Not Who I Really Am

New Company

It’s late now. I told Aaron to go in the back and rest while I take over the wheel. It wasn’t as hard as you might think for a short person like me. I’ve only been driving for a few hours but I knew that we’d have to pull over somewhere to stay for the night.

Conveniently, as I made a turn on Richardson Ave. on Route 43 there was motel. Since we hadn’t visited the bank yet, I decided to just park the car in the parking lot until morning. I lean back onto the driver’s seat just about to fall asleep when I hear a cracking noise. 

I push it to the back of my mind thinking that a branch might’ve just fallen from a tree. But then there was a sequence of cracking noises and I groan in annoyance. I open the car’s glovebox and grab a flashlight. 

I step out of the car closing the door a quietly as possible. I flick the switch on the flashlight but it didn’t turn on. I make an inhuman noise from the inconvenience and hit the flashlight on my hand several times but nothing happened.

I open the flashlight and put the batteries in my hand and my hand flickered on like a flashlight. I shrieked and let the batteries fall out of my hands and fall to the ground. 

I hear a thunk as if somebody had fallen and my head shoots in the direction the sound came from. I looked at my glowing hand and sighed going near the sound. 

I step carefully trying not to make any sounds at all to scare whatever was making the noises disturbing my sleep. Always keeping my glowing hand in front of me to be able to see a few feet in front of me.

I hear another crack and it sounded closer than before. I was hitting my hand on my other hand to see if I could dull the light. After a couple of hits my light flickered off. I silently cursed at myself for not knowing how to fully function my ‘new’ body.

I looked around me in a full 360 degree motion. I ran my hands through my hair getting ready to give up on looking for the mysterious noise maker when something touched my shoulder and I freaked. I didn’t even look behind me, I just reach behind me grabbed the hand and flipped it over my shoulder and onto the ground in front of me.

I heard a groan and looked closely at the person I just threw onto the ground and it was Aaron. I gasped and kneeled next to him worried that I’ve hurt him,

“Oh my god Aaron are you okay?”

“You just threw me onto the ground, how do you think I feel?”

“Well you should’ve said something before touching my shoulder in the middle of darkness and scaring the crap out of me.”

“How was I supposed to know you were gonna flip me over your shoulder? Why are you out here anyway?”

“I kept hearing a noise so I came out here to investigate.”

“You should’ve have woken me up, I could’ve come with you and you’ve could’ve at least brought a flashlight.”

“Well one: I didn’t want to wake you up, you seemed really tired. Two: I found a flashlight but it wouldn’t work.”

“So you just went with no light at all?”

“On the contrary my friend. Just watch.”

I started hitting my hand on the other again to try turning the light back on. I heard a click and a blinding light seemed to swallow my hand. I looked at Aaron and he had his hands over his eyes trying to block out the light,

“Is there a way to tone down the brightness a little?”

“That’s the thing. I only know how to turn it off…”