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bluepenguinstories · 8 months

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Remoras Full Chapter LXXXI: Human After All

My week was spent with Tigershark after she came home Sunday night. I wanted to say that nothing went wrong during that week, other than the difficulties that came with communicating with 10 and 11-year-old children. As in, what I was supposed to be counted as.

Gardening with grandpa helped teach me about the importance of maintaining a healthy environment for flora. Watering, fertilizer, where seeds should be planted. Cooking with grandma helped teach me the importance of planning ahead, following recipes, and what ingredients go well with what.

I’d like to say I knew a little more about gardening than Tigershark, but she probably still had me beat on cooking.

“Boof!” Fetch liked to make those noises sometimes. They were different than a ‘woof’ or a ‘whoo’ or a ‘arf’ sound. Fetch didn’t make ‘arf’ sounds, as ‘arf’ sounds were reserved for smaller dogs, unless those smaller dogs had laryngitis or even bronchitis (I knew about those things, generally speaking).

As for Tigershark, we...or, I, felt the distance setting in. We didn’t walk as close. We didn’t hang out as much during lunch or recess. I had Celeste, and made friends with another, Ronnie. Tigershark had Hammond, and recently met a girl named Rhubarb. We had our groups, and that was fine. At least we still spent plenty of time together at home.

Really, as much as the distance might have pained me (had I felt pain for anything), it felt rather normal. That’s what life was starting to feel like in general: nothing magical, just school, home, school, home, ad nauseam.

That was the most painful of all: how ordinary it all had become. I had not long ago worried that I had run out of anything interesting to discover. That ambiguity has run its course and I was stuck having to face absolutes.

No, that wasn’t fair; there were always many ways things could have gone.

That things had gone more or less in my favor from the start wasn’t a coincidence, but there was still wiggle room where events could have gone any number of ways. That was the problem, wasn’t it? My favor was also working against me. It always has, as I knew the universe was just as tricky as I, and just as well, didn’t take kindly to being tricked.

I understand now that’s what brought the distance between Tigershark and I.

We could see into each other’s heads, as we were connected, but I was still able to keep secrets of my own. And she knew it, too. Even if she didn’t know the cause, she no doubt felt my constant feeling of dread. That I would have to go soon.

Did I want to leave? No. But it was necessary in order to even things out with the universe. That’s what it all came down to, right?

Still, nothing like that happened.

The week passed as normal.

The dread didn’t end, but neither did the sense of normalcy. Both feelings battled for dominance over the other, and so far, neither had won out.

So Friday night, after playing some video games, Tigershark climbed up to the top bunk of the bunk bed. I put my Nintendo Switch away under my pillow.

“Goodnight, Tigershark,” I said into the ether.

“Goodnight Astraea,” she said back. She sounded exhausted. Maybe it was just being sleepy, but it could have just as likely have been from the wrestling club she recently joined (Hammond and Rhubarb were in that club as well, and in fact, that’s where Tigershark met Rhubarb).

I closed my eyes. I knew I wouldn’t sleep, as I never did, but I still wanted to try getting into the act. If I could one day understand the process, maybe I could have willed my way to sleep. Alas.

Instead, I thought about the week. How I could have made more precious memories. Left a stronger impression. Over the course of a week, or at least five or six days, it was possible to make many precious memories. Or at least one or two.

When I opened my eyes, I was met with total darkness. I tried standing up, but hit my head against a wall. As it turns out, I must have been inside some kind of box. Metallic, perhaps?

I felt around the walls in front of me.

Sturdy, cold. Definitely metallic.

I tried banging my fists against it. Whatever this place was, I just got the feeling that I was never meant to be there. I pounded away, but it didn’t seem to make so much of a dent.

My small, human fists with their small, human fingers throbbed and its flesh felt tender. If I could see, maybe I would have found them bruised. That wasn’t right, was it? That I was able to feel such pain.

But I already knew what that meant. I was beaten up already. I couldn’t find an explanation for the pain, but I figured, this must be how the universe does me in.

“Please. Please,” I bit my lip and begged. The pain on my fists was sharp and it burned. As if the very notion of having them attached to me was painful.

“This isn’t right. This isn’t how I should go. I should at least say goodbye, I –”

A latch clicked and I fell onto a bright, golden floor as the wall opened. I looked back: indeed, it had been a box. More like a large, leathery suitcase, but a box nonetheless.

“On the contrary. This is exactly how you should go,” crooned a slick voice. Though I had never heard him speak before, I met him several times. I knew him even before I was born. I looked up, past the box I had been stuffed in and saw him clad in a purple, three-piece suit: Aion Eterna.

He stood with a slanted, cold smile. After getting a good look at him, he walked back up the stairs of the stage and sat atop its edge, his legs folded. Behind him was a thick, red curtain.

I looked around and saw the bronze, marble pillars along the sides of the hall which stretched out to whatt I thought was an impossible distance. Behind the pillars were the back walls with their yellow bricks. That next led me to stare down at the floor, and that was when I noticed that the floor was not gold at all, but contained the same yellow bricks.

“How am I here?” I asked.

“Luck, mainly,” he rested his arm on his knee and spread out his palm. “You wouldn’t believe how easily this could have gone wrong. First, I traveled to the town your friend’s grandparents live with my own plane that I got stashed away. Just a small, private helicopter. Nothing fancy. I pretty much had five days to twiddle my thumbs. But I didn’t do that, did I?”

“Of course not. It’s not like you,” I felt a little more ease, but that was in spite of his presence, not because of it. “So go on.”

“As you wish. Next, I scoped out where you were staying at. It didn’t take me long to find it, and I passed by the window to your bedroom a few nights just to be sure. Do you know how uncomfortable that made me? Do you know the optics of an old man like me creeping in on a child’s room?”

“Have you ever felt discomfort?” I sure was uncomfortable, but that was a different matter.

“I wonder. So, Friday night, I had to pick through the lock on the window. I was lucky once again that the child in the room didn’t stir awake. You were, of course, awake, but your eyes were closed, and were they to have opened, I’m sure you wouldn’t have come willingly.”

“No. Even if I knew it was going to happen sooner or later.”

“You did? Of course you did. Really, I don’t know if that makes this easier or harder for me.”

“So what comes next? You stole me away in the middle of the night? But how could you have done that without me noticing?”

“Sedative. I injected one into your neck. It knocked you right out. The next day, you were deep in sleep. That child tried to wake you to tell you that she was going back up to see Ray, but you didn’t stir awake. So she wrote you a letter, because she still wanted to say goodbye, but she didn’t want to wake you. After she left, I had a short period where her grandparents wouldn’t check in on you. I crept back in, stole you away, and placed you in the box as I flew back here.”

“That shouldn’t be possible. I would have felt that. Not to mention, it shouldn’t have affected me. I can’t go numb and I can’t fall asleep.”

He drew a labored breath. As if he was the one who should have been exhausted.

“What ever gave you that idea?” He shook his head. “You were asleep before you even came to life.”

Those words didn’t sit well with me, but I couldn’t figure out why. It made sense, but at the same time, it left me with questions, how could I be asleep before being alive?

Ignoring the potential questions I had on that subject, I asked a separate one:

“Why did you bring me here?”

His mouth opened, almost to release a gasp, but he closed it again before he said:

“You already know the answer to that. I brought you here because you brought me here. I had my suspicion already, but meeting Cronus and traveling to the Hall of Memories confirmed it.”

My eyes widened with worry.

It really had worked in my favor. Both Rhea and Remora were alive. Nemesis lived, too. But I…

“I changed my mind,” I told him, “You can find another scheme to pull, but I’m done.”

He shook his head with his head down and a heavy frown placed upon him. He looked mournful, and maybe it was the first genuine emotion I ever felt from him.

“It doesn’t work that way.”

“I want to go home! I want to see grandma and grandpa again!”

“What home? The home you had no longer exists.”

“What do you mean? Did you do something to grandma and grandpa?”

“Not at all,” he closed his eyes. He still didn’t show any smile, “that was never your home. That was the child’s. Your home was in a secret base of operations, out in the stars. That base no longer exists. I’m sure you know why.”

Remora.

I didn’t have strong feelings about her, but I knew others cared about her. She should have thrived. For all the destruction she may have caused, she still deserved a life.

“I wouldn’t want to go back there, anyway! That place had nothing for me! I want to stay on Earth! I want to have friends and go to school! Life here is interesting!”

“Like it or not, you served a purpose there. Here, you are only a hindrance. I’m sure you’re aware of that, otherwise you wouldn’t have brought me here.

“Well…” I stuck out my tongue. “I don’t want you anymore! I never liked you, anyway! I’m leaving!”

He pressed his palm into his face.

“You’re welcome to try,” he mumbled.

“You’re not going to attack me?”

“Not yet.”

I eyed him, but he didn’t move. If push came to shove, I could always warp out of there. Going between past and present was as simple as walking forward or backward.

So I turned from him and walked forward. I managed to walk past the first set of pillars, but as I tried walking further, I hit a wall and fell back.

“Oww...my nose,” I rubbed it.

I looked ahead of me and still saw the rows of pillars and the hallway which should have led outside, but as I stood up and felt around, I found myself unable to walk any further.

“I have a bounded field set up,” he said from afar, “others may enter, but you’re stuck in here with me. Only I could bring it down.”

I stomped back toward him.

“So do it!”

He said nothing. Didn’t even shake his head.

“I can still warp out of here! You can’t stop me!” I yelled into his face.

But as I tried to close my eyes and focus, I found I couldn’t move. It was like my mind was blocked from thinking of any other place to go.

“It’s not like you’re powerless, but the barrier I erected has weakened you some,” he explained.

No. Maybe I wasn’t powerless. But I couldn’t imagine what power would help. I knew it would happen, I just never knew how, and I had been anticipating it for a while. I even wished for it.

“So why haven’t you killed me already?” I sat down next to the box I was smuggled in, “That is why you’re here, isn’t it? So go ahead and do it.”

He looked to his right, away from me, and bore an absentminded expression.

“I think I’m just hesitating. You have no idea how hard this is on me. I don’t enjoy killing, you know. I always have someone else do it for me. Even if it’s an easy task for me, it doesn’t bring me the same thrill that it does for others. It just feels wasteful. People are more useful alive than dead, and although you aren’t what I would consider a person, the act itself is the same.”

“If you’re this broken up about it, then why go through with it?” I scowled at him.

“Because unlike you, I don’t back out of a deal. I see it through to the end and just hope that there’s a silver lining. Usually, I come out on top, but I’m used to failure, as well. In big ways, too. But even then, I’ve had to accept the consequences and cut my losses.”

I pursed my lip.

So this is regret, I thought.

There was much more to regret, and would probably come to regret if I lived long enough to do so.

“Do you know what will happen when I do this? Ray and his friends will come to hate me. If I was never brought here to do this, I could have kept my mouth shut about my past affiliations. Maybe I could have made friends with some of them, but that time has long passed. I’ve made sure to act out the part of a villain so that it will at least soften the blow, but it doesn’t make this any easier; do you know how much I hate being in the spotlight?”

“I don’t care. You are a villain. That’s why I brought you here.”

He raised his head and his brows raised along with it.

“Do you really see me as a villain?” He asked.

“Yes. You’re my villain.”

“I read about the conversation you had with Marco. Still, I can’t help but be hurt. It may be true that I have no conscience, and no doubt, I’ve committed many heartless acts for my own gain, but why would you, who up until recently, had no concept of morality, see me as a villain?”

“You already know why.”

He nodded slowly.

“I suppose I do. I treated you like cattle and harvested you. Prevented you from having a life.”

He nodded again, this time faster, as if to the tune of a jazz song.

“I won’t apologize for that,” he shrugged his shoulders. “That was your purpose. That’s how you should have stayed.”

I don’t know what I expected. That he would be sorry? No. I knew better than that. Still, it ate at me.

We may have both been in this predicament, but he was going to ensure it was seen through and afterward, he would see it as another simple, heartless act. Meanwhile, I betrayed everyone who ever knew me. After all, it was my plan, not his. He just worked out the details.

Aion and I were connected in ways I could have never been connected to with Tigershark. In a Frankenstein sense, he and I were like father and daughter. Even if I came from the stars, that connection wouldn’t be severed. I knew I shouldn’t fear the end of Astraea; when it was time, I would return to the stars where I belonged.

Fear wasn’t in my nature. It wasn’t the emotion I was born as. If I was ever born at all.

“What emotion am I?” I asked. It occurred to me that I never did have a name for it. Only analogies, which didn’t do me any good in my predicament.

“I don’t know. Maybe that’s the point.”

He smiled now, and fished into the pocket of his suit until he pulled out a cigarette and lighter.

“Do you smoke?” He offered.

“I’m a kid.”

He scoffed.

“Suit yourself. But for the record, that form you’re wearing is just a matter of convenience for you. You’re much older than that, maybe almost as Ananke and I.”

“Shouldn’t I be older?”

“Aha, there you go.”

He flicked his lighter and held the cigarette between his teeth. They were awfully white, but also looked rotten in a way I would call a house void of bacteria. As he lit the cigarette, he kept his head turned away from me and blew out a cloud of smoke.

“Ah. You know, whenever I smoke, it’s like I’m putting a gun to my mouth. When I light it up, it’s like I’m pulling the trigger. But when I take a puff, I find that I’ve been shooting blanks this whole time. Do you know what I mean?”

“No.”

“These chemicals don’t seem to have an effect on me. The nicotine doesn’t have a hold over me, nor do any of the other substances they load into these things. It’s like the tar that should have covered my lungs fades away into dust every time. There’s no stimulating effect, either; I feel neither low nor high.”

“Don’t you only do things that are useful for you?”

“That’s a misconception: I’d rather do whatever I can make use of, but I don’t find killing you to be much use for me. As I said, I see deals through to the end. Some may see me as a handsome devil, but I really am Dr. Faust. Learn to accept the cards that have been dealt.”

“So why do you smoke, then?”

“Call it an oral fixation.”

“I don’t understand.”

He took another puff. I expected him to say more. To fill the silence. It fit his image, somehow, to keep talking just to hear himself talk. But he didn’t do any of those things. He just continued to take puff after puff, blowing smoke along the way.

Maybe it’s me that wants the silence to be filled, I thought.

My thoughts were answered with the voice of another. But it didn’t come from Aion.

ASTRAEA! It was a high-pitched call. I knew that call anywhere: Tigershark. Astraea, where did you go? Grandma and Grandpa said you weren’t at home, and they don’t know where you went! I’m back at the diner, so I can’t come back home, but please tell me you’re there!

I tried to block out any thoughts of my own. Whatever answer I gave would have brought harm to her.

Please answer! If you can hear this, please...just a hint. Anything. Where are you?

I couldn’t see her, but the voice that echoed in my head sounded close to tears. Even still, I knew better than to answer.

...It’s a golden? Yellow? Place. There’s pillars. I don’t know where at, exactly, I heard myself reply to her, as if against all warnings, my mind wouldn’t allow me to go without answering her.

Do I even have a mind? I wondered.

Of course you do! Um...golden place...I don’t know, but I’ll tell Ray what you said! Came Tigershark’s answer.

I was ready to curse myself out. I didn’t mean to ask her whether or not I had a mind.

Aion stood up and held the drained cigarette butt between his fingers. He walked over to the far wall of the stage, near the curtains, and walked behind them. It only took a few seconds before he emerged. He walked out with his cane.

“There’s an ashtray in the back. It’s bad manners to litter, you know,” he pointed his thumb behind him.

I nodded.

I needed no explanation, but there was a sort of mystery about what could have resided behind that curtain. Saying that could have been his way of humoring me.

More time passed. Whether a few minutes or an hour, it wasn’t clear. Only that there was silence between us in that time.

At last, his face contorted into a resolute expression. He unsheathed the blade that resided under his cane, and tossed the sheath aside.

“I’ve stalled long enough,” he stated with a flat tone. No sense of humor to him, nor a grave seriousness. It reminded me a little more of Rhea’s voice than Ray’s. How I wish he was either of them rather than who he was.

He leaped down from the stage and closed the distance between us. I backed away. I should have stayed still and accepted it, but my legs betrayed me, as if they still hoped there was some way of backing out.

Still, I was no fool: it would have only taken one swift strike for it all to end.

Before he could strike, I felt a sharp, black line, fly past me and in his direction. He held one hand over his face, caught the object between his index and middle finger, and I saw blood trickle down his hand from the space that held the object in place. His blood was red, but darkened, slick, and murky, to the point that it reminded me more of motor oil.

Between his fingers was a small, thin throwing knife.

Aion spread his lips into a toothy grin.

“Looks like I stalled too long,” he muttered, before looking past me and flicking the knife onto the floor.

“ASTRAEA!”

I turned my head and saw Tigershark running from afar, as well as Demetria, Remora, Ray, and Nemesis.

What are you all doing here? I wanted to shout, but I already knew the answer.

“So, Demetria, I presume?” He called out. “I heard about your exploits. You’ve pulled some amazing feats. However, seeing you now, I’m a little disappointed.”

“Ugh! I wish I paid better attention! I should have known you were trouble!” Demetria snarled, and her face was red and twisted in rage. She looked angrier than Nemesis who wasn’t far behind her.

“Yes, well, hindsight and all that,” he dismissed.

Ray tossed a rifle over to Remora. I knew it wasn’t her old, signature rifle. All the same, she readied it in Aion’s direction.

“You may have lived a long life, but you can still bleed,” Remora said, almost as if a warning.

“My poor, pitiful janitor,” his eyes fluttered as his lips lowered to a face of displeasure.

“Let her go and I’ll spare you.”

“Yeah! Let my friend go!” Tigershark shouted.

He chuckled.

“You are all so ridiculous, it hurts. Do you really think you can bargain with me? Be honest,” he began walking toward me once again, his cane-blade readied in one hand.

Remora took the shot.

It was over in an instant: one little swing of his cane-blade and the bullet landed on the floor.

“What? How can that be so?” Remora’s eyes darted between him and the floor.

“It’s not that I was fast. I just got lucky,” he explained. Before I could get any brief relief, his focus shifted back to me. A remote of sorts fell out from his left sleeve and I noticed many yellow buttons set against the dull gray that made up the remote.

Despite looking down, I could tell what he was about to say wasn’t meant for me:

“You know what they say about third time being the charm?”

He pressed one of the buttons.

“That’s why you’re not getting a third chance.”

Tigershark was the first to bump into the invisible wall. She fell over, and Nemesis helped her back up.

“What did you do?” I asked.

“Set up another bounded field, of course. This time in their direction. Now no one can come between us.”

“Why are you doing this?!” Tigershark cried.

“I think I stand for everyone when I say that we’d all like to know,” Ray joined in. “She’s a child. Powerless. Explain yourself. You owe us that much.”

Aion stopped. I continued to back away, and although I still wasn’t close to the others, I wasn’t far from being close, either.

“That’s where you’re wrong, Ray: this thing is not a child. Nor are they powerless. They are infinitely older and more powerful than anyone here,” Aion said.

“That’s my friend you’re talking about!” Tigershark shouted.

His gaze shifted toward her.

“That is not something you can be friends with. They are not human. Never were.”

“Yes she is!”

“No. Some have called the kind of creature this is a cosmic entity, while others have referred to them as angels. I find both to be too broad of statements. But what’s a better term? ‘Emotives’? No, that still doesn’t work.”

“I already know all that! She’s still my friend!” She began banging her hammer, the same one I once made for her, against the invisible wall. I knew it wouldn’t shatter. That was the worst part of all.

“Fine. It’s useless as it is to argue with a child, but let me try: you can consider yourself friends with this thing if you’d like, but you can’t befriend them the way a person can befriend a person. This thing is infinitely larger than you. If anything, if they see you as a friend at all, it’s in the same way that an owner would see their pet as a friend. You two were incompatible from the start.”

“That’s not true! It’s never been true!”

Aion raised an eyebrow.

“You were the one who tried to argue that angels weren’t evil. I can reason with that, actually: they have no concept of good or evil. They simply are. But there’s no doubt how dangerous they are. Their very existence is akin to a natural disaster. Tell me something: if you had a chance to stop a hurricane from happening, wouldn’t you take that chance?”

“I...I don’t know.”

“It’s true that natural disasters are dangerous, but they still play a vital role in our ecosystem. They’re as important to the world as anything else,” Ray cut in.

“Goddamn it, Ray. Can’t you wait your turn like a good boy?” He growled. Rather than return his attention to Tigershark, he changed over to Demetria. “And you, didn’t you say that if this creature hurt Tigershark, you would do anything in your power to kill them?”

Demetria clenched her fists.

“That...that may be so, but Tigershark is happy with her. Astraea hasn’t hurt her, or anyone. There’s no reason to go after something that means us no harm,” Demetria argued. “The only one who means harm here is you.”

“That’s where you’re wrong. Again. This being has brought harm to all of you this whole time. They’ve just been using surrogates. Cronus? That was all them. They brought Nemesis here, with the sole purpose of bringing harm to your precious Remora. They even brought me here for the purpose of bringing about more conflict. Don’t tell me those actions were harmless.”

“What?” Nemesis gasped. Demetria went silent.

“I didn’t mean to hurt anyone! I never wanted Cronus to exist!” I cried.

“But if it wasn’t for you, he wouldn’t have been a threat.”

“She didn’t know any better!” Tigershark shouted while continuing to pound her hammer against the wall.

“Irrelevant. Ideas of ‘good’ and ‘evil’ may not exist for ‘her’, but creating conflict is still in ‘her’ nature. Even if it worked out in the end, it’s not going to stop. It’s only going to grow bigger until this planet is no more. Do you really think ‘she’ can resist ‘her’ nature?”

“Yes! And I will help her!”

“Grow up,” he scoffed. “Learn to help yourself first.”

“So you fully intend to kill this angel?” Remora asked.

“Of course. I’ll do what you or Demetria couldn’t. Because I don’t have such sentimentality. Have you heard about one of the tests they did at witch trials? They would tie the witch to a log and throw her into the river. If she lived, she was a witch, and there may be no helping the townsfolk then. But if she died, she wasn’t a witch, and was instead human. Maybe an innocent life was taken and the ones who tied her up were now the evil ones, but at least the town was safe. It’s not a method I agree with, especially one which is contingent on witches not being real. Because if they existed, well...there would be no saving those townsfolk.”

“So you intend to do something similar?”

He gave a solemn nod.

“Do you know the true purpose of the janitors?”

“We were tasked with defending from or eliminating any potential threat to humanity.”

“Broad strokes. Over time, the original meaning and intention became blurred, but never truly erased. There was an external threat, discovered long ago: these celestial beings. That was the true threat to humanity.”

“I get that. Our weapons were created to harm byproducts of them or people who were infected, even possessed by them. Most of us never encountered one, but we all heard about them. But we all knew that we couldn’t harm the actual thing.”

“Those weapons were merely experiments as it was. It was theorized once that an angel could be harmed by using one of their parts against them. As it turns out, the weapons made from their parts could harm their creations, but it still couldn’t harm the main body.”

“So what makes you think your effort will be any different?”

“Because my weapon is like the opposite: I can kill an angel at their source, but I cannot kill their byproducts. I tested it out once before, as the angel of anger is no more, yet I couldn’t keep the damn thing from procreating. Anger still lives on through its offspring. I just have to accept that the universe is a safer place, even if its influence is still vast.”

“What if you’re wrong, then? What if Astraea isn’t the main body, but another byproduct? Then all this scheming, all this effort –”

“All these questions. Does nobody ever trust the method? This is the main body. It’s only condensed down and contorted until it took the shape of a little girl. But within that imitation human lies an endless web. Some would call it the cosmos itself.”

Something welled up in me.

It was a feeling of how wrong everything was.

Not just everything, but everyone, and that included myself. I should have agreed with him, that I had this vast power. That I was dangerous. That I deserved to be taken out. But I also wanted to be friends with Tigershark. I still wanted to experience the life of a human, no matter how mundane or ordinary. Taking that away…

It didn’t matter. Because I already knew what I was.

“SOMEONE! HELP ME!” Tigershark yelled and the others joined in banging at the wall. Demetria used her scythe, Remora used her pole, Nemesis had her curved sword. They were all trying to save this thing that should have disgusted them.

I turned, looked Tigershark in the eye.

“I’m sorry. For everything,” I said to her. My voice was choked up. My mouth was dry. All of it was wrong because I shouldn’t have known what it meant to be choked up, nor should my mouth had dried.

“Don’t say that! We’ll get you out of here!” Tigershark pleaded. Tears began to take form around the lids of her eyes.

“Do you have any last words?” Aion asked, his blade pointed in my direction.

“Yes,” I nodded. This time with a smile on my face. I should have had enough power. I didn’t know why any of them were panicking. I could form a barrier of my own. I could still block his attack.

I held my hands out in front of me.

“I’m not what you think I am. I’m not an angel after all,” I recited.

“Oh really? And what are you?” He readied his blade and ran toward me. If I had any power left in me, I could do this, it would…

...pass right through my hands and into my chest.

I felt the poke before it went in. Sharp, heavy.

I didn’t scream, I only gasped as the air escaped me.

Looking down, I noticed the blood drip onto my white dress, staining it. Worse, it seeped onto his blade and slid from there as well. My vision began to blur, and my eyes were having trouble staying open. Everything felt slow, fast, heavy, weightless. Numb. Feeling only pain.

“NO!” Tigershark screamed.

A streak of tears ran down my face, and I uttered what would be my last words:

“I’m human.”

Amen.

#writing #stories #remoras full #fiction #tigershark #astraea #human

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