Chapter Text
I was born for only one purpose. I was built, created, put together to sing and entertain people who don't look like me, nor the species that I was meant to resemble. I think I have come to terms with the fact that I am not human; that I can’t live for any other reason besides what I was born to do. And I think that’s why Thrin thinks I’m a perfect child and also feels the need to protect me.
“Freedom”...The first time I heard that word, I was only a child sitting on the lap of a boy who was not that much older than I. Ever since, I think I spent half of my existence wondering what that word meant.
“Death is like freedom,” He said to me. I could barely say the human alphabet without forgetting halfway through, let alone understand what Quinn was saying to me. “I heard that from one of the grown-ups.”
I didn’t know what would happen to him when I pointed him out to the segyeins. Thrin had asked me where “big brother was,” and I raised my finger towards the furthest end of the garden, where I saw Quinn sneaking out with a girl around his age whose face I no longer remember.
The guards ran to the children and tried to pull them back in, but Quinn was stubborn. He kicked and punched while yelling for the girl to run, then one kick to a guard's gun granted him the freedom he would talk about so fondly.
I would never forget Quinn’s face afterward. I remember staring at it for a while, and noticing how he looked calm, at peace, he looked…human. I started to crave freedom.
Ever since then, Thrin wouldn’t let me out of their sight. Some days, they insisted on staying with me in the garden, sitting underneath the tree with me napping in her lap, or just staring at the other pets. On the rare occasion, Thrin needed to do something, I was sent to the garden alone, but even then, I still felt like someone was watching me…Eyes watching me from the sky, the anakt flowers seemed to be staring back at me. During those days, I would just walk on my own, pick up flowers, and watch as the other pets ran past me as they played whatever game they decided to play that day. They looked human.
I’ve thought about joining them once or twice, but Thrin would always tell me that relationships are nothing but an inconvenience and that they will only get in the way. There is no use in trying to do anything else, anyway. It felt like I was already leeching off the world just by existing. So I’d just nap underneath the tree.
A parasite. That's what one of the pets called me once. I would later discover what that meant, and they weren’t too far off. Cloning and creating human pets wasn’t uncommon; in fact, half of the children in Anakt Garden were created unnaturally, but something was different about me, I guess. Despite being created by segyein, I still had human DNA, meaning I still had physical human flaws that prevented me from truly being the perfect human pet for Alien Stage. My breathing, my hearing, and my ability to be awake for long periods of time. I had all these problems, and yet, they were the only “human” thing about me. I didn’t have any interest in making friends, or talking, or anything. I was made to sing, dance, and smile whenever someone commanded me to, which isn’t really anything either, when you grow up in a place where they teach you to do all of that on command, so I was…Just a pathetic waste of space, a leech, a parasite. I’ve been resigned to that title since then, I think.
I was nine years old when my life started to feel more chaotic.
One day, Thrin sent me to the garden alone this time, so I did what I usually do: I walked. The days when Thrin leaves me to my own devices felt strange since I couldn’t be told to do anything, be ordered around, and I didn’t really like it. I wandered and stared at the flowers that would stare back until my chest felt like it was getting tighter, my eyelids heavy, and my head in pain with every laugh and squeal of another pet, feeling like knives driving into my ears. I knew that it was time for me to lie down underneath my favorite tree in a small bundle of red anakt flowers.
In my dreams, I would see Quinn. But not the Quinn that was alive, no, the Quinn I remembered. Peaceful, dead, free Quinn. I would look at his face and envy him because whatever he was feeling, I wanted to feel it too. Sometimes when I sleep longer than usual, Quinn’s face would glitch out, and I would see myself. I would see myself experiencing this freedom that humans can feel. Unfortunately, I wasn’t human, no, I was a parasite, remember? I was a creature in human disguise. I was neither alien nor human; my DNA comes from whoever “AVA” was, and judging how Thrin spoke of her, she was as human as I was. I wasn’t a person; I was Thrin’s pet parasite that felt the need to cling to anything that could make me human or that could grant me humanity. Nothing worked. I want to be free like Quinn.
My dream of freedom was slowly cut short when I felt a big kick to my back. My eyes fluttered open to see that one of the other pets tripped over my sleeping body. My head tilted to the side, not really knowing what happened, and I didn’t know this then, but that was the moment when my short-lived life changed forever.