Welcome to Humanity

An Escape from Everyday

(A/N: This is like what would've been an offical start to the story with these characters. This piece isn't as well written as the next piece so please don't judge based off this piece)

A hand dressed in a warm brown glove reached towards me from the strangely coloured force below from inside the footpath. I looked around and inhaled slowly as I grabbed onto it, I hope I won't regret this. That was the last thing I thought before I was dragged down.

"Wow! Are you a doctor too? It's awesome to finally meet someone who is somewhat similar to me! America sure is a weird place!"

I simply just stared back blankly at the stick bug of a person with messy, curly, cotton candy coloured hair trying to make conversation. It was a wonder they could see my getup with their cotton candy curls covering their eyes. Their entire outfit screamed steampunk. Which isn't all that unusual for this Louisiana City that was no stranger to street parties and costumed parades. They must've came from one of those events and accidentally came across my stall at my favourite marketplace. No matter the season it's always well lit in the colourful market places filled with full stalls, all lined up hoping to make money from the unknowing tourists. I am really no different, I've been trying to get attention to my stall by dressing up as a stereotypical witch doctor. The black tophat decorated with small clean animal ribs is usually the eye-catcher. I'd rather the hat be the eye-catcher than my face having a smudged painted skull. I am indeed a real witch doctor, though I wasn't trying to sell fortune tellings. Not only is it disappointing to Ioa. Even if I could do fortune-telling at the time correctly, I always felt like something bad would come of it. Having a charm that could magically somehow make frizzy hair brushable would be a dream come true, a bonus of the morbid hat is that it hides my frizzy pair of buns.

The same lean person gave me a toothy grin as they asked about the colourful paper shapes in frames. The accent they have is very much British, but they couldn't seem to be able to grasp the right words. I wouldn't have been surprised if they were drunk. I didn't want to anger a drunk customer by misgendering them when I was trying to sell them my art. The steampunk enthusiast seemed both feminine and masculine. They came off mostly masculine, minus their large eyes.

"The colourful paper shapes are known as art. Most of the pieces I am selling are pencil drawings with oils of wildlife from France, Africa, and America to show the unique cultures of this beautiful city and my home of New Orleans."

They brought my shrill customer service voice, and seemed quite interested in my art. After what I said they got so much closer to my stall that I could admire their eyes. They are nothing like I had ever seen in my life. Their eyes are bright and colourful like they held the entire milky way in those windows to their soul. I remember feeling my cheeks go hot when I noticed we were much closer to each other than I thought. The steampunk wannabe was also staring at me, I coughed awkwardly and quickly turned away in embarrassment.

"You know, I am not particularly knowledgeable in the visual arts," they began with a shy, but hopefully sincere smile while scratching the back of their neck, "but honestly as an engineer who hasn't seen human life in the past two centuries you are the most interesting one by far."

I rolled my eyes at this, definitely an attempt at a lame joke. Hopefully not a pickup line either. I still felt my lips curl slightly upwards oddly enough. It's not that I'm not a smiling person. It's just that most of my smiles while selling my art are mostly fake. I couldn't help but fiddle with one of my dark curls, which is usually tucked behind my ears with a small smile.

They shot me another cheeky grin and asked if I wanted to escape my everyday life. The slot for my stall time was already up, and I didn't want to say no to this odd but charming Cheshire Cat of a person. Though on the off chance they were some overly enthusiastic steampunk serial killer who came for witch doctors, I danced my fingers across the screen of my phone to let my friends know just in case I went missing by the end of that night. The steampunk noticed the device and had the same amount of awe and the excitement of a child seeing a shooting star for the first time.

I rolled my eyes at their lightning speed and technical rant about how amazing humans are to have made such a powerful device. I snatched my phone back out of their hands and gave them a quick glare for obvious reasons.

"The "strange person" you're adventuring with does have a name you know," you couldn't describe my face of embarrassment at the thought he read my messages, "My name is Mr. Martin Drewie, I specialise as an intergalactic engineer and solver for most problems if it doesn't include socialising. I am at your service Miss Abeni"

His large colourful eyes narrowed at my light snicker, I used to cover my initial embarrassment, he was probably thinking I was making fun of him. His pout is undeniably cute, for a nerd who was way into steampunk. For a party goer, he looked and acted very sober when he walked with me, which was leaving me with more questions than answers for his odd reactions to devices of any sort. Not to mention was genuinely not kidding about being both an explorer who had seen beasts like no other and an engineer who liked making his own devices.

Surprisingly, He seemed genuinely interested in what I had to say for someone who liked talking about his adventures and machines. It was nice to have someone who listens. It had been a while since I talked to someone so calmly without having to argue back. I looked across the intersection to where I could see the Pontalba Buildings. I would've been lying if I hadn't at least tried sketching it at least once. The gorgeous matching red-brick, one-block-long, four‐story buildings built in the late 1840s wouldn't look out of place in a romance story from the time when it was built. Gorgeous hanging pots of greenery on the first and second stories of the Pontalba Building brought it to life.

"Well, it's time to depart this dimension." Martin grinned wildly at the thought of adventure. He tapped his small brooch that is a blue jewel that was pinned to his large dark bow, tied around his shirt, whispered a tongue I couldn't fathom where it was from. He dropped suddenly through the footpath. I had bullets of sweat dripping while thinking how on earth did he do that. More importantly, should I be worried for him or worried of him.

In my panic, I stopped when I noticed.

A hand dressed in a warm brown glove reached towards me from the strangely coloured force below from inside the footpath. I looked around and inhaled slowly as I grabbed onto it, I hope I won't regret this. That was the last thing I thought before I was dragged down.

That was how I met Martin, an intergalactic engineer and solver for most problems if it doesn't include socialising.

The End