Look, I didn't want to be an Inhuman, it's the worst destiny anyone can have.
If you're getting the reoccurrings nightmares...
my advice is: flee.
Flee to the ends of the earth if you have to. Ignore whatever "they" tell you and try to lead a normal life.
Being an inhuman is dangerous. It's scary, burdensome, and most of the time, it gets you killed in terrifying, gory ways.
If you're a regular mortal, and "they" have gotten to you, then you have nothing to worry about, you will wake with everything that has happened seeming like one very bad dream.
But if the dreams seem to be more than just dreams – if you feel something stirring within you– my suggestion is: well, jump of a cliff, you would be doing yourself a kindness.
Because once you sense who-what you are, it's only a matter of time before "they" sense it too, and they'll come for you.
You've been warned
My name is Abel Hayes.
I just turned sisteen. Just a few months ago life was so simch simpler for me.
I was a student at Vida Academy, a private school for "special" kids in Queensland Australia.
Don't get too hung up on the "special". Its the word adults use when describing wayward kids with learning difficulties.
Am I a wayward kid?
Yeah, I geuss you could say that.
I could tell you the short story of my wretched life and you would immediately agree.
However things started becoming really bad for me last December, our Form Four class took a field trip to Tasmania – forty hormonal teenagers and two teachers on an old grey
bus, heading to the Mona Art Museum to look at historical statues and ancient antiques.
I know – it sounds like a horrible punishment. Most of our field trips were exactly that.
But Mr Kamau, our Art and history teacher, was leading this trip, so for once, I wasnt asleep yet.
Mr Kamau was this middle-aged kenyan guy who was always buried in historical novels.
He looked much younger than he claimed to be and had a scruffy beard and an old plad jacket, which always smelled like brownies.
You wouldn't think he was nothing if not boring and annoying, but he told fun stories about mythical creatures, gods, and heroes that were actually intresting.
Most of his classes he would play board games with us. He also had this awesome
collection of cosplay items and battle cards, so he was the only teacher whose class didn't seem like torture.
Personally I hoped that nothing would go wrong during our trip. At the very least, I didnt want to be at the center of any trouble.
Dont know why I thought it'd go any other way.
You see, trouble goes out of its way to find ne, especially during field trips. If anything can go wrong, it will.
Like at my seventh-grade school, when we went to the Australian war memorial,
I had this accident with a cannon. I
wasn't aiming for the curator's car, but of course I got expelled anyway.
And before that, at my sixth-grade school trip, when we took a behind-the-scenes tour of the museum of art and culture, I sort of hit a three thousand year old statue of Socrates with british ballistics.
And the time before that… Well, you get the idea.
This trip though, I was determined to be on my best behavior.
All the way into the city, I put up with Sansa Ellis, the skinny brunette schizophrenic girl, hitting my best friend, Vere, in the back of the head with chunks of mayonnaise sandwicthes.
Vere was an easy target. He was scrawny. He cried when he got bullied. He must've had measels when he was young, because his face was a playground for acne, but at least he could brag about the wispy beard he had on his chin.
On top of all that, he was an albino. He had a doctors opinion excusing him from gym for the rest of his life because he had some kind of bone disease.
He walked funny, like he had been kicked in the nuts, but don't let that fool you. You should've seen him runwhen it was cheese stake day in the cafeteria.
Anyway, Sana Ellis continued to pass the time by throwing chunks of mayonnaise sandwiches that stuck in his light ginger hair, and she knew I couldn't get involved because I had already been sent to the principal's office last week.
The principal had proceeded to threaten me with mega expulsion if anything bad, funny, or even mildly distracting happened on this trip.
'I'm going to end her,' I mumbled.
Vere tried to calm me down. 'It's okay. I like mayonnaise sandwiches. And she was so kind as to break them into chunks for me.'
At the same time he dodged another piece of Sansa's breakfast.
'That's it.' I started to get up, but Vere pulled me back to my seat.
'You're already on probation,' he reminded me. 'One more incident and you will be mega expelled, remember?.'
Looking back on it, I wish I'd bitch slapped Sansa right then and there.
Mega expulsion would've been nothing
compared to the mess I was about to get myself into.
Mr Kamau led the museum tour.
He walked infront of us briskly, guiding us through the fancy art galleries, past ancient antiques and obsidian pedestals holding really old stone statues.
To me, It was actually insane that this stuff survived through two thousand, three thousand years.
He gathered us around a large encrusted obsidian tablet with a big bipedal hairy ape-like creature on top, and started telling us how it was ancient demon called the Yowie, a savage predator that feasted on human flesh.
He told us about the inscriptions on the sides. I was trying to listen to what he was saying, because for once I was actually interested in a lesson, but everybody around me just wouldnt shut up, and every time I told them to put a sock in it, the other teacher chaperone, Ms Weber, would give me the stink eye.
Ms Weber was this annoying grammer teacher from Brooklyn who always wore a black cardigan, many of us thought she was a vampire, incuding me. She looked mean enough to burn your soul right out of your body.
She had come to Vida halfway
through the year, when our last english teacher mysteriously disappeared.
From her very first day, Mrs Weber loved Sansa and figured I was Satan.
She would take of her round glasses and point her withered finger at me and say, 'Now dear,' in a really sweet voice, and I knew I was going to the principal's office immediately.
One time, after she had me write out 'I will not be a delinquet' in a 300 hundred page notebook, I told Vere I didn't think
Ms Weber was human.
He looked at me, really scared, and said, 'I think so too.'
Mr Kamau kept talking about how the aboriginals believed that the Yowie would horribly disembowel his victims.
Finally, Sansa Ellis snickered something about the 'worm' within the Yowie's legs, and I turned around and said, 'I will pay you to shut up!'
It came out louder than I meant it to and everyone laighed. Mr Kamau stopped speaking.
'Mr Hayes,' he said, 'do you have something to share with us?'
My face reddened. I said, 'No, sir.'
Mr Kamau pointed to one of the inscribed images on the obsidian tablet.
'Perhaps you'd like to tell us what you know about this image?'
I looked at the image, and felt a surge of relief, because I actually recognized it. 'That's Altjira fighting demons at the beginning of time, right?'
'Yes,' Mr Kamau replied, obviously not satisfied. 'And he did this because…'
'Well…' I tried my hardest to remember. 'Altjira was the king god, and –'
'And… he didn't like the demons who wanted to destroy the world. So, um, he killed them, right?
But he couldnt kill the demon god Ma'gog, and captured him instead.
And later, during the summer solstice, when the demon god Ma'gog was at his weakest, Altjira beheaded him and cut him up into several pieces"
–''Eeew!' said one of the girls behind me.
'– then Altjirah imprisoned him in a deep abyss forever,' I continued, 'allowing the world to exist peacefuly.'
There were a few mocking snickers from the group.
Behind me, Sansa Ellis mumbled to one of her cronies, 'Like any of this stuff actually matters in real life.
Like it's going to ask us on our final examinations, "Please explain why Altjirah fought with demons".'
'And why, Mr Hayes,' Mr Kamau asked, 'to answer Miss Ellis's excellent question, does this matter in real life?'
'Hehe,' Vere snickered.
'Shut it,' Sansa hissed, her face even brighter red than her gaudy jacket.
Well, at least Sansa got in trouble, too. Mr Kamau was the only teacher who ever caught her being an annoying runt. His large ears were not just for show.
I briefly thought about his weird question, and shrugged. 'No idea, Sir.'
'I see.' Mr Kamau looked disappointed. 'Well, you get half the mark, Mr Hayes. The ancient aboriginals did indeed believe that Altjirah defeated the demon king Ma'gog as well as all the demons he commanded, ushering our world into an era of peace.
After Altjirah sliced him to
pieces, he scattered his remains into Hoth, the darkest part of the Abyss.
And because Ma'gog was immortal he wouldn't die but endure an eternity of suffering in the darkness of the abyss." On that happy note, it's time for snacks.
Ms Weber, would you lead us back into the bus?'
The class ended, and every one headed back to their seat, our bus took off, couples heading to the back of the bus to explore each other's hormone ridden bodies, girls chatting about celebrities and other stupid stuff, guys staring at 'intresting' photos on their gadgets, those that weren't high on meth anyway.
Vere and I were about to follow when Mr Kamau called me back,
'Mr Hayes.'
I knew what he was about to say.
I told Vere to go without me. Then I turned towards Mr Kamau. 'Sir?
He had this frighteningly intense look on his face, pitch black eyes that could've sucked you into their depths.
'You must learn the answer to our dear Ms Ellis's question,' Mr Kamau
told me.
'About the Demons?'
'About real life. And how what I teach you applies to it.'
'Oh.' I mumbled sheepishly.
'What you learn from me,' he said, 'Is indispensable to you. I expect you to treat it as such. I will accept only the best
from you....Abel.'
I wanted to be upset, Mr Kamau was always so hard on me.
I mean, sure, I appreciated the support,
he was the only teacher who didn't have a dead in the eyes sort of look, and didn't seem to habour a profound hatred for kids.
But somehow Mr Kamau expected me, a kid with learning disabilities, to be as good as
everybody else, despite the fact that I had never made above a D in my life.
No – he didn't expect me to be just as good; he expected me to somehow better.
And I just couldn't learn all those big austrlian aboriginal names and historical facts, much less keep their stories memorized.
I mumbled something about trying harder, while Mr Kamau took one long wary look at the statue of the Yowie, like it would suddenly come alive and eat us up at any given moment.
He finally allowed me to take my seat on the bus . Then Ms Weber handed out a donut to me like she would a hobo who wouldn't leave her lawn.
After a while the bust stopped at our final destination for the day:
The Sydney Harbour Bridge.
Our bus pulled over and everyone gathered on the left side of the bridge, where
we could watch the sea go on for miles.
Overhead, the sun was already sinking over the horizon, and it was only 4:30 pm.
I figured maybe it was global warming or something, because the days had been slowly shortening since the beginning of the year.
The nights nowadays were strange, I couldnt put my finger on it but they were colder and darker, as if some of the evil creatures Mr Kamau always talked about were hiding within...