Human. (On Hold)

Chapter One

Walking.

A  human task I never quite understood.

Step, step, step. Right, left, right, left.  Never pausing; never ceasing. Simply, endless movement.

There are so many mysteries about the human race I never understood. And there was a time when I thought I never would completely understand them.

So many questions without answers. So many useless tasks. So much sorrow and pain. Never stopping to ask, 'What's the point?'

Until it's too late...

*7 months earlier*

Father sent me on my chores post awakening at dawn. He's felt absent lately, it's like he doesn't care anymore.  At about eight a.m., I arrived at school, the only chore I'm tasked with in equal intervals other students seem to refer to as 'months.'

To say I was isolated from non-family members is an understatement. Father has one of my siblings go every day. I go rather rarely since I'm one of the oldest among my siblings.

I was approximately a block from school when I had to begin walking. Others might see me arrive if I'm not careful enough.

While calculating in my mind the amount of schooling I would have to endure, someone ran into me.

"Sorry!" She said quickly before scurrying off.

I would have responded, but she had already rounded the corner and shuffled into the earthly hell hole known as school. I sighed and dragged my feet into Oakwood High as well.

Dad had all of us pretending to be the same kid because it seemed to make everything easier.

The child we posed as was named Jimmy Parks, he had friends, a family, and was moderately popular. His teachers enjoy his presence in their classroom, and no one seemed to notice that Jimmy Parks was literally a different person every day.

It puts in perspective just how little a 'friend' truly cares for you. They claim to know you so well, they claim that you're as close as two can be, and then they can't tell when you've been switched out for another humanoid.

Until one does.

Everyone has that one friend, the true friend. The one who means what they say and keeps their promises. Not everyone notices when they do have this friend, but everyone meets their once in a life time person.

That's just it though, isn't it? Once in a lifetime. Just once. Even in a life as long as mine.

One of Jimmy's friends, John Thompson, interrupts my train of thought by saying,  "Hey, JP," Gabriel,  "did you do the homework for Rosener?"

Am I just a cheating robot to you? But I say, "Yeah,  man, 'course I did," and because i don't value his friendship,  I add, "Why you ask?"

He gawks at me as if I have two heads, which of course, is not so. After recuperating, he responded, "So I can copy it and not fail? Rosener is the devil incarnate, and I will kill myself before repeating her class," this upsets me so much, why must he say such morbid things as this? I may not be fond of him, but I don't wish for his demise.

I'm positive it's a feeling Rosener shares with him,  "Sure dude, just a sec, "I bend down and rifle through my bag before finding it, "Here," I say,  handing him the parchment. He will return it to me at lunch.

"Thanks, Jimmy, you are a lifesaver!" This is preposterous, I simply handed him a fragment of paper with streaks of graphite, yet he claims I saved him from some moribund state. The expressions used here are so benign.