Your Own Human

by Arizona Tape

  In the meantime, the vampire swallowed Red whole. He was just licking his lips and using her red cape as a napkin. What a wonderful meal.

  And at that moment, her parents found her basket with the blackberries. The moon illuminated the whole forest, casting a silvery shine on everything. Her mother broke down in tears and her father angrily kicked a nearby tree. In their frustration, their eye fell on a little light up the hill and what seemed like smoke.

  Hastily, they scrambled up the hill and knocked down on the door, hoping for help.

  A handsome man opened the door. “Yes?”

  “We lost our daughter, please, help us look,” the mother begged.

  “Of course, come in. Let me just get my boots,” he spoke, letting them in, pretending to be of any help. with a click, he locked the door behind them once again.

  Red made for a good little appetiser and her mother looked deliciously juicy. From the father he would make a good stock, he thought to himself.

  He grabbed the axe laying by the door and swung it over his shoulder, right at the moment as Red’s parents saw her red cape hanging over the chair. With one motion, he sealed both their fates.”

  Heather pushed the lamp away from her and I looked at her puzzled.

  “That is just a children’s story. A fairytale,” I muttered, disappointed washing over me.

  Heather grinned. “Sorry, I couldn’t not tell that story. You’re too easy to tease.”

  “Whatever,” I grumbled, only a little bit disturbed about the story. It did have a vampire in it, but it was obviously just a tale to scare the kids.

  “But that is how my grandma used to tell it when I was a kid though. She told other stories as well, when I grew older. Would you care for one of those?”

  “Yes, please,” I said politely, making her snort while she shook her head.

  “Now, this one is a little more gruesome. It’s a story that has been passed down generations, from my great-great-great- and a couple of more great-grandmother, Willow.”

  I stretched my neck, ready for another story.

  Heather coughed. “Once upon a time.”

  Chapter 13: Once Upon a Time

  Heather’s Point of View

  “This is a story from long, long, long ago. One of my ancestors was just a child when it all started. Now, remember, this is when there were only humans living on earth,” I started, smiling as I saw how captivated Ade was.

  It warmed my heart how attentive she looked. Not many people were so good at listening, but Ade, she got really good at it over time.

  “I will draw a picture for you on how to imagine the world. Willow was born on the countryside, which meant she was part of the Farmers and the people there had gardens and stuff. I know that is hard to imagine for you, with all your apartment blocks. But that’s how it used to be.”

  Ade cocked her head to the side, a pondering look on her face. She thought it all over for a brief second and then nodded, urging me to go on.

  “The weather was unstable at the time and a lot of hurricanes would randomly pass through the lands. So most people had underground shelters in their backyard. This way they could hide out there when a storm ravaged through. Just a safety thing.”

  “But you all lived above ground, right?” Ade inquired, her brows furrowing curiously.

  “Indeed we did. Now, this is the year… that the hype started.”

  “The hype?”

  I nodded, scratching the back of my neck. “The Superhuman.”

  “The Superhuman? That’s a pretty lame name,” Ade grinned, chuckling as she repeated the word to herself again. “Superhuman.”

  I nodded, agreeing with her. “I know, but hey, that’s what they went with. With all the destruction going around, a lot of people were dying. So a lot of scientists did extensive research on how to make us stronger and more resilient.”

  An uncomfortable feeling came onto me as I stared into the eyes of the result of that project. Purple eyes stared unrelenting back into mine. They held a softness and warmth that was deemed impossible before, yet, here it was.

  I blinked and averted my gaze, staring at a spot on the table. I always planned on telling this story to my kids, but I never thought I’d be telling it to a vampire. It was quite surreal. But I knew how much Ade wanted to know about her origin, so I willed myself to continue.

  “It finally happened. After a lot of experiments they managed to manipulate our genetic make up and the human body in a way it would enhance the muscle capability. At first, it was glorious. It was awesome. Everyone went nuts for it and of course, everyone wanted this super-strength feature. Of course, you couldn’t just change someone, so men stood in line to donate their DNA and women volunteered to carry a superhuman child.”

  Ade hummed and I paused for a moment.

  “Go on?”

  “After barely a year, the first superhuman children were born. But as they grew older, people noticed they weren’t only stronger, but noticeably more energetic and destructive.”

  Ade nodded. “That seems reasonable.”

  “Yes. So to get rid of the extra energy, a new category of sports was introduced in the world. At first, it was just children running and competing with each other, but as they grew older, it became more extreme and more brutal.”

  “Brutal? They started killing each other?”

  I shook my head. “No, it was only a sport. It wasn’t about killing each other so much as it was about showing off who was the strongest. There was even an Olympics with Superhumans.”

  “An Olympics?” Ade pulled up an eyebrow.

  “Yes, uumm... A worldwide sport tournament? People from all over the world would gather and send athletes to compete in the name of their country, hoping they could surpass the Superhuman. It was the ultimate challenge.”

  “Oh right, I forgot that the world was divided in countries,” Ade grinned, a smirk on her face.

  “Yes, well, for the first time, you could watch Superhumans run faster than the naked eye. They tried to move mountains and swim across the oceans. And they succeeded as well. Everyone loved it. It was amazing. Everyone wanted to be like them.”

  “So are you saying everyone became a ‘Superhuman’, or whatever they were called?”

  “No, the hype didn’t last long enough for that. Only prime candidates were selected for… Well… Breeding. I suppose?” I muttered, not liking that word one bit.

  “Oh. Prime candidates?”

  I tilted my head. “Yes. Only the most beautiful and healthy women were selected. And the men were selected on virility, strength, and other qualities. Apart from that, looks played a big part as well. So even if you just matched them up like that, their kids would be naturally gorgeous and already have an awesome genetic pool. Add the Superhuman feature and it gave those kids that extra oomph that made them super strong and also extremely desirable.”

  Ade waggled her eyebrows. “Like me?” she grinned, flashing me a cocky smile.

  I rolled my eyes at her. “Yes, like you,” I said, only partially sarcastic. There was no denying, Adrianna was obviously a work of art.

  “Anyway, more time passed and everything seemed to go well. The Superhumans were loved and celebrated. Everything was great until the Big Flood happened.”

  “Aha, I know about the Big Flood. From what I learned, it wiped out human existence in one sweep and the Vampires rose from the ashes,” Ade added, biting her lip as she was coming to realise that wasn’t true at all.

  “Yeah… Not so much. There were a lot of casualties of course, but most of all, it destroyed the harvest and livestock. The world fell into a scarce and whereas before it hadn’t been an issue that the Superhumans needed way more food than a normal human, now it was a problem.”

  “That makes… Sense, I guess?”

  “Yeah. Above all things, humans are very selfish… So they reasoned it was ridiculous to let ten people starve just to feed one Superhuman. After all, they basically just paraded around.�
��

  I scratched the back of my neck again. Ade her eyes were piercing so intensely into mine, it felt like they were boring holes into my skull.

  “So all the Superhumans were rounded up and detained in facilities, under the pretence of superior care and protection. To make sure they didn’t starve and to keep safe and protected. Of course, that was all a lie. In reality, the scientists just wanted to keep modifying and testing them and the facilities were nothing more than prisons. They wanted to make the next generation more docile, give them a smaller appetite and make them easier to control.”

  Ade hung onto every word I said and for the first time, I was pleased I knew so much about history.

  “In retrospect, they probably should’ve focused on the food scarcity, but they didn’t. They had no control over the weather or nature, so this was their way of taking control. But it all went horribly wrong from that point on.” I looked at Ade, hoping that I wouldn’t horrify her too much. No, I was hoping she would believe me, because the things I was going to say were almost unbelievable.

  “The government wanted the Superhumans to be more docile, but instead of them falling into submission, after months of testing and being starved, they rose up in rebellion. Instead of the scientists enslaving the Superhuman, they enslaved the scientists.”

  Ade was remarkably silent. I figured there was no use in ending the story here, so I took a deep breath and kept on going.

  “They forced the scientists to make them even stronger and faster. And after the years and years of research, it worked. The Superhumans left the facility and easily dominated the outside world to their own liking. It wasn’t long before the government had to step in and protect what was left of the livestock and any kind of animal roaming the planet. If they hadn’t, any living thing would’ve been slaughtered. They thought if they took control of the food distribution, they would get a handle on the situation. That somehow, they could bargain with the Superhumans. But they only made it worse.”

  Ade audibly swallowed, the tension palpable in the air.

  “The Superhuman, left with a disdain for humans and enhanced muscles that craved proteins, turned to the one other protein source left.”

  My vampire let out a whimper and got even paler than she already was. From the dread on her face, I knew she had guessed right. “Humans,” she whispered, a pained look in her eyes. Something about that look made me wonder if she regretted digging for the truth.

  I nodded, letting out a big sigh. “Yeah… Correct. The Superhumans started hunting humans. Many people died. From starvation, others from being killed by Superhumans, and after that had gone on long enough… Well, humans started to kill other humans too. For food, for possessions, for fuel or for clothes. It almost didn’t matter.”

  I glanced at Ade, trying to gauge how she felt about this all, but her face was so expressionless I couldn’t make out a thing. “Go on,” she spoke, her voice flat and emotionless. It was almost scary how silent she was.

  “Things got really bad. Superhumans were raiding houses, city by city, killing anyone that crossed their path. Humans grouped together, hoping to defend themselves, but most of them started doing exactly the same thing as what they feared most. The name Superhuman quickly faded. When you see them eating someone you know and drinking their blood, you quickly stop seeing them as better. Those kind of images were imprinted on everyone’s mind and the word vampire travelled from mouth to mouth quicker than a wildfire. And so, the Superhuman died and the Vampire rose. So in that case, your story is sort of true. Vampires did rise from the ashes, but not to save the world… No… Not at all…” I mumbled, almost ashamed.

  I peeked at Ade, but she seemed completely lost in thought. I decided to let her mull it all over. It was a lot to take in. I hoped that after hearing this story, she knew why I lied and tried to hide the knowledge that I had. I hoped she understood why in the beginning, I was so scared. And I hoped that she wouldn’t feel even worse after how they had treated me.

  With the tests they had conducted on me, our cruel history had come full circle. Humans experimenting on humans, humans experimenting on vampires and now, vampires experimenting on me, a human.

  After a couple of minutes, she broke the silence. “How did Willow survive?”

  “Well, I told you about those underground shelters, right? They were scattered all over the countryside and as the Superhumans didn’t need canned goods or bottled water, they didn’t bother looking for them. But regular humans, the ones not resorting to cannibalism, they scoured the land from shelter to shelter. Some alone, some in groups. That’s what Willow did. Together with her older sister and a friend, they hid in their shelter for a couple of weeks. They were one of the lucky few that had a fully stocked bunker with tons of canned food. But after a while, Willow’s friend, well… He died and not long after, her sister also passed away. And that made it impossible for her to stay down there. So she left, hoping to find friendly humans. And luckily, she did.”

  “Oh?” Ade veered up, a glimmer appearing in her dull eyes.

  “Yes, she found a group of survivalists that had been preparing for the end of the world and already grouped together underground. They had been breeding animals and maintaining their own food source for years before this all happened and they took Willow in.”

  “What happened above ground to the vampires?”

  “I can’t be sure… The intellectuals underground reasoned that after all the food had gone, the Vampires would group together like we had and rebuild a new form of society. After all, that is what we did. From that day on, we lived underground and didn’t resurface. Not just out of fear from the Vampires, but also because the face of the earth had become uninhabitable for us. The air didn’t have enough oxygen, the land was dry and barren, the sunlight harmful.”

  Ade scoffed loudly. “Like now?”

  “Yes, pretty much. They figured out how to use the tree roots to their benefit and built a new world under a young and healthy willow tree. And that is where we are to this day,” I concluded my story, not daring to look into Ade’s eyes or even touch her. She had gone pale, paler than before and I could almost see the horrors of our history flash before her eyes.

  Would this change things between us?

  I hoped not. After all, we were both the product of the human ego and greed. Neither her or I were to blame for what had happened. Yet, with telling the story out loud, it felt like I had just divided us back into the boxes we were trying to ignore.

  Vampire and human.

  So alike, so different. We shared the same ancestors, the same history but somehow, we had never been so unrelated to each other as right now.

  I crossed my fingers under the table and silently prayed this wouldn’t change a thing for her. Hoped that she wouldn’t look at me differently. Would she come to hate humans? Or would she hate her fellow vampires?

  “I need to think about all of this… I’m going for a walk,” Ade mumbled, her eyebrows frowned in deep thought. “Thank you for telling me.” She stood up and walked towards the door, leaving me behind, surrounded by all what was left of human history. I just hoped I hadn’t just become history myself.

  I wanted to run behind her and hug her, ask her if we were okay, but I was too afraid of her answer. So I let her walk away, hoping she’d find her way back to me.

  Chapter 14: The Building

  Adrianna’s Point of View

  It was raining. It was always raining here. Why did it always have to rain? I stared in front of me at the curtain of water falling from the sky and let my mind wander as far as it needed to go. Processing everything Heather just told me.

  Since I was a little child, I wanted to know. I wanted to know what had been before me, before my time. Before our time.

  And suddenly, all at once, I found out. The truth. It shattered my heart. I knew I wasn't responsible for the actions of my ancestors and that it was in no way a reflection on me personally, but it changed me. It changed the way I
looked at myself.

  Even since meeting Heather, I looked at myself differently, but those were just little cracks in a mirror. But this? This was like a sledgehammer demolishing my image into dust.

  I always advocated for the humans. That they were intelligent and more than just animals. I inherited those beliefs from father. But a small part of me had felt otherwise. A part of me felt superior. Not just towards the human race, but to virtually everyone around me. That, I inherited from Mother. Over the course of my life, I managed to reconcile those two opposing beliefs and fused it with my personality.

  And along came Heather. With her story, she undid everything I thought I was and everything I thought I knew. Humans weren't the peace-loving and intelligent race I’d believed them to be. No, they were cruel and selfish and had been their own doom. And I wasn't superior. I was just a modified human. A product of a test. I was created by human hands. We all were. We were a human creation. And even though we started out revered and loved, in the end we were nothing more than a faulty car that needed disposing off.

  The knowledge that we bested the humans when war came, made it almost even worse. We were what was left. How was I supposed to accept this?

  I shivered as a cold breeze blew through my hairs and I hugged myself tightly.

  Great. Now I was getting cold. Like a human.

  It’d been so nice and warm underground, my body must’ve adjusted to that temperature and the heat.

  “Fantastic,” I muttered to myself, walking out of the abandoned building.

  I gazed up into the sky and breathed in the scarce air. It felt like I hadn't been up here for a long time, but it was probably just over two weeks.

  Longingly, I gazed in the direction of my city. I couldn't see our buildings or the city, but I could see the enormous cloud of smoke hanging above it. A sight so familiar, I never thought I would miss it. I looked back at the forest and the tree that hid the entrance to another world. Heather's world.