I'm Not Me Anymore - Part 1: Afterschool Activities
- By: Wooga.
- Genre: Sci-Fi / Spiritual.
- Alien Nine © Hitoshi Tomizawa.
Yuri was terrified as always, screaming and slipping forward on dirty, scratched rollerblades, wearing her Alien Party uniform, clutching a lacrosse net in one hand.
One of her pigtails had come undone, and her shirt had been torn. A strange (they all were,) bug-eyed alien, was barreling after her, amazingly agile on three haphazardly placed legs. The creature growled from an unseen mouth. It bristled its sawdust fur, and the pinkish antennae under its eyes bushed outwards. The strange things rippled like a squirrel's tail until they brushed both sides of the narrow hallway. Yuri made the terrible mistake of looking over her shoulder. The amber, squareish pupils of the animal locked onto hers hypnotically, and she stopped with a whimper, her ankles wobbling in the hard plastic skates. Her Borg spread its wings defensively, drills whirring. The eye whiskers swayed, keeping a silent rhythm. They floated and spread like moth wings, and when they stroked the wall, a pink-grey powder stained the plaster. The air was thick with something Yuri couldn't see. She smelled something like pears. Pears that began to drift lazily over Yuri's head. Over and over, the antennae rocked back and forth, painting a graceful and full figure eight, again and again and...
Sand. Yuri was at the seaside. The ocean had spread blankets of grey fog all around her, fog that spread like a ghost ocean around her. Her fingers were numb, and she heard a high-pitched whistling. It sounded like people, far away, screaming on a roller coaster ride. She was all alone.
Now she was in a car. The gold-brown car with the mustard-yellow seats. She liked that car, but her father sold it a long time ago. Sold it for the money and got something cheaper. Her mother was in the front seat. She looked back at Yuri, and gave her a kind smile. They were driving into the amusement park, through a giant gate painted red, with pictures of happy animal mascots dancing around the sides.
Now, they were in line for the roller coaster. Her mother held her by the wrist. She was struggling against the grip. They stood at the front of the line, and it was a matter of seconds before it was time to ride. She tried with all her strength to pull out of her mother's grip. No, she thought. No. The cart was almost here. There was a faint rumbling, and the cart slid in on the rusty tracks. Sixteen square red seats, empty, with grey cushions. She put her right hand over her mother's restraining fingers, pulling from the muscles in her back, using as much weight as she could, clawing at her mother's fingers. Her mother smiled, her hand was like granite. When she opened her eyes, they were grey, like marbles set into her face, her short-cropped hair black as ink. She forcibly pushed her daughter into the seat, and reached for the restraint bar. The large metal object clicked softly into its licks. 'No, no, mom, please...!' she tried to say, but she was paralyzed. Her voice was stuck. The car was empty but for her. She looked back at her mom despairingly, who waved at her. The rest of the people in line were black smoke. The park was gone, and they were floating in blank space. Yuri yelped as the cart jerked forward, clanking fitfully up the track.
The higher it got, the slower it crept. Yuri was breathing heavily, her hands clenching the steel bars. They seemed solid, but the more she gripped them, the more thousands and thousands of miles away they felt. She closed her eyes tight, but opened them, as she realized falling in darkness would be even more terrifying. She opened them slowly, only to see five hundred feet below her.
The car barreled faster and faster down the slope. All she could do was scream. There was a strange creaking noise, and the cart wobbled back and forth. Yuri realized that one of the wheels had snapped, the front one. Her screaming grew, until it became the only noise in the world. Then she realized that her mouth wasn't even open. The noise split the air, and right when the cart began to flip forward, her eyes snapped open.
She was back in the hallway, the alien writhing angrily on the ground, its antennae tightly bunched together, as if it was attempting to block out the sound. She stepped back slowly, paused, and took another step. Her eyes were locked with the creature's. She saw a small, open mouth below the creatures eyes, filled with teeth like sewing needles. It must have two mouths, one for talking, and one for eating, and it had almost had a chance to use the eating mouth on Yuri. The sharp screaming sound was coming from behind her. The three-legged monster slowly reached one arm up to its nose. It was like a caricature of a man stroking his mustache, contemplating. Then he ripped the antennae out, blue blood flowing outward. It hobbled up onto one leg. It looked awkward like that, slumped diagonally, its rear in the air, its compound eyes searching Yuri's face. The high-pitched squeal increased in intensity, piercing Yuri's ears. Soon it became so high in pitch that she couldn't hear it, only feel it in weak vibrations in her jawbone. Blood the color of the sky drizzled down the creature's face.
The tripod let out a grunt of determination and ripped out its other antennae. It must be deaf now, Yuri thought, as its convulsing immediately stopped. 'Oh, shit!' someone cried out behind her. She didn't have to turn around to recognize Kasumi's voice. The monster straightened itself, and then ran for Yuri, its blood streaming down its barrel chest. Kasumi grabbed Yuri's arm, her blonde hair still spiraled into bizarre pigtails on the side of her head, although she had stopped broadcasting their high-frequency screeching. Yuri hit the ground at a bad angle in her rollerblades, and tripped both herself and Kasumi. Her one weapon now useless, pinned to the ground, Kasumi could only sit there. Yuri's Borg sneered, showing the alien a mouthful of something like baleen plates. It spread its white, angelic wings defensively, distracting the alien from the two vulnerable girls. The Borg's drills spiraled out of every thick feather, shining under the fluorescent lights of the hallway like steel.
The monster stiffened. Yuri eyed it cautiously, her mouth hanging open a little. The burg stared at it, blinking his frog-like eyes. Then, a waterfall poured down the sides of the monster, cascading like streams of watercolor paint over the contours of its chest muscles, dancing down its forelegs, streaming into each finger of its clawed hand. Drops began to form on the stiffened, shocked fingers, and one by one, began to drip on the floor, tapping out a rhythm that became faster and faster until it was staccato.
The monster slumped. Behind its dead form there stood Kumi, her eyes staring into nothingness, her sandy brown hair closely cropped and perfectly straight. Her mouth was a thin, bloodless line set into her face. Four drills snaked out from the alien, and lazily, like snakes, recoiled back into Kasumi's hand, the flesh of which was ripped and sagged, like a popped balloon.
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