Only Human

by Maria Bradley

He has cut the straps and I still can’t move; my limbs are weak and limp and they won’t do what I tell them. He is on a kind of ladder; I couldn’t see that before, I must have been suspended, high up in the warehouse. I want to reach up and claw at his face, but I can’t. I will kill him, but not now. I can’t see him anymore, it is dark, and I am sinking into dark and peace. What is that lovely, fresh smell? My face feels warm and glowing and it is bright, brighter than I have ever seen before. I know where this must be friend, there is no pain and I am happy because I am waking up in heaven.

  Someone is holding my hand and talking to me. It is my Uncle Rauul; dear, sweet and kind, Uncle Rauul. I am so glad he is here with me in heaven.

  ‘Aecia, darling child. You are okay now, and you are safe with us. No-one will hurt you.’

  I think I will just sleep a little longer and rest. I am so tired still, but I am not afraid anymore and when I awake I will hug my uncle, and I will never let go.

  Chapter Five

  THE HONEYCOMB CAVES

  It is dark now and I am afraid to open my eyes. Someone is murmuring quite near me but so quietly, almost a whisper. Someone else is answering just as quietly. My mind is clearer than it has been for a long time, and I remember some of the real nightmare that has been my life for the past few nights.

  I know that I was captured, that Garok gained my trust, and even my love, before betraying me and handing me over to the Vampires on a plate. I remember the pungent smell of human blood in the factory where I was strung up, and the relief I felt when I thought that death was near.

  I remember you, my best friend Amica, you wouldn’t let me give up, you made me stay alive, and I know now, that whatever happens next I am going to embrace the fact that I am human! I can’t live a lie anymore, and pretend to be something I now loathe and despise; Vampire! I am not timid Aecia, the weirdo, whose greatest wish was to be invisible. I am Aecia the human, and I will build my life on that truth!

  ‘Aecia.’

  A warm hand has taken my hand, a warm hand! It must belong to a human being, but who is it? I don’t recognise the voice.

  ‘Aecia, open your eyes luvie, you are amongst friends.’

  I am looking at a person I have never seen before. There are lines on her face, but her eyes are bright, not blue or green but somewhere in-between. She is wearing what looks like a smock dress made out of sack cloth, crude and roughly sown.

  ‘Hallo Aecia, my name is Anne. It is so nice to meet you at last. We have been worried that you didn’t want to survive.’

  There are more people, a group of five or six crouched in the corner of wherever we are. Whatever they are doing over there, it smell’s delicious!

  ‘Come, meet the others, you must be hungry and we are about to have some stew.’

  My desire to know what the hell is going on is far outweighed by my desire for whatever they are stirring in that cauldron. My mouth is watering, I am practically drooling here.

  ‘You are starving child, here eat, we have plenty today, No three and six, caught some rabbits.’

  Animals, of course, we must be in the barren lands. Rabbits, my heart is protesting that I am about to eat cute, lovable animals, but I’m afraid my stomach has no such morals. I am taking the proffered bowl of stew with gratitude.

  OMG Amica! This is what Humans mean by Heaven, never mind the daylight! It’s like eating little miracles off a spoon! My bowl is empty and Anne is immediately refilling it and her own. There is silence now, except for the spoons scraping the bowls, as we all partake in this stupendously delicious stew.

  Anne has handed me some water in a plastic tumbler, and it too

  is delicious, sweeter and purer than any tap water I have ever tasted.

  ‘It is from the spring and full of minerals, it will help strengthen and revive you.’

  Now that my hunger and thirst have been satisfied I am full of curiosity, so many questions that I don’t know where to start. ‘Where are we and who are you, and all these other people?’

  They are all looking at me now, as if I have asked the questions they also want the answers to. Only Anne seems to know exactly what is going on. One thing is clear to me, everyone here is human, not a fang in sight! Anne is addressing us all.

  ‘Welcome all of you, I know you must be confused, and to be honest I am just getting to grips with what is going on myself, but I will tell you what I know. We are in the barren lands, so called by the Vampires who consider any area without a Clone farm to be barren. As you can see this is not the case for Humans. From what I have seen since I have arrived here, I would call this place a paradise.’

  As she is speaking, my eyes are adjusting to the dim lamplight in the room, and I can see the expressions on the faces of the other people. Their eyes are like the eyes of a newborn child. There is no knowledge there, no recognition, but there is desire, yearning, they want to know. I am beginning to understand who and what they are; could I be right? Are they Clones? Anne is still speaking. ‘I have lived in the Vampire world since I was born, but I am not Vampire. My parents concealed me in the basement of our house for many years until I was discovered. They were executed and I was farmed. I was 23 years old then, I don’t know how long ago that was.’

  ‘How did you escape the Clone farm? How did I escape the Clone farm?’

  ‘Your friend Garok and your uncle saved you, and these people with you.’

  ‘My friend GAROK! Are you frikken kidding me!! ?’

  I am on my feet now; with my head nearly touching the roof of what I have assumed is a cave. ‘He is the reason I was in the Clone farm! He is working for the Vampires! If he knows where we are, we are all dead! Don’t you see?’

  I must do something, get them all out quickly, and we can find somewhere else to hide. I will help them. ‘Hurry! Come on!’

  Why won’t they move? Who are they looking at now? Has someone else come into the cave?

  Even as I turn around to face the entrance of the cave, I have an idea of who is standing there. There are glimpses of jumbled memories flashing through my mind which tell me Garok was there when I was released, but I don’t understand. He is the reason I longed for death. The reason my mother and father are either dead, or in agony somewhere. All of my clan must be starving, or burned into a mountain of ash. I won’t forgive all that! It is too late!

  He is standing there, just looking at me as if waiting for me to speak. There must be a knife in this cave, surely. Amica, look for a knife and give it to me, and I will cut his heart from his body! I am poised, ready to strike, and he is just standing there, still waiting for me to speak.

  ‘Aecia, I…’

  His voice infuriates me more, I am on him now, punching and kicking and hurting. For the pain of my mother and father, my clan, my life!

  ‘Aecia stop!’

  Anne has hold of my arms, ‘Look, Look what you are doing to them.’

  The Clones are in the farthest corner of the cave, they are huddled together and crying in terror. Oh no, I don’t want to hurt them, I rush to them, but they are shying away from me. ‘I am sorry, so sorry. I will stop; you are ok, you will be ok.’

  What kind of a monster am I, that I could frighten these innocents? My anger is melting into shame and I huddle next to them, with my head bent.

  When I next look up, Garok is gone and I am glad. I am not ready to hear his words, or his remorse. Maybe I never will be, but I do know that he is not a threat. Anne has explained that he is an outcast now, the same as the rest of us. She thinks the vamp’s had something over him; they blackmailed him somehow, and that’s what made him betray me. I don’t know and I don’t care. He is dead to me.

  I feel so weary, I want to sleep again, but my curiosity won’t allow it as yet.

  The Clones are the same, their eyes are half closed, with their heads nodding into sleep when they suddenly realise, and consciously force themselves awake again.

  I can’t begin to imagine what they have been through, or for how long eac
h one was subjected to it. They have no language whatsoever, but communicate with their hands and eyes, and it is possible to understand some of their gestures. I suppose it is logical that they would have no language; they were grown as adults and intravenously fed, at the same time as being drained of blood. That was it Amica, that was their existence; they must never have touched another living soul, plant or animal, the entire time!

  Anne is extremely fond of all of them, given the short time of two nights in which she has known them. Two nights friend, which is how long I have been here, slipping in and out of consciousness. The Clones were freed with me, and I believe more would have been rescued if they had had enough time and larger transportation.

  I still have so many questions, but I find it difficult to unravel and separate my thoughts. A side effect from the draining procedure maybe, or perhaps there were some kind of tranquilizing drugs in the intravenous food tube I was also attached to. I’m just going to rest for a while longer and see if I awake a little more lucid. I’m glad I have you to talk to or I believe I would certainly be in an even worse state of mind. Goodnight (or is it good morning) for now. X

  My Uncle is here, I am just waking up and it is such a comforting, familiar sound to wake up to! ‘Uncle!’

  I feel strong enough to give him his usual bear hug today, tonight, or whenever this is. It’s impossible to distinguish between night and day since I have been living in this cave. Uncle will clear out the flotsam in my mind and help me to finally understand exactly what has happened to me, Anne, and my Clone friends. Also my own family; I hardly dare to ask him, but I must. The agony of not knowing is worse than the sea of pain and guilt, I will surely be drowning in when I discover their fate.

  ‘Uncle, my mother and father? Oh and poor Zak? What has happened to them? Is there any way we can rescue them and bring them here? What has happened to the rest of the clan? Are they safe?’

  As I am speaking to him I can see that he has minor burns on his face, his skin is more yellow in colour, and his eyes are red rimmed, sore, as if he had been crying. What did they do to him? I can feel the flame of anger that I never knew existed within me, begin to inflame my soul, but before I can explode my uncle takes my hand.

  ‘Calm yourself child, I am fine; the whereabouts of your parents, Zak, and some of our clan are unknown as yet, but you will be the first to know.’

  ‘Some of our clan? Weren’t they all interrogated together? I thought when one member was criminalized or shamed, the rest of us bore the consequences, no exceptions!’

  ‘No exceptions, unless certain of our clan members decided to co-operate, and help the Elders find the answers to their questions!’

  ‘Gita!! That big nosed bitch! She was always jealous of mother, I’d like to….’

  ‘Aecia! What has happened to your language? Don’t allow recent events to change you into someone hard. That is not you.’

  ‘No, it wasn’t but look where that got me? I have to change if I want to survive Uncle, and I want to survive. Yes I do, if only to wreak havoc on the Vampires that have hurt me and the people I love, for simply protecting me. I want them to pay.’

  ‘You have a lot to learn.’

  ‘Yes I do Uncle, and I want you to teach me, teach me how to kill the Elders and all the other Vampires that have enslaved the Humans. It is disgusting what they have done to us! Sick and barbaric!’

  ‘I am Vampire, will you kill me? Your mother and father? Zak? Your rage is blinding you child. If you seek revenge, then you must dig two graves, for Aecia will die as well as her victim. I will not help you to destroy yourself. I didn’t help Garok to rescue you for that.’

  Garok’s name being brought into the conversation is doing nothing to help the simmering volcano that is my emotional state at the moment.

  ‘Garok is a snivelling, lying barbarian and I hate him!’

  ‘You would still be at the Clone farm if it wasn’t for him! He came to me, not the other way around. His guardian is one of my colleagues, and part of our rebellion, of which you know nothing about as yet; he overheard my name, he could have been wrong, but he risked his life and asked for my help none-the-less. We hired a truck and broke in during daylight hours to rescue you, and as many as we could fit in the truck.’

  ‘But he tricked me Uncle, he gave me to them!’

  ‘He hasn’t told you? They had his sister; they threatened to torture her if he didn’t help to capture the children suspected of being human. He was forced to work for them.’

  ‘Is that how you received the burns on your face? You were out in the daylight?’

  ‘Yes, but don’t sidetrack from the issue of Garok! He is your friend. He is lost and alone, and carries so much guilt for his betrayal of you. He is also in mourning now for the loss of both his guardians and his sister!’

  ‘They are dead?’

  ‘Yes, they were Vampires and they were burned yesterday at sunrise; an example for all who dare to antagonize the Elders.’

  My uncle is looking at me with a mixture of fear, love and disappointment on his face. He wants the old Aecia back. She is gone forever, but he is right, I want to keep some of the goodness that was there. I don’t want to hate, but I’m just so confused and enraged by everything.

  The Clones have come over, and are sitting as close to my uncle as possible. They adore him, and it is heartwarming to see. Will my heart ever be warm again? I wonder, as I look at them. The one called Number One, (Anne and I plan to teach them their new names this evening), has come to sit next to me, and has linked my arm. She has crossed her legs to mirror how I am sitting. No hatred in her, just gratitude and love. Maybe I could learn something from her, and all the other Clones. I think Amica that I am going to have to try.

  Uncle has left me some writing paper and some pens. Not that I need it, I talk to you, with or without it, but I think it is important to document what is happening to all of us during this time. The world is changing again, and I should be honored to be a part of it. I am, but I am also frightened, and uncertain of the future.

  Blast, I didn’t even ask Uncle where he is hiding out. He must be a wanted man, and what was he saying about a rebellion?

  Wow! Number One has picked up a pen and a piece of paper. She is holding it wrong, I’ll just show her the right way. This is immense! She is drawing, trying to copy some of my writing. What if we can teach these Clones to write? Of course we can, we can teach them our language, to read and do maths. They copy everything we do already; they are children, ready to absorb everything we can teach them. This is how it starts! Where’s Anne? We’ve got a lot of work to do!!

  24.01.3012

  I have had the most fulfilling and purposeful day in my entire life today. Yes, I did say, day, and not, night, friend. The timetable of my life has done a complete about-turn. My days are in daylight and my nights are at night-time!

  Not a spectacular achievement for some, but to me; I am reborn! When I wake I can tell it is morning even with my eyes closed; the light shines through my eyelids and wakes up my brain, as good as any alarm clock! The zillions of birds I have discovered also play their part in the waking up procedure, their incessant chirping is surprisingly stimulating, and gives an even greater incentive to get out of bed, fill their beaks with bread, and shut them up! I am kidding; I have longed to live among animals, birds, fish, even insects. I want to experience everything the human world has to offer, but it’s just I wouldn’t mind experiencing the birdsong a little bit later than five o’ clock in the morning!

  Everything is drenched in colour when you live in daylight. Not just greens, blues and yellows and so on, but a million other shades within each colour. Each time I blink I open my eyes to myriads of new rainbows and my heart is filled with awe.

  It is so bright sometimes that my eyes begin to ache and I have to come into the cave for a while. Anne and the Clones are even more sensitive to all the changes in our living environment than I am. Anne had never left the basement except when s
he was put in the Clone farm, and the Clones, well they had never even moved before now! Uncle says our bodies will adapt over time; after all, this is our natural habitat, we were born to live this way.

  Oh, speaking of the Clones, I must tell you the names we have chosen for them.

  1. Orianna

  2. Leandra

  3. Sebastian

  4. Baran

  5. Lupe

  It looks really cold, the way that I have listed them there friend, they are not objects I know. It’s just easier for me to remember that way as my mind is still sluggish. Each name has a meaning and we have tried to suit the name to the person. For instance, Lupe means wolf and our little Lupe (the smallest female Clone) is ravenous all of the time, and doesn’t have a great many table manners!

  Leandra is like a lioness, Baran is a form of star, and Sebastian, I’m not sure of, but I think Anne just likes the name. I have named Orianna (formerly Number one) and her perfect name means, sunrise. I would pat myself on the back for that one, if my arms were long enough friend.

  I feel closer to Orianna than to anyone else here, even than to Anne. There is something in me that reaches out to her, and I presume she feels the same because she barely leaves my side. I haven’t a clue how old she is because it is impossible to judge any of their ages. They were grown, not born, and who knows how long each of them were being simultaneously fed and drained.

  There are no lines on her face and she is human; she would age, so I think she might be in her twenties. I am only talking about her physical appearance, in her heart and mind she is a lot younger than I am. She is not stupid though, none of the Clones are, and that makes the way that they were treated by the Vampires even more horrific! They must have been in physical and emotional agony! I can’t dwell on that for too long or I start getting angry and wanting to kill all the Vampires again. I lose myself in burning hate.