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My guess is the latter.
“Welcome to my life,” I quip.
A tiny smirk touches the edges of his cut lips. “Touché.”
Once, many years ago, when I lived at one of the human camps outside of the city, my parents secured us a television and DVD player. We had limited electricity, but the council in charge agreed that a movie marathon would boost our morale. We all snuggled up on ratty couches and old armchairs, snacking on whatever food we could find as we watched movie after movie.
One was about a mermaid who was desperate to get legs and walk. Another had a tiny green monster with pointed ears and a strange voice, green and red light-up swords, and a villain who had asthma or something. A third was about a girl who went from a black and white world to a colorful one, all whilefollowing a yellow brick road and gathering her own menagerie of monsters.
But the last… The last was some apocalyptic movie that was quickly turned off when some of the kids started to cry.
This subway station reminds me of that movie.
It’s strange to think how reality superimposed itself over someone’s imagination.
Everything is crusted in dirt and covered in graffiti that has already begun to fade. Animal carcasses litter the ground, and I can’t help but wonder ifallof the yellowing bones are animals. Some look a little too big…
An abandoned train sits on the track, the doors open and the windows shattered to reveal an interior covered in spiderwebs, trash, and bugs.
On a cracked bench, directly opposite the subway car, is a tiny doll that appears to have been relatively unperturbed, even as the world went to hell around it. Its cherubic face has a single crack running down its right cheek, and its hair is matted and stained brown with dirt. I can’t look away from the horrifying sight.
What is the story behind this solitary doll?
Who was its owner?
What happened to him or her?
“Aliana? Are you okay?” Em places a hand on my shoulder, and the heat from his touch steadily drives the cold away.
It takes a solid ten seconds for my fingers and toes to start prickling as they regain sensation and for my joints to unthaw.
I quickly move away from Em as if his touch burned me.
I shouldn’t be taking comfort from the likes ofhim. Even though I kissed him/Chase, that was just relief. That was just impulsive foolishness. It was a solitary moment, one that I won’t be stupid enough to repeat.
“Yeah. I’m fine. Let’s get moving.” I jerk my chin towards the long expanse before us, an abyss of nothingness.
I curse myself for losing my light somewhere in the scuffle back at the meat factory, but perhaps one of my gemstones can produce?—
“Not all of us like the way it went down.” Em’s soft, almost raspy voice snaps my head up, stopping my thoughts in mid-sentence.
“Huh?” I swivel my head to look over at him instead of staring down the tunnel and trying to find the shaft of light I know will appear at the next set of subway stairs.
“The way the world ended.” Em’s bruised and blotchy face turns in my direction before immediately facing away, following the direction of my gaze down the tunnel. “Not all of us agreed that humans should be hunted down and slaughtered.”
“No.” I curl my upper lip. “You just thought that humans should be slaves for your enjoyment, right?”
Em scrubs a shaky, bloody hand through his golden hair. “Fuck, you really think the worst of me, don’t you?”
“You haven’t really given me a reason to think the best.” I shrug, trying to ignore the erratic pitter-patter of my heart. The more he speaks, the tighter the anxiety in my chest coils until I fear it’s going to burst.
“I deserve that.” Em nods seriously, his gaze still faraway and distant, glued on something in the periphery that I’m unable to see. “But you have to remember that I wasoncehuman.”
“You don’t remember your human life,” I counter immediately.
“No. You’re right.” He scratches absently at the inside of his wrist, his fingernails digging in deeply enough to draw blood. “I don’t think I ever had any real attachments when I was human. No family I loved above anyone or anything else. No girlfriend I cared about. No friends. I feel as if I would’ve remembered them once I died.” His gaze slides to me and stays there, stealing all of the oxygen out of the tunnel. “I definitely would’ve remembered you.”
My heart thumps erratically. “So what are you trying to say, Em? That you’re not like the other monsters because you were once human? That you value and respect humans? That you think of them as equals?”
