𝐄𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐥 | [𝐛𝐱𝐛]

𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 1

      Xeno

I was eighteen now.

Time passed like a fleeting shadow, slipping through my fingers before I could grasp it. It felt as though the years—the judgment, the stares—had unraveled in the space of a heartbeat. As if everything had happened just yesterday.

And, predictably, no one dared come near me. I had become a pariah, someone to avoid as though I carried some curse that might infect them with a single glance. I've long accepted it. The curse. The way people recoiled from me, as if I embodied everything unnatural in this world.

But it wasn't just the curse that set me apart. No, my appearance sealed my fate. White hair, like snow untouched by sunlight, and eyes the color of storm clouds—features that marked me as different, as something to fear. My skin, too, was pale, almost translucent, like porcelain too delicate for the world outside.

Strangers would assume I was the type to stay locked indoors, hiding from the sun that would scorch my fragile form. But the truth was far from it. I craved the outdoors. The warmth of sunlight, the whisper of wind, the bite of cold air—all of it made me feel alive. Even sports—though I seldom let anyone know—I enjoyed. Physical activity offered a brief escape from the constant weight pressing down on me. It was a distraction, a way to distance myself from the thoughts that often plagued me.

Yet despite everything, nothing changed.

I was always the outcast. Always the one standing on the fringes, watching as others pointed and whispered, as though I couldn't hear. But I could. Their words followed me like a relentless shadow, twisting their faces into masks of contempt.

"You'll never be normal."

"Freak."

"Get away, you're disgusting."

"What are you? Are you even human?"

The venom in their voices wasn't new. It was as familiar as the beat of my own heart. Over time, their insults had become white noise, a part of my existence, woven into the fabric of my life. But recently, I found myself thinking...

How utterly absurd their words were.

I am human.

Do they not see the flesh on my bones? The skin that covers me, just as it covers them? Can they not see that I breathe the same air, walk on the same ground, live under the same sky? What made me a monster in their eyes?

Was it because I didn't fit into their neat, narrow definitions? Was it because I didn't play the role they expected?

Their ignorance was laughable. Society, as it stands, is blind. Foolish. They judge what they do not understand, fear what they cannot explain. And in their blindness, they call me the monster.

I let out a long, weary sigh.

I had endured this for eighteen years, living in the shadows of their cruelty, feeling the weight of their judgment pressing down on me like an anchor. But deep inside, there was a fire that refused to be extinguished, a defiance that stirred in my chest.

Let them stare. Let them whisper their hateful words. I had withstood worse, and I would continue to stand, no matter how they saw me. Their small minds could never diminish the truth.

I am human.

One day, perhaps, they would see that. Perhaps not.

It didn't matter anymore.

I straightened, feeling the familiar burn of their eyes on my back, but I refused to shrink beneath their gaze. If they saw me as a monster, then I would be their monster, but I would never let their fear define me.

I would carve my own path, cursed or not, with or without their acceptance.

I am alive, and that was more than they could ever take from me.