18 Years

Hell is a Place on Earth

Sebastian

      I remember being dropped off at the SunShine Foster Home center, not knowing what would become of me. I remember them bringing me to the hospital, them telling me that I wasn't normal. I remember on my tenth (millionth, that is) birthday party when none of the other kids in my class came because they knew that I was a freak. I remember packing my small, worn down suitcase time after time because none of the foster parents stuck with me for more than a month. I remember slowly cracking open my window so no one could hear me escape from a family who didn't want me. I remember the constant dull ache in my feet as I walked the highway, sticking out my thumb for passing cars to see. 

    I remember everything that has ever happened to me. 

       My name is Sebastian Porter, and I am about 4.5 billion years old, or as old as the Earth itself. When the earth was created, God supposedly cast down Satan, and all of his descendants are born damned. On the day of my birth, I opened my eyes and saw  what I truly was. A monster. I saw flames licking my body, and I could feel the wrath of what I was burning inside of me. Before I even was 1 years old I knew that I could never speak of God and look forward to His Kingdom. When I was born, I was birthed into a family before the time of Jesus. I walked the Earth that all of the Apostles walked. I lived in the same world as Adolf Hitler once lived. I have seen the Roman Empire fall, and I have seen a nuclear bomb plummet towards Earth. I have slowly lost memories of the beginning of time, because I have lived so long. I can't even remember my parent's faces anymore. Whenever I am reminded of their names, I imagine an ancient book being opened, and when I think about them I see the book's thin, fading pages being dusted off, reminding me of my past.

     I have lived so long you think I wouldn't have to go to school because the ways of life have taught me all I have ever needed to know. But you see, I have gone to school. Over and over again. I have been taught by an ancient tutor, telling me about Moses, and how he parted the Red Sea. I have been taught in a small, cramped schoolhouse, learning how to bow and be a gentleman, while the girls earned how to sew and garden. But as the generations go on, new things are discovered, Textbooks are updated. The textbooks from the 1800's are certainly not the same as the ones from 2004. So I have decided I need to go to school again and again to maintain the knowledge I need to know.

        So now I'm here in this high school, present time, bored out of my  mind. This school is the closest to my birthplace, Hell, I think. I sit next to Clyde, the vampire kid. We aren't very close friends. I don't really have friends. I shift my soul-less charcoal black eyes over to his desk. He's doodling something I can't see very well on his desk. I see his eyes snap to the front when he hears that a new girl is being admitted to the school. I don't really care all that much, to be honest.

But then I see her.

Her halo of butterscotch blonde hair forms a cloud over her shoulders. Intricate, delicate, swirling lines ink her fair skin. Her eyes twinkle like a thousand shooting stars peppering the night sky. Her face is angular, and her eyes are larger than a human's. I can't quite tell what her eye color is, it seems to be always changing when I look at her. First it's a midnight blue, then it's a deep magenta, now it's a soft leaf green. Her eyes dart around the room, a nervous gesture, I suppose. She looks like an Alien, I think to myself.  A beautiful, magnificent, breathtaking Alien. I catch Clyde glimpsing at her bare thigh. I sigh. Nothing can be easy when it comes to liking a girl. Oh, this is going to be Hell, I can just feel it.

-R