A Monster

Activity spins around me, and it's easier to ignore it than to complain about it, so that's what I do. I pull the hood of my vest over my face and glance over at my shoulder. My detached sleeve fell down again, revealing my symbol. Great. I pull it up and continue walking. Nobody can know I'm not human. I'd surely die. Nobody seems to have paid attention to me though, which I appreciate. Attention leads to talking, and I'm not very good at that. I don't know an Unversed who is. Tick-tock goes the clock tower in the middle of the town in which I walk. I look up to see the sky dyed a stark orange, like it always is. I look back to the bleak bustling world around me and continue on. I wish I could run like I know I can, but they'd see me; they'd learn far too much.

Tick-tock.

I've reached the nightmare that is my destination.

Tick-tock.

The humans call it school.

     Let’s get this sorted out quickly; I look like a girl who looks about 16 who has red eyes and a less than attractive figure, although I’m not sure what actual humans consider attractive. I have pointed ears that I hide underneath the blue curly mass that is my hair. I am of considerable height, and I always wear my old pair of black lace-up boots, no matter the weather. Anyway, I dread school. Not in the way you do, which I’m guessing involves either simply not wanting to do it or hating a certain someone. Rather, I hate the place because it is full of you people. I don’t mean to offend anyone; I’m just very frightened of somebody going, “Hey, you’re not a person,” and leaving me without a word to reply with. Thankfully, humans, for the most part, do not know what the symbol branded on my arm means… I suppose I can tell you, though. You see, I’m of a fleeting race of beings known as the Unversed. We are created through the negativity of humans who are without the light of their heart. Usually, they end up looking like giant, anthro rabbit-ant things or living treasure chests or something of the like, but I get stuck with a human appearance, and therefore, I have to heed to human rules.

     I sigh and walk into the school building and show the lady at the desk my ID card. She lets me pass and so I adjust the heavy backpack I carry and walk to my homeroom. The man that teaches in that room is called Mr. Burnes, and he’s pretty nice, as far as I know. He is a shorter man of about 30 with short blonde hair that refuses to tame itself up front, blue eyes, and a plain pair of silver-framed glasses. He nods at me as I walk in and throw my backpack off of my shoulders and onto my desk. As usual, I’m the first in here, after Mr. Burnes, of course. I begin sloppily yanking out the contents of the backpack when I hear my teacher behind me, asking “Did you do your homework?” He’s my science teacher. I nod and pull out a page titled Balancing Equations from my heavily drawn-on folder and he nods at me again in gratitude rather than acknowledgement.  He didn’t speak much, so we got along just fine.

     I shudder as that girl walks in. I think her name is Catherine or something similar. She always, always, always tries to talk with me, which scares me immensely. Actually, the only people that I’m not overwhelmingly terrified of are my creator and Mr. Burnes. Anyway, she smiles and sits across from me as she always does. I avoid eye contact and hope she goes away as I walk to my locker. Oh, great, she’s following me. She shoves her tiny purse that somehow passed as a book bag into her locker and begins to pull out her textbooks. “Did you do anything fun yesterday?” she asked. I grabbed what I needed and walked back to my desk. The girl shrugged and followed me back and began to tell me about her wonderful human Thursday. I pulled a book – And Then There Were None, to be specific - and managed to stutter out, “I h-have a ton of r-reading to catch up on.” She replied with some noise that I suppose meant acknowledgement in some way and the rest of the day slipped by without too many problems.

     Tick-tock.

     I slumped down on my couch and threw my backpack across the room, knocking over a smallish stack of books that I’ve recently read. Books are probably my favorite human invention. You can go to distant galaxies or parallel dimensions or distant futures while sitting on your rear. I rolled over sleepily and heard a familiar voice. I can’t describe it very well… If it helps, it sounds the same way a well=sugared cup of coffee tastes. The voice formed words.

     “Good to see you didn’t die, Blacklight.”

     I look up to see him, and I smile.

     “Vanitas.”