by C. J. Valles
“Even Emily Michaels,” Ashley Stewart says, thinking bitterly of her former grade school friend.
Lindsay Gallo swats at Wren.
“Why, Wren? Are you into him?”
Wren’s heart rate increases.
“No! Now can we eat something? I’m starving.”
I cannot help the smile that emerges on my lips as she thinks about her less than extensive interactions with her male classmates, whom she mostly associates with teasing. Seeing Taylor Nguyen turning pale, Wren wonders how Tarabocchia has managed not to recognize the girl’s infatuation with him.
“See, I told you,” Tarabocchia whines when they reach the table. “All of them! Totally obsessed with Space Boy.”
Space Boy. Ah, yes. His charming epithet for me. Oddly accurate, if only the space he referred to was another plane of existence rather than the “outer space” of this dimension.
“Yeah, but Wren’s the first one that faints when she sees him,” the other boy, Marcus White, says.
The boy pantomimes Wren’s expression as she fell toward the floor, causing her to wince again in embarrassment.
“I slipped,” she mutters defensively. “Josh saw me.”
“Admit it,” the boy taunts. “You’ve got a thing for him.”
“Oh, yeah. I am so in love with Ever Casey.”
Her words cause a simultaneous spasm of melancholy and regret as I watch her through Tarabocchia’s eyes. She places her right hand over her heart, causing him to pout like a two-year-old child, not a seventeen-year-old. Tarabocchia’s resentment unnerves her, and Wren looks away, relieved as the group’s interest in her wanes. She hurries to finish her food and rises from the table, hoping to evade her misguided suitor and yet another round of hopefulness chased by umbrage. Shifting to an empty table at the back of the room, I will her to look up. When she does, my eyes remain unfocused, even as I soak in her expression.
She pictures me with sycophants like Emily Michaels hanging on my arm. Puzzled by my isolation, Wren finds no viable reason for my isolation, apart from my choosing it, and this makes her suspicious.
Why me? she wonders. Why am I the only other person—besides Mr. Gideon—Ever Casey has spoken to?
She sees me as oddity without realizing how close to the mark she is. However, she has already rectified her cognitive dissonance. My isolation is my choice, and I—in her brief experience—must be an egomaniacal jackass, comparable to Jeffrey Summers. When his face flashes in her mind, I stiffen. Looking up, I let my eyes meet hers as I maintain a blank expression empty of the emotion that has suddenly plagued me. She frowns and begins walking faster, not looking back once, despite how much I may wish for it.
In the coming days, I expect her curiosity about me to wane like that of the rest of these children and even the instructors. It does not. She continues to watch me … wondering. Each moment that passes only serves to reinforce what her young friends have told her. She watches me for signs of humanness, but she finds none. She hypothesizes that I fail to notice the time passing—that I am somewhere else mentally and emotionally.
Space Boy. She smiles to herself, thinking how oddly appropriate Tarabocchia’s sobriquet is.
I resist the impulse to look upon her during her waking hours. In Gideon’s class, I enjoy brief moments of camaraderie with him over our shared appreciation for art, and during these instances, she watches me, searching. Her friends’ fascination with our interaction soon fading, she begins to see me as a statue, lifeless and unaware of the world around me.
I find it ironic that for the first time my attention has focused itself so acutely on one of these humans, the human in question believes me to be utterly oblivious to her presence. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth. She sees her separation from those around her as something that she was born to, assuming mine must be a choice. Yes, mine is a choice, but one borne of necessity.
In the dead of night, I walk the streets of Portland. Along the Willamette River, through Old Town Chinatown, through the South Park Blocks. I can do this without fear, because there is nothing in this world I need fear of. Much like the humans’ otherworldly superheroes from films and comic books, we need not fear death. If we fear anything, it is subjugation by those of our world who seek to control this one.
Live and let live. A quaint human maxim. One that too many humans and those of my world fail to appreciate. We gladly would have lived peacefully among humans, allowing them to go about their brief existences while we continued on. I blame Victor and his ilk for forcing us to hunt these humans to extinction—as humanity has hunted so many creatures into oblivion.
I have come to believe that this girl is my atonement for an eternity of destruction, all the minds destroyed in an attempt to preserve this world, saving it from the greed of our world.
When the resurgence of sunshine in this dim, damp corner of the Pacific Northwest sends the masses teeming outside, I know I should stay away. I should remain content to watch Wren Sullivan through others’ eyes, but I have grown selfish in these days spent watching her. At the nutrition bell, the students of Springview High School burst outside, as though they are prisoners rather than pupils.
Shifting to the brick wall that divides the parking lot from the evergreens beyond the asphalt, I watch the merriment and bravado that accompanies adolescent freedom. So many young minds jockeying for attention or dominance. I have never before felt a connection to these changeable, narcissistic creatures, because my purpose across space and time never has been mere self-fulfillment. Audra, Chasen, Alistair, even Persephone, and I have pledged ourselves to the same goal: protect this world from those who would seek to rule it to serve their own greed.
These children, and most of their parents, have little knowledge of or concern for what happens outside of their tiny worlds. More than seven billion of them, the vast majority ignorant of what will come if they pay no heed to what their world can and cannot sustain.
I take out the orb and let it drift across my fingers, its colors changing constantly, drawing from its surroundings. Colors that too many humans take for granted. The blue of the sky above them. The browns and reds of the earth beneath them. The green of the trees. The red of the blood that joins them. The crystal clear water that sustains them. All of it will, without doubt, disappear, whether in their children or grandchildren’s time—or sooner if Victor ascends the throne in this dimension. If we fail to stop it, these young humans will witness unrelenting suffering to sustain another’s greed.
And we will continue on—either as Victor’s slaves or in eternal freedom—whether humanity survives, or not.
I watch as Wren walks outside with her newfound group of friends. She squints up at the sky in disbelief, suddenly realizing how desperately she has been wishing for sunlight.
“Does this mean it’s going to stay sunny for, I don’t know, five minutes?” she asks hopefully.
Tarabocchia grins at her.
“This is what is known in the Pacific Northwest as a sucker hole,” he says.
Blushing, she smiles at him, hiding her embarrassment as she wonders how people at this latitude tolerate the bleakness. She imagines days in Southern California and shivers in the fifty-degree air, zipping her jacket as those around her tear off their sweaters.
When Lindsay Gallo asks her about the weather, Wren holds out her hand, blushing at her skin’s translucence, which has left her pale hands with a purple tint. She imagines her old home in the Santa Monica Mountains and, for a brief moment, misses the warmth.
Upon noticing that everyone else around her is wearing short sleeves, she becomes that much more self-conscious of her outsider status. Her eyes travel around the campus, and I will her to turn toward me. Turning, she stops when she sees me, staring unabashedly, unable to look away. I have ignored her long enough that she now feels safe studying me. As her eyes travel over me, I know I should leave, but it is as though we are afflicted by the same voyeuristic fascination in one another. She sc
owls slightly, wondering why she cannot stop thinking of someone she has barely spoken to.
As her eyes take in the glow of my skin, she begins to study my form, her cheeks blushing a deep pink. My response is immediate and ruinous. The profound desire that floods me is inexcusable.
I am a monster, and to want anything of this young girl—even for her to look upon me—is wrong.
Shaking her head, she looks down at the orb traveling across my fingers, appearing as hypnotized by it as I am by her. I let it fall into my palm. It resembles a shiny silver coin at such a distance viewed through human eyes. She remains enthralled, waiting with rapt attention for me to perform another unusual feat.
When Ashley Stewart nudges Wren, drawing her attention away from me, I frown. The girl looks around, seeking the source of Wren’s distraction, and smirks when she catches sight of me.
“Oh, sure. That’s nothing,” the girl says smugly, looking me over.
Wren taps her friend on the shoulder, desperate to distract her and avoid further embarrassment.
“What’s up?” Wren asks.
When Ashley Stewart mentions the group attending the cinema and Wren admits her lack of transportation, I nearly growl as Tarabocchia’s eyes light up with excitement.
“I can pick you up,” he says, his eagerness ringing in my ears.
When his adolescent fantasies fill my mind, I feel my knuckles crack as I contemplate puncturing his tires. His unwavering confidence that this girl will look upon him favorably enrages me. But why should she not like this boy? Is he a monster? No, he is merely an overly confident adolescent. Jeffrey Summers is another matter entirely. The thought of a serpent like him ingratiating himself, charming his way into her good graces is more than I can tolerate.
When Wren asks about the film, her face instantly broadcasts her despair. So, she is afraid of monsters, after all. She would do well to be afraid of me as well.
During her French period, she takes the opportunity to look up the film she is to attend with her new friends tomorrow evening and smirks when she sees the film’s catch phrase. I follow as she walks to her fourth period chemistry class. That snake Jeffrey Summers has taken a seat at her lab table, his slithery confidence even more abrasive than Tarabocchia’s. When Wren reaches the classroom, I stay at the door, just out of sight, as she begins walking toward her seat. She rocks to a stop when she sees Summers and groans inwardly as she remembers that the class is performing a lab experiment.
“Hey,” he says, his tone suggesting that he is gracing her with his attention.
She looks up, prepared to smile politely, when she catches his passing thought as he rates her attractiveness on his puerile number scale. I force myself to stay rooted to the floor, aware I could pluck him from his seat so quickly that no one would notice.
“You’re that girl who freaked out, right?”
Wren frowns, and I smile to myself, pleased that his charms are so limited.
“Yep, that’s me. Exorcist girl.”
Her reference to a classic horror film made decades before her birth is lost on him, and she turns away from him as the instructor begins speaking.
Please let him leave me alone now, she pleads silently.
I stand waiting for him to dig his own grave, as these humans so often put it.
“So what happened with you and that freak in the cafeteria?” he whispers.
He leans toward her, close enough to her that I am afflicted with another swell of rage before I realize that the longer this goes on, the more disgusted with him she becomes.
No wonder Ever Casey ignores people, she thinks.
“You mean Ever?” she asks innocently.
“Yeah, Ever,” Summers says with a sneer. “The guy’s a psycho. I heard his family dumped him here and left when he got out of the loony bin. You should stay away from him. Unless you like hanging with freaks.”
She immediately dismisses the gossip that this boy would like to believe is true. Summers needs me to be damaged enough for my physical appearance not to impact his perceived supremacy, but Wren already has recognized him for what he his, and I realize I should have given her more credit. She knows all too well that her peers will exalt him rather than ostracize him, as long as he retains dominance, which he achieves through instilling fear.
The chemistry teacher, certainly an interesting human specimen, has taken note of this boy’s typical lack of attention. When he calls the boy out, Summers is neither cowed nor intimidated, given he is accustomed to getting what he wants. When the teacher abandons his mild attempt at a rebuke, Summers immediately returns his attention to Wren.
“What are you doing tomorrow night?” he asks, envisioning a crude, degrading scene in his mind that threatens to snap my control.
Wren blinks, unsure what to make of his question. She has never been asked on a date before, and she assumes this must be a cruel prank, which fits nicely with her impression of him.
“Murder, revenge, total annihilation,” she says, repeating the slogan from her earlier Internet query.
I smile again as Wren frowns at him. Summers, of course, is not accustomed to females in his proximity showing any degree of humor. If they do, as in this case, it typically goes unnoticed by him, given his unrelenting self-adulation.
“Hell’s Army. The movie,” she says, suddenly afraid that by confusing him she might incur his wrath.
He recovers swiftly—I will give him that much.
“What time do you want me to pick you up?” he grins.
His confidence begins to grate upon her as she tries to avoid his maneuvering. She looks down, looking for a way to escape his automatic assumption that she would fall at his feet—quite literally. As she contemplates the fact that boys at her old school never appeared to notice her, I begin to wonder if this is a normal defense mechanism for a child of divorce. Expecting rejection—looking for it—to avoid the pain associated with these fragile adolescent emotions so often dictated by outside forces.
When she meets his stare, she sees the image of Emily Michaels in his mind and shivers as she catches a piece of his revenge plot on his flighty girlfriend.
Can’t wait to see Emily’s face, he thinks, unaware that this girl is picking up his thoughts every time she looks into his eyes.
She nods slightly to herself as she realizes that this boy most likely has been pursuing every female in his proximity.
“Actually, I’m going with friends,” she says quickly.
“Maybe I’ll see you there.”
I hear the edge in his voice. Summers sees any form of rejection as a call for retaliation or renewed pursuit.
Am I so different? I have pursued these humans to the ends of the Earth, knowing that anything less than dogged determination would result in our downfall. I have existed outside of the realm of pity or remorse. It is not that I am incapable of these things; these are simply reactions I cannot afford. Until now. Is it because she is likely the last? Or is it something innate to her?
Shifting to the car, I wait with an unfamiliar sense of anticipation. I had been so close to the end that freedom had been the only impetus driving me. Then, those few moments in New York City caused me to wonder what I would become with a limitless existence and no fear of enslavement.
An infinite existence spent alone and without meaning.
So perhaps it was purely something selfish within me that prevented me from destroying this girl, this girl whose existence now seems intrinsically linked to mine. And perhaps she is more than the key to ending Victor’s conquest; perhaps she is the key to something beyond the darkness that has been my existence.
As I follow the rest of her day from afar, I find myself intrigued. She sees herself as invisible, cut off from her peers, vividly aware of her separation from other humans, even her mother, whom she loves with fierceness unusual for her age. As most of these other young humans have focused their wrath upon their parents, Wren Sullivan sees herself as a team with her mother—the parent
who did not abandon her in the wake of a messy divorce.
My curiosity piqued, I shift to Southern California, where I find Thomas Sullivan at his office. I see the resemblance instantly. While she has her mother’s delicate features, Wren’s fair skin certainly comes from her father’s genetic heritage. However, seeing as she has not spent decades abusing her complexion beneath the sun, her skin has remained alabaster, while his is reddish, with all the hallmarks of a heavy drinker as well. They also share green eyes, a curious shade between jade and sea green.
I watch in distaste as he leaves a supercilious message for his ex-wife exhorting her to have Wren call him. Apparently his new wife has been demanding a vacation to Mexico, and he sees a visit from his daughter as the perfect opportunity to have Wren watch her baby half brother. Given his inclination to focus on his own needs first and foremost, I feel no surprise that any interest in maintaining a relationship with his daughter manifests itself in how it can help him.
Ending the call, Thomas Sullivan looks up as a young personal assistant stops at the door to his office. He smiles, his eyes lasciviously skating over her body. Certainly Wren’s mistrust, particularly for those of the opposite sex, is at least in part due to her father’s flagrant sexualizing of all women in his path. I have seen his kind, and I know with some degree of certainty that, whether subconscious or not, his daughter has recognized his voyeurism.
When he exits the office, I step inside and look across his desk, noting a picture of his young, gaudy wife—who happens to be his previous personal assistant—and several pictures of his infant son. Not a single picture of his daughter from his first marriage.
I have no need to see more. I understand this man. Humans have a term for his kind. Malignant narcissism—an affliction for which there is no cure. While not as reprehensible as Victor—who more likely would be categorized as a sociopath by human standards—Wren’s father is, without a doubt, pathologically self-centered.
Shifting to the parking lot of Springview High School, I wait for the end of the school day. When Joshua Tarabocchia offers her a ride home and she declines, I feel my chest loosen. But I watch as she makes her way to the bus stop, I realize these moments are the most perilous for this girl and myself. The other side only has to possess the driver of the bus for a brief moment or cause a mechanical failure, and I will be compelled to do whatever is in my power to prevent them from taking her.