by Tessa Maurer
I know that’s probably a child’s dream, and that my words mean little, but memories are all I have left. Maybe they’re enough.
Ashani
I read for hours; I read even though I can barely process what I am seeing. There are photographs and drawings, illustrating a life so lived. It is not until I reach a photograph and recognize a face that the reality of what has happened to me, to her, to this world, becomes real.
There is a photo of her first grade class, normal and smiling, just before people stopped pretending there was hope. Seated in the row before her is a boy with brown hair and bright, bright blue eyes. Every name is listed below…and his name is Azure.
I drop the book. I search inside of my head, but I don’t feel them. I am empty.
“Come back,” I say. “COME BACK!” I fall to the ground, emotions crashing into me. I feel things I have never felt before, and I feel them all at once. I think it nearly kills me. I hold onto my chest, feeling my body, making sure I am still here.
“I’m sorry,” I say, and I mean it to everyone I have ever killed, and to Ashani who I didn’t. I mean it to myself. I don’t know what to do. I need them back. I need them to guide me, to help me be as human as I can. Alone, I am nothing. Alone, I will not make it, and it hurts.
“You aren’t nothing by yourself,” says a voice. I think I must be hearing things, some mad way of coping. I look up. Azure is standing against the wall, his eyes both intact and bright.
“Are you real?” I ask, looking up at him.
“Am I real? Just a bit. Am I alive? No. I will never be alive again.”
“I don’t understand,” I say, my breathing wracking my body. I try to calm my head, but I do not know how to contain what is inside of it.
“I gave you the only answer I know. You took a part of our souls. Maybe a little too much of mine,” he says and laughs. “We’re not whole, but we’re here, and we’re not going anywhere. We almost did. Some of us…some of us didn’t come back.”
“Why would you come back?” I ask. I think I might be crying.
“Because I’m loyal, and because I’ve seen the inside of your head, and I know that you’re a good person when you strip away the toxic lies.”
“I murdered you. I shoved a pickaxe through your eye.”
“Yeah, well, humanity’s done a lot worse. I’ve never held it against you. I forgive you, Inanis.”
My body shakes. “Am I making this up?”
“My name is Azure. That is all you need to know. You are allowed to hope. You are allowed to have the mind of a human in the body of an Adaption. You are allowed to be something new. I can tell you everything you want to hear, but you know it all.”
I search inside of myself for the fragments of their souls. I can feel a few, but far less than before. I know that my mother is gone, a scattered soul that I will never find. I feel the absence like a hole in my chest, and it hurts. No forgiveness; no second chance—nothing. I feel a sadness unlike any I have known, but I welcome it, because it means I can care. That is my apology—that is my forgiveness. It’s more than I ever thought I could give.
“Am I the only one?” I ask. I don’t want to be Ashani—I don’t want to live in a world where I am the only vivid thing.
“I don’t know, Inanis. I guess we’ll have to find out,” he says and smiles. For the first time in what I can remember, I smile back, and I feel it. I feel alive, alive in the relief and in the sadness—alive like only a human can.
I still have the urge of the monster inside of me, but I will not kill. Not now, maybe not ever again. I will give the deaths at my hands a reason—I will give them a purpose, a job. I will try to be human with them as my guides, with them as the fuel of my essence, of my soul. If I do not try, I have given up, and that will not change a thing in this world. Long ago, we went wrong. Earth has been hell far longer than I have been alive. Their hell—humanity’s hell—has run its course. I will try for something better than what I am, better than what this world has been. What else is there for me in this world but to try?
My name is Inanis, and I burn. I have always burned, and I will burn up until I am ashes. Only then will I stop trying. And maybe, just maybe, I hope that will never happen. Maybe, just maybe, I hope to start a fire.
Acknowledgments
First and foremost, if you are reading this, thank you. A story is a communication, and a communication has no use if it never reaches anyone. Thank you for being the other side of the void.
Thank you to Keith, Leigh, and my dad for being the first beta readers. Especially Keith and Leigh, for wanting me to just fucking do this already.
Thank you to Crowder, for being the one who listens. I don’t know where I’d be without you. I’m infinitely grateful for all of it (and the rest to come).
Thank you to all of the people who have said you couldn’t wait to read my writing. You finally got your chance. I hope it was everything you imagined, or nothing you imagined at all.
Thank you to Patrick Rothfuss for the advice when I was 15…that I failed to thank you for until years later. Consider the existence of this book further proof of my appreciation.
Thank you to Jessie for so much, to Zeb for being the best Sup and senior, to JPG for the encouragement and for July 11th, to Quigs for everything you do. Thank you to Alex E, for getting me that much closer. Thank you to Jas and Pat. I have to stop here, or I’ll name 40 people, so instead I’ll leave it at this:
Thank you to LFM. You are my family, and I’m a better person, and I’m myself, because of all of you.
Tessa Maurer was born in Los Angeles, California in the august of 1992. It took her twelve years to find the worlds inside of books, but it took only a short year for her to realize she could create her own.
So she did, and she hasn’t stopped yet.
The Toxic Children is her first published work, but she has written over half a million words of fiction since the age of 13. She has a lot more to tell.
TessaMaurer.com