5 Questions

Question 10

My parents died when I was young. Car accident. I was an only child so I had no siblings. I was alone. My father's sister and her husband were living somewhere in Europe and we had lost contact with them a long time ago. My father's brother died a long time ago. My mother's two sisters were also dead. My grandparents: dead. That seemed to be a running theme in my family. Death was slowly making its way through my whole family and for a long time I was waiting for him to take me too. But he never did. I was alone. I grew up as an asshole which explains why I didn't have many friends. I wasn't the best in school but I somehow was able to graduate. The married couple who had adopted me all those years ago didn't care about me. What a surprise. As soon as I was done with school, I went to the police academy and that was that. I slowly learned that faking a happy persona was easier than being an asshole so that's what I did. I faked everything. My feelings, my speech, my mannerisms. Everything. It was easier to be liked than to be hated. Even if all of it was fake. Even though I was known for being a very nice and cheery person I didn't really have friends. I didn't want any. I pushed everyone away. Never trusted anyone enough to be vulnerable around. It didn't matter to me. Nothing mattered to me until I was officially a police officer. I was a good one. Saving and protecting the innocent. Always hated that saying. Sounded too cheesy. I just enjoyed arresting criminals. That's all. In the end, I was pretty content with my life. Not happy, far away from happy actually, but it could have been worse.

And worse it got.

When I hit 30 I thought my life was just going to continue the way it has been, which would have been fine but that obviously wasn't the case. There was a killer in the city and I had to stop him. Nothing new. I put more killers behind bars than I can count but this one was different. I couldn't catch him. And even more than that he was able to put me in the hospital. I nearly died on the 27th of October 2037. But instead of finally dying and leaving my sad life behind I survived. After that incident, I lost the little bit of faith in me that I had. Call it pride or whatever but after that chaos, I couldn't do anything anymore. I lost my spirit and started not giving a fuck. I was still pretending to be something I'm not: Happy. But everyone noticed that I was falling behind at my job. I used to be a fast and efficient detective but after I stopped trying I wasn't even able to do the simplest things. I still liked my job but I would be lying if I said I didn't think about quitting. Even my boss felt the need to have a talk with me. Asking me if I wanted to take a break. I declined. My drinking got worse and I felt myself slipping into depression. And then something changed again.

Androids.

Working together with Leo was like a fresh breath of air. Sure, he was annoying, a smart ass, and also an asshole but he was also something I never thought I could have again. Hope. I couldn't explain it but I was starting to get obsessed. On the outside, I was pretending – always fucking pretending- to not care about the stupid android but in reality, I was intrigued. It was like getting a new toy. I wanted to know more about him. It got so bad that I decided to play a stupid game with said android just to get some reactions out of him. To see new sides of something that was just supposed to be a machine.

Pathetic. So, so pathetic.

I downed the shot with ease and with all the shots gone I already wished for some more. I was probably going to regret my last question but I was curious. And after everything, it couldn't get any worse. Right??

"Leo, what do you really think of me? Who am I?"

Another eye roll. It stopped bothering me by now.

"Really, Elliot?". He didn't seem to like that question which made me want to hear the answer even more.

I nodded and patiently waited. It didn't take him too long to finally answer.