We Don't Exist
Part I
"They sent me because I don't exist"
I am nobody. I do not exist. Not in an official capacity, anyway. I was never born, and as such I will never die. I've never held a job, and yet I'm who they sent. I was sent because I don't exist, and I'm okay with that. I expect it, and accept it as my purpose. Or at least…. I did.
That call changed everything.
"Alala," the nameless voice on the other end of the phone always started with my name. He spoke it as though I was his pet. Something to be controlled; perhaps I was. "The situation has progressed beyond normal means of control." Again, these words were his standard operating procedure. My handler liked to remind me that I was a last resort option only. It squelched any ideas I might have had about asking for more missives, or so they thought.
In fact, I dreaded the missions. I never knew if I was going to come back, and capture wasn't an option. I knew that death would be merciful in comparison.
Handler didn't wait for my acknowledgement. He didn't have to. He knew I was listening. He knew I really had no choice in the matter. "Your assignment is simple. Infiltrate and destroy. This may be something that will take time. The details have been uploaded to your filepad." The line went dead, and I immediately placed the phone back on the dresser.
The streets were dark. They'd been this way for all time, as far as I had been taught, though logic told me better. Decrepit wires and posts jutted the landscape. Remnants of a time past. Remnants of a time I had not been told of. The night attempted to be silent, but my ears had been grown for moments like these. Moments where a normal soldier would have been taken by surprise. It was barely audible, but I could hear it. The quick, light footfalls of the scout that had been sent to follow and track my movements.
It was difficult for me to play along at times like this, but I did so with increasing effort. I wanted to turn and confront the being following me. My instincts and training demanded it, but the mission forbade it. Instead, I pulled the ragged, and filthy blanket closer to my body and cowered against the shadows of the crumbled buildings.
My ears caught more feet joining the first set, and soon it would have been ridiculous to pretend I couldn't hear. They had allowed me to walk myself into a dead end, and I curled up in the corner. "I-I can hear you, you know!" To my pleasure my voice trembled as it left my throat. My training never failed me in these situations, but it was a happy moment every time.
My fear was greeted with a wave of titters and chuckles before a young voice called back at me from somewhere above. "You heard us because we let you." It was so youthful that I had a hard time differentiating whether it was male or female. "What are you doing here? This is our place. Nobody is allowed!"
I stood slowly, not knowing if my stalkers were armed or not. "How old are you?" I couldn't help it. This couldn't be the group of rebels I was supposed to infiltrate. The file had read as though they were kids, but in a maturity sense not in a chronological sense.
"None of your business, lady!" The voice box leaped from a shattered window and landed hard on the ground in front of me. His little body crumpled onto the ground. I stood in shock, unsure of myself for the first time in my life. What was I supposed to do with this now broken child. My shock spread as he unfolded his should be paralyzed body and stood straight and firm in front of me. His eyes shimmered like an animals in the darkness, and I could barely make out overly large ears.
I stumbled back against the wall. This time I wasn't acting. "What are you?"
"I'm defective, duh!"
"Defective? What are you talking about, kid? You are a kid, right? Where are your parents?" My rambling questions were apparently my natural defense mechanism. This was a discovery to me. I'd never been in a situation where my training hadn't covered all possibilities. What the hell is going on?
"We ain't got parents. It's just us." As the boy spoke 'they' made themselves visible. Sliding out of the shadows into the pale light from the moon. I felt my eyes widen and my jaw drop. A group of forty or more children now had me cornered in an alley. I had heard them, sure, but I had only suspected maybe fifteen.
"Tie her hands and blindfold her!" The mouthpiece shouted at the horde right before tiny feet began kicking my shins with remarkable strength. I found that despite my incredible pain tolerance, and years of training, I allowed myself to be brought down.
An round cherub face popped up in front of mine, she was so adorable that I just wanted to squeeze her cheeks and hold her to my chest. What the fuck? Never in my life have I ever felt a maternal or nurturing instinct, but this small child brought it out in me. That is until she growled, revealing rows of pointed, shark-like teeth.
Those teeth were the last thing I saw before a crusty thick cloth was wrapped around my head, and the world went black.
Part II
Old blood, dirt, and only the gods know what else filled my nose and mouth, making me gag as my body was led blindly though the underbelly of society. Inside that crusty piece of fabric, I lost all sense of time, and my generally epic sense of direction became skewed and distorted. I couldn't tell up from down, save from the fact that my feet were on the ground so that must have been down. I can honestly say, that I never had truly felt fear before this. Funny how the smallest of creatures can be the most terrifying.
And I can't tell you what I was expecting when the crust was finally removed from my eyes, but whatever it was it sure wasn't what I got.
The light was dim, but once the blindfold was removed, my eyes adjusted quickly. Only a few flickers of artificial light shone in the darkness of what was once a warehouse. An extremely busy warehouse from the looks of the hastily discarded crates, and pallets lying around the floor. The windows that weren't shattered and replaced with boards were painted, refusing to allow even the smallest glimmer of natural light though, and the room dwarfed everybody in it by stretching at least thirty feet into the air.
What used to be thick concrete flooring was cracked and broken beneath my feet; another prime example of nature reclaiming what had long been hers. Weeds and roots jutted up through the chasms, making each potential step potentially dangerous. I couldn't very well move anyway, the teacup humans were closely clustered around me legs, making any movement damned near impossible.
The tiny humans, if that's what they could really be called, were everywhere. Hanging from the rafters, piled into the shelving that hung precariously off the wall, and scattered across the floor. There were hundreds of them, easily. Looking around, I noticed that not a single one of them was older than I was, and the youngest were still babes being toted around by the others. I opened my mouth to speak, and the words didn't want to come. The got stuck in my throat for a long time before I was finally able to push them out. "What is this place?"
The little one I had dubbed 'Mouthpiece' reappeared, stepping onto a chair right in front of me so that we were face to face. His ears were adorable, like the floppy ears of a young puppy, and I found I suddenly had the urge to reach out and scratch them. He must have seen the thought move across my because he growled and his fists clenched at his side. It was hard not to smile. I was out numbered, bound, and thoroughly surrounded, but being threatened by a child of no more than seven or eight gave me a case of the giggles.
I tried my very best to stifle my laughter, but a few choked chortles escaped anyway, and Mouthpiece reached out and bopped me on the head. "Shut up! It's not funny!" His little voice cracked in anger, and the laughter just burst from me in waves.– I might add that up until this point, I have never found anything particularly funny in my entire life. I have no idea what happened, or how my humor switch was suddenly flipped, but even at this point, I suppose I felt an inherent kinship with the beings around me.
"Shut up!" All of a sudden, Mouthpiece's face was pressed against mine. The grainy feel of the dirt smeared across his skin was enough to get my attention, but if that wasn't enough his breath was raunchy enough to make my eyes water. "You can't laugh at us! You're all tied up, and we could kill you, you know. We've had to kill the soldiers. You're different, but we could kill you if we had to…"
His voice sounded desperate, but he didn't waver from his stance; pressed against my face, every muscle in his tiny body rigid and ready to strike. I cleared my throat once more, and he gave me a little bit of room. When the words came once again, they were deliberate, and slow. No more giggles pitching me into a frenzy. "What. Is. This. Place."
"This is home."
The voice didn't belong to the boy. It came from behind him, older and definitely more feminine. I stood on my tiptoes trying to see who it belonged to and demand more of an explanation, but with the group of children huddled around my feet the movement set my balance off, and I began to tilt.
The crowd gasped and scattered, though much to my dismay my hands were still bound behind my back, and there was nothing to catch me beyond the jagged and marred concrete as I fell off to the side. My shoulder popped loudly, and I felt it dislocate. Groaning in pain, I rolled off my side and onto my back, my eyes shut and brows furrowed in pain. Truth be told, it wasn't the most comfortable of positions; laying on my back with my arms tied behind me and a dislocated shoulder, but it could have been worse.
A fluorescent face appeared above mine, hovering about a foot away as she crouched over me. Her eyes had the same eerie glow that her skin did, though they were a bright, aquamarine, whereas her skin was shining white. Her cupid bow lips pursed together and she shook her head, solemnity and distrust filling her glittering eyes. "Why did you bring this one back, Bethel? She's just another lost one."
My ears picked up the faint sound of Mouthpiece descending from his pedestal and coming close, I could tell the faint light was beginning to reflect of my teal eyes, and I was starting to get that strange feeling of fear again. Every hair on my body stood on end, and goosebumps pimpled my flesh. The boy came even close and grasped the hem of my shirts pulling them up over my face. "I can smell the difference," Mouthpiece and Bethel were apparently one and the same, and I knew that there was no point in trying to hide what they were all now gaping at.
"Oh my God," the glow stick whispered, her words heavy with surprise. "She's one of us?"
