to know who in the world you are, and why you can talk in my head like that. And what’s wrong with my eyes? Please – I think I’d give just about anything to have those answers right now.”

The man’s smile broadened. YOU HAVE BECOME ONE OF US.

“One of. . .”

The man reached up and removed his sunglasses, and the room was bathed in pure white light. From the corners of his smile, points of light emanated like lasers. THIS OUTWARD MATERIAL THAT IN HUMANS IS CALLED SKIN IS NO MORE THAN A KIND OF SUIT. IT WRAPS MY TRUE NATURE IN SOMETHING COMPREHENSIBLE TO THE HUMAN MIND. THROUGHOUT THE AGES, MEN AND WOMEN OF YOUR WORLD HAVE CAUGHT GLIMPSES OF US, AND SOME EVEN WROTE STORIES OR MADE MOVIES ABOUT US, THINKING WE WERE JUST CHARACTERS THEIR IMAGINATIONS HAD MADE UP, OR THAT WE WERE THE EXPLANATION FOR SOME OF THEIR OLDER VOLUMES OF KNOWLEDGE.

Julian was stunned. Was this what he’d been waiting for all this time? Was this the answer at last? Or maybe he had slipped at last into total insanity. “Were – were you ever human?”

SOME OF US. OTHERS, LIKE ME, WERE NOT.

“What do you want, and why was I turned into whatever I am right now? And by the way, I am not at all happy about any of this. It’s been awful, and I’d like my own life back, especially since there seemed to have been a glaring lack of free will involved here.” Julian raised an eyebrow, congratulating himself for controlling the wild hysteria he could feel welling up inside.

The man-like creature almost looked sad for a moment. THERE ARE MANY THINGS I CAN TEACH YOU AND GIVE YOU TO HELP WITH YOUR NEW LIFE, BUT THE OLD ONE IS THE ONLY THING YOU MAY NEVER HAVE AGAIN. I AM SORRY. BUT I BELIEVE THAT ONCE YOU KNOW THE ANSWERS TO YOUR OTHER QUESTIONS, YOU WILL BE ABLE TO UNDERSTAND AND ACCEPT THIS.

Julian nodded, devastated at the death of his long-held hope. “That hurts. But whatever.” He went to the window and looked down at the street for a moment for no reason except that it was something to do. “Will you be taking me anywhere?”

1. ALL I NEED TO TELL YOU, I CAN TELL YOU RIGHT HERE. YOU ARE FIRST OF FOUR WHO HAVE BEEN CALLED TO HELP THIS GENERATION, SO YOU MUST LEARN A GREAT DEAL IN ORDER TO HELP THE OTHERS ADAPT. BECAUSE YOU WILL LEAD THEM, YOU NEEDED TO BE LEFT ALONE ALL THIS TIME IN ORDER TO GROW STRONG FROM THE INSIDE WHILE WE MADE YOU STRONGER ON THE OUTSIDE.

“Where are these others?” One thing at a time…deal with the rest of what this creature said later.

YOU MUST FIND THEM YOURSELF. WE CAN GIVE YOU A GENERAL HINT, BUT PART OF THIS CALLING INVOLVES A JOURNEY, ONE ON WHICH YOU MUST LEAVE SOON, AND WHICH WILL BE OVER WHEN THE LAST OF THE OTHERS IS FOUND.

“Great. Could you be any more cryptic?”

I COULD, BUT I WON’T. PLEASE BE STILL NOW AS I TELL YOU THE OTHER THINGS YOU WANTED TO KNOW, AS WELL AS A GREAT NUMBER OF THINGS YOU WILL NEED TO KNOW.

Julian went to the sofa and settled back; the creature in the man-suit pulled up a chair and sat opposite, then began to fill the young man’s mind with knowledge.

How long this took, Julian couldn’t have said, nor did he care. Because when the flow of information finally stopped and understanding began, he did something he hadn’t done in three long years – he smiled. Then he leaned his head back, letting his eyelids fall over his strange, new interior, and allowed himself to make logical sense of all he’d heard, all he’d been shown, to see how he now fit into the schemes of life.

He had a purpose, it seemed, one he never could have imagined, but it pleased him. He was no longer Julian Rousseau, wannabe rock star from New Orleans, whose Cajun family had a big problem with his ambition because it severed him from his blue-grass roots. But since he was no longer himself, his roots no longer mattered, either. He was free for the first time in his life, and from his life as well, since what energized him now was not by any stretch of the imagination human. He had no organs, no blood, no bones – just a life force made entirely of intense, intelligent energy. It moved his new body at his command, because he had retained every thought, every memory he’d ever had. He was still a sentient being, one capable of great emotion, yet never again to be ruled by it. He was powerful and indestructible; the outer shell could be destroyed, but what it contained could not, and a new shell could always be made to replace the other should something happen to it.

“I’m a living comic-book superhero,” he told himself, chuckling. Yes, he could laugh now, too, and in fact always could, but during the three years of ceaseless torment, he’d found no desire or cause for it. Now he did.

And there was so much to consider, so much to grasp! He never saw the other being leave, even though he felt its sudden absence; he was too engrossed in putting the pieces together to pay much attention to the creature’s departure, and knew that he didn’t have to anyway. His only responsibility at the moment was to fully comprehend and apply his new knowledge to his conscience, to his foundational understanding of right and wrong, and recognize how, where, when and why he fit into all that.

A week later, Julian stood up, packed a few things into a single suitcase, put on his sunglasses, and left his apartment. If the FBI was going to send anyone else, they had run out of time to do so. He had a journey ahead of him; his new awareness would be his compass, his map, and he would find those others who, like he, had been changed. Once found, they would be unified into a kind of brotherhood and instruct them as to their new purpose and helped to adjust. The being had told him it wouldn’t be easy – neither the search, nor the reaction once he’d found each of them – but at least he could deal with the questions. And because he was still capable of experiencing emotion, they would have his empathy and compassion.

Before leaving, he tacked a note to the door for Rémy:

 

“My dear friend, I have finally been given answers. I know who and what I am, and I know what I am to do and why. The FBI was here looking for me, which is why I didn’t call – I told them nothing about you, and would like them to remain ignorant. We may never meet again, mon ami, but I shall never forget you or your precious friendship. Perhaps I will one day have the time to seek you out, but who knows? I can only thank you for all you’ve done, for your tireless efforts to help me in my darkest time. For this, I promise you will be rewarded.

Always your friend,

Julian.

 

The rent had been paid through the end of the next month, and since the landlord was already accustomed to his reclusive life, Julian wasn’t worried that anyone would wonder that he hadn’t been seen for a long time – except, perhaps, the FBI, but he rather thought they’d continue to stay away, at least for a while longer.

The sun felt neither good nor bad on his unusual version of skin, and he knew that if he took off his sunglasses, he could look directly into it with no ill effects. This made him smile. His suitcase felt weightless in his hand as he started walking.

It was good to be super-alive.

DAY 26

 

Almost a month has passed. I’ve begun to calm down, having accepted the horrible possibility that this change is permanent. Looking back at my other Journal entries between Day 1 and now, I realize I’ve spent entirely too much time freaking out and almost none figuring out what to do. I noticed a change in my eyes this morning and nearly went hysterical again, but I’m learning how to control my reactions. So now there are strange sparks there, and black spots in the white part of my eyes, I’d better start wearing sunglasses on the rare occasions when I go out.

Ronnie finally gave up on me, I think. I haven’t gotten a single call from him for the past two days; as I’ve mentioned before, I was getting a minimum of six calls and ten text messages from him every day. I really wish I could tell him what’s going on, why I just can’t see him again. I keep texting back and telling him it isn’t his fault, that it has nothing to do with him, that I’m not seeing someone else. But you know, if I were being honest here, I’d have to admit that our relationship had no future anyway. He’s too metropolitan for me.

I used to think I was born without the sophistication gene. Ha! Now I have to wonder if I even have genes any more. And now I’m babbling on paper. Well, it’s infinitely preferable to babbling out loud. I mean, I can actually feel the small pocket located somewhere behind my vocal cords every time I draw in breath to speak. It’s not a pleasant feeling, either. There’s something in there – not lungs – that enables me to suck the air in, but I have no idea what it is. And I’m still taking showers. How stupid. As I noted on Day 6, nothing sticks to this new skin – not dirt, not soap, not even water (figured that one out on Day 1!). But it’s something to do and makes me feel a little less alien.

Anyway, it’s time for me to move again. Some loser came up to me in the parking lot when I went out to get a map from the car, and when I pushed him away, he flew about 10 feet and slammed into the side of some soccer mom’s SUV. What am I? I’m still asking that question, and still have no answers.

THREE

 

She was still screaming. She’d been doing that since early morning, and now it was late evening. Her throat was raw, but not as horribly as it should have been, only she was too mindlessly terrified to wonder about that. The small house seemed to vibrate with the sound, while outside, birds had been startled away, the ground creatures burrowing into their dens with trepidation. She had no way of knowing any of this, yet somehow she did.

Occasionally, a bout of tearless sobbing would interrupt her screams, but then she’d look down at her arms and start again. They were not her arms; her legs were not hers, either, and when she looked into the mirror, she nearly went insane.

The night before had been normal, maybe even more peaceful than usual because of the beauty the sunlight had given during the hours before it. She’d gone to bed smiling, wishing fervently that the next day would be as glorious. And then she’d awoken to another grey sky, and the sudden realization that she wasn’t breathing.

Samantha had sat up quickly, one hand to her chest, unable to feel a heartbeat. Two fingers on her jugular failed to produce a pulse that would indicat life. As for the touch of her own skin – it wasn’t her own skin. It felt like something artificial, room- temperature, too smooth.

And she still wasn’t breathing, nor did she feel any primal urge to do so. Yanking back the covers, she had stared down at herself (being so totally alone out in the woods, she never wore anything to bed) and realized that she wasn’t looking at her own body. Too smooth, too strange.

As an experiment, she’d inhaled. Well, that had worked, but when she exhaled, it wasn’t to breathe but to make a sound, a sound that quickly turned into a long, terror-filled scream. Not caring if this horrible sound brought anybody to check on her, she had wandered around stark naked, going to the windows and screaming up at the dull, impassive sky, sitting at the table and screaming at the sight of her own hands, wandering briefly outside to scream at the trees.

What had happened? She had been so normal – physically, anyway – eight hours earlier. Her confusion went so deep, she had eventually stopped thinking altogether, had stopped asking questions, including “why?” and “how?” and had sunk down by one of the casements, huddled on the floor, and kept screaming.

But now she had decided to stop. Not because she was tired, worn out, hungry, thirsty, or any of the usual reasons why someone would stop behaving in such an exhausting way. She didn’t know why. But when she did, the silence pulsed in her ears, and she stood.

“What am I?” Her voice sounded and felt normal despite the screaming. Of course it did. “What happened to me?” She frowned and decided to take another look in the mirror, determined this time to stay steady in her mind. Maybe this wasn’t such an awful thing, she told herself.

As someone with a lively imagination, she was able, now that she was no longer hysterical, to consider the possibilities. This ability to find the brighter side of things had kept her from giving in to the self-loathing and doubt that might so easily have been caused by the negative way people reacted to her throughout her twenty-one years of life. So she lit one of the lamps and carried it into the small room that held her bathtub, sink, toilet, and mirrored medicine cabinet. Something else to think about was how, when she stood still in front of the mirror, the way she wasn’t moving looked…unnatural. Like she was staring at a photograph rather than a reflection.

Samantha had never been unattractive, a source of extreme annoyance to her family who felt that a girl as beautiful as she should be far more normal. As she gazed at herself, she found some comfort in her appearance for the simple reason that it hadn’t changed, but had only become more unreal. No more pores, she noticed. That was good. Her short-cropped, thick auburn hair shone with golden highlights in the lamp’s mellow light, just as it did in the sun. She had large, wide-set almond-shaped eyes that a friend of her mother’s had described as Wedgwood blue, an attractive nose, full, sensuous lips that stretched into a lovely smile over perfect teeth. High cheekbones and a softly rounded chin gave her a somewhat elfin look, as did her slender form. She was long-waisted, curvy in all the right places, her legs long, slim, and muscular in a feminine way.

All of which was nice because she’d never had to deal with improving her looks, only now it seemed something was doing exactly that. As she stared, she began to notice that she was no longer freckled on the part of herself that she could see, and when she looked back up at her face, realized that slight, asymmetric difference of her nostrils was gone, fixed, as was the tiny shape inconsistency of her eyes.

Had she been able to gasp, she would have, especially when she looked downward again and saw that her breasts were now perfectly even and the same. She took in enough air to mutter, “Oh, my!” And despite her earlier terror, confusion and despair, she smiled. She took in some more air. “Well, Samantha,” she told her reflection, “look at you! You’re gorgeous!”

The smile became a grin, and she danced away from the mirror, feeling magnificent, light, close to weightless. As she whirled into the next room, she realized that she’d left the lamp in the bathroom, only...

“I can see in the dark? Ah! I can see in the dark! Yesssss!!!! Oh, yes, oh, yes, oh, yes!” She took in a little more air than previously and let herself laugh. This was wonderful! She could save on lamp oil and candles, and her electric bill would be non-existent! she thought, giddy with new joy.

Out into the woodland night she twirled, danced with the fireflies, did a few cartwheels, and not once got dizzy, weary, or even a little woeful. Something miraculous had happened to her – why her, she couldn’t have said, but she was grateful indeed. Raising her arms and face to the clouds she shouted, “Thank you! Thank you! I am yours to command!”

Samantha laughed again and sat on her rock, happy, to consider her own words. A tiny frown appeared between now-perfect eyebrows and she began to wonder who or what had given her this gift, and what whoever or whatever it was might want in return. Well, as long as it was nothing evil, she was all right with it, she decided. And if it were evil, why, she’d just tell the Whatever to take it back.

Her thoughts ran on this way for a long time, and it wasn’t until she heard birdsong again that she realized the night was gone and another day had awakened. Everything was as clear to her vision as it had been during the night, and as she stood, she shook her head in wonder. Walking back to the cottage, she considered having some breakfast, but by the time she reached the door, it had struck her that she wasn’t in the least bit hungry.

“I should be, though,” she muttered as she went inside. “And really, I should put something on.” Despite her solitude, she’d never gone for so long without clothing, and it made her wonder if this might not be yet another side-effect of whatever change had taken place – the need to dress was no longer there. She did anyway, in case someone happened to come by. Her personal weirdness seemed to have hit an all-time high, but there was no need to flaunt it in everyone’s face, she told herself with a happy giggle.

One of her favorite items – a long, gauzy dress that was form-fitting from her ribs to her hips, flowing out the rest of the way to her ankles, was her immediate choice. The same blue as her eyes, the gauzy top layer covered a white under-dress, also of soft gauze, giving it a crystalline look. Cap sleeves that moved like tissue and a loosely folded, relaxed bodice made it comfortable in a kind of delicious, decadent way. She added a slender necklace of fine silver chains from which was suspended a silver crescent moon. The dress was her only concession to normalcy, and she refused to put on any undergarments.

She swirled around once, liking the way it moved with nothing between the gauzy material and her new and incredibly smooth skin. “This is beyond lovely!” She went outside with a pad of fresh paper and her pen, sat down on the rock, and closed her eyes.

Something in her told her she was no longer alive in the conventional sense, but rather than be bothered by it, she rejoiced that she was alive in a different, better way. In fact, the way she was feeling, life as she’d always understood it seemed like a slow death. Samantha was more than alive in this form than she’d ever been in the other.

Ideas began to come into her mind, and with a huge smile of indescribable happiness, she began to write.

OBSERVATIONS AND FOUR

DID YOU KNOW SHE WAS GOING TO REACT THIS WAY?

NOT REALLY. I SUSPECTED AS MUCH, THOUGH. SHE WAS ALREADY VERY DIFFERENT FROM OTHER HUMANS.

YES, SHE CERTAINLY IS. LOOKS LIKE WE HAVE VERY LITTLE WORK TO DO HERE.

IN A WAY, BUT...YOU DO KNOW THAT SHE’LL BE DIFFERENT THAN THE OTHER THREE, YES.

1. SHE’S THE MEDIATOR, THEN.

THAT’S RIGHT.

SO HER EYES CAN LOOK HUMAN WHENEVER SHE NEEDS THEM TO, AND SHE’LL HAVE MORE IMMEDIATE CONTROL OVER HER STRENGTH, HER EMOTIONS, AND HER THOUGHTS.

FASCINATING. I’M SO GLAD HER TERRIBLE STATE OF UPSET ONLY LASTED ONE OF THEIR DAYS.

YES. AND NOW HER STATE OF CLARITY AND GOODNESS WILL LAST FOREVER.

 

*******

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Texte: The content of this book is the exclusive property of the author, who holds the copyright of this work of fiction.
Tag der Veröffentlichung: 14.05.2011

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