It’s a bright beautiful sunny day. Perfect weather. My favorite weather. Above 65 below 74. The

“perfect” range. I just got my SAT score back, 1540. That’s a damn high score. I bet most colleges would fawn over a score like that. I mean–they better, I studied hours for that score. Today seems perfect. A perfect day for the perfect boy: José. Except for one fact. Today my mother died.

It happened all so quickly. Humans are fragile creatures y’know. I was happily holding the letter that contained my SAT score. I probably had that big stupid dumb smile on my face. She was on the top of the stairs. She rushed down them. Probably to hug me like she always does. One slip. It takes one slip to kill a human. Some of us may die valiantly, but the bottom line is a vessel of hopes and dreams can be killed within a second. What kind of world is that. It’s apparently the one we live in.

I have no one. My father left years ago. I never want to see him again, not after how he treated mom. I guess I have friends. But friends are not family. Behind the basic jokes, my friends told one another, we didn’t know squat about each other. Unless someone lets you completely into your mind you can never learn anything about them. The real them at least.

I leave the hospital. I’ve known she’s been dead for at least 4 hours. Somehow stepping outside the building solidified the fact. It made the fact real. I try to hold it back. I can’t. Tears are streaming down my face. They won’t stop. Please… STOP!.

There’s too much sadness. Too much emptiness. I feel like a whole chunk of my life is missing. I start speed walking as I cry and think about mom. I get faster and faster as the memories rush in.

I’m running down the busy streets of the city. I don’t care who I bump into.

“Watch where you’re going!”

“Ya have eyes?”

“@&8# you!”

It’s all noise. Useless noise. I don’t care anymore. Society doesn’t matter. What does a nearly perfect score on a test matter? A score can’t bring your mother back.

As I run I feel as if I can leave everything behind. All the bad memories. If I can just think of one foot going in front of the other, maybe just maybe can it stop the thoughts. The more thoughts that come in the faster I need to run. Left, right, left, right, left-right, left-right, left-right-left-right

left-right-left-right.

“Just think about your feet! nothing else”

I run farther out. I don't care where I’m going. There is nowhere to go. I stumble, I trip, I’m crying like a baby. Disgusting wails are leaving my body.

The highway is a dangerous place, at this point, I’m playing with death.

I check with myself: “Do I still care about my life?”

The sound of a speeding car instantly reveals to me the truth. I want to live. The car is in front of me in the blink of an eye. I dodge to the side. I’m not fast enough. WHAM!.

I’m hit. I tumble off to the side of the road. Warmth. I never knew bleeding was so warm. I’d always assumed death would have a cold feeling. I hear the car drive away. A hit and run. Why can something we use so much kill someone with so much ease? The last thing I’ll see is the black starry sky. Not a bad final view. My tough-guy act is over. I do care, I don’t want to die. Black.

I wake up. I wake up!! I’m not dead. There is a second chance. I still have a life to live. You never realize how much a human values life until it’s almost over.

The relief of life doesn’t change the fact that my mom is dead. I don’t feel full. I feel like half of my former self. It takes me some effort to open my eyes.

I have no shirt on. I look down. I am literally half of myself. Everything from my waist down is gone. The second and likely more shocking reveal is that I also seem to be floating in some incubation tube. All around me seems to be some green liquid.

I try to move. But I cannot. I can’t control my body.

Through the glass of the incubation tube, I see people. Or things very close to people. Everything about them seems a little bit off. While they do have all the same parts of a human the proportions of their body seem ever-so different.

They remind me of the skinwalker legends that the Native Americans use to tell. They seem to be operating some kind of system. I can’t make out any of the languages that are shown on the screens nor can I hear anything they are saying. The only thing I can make out is a diagram of the human body. It’s plastered on a huge electronic screen that takes up the center of the room. The skinwalkers seem to be mesmerized by this screen. Not once do they look back. Their heads are all fixated on the screen, while they are utilizing something that I think to be some kind of keyboard.

It gives me a cold tickle down my spine, or what’s left of it. I’ve just been hit by a car, but this feels a hundred times scarier. I can feel my heartbeat ever so faster. As my heart rate increases, I see something and notice something on the human diagram. I see a ball-like graphic start to pulsate faster and faster as well.

No.

“That better not be what I think it is”.

“If that was some type of heart rate monitor, they’d know I was awake.”

“Am I supposed to be awake?”

“Are they friendly?”

“If they know I’m awake will they kill me?”

“Did my life amount to nothing?”

As these thoughts run through my head, my heart beats faster and faster. The ball on the monitor starts to pulsate faster and faster. I want my heart to go slower. I want to quell it with my will. I can’t control it. I want to control it so badly.

The heads of the skinwalkers all turn towards me. Due to their fixation on the human diagram, I hadn’t seen the eyes and faces of the creatures. They all look different, each with their own abnormalities. Some of them had huge tusks like those of an elephant protruding from their mouths. Some had no eyes, others had gills like those of a fish.

There seemed to be no correlation, no common denominator bringing these creatures together, besides their humanoid shape. Are they even all the same species? So many thoughts are rushing through my mind. I’m a knowledgeable kid, but this stuff is unheard of. My stream of thoughts is cut off by a feeling of drowsiness as I drift off.

I wake up. I wake up!! I’m not dead. There is a second chance. I still have a life to live. You never realize how much a human values life until it’s almost over.

I can hear the rain falling outside. I’m in bed. My bed. In my room. In my moms hous–. Mom! Memories of yesterday flashback into my head like a roaring river. I instantly yank the sheets I’m under off my bed. Under the sheets reveal my legs. My whole lower body is back. Thank god that it was just a nightmare!

I rush out of the bed. I start jumping up and down. I need to confirm that it was all a dream. I roll up the leg sleeves of my pajamas and rapidly scan my leg, and sure enough—there it is. I have a birthmark on the back of my right calf, and it’s still there. I’ve confirmed that the latter events of yesterday were all a dream.

I bust out the door of my room, and what I smell next makes me tear up. I can smell eggs wafting from the downstairs kitchen. Every day in the morning my mom used to make me a cheese omelet. Tears start to fall down my eyes as I realize that it all was a dream.

My mom’s death, me getting hit by a car, that weird place I was in earlier. It was all a dream. A trick my sick human mind put me through. Despite how excited I am to see my mom, I carefully walk down the steps of the stairs into the living room. I then make a mad dash right towards the kitchen.

I throw open the door that separates my kitchen from the living room and— I see it. A person. Not my mom. A skinwalker. He, she, they, it has an ugly face. It has two tusks sticking out of its jaws. Just like every other one of them I’ve seen, their body is definitely humanoid but the body proportions seem off. It’s cooking omelets in my kitchen. My mom’s kitchen

“Who the he–”

I’m cut off. I find myself instantly sitting at my dining table. Across from the skinwalker. After a moment of hesitation, I try to scream at it.

Nothing. Not a sound.

I try to move out of the seat to attack it. I instantly find myself sitting at the table. I try again. Same results.

“You done? You know! You can’t? Get out.” It says.

I try to attack it one more time. I instantly find myself sitting at the table. Infuriated, I begrudgingly accept that I am trapped in this interaction. I settle for an angry scowl.

The skinwalker looks at me and smiles an awkward smile. As awkward as a smile can be with two tusks sticking out of your mouth. It looks like this was the first time this being has moved its cheek muscles.

“I’m honestly surprised you're this angry? We made this. Home just! For you.” It says.

The tone of his voice, and when he chooses to stop his sentences are anything but human. However, I’m able to understand the general gist of what he’s saying. I try to say something back but am reminded of how I can’t talk.

“Hu! Man? I will! Explain to. You? Why you’re here!” It garbles.

With no way out of this situation, the only thing I can do is to sit and wait for an opening to arise.

Just your luck José.