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imnotgrimimjustagrumpyreaper · 8 months

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HATCHED

Aka: a half-baked short story based on an infamous Tumblr post that I just turned in for a grade

“Can’t we do anything besides go to the library? Can’t we do something fun?” Dante had woken a few minutes after Heather and had been pestering her ever since.

“I think the library is fun,” she replied.

“Maybe it is, but not the way you do it.”

Heather sighed, “I just need a quiet place to get some work done that isn’t here.”

She kept her voice quiet and her footsteps light as she moved through the house.

However, her father was already awake, in the chair, watching the tv, set on the news. It gave his face an eerie glow.

The light had not yet made it to the other side of the house.

Heather paused behind his chair.

“Reports are coming in of another approximately hundred cases, dubbed ‘Wakers,’ spreading throughout the US. Health and safety officials are beginning to wonder if it's contagious-”

Her father grunted, “Of course it's contagious.”

Heather nodded.

“I’m going out,” she said.

“I don’t like you going out alone…”

“We’ll be fine,” said Dante.

“I’ll be careful.”

“Be extra careful, pumpkin. Where you headed?”

“To the library, I’m trying to get ahead on stuff.”

He nodded, thoughtfully, “Good. Go on, just text me when you get there.”

“I will,” said Heather, heart pounding in her ears, she stepped out before he could change his mind.

Outside she blew out a breath that turned to smoke in the cold air.

“I always wonder if today’s the day,” mused Dante as they moved to the car.

Heather was loath to reply, “The day for what?”

“The day he’ll actually not let you go out, and go ahead and lock you in the basement, or something.”

“He’s not that bad, my parents are great.”

“They’re good, but they’re not great,” Dante muttered.

Heather shivered as the leather seat stole the warmth from her back. It was a cold day, the first truly cold day of the season, made all the colder by the warm weather the week prior.

She wore only a baggy t-shirt and jogging pants, having forgotten a jacket. All her fall appropriate gear was buried in her closet: cute dresses and fleecy leggings with festive prints…From several falls ago, back when there was so much less to hide…

Her ribs stuck out further beneath her skin, and her collar bone seemed so much more sharp; maybe, it was all in her head.

The library went about the same as usual.

“You always do this,” whispered Dante.

Heather blinked back her tears with more aggression than necessary.

“Yes you do,” he argued at her silent protest.

“What am I supposed to do?” She hissed, her voice cracking from the effort of staying quiet, “Not do it? Just never work on anything because I’m too stupid to not have a melt down.”

“Heather, shut up, you put so much damn pressure on yourself, it's hard to watch.”

“I have to, if I want to get anything done I-” the words died in her throat. She let her head fall on the table, tears falling in little damp spots, making the blue of the lines of her notebook run, like the blank paper itself was crying.

It was always the same empty promise: ‘Half the time I’ll work on homework, and get ahead, and half the time I’ll work on my own stuff, and actually make headway there.’

She usually wound up doing neither. Just sat, dumbly, at a table in the corner, making herself as small as possible, uncomfortable and sweaty, even today, despite the chill leaking in from the windows.

“It's not due till next week,” Said Dante, like the little devil on her shoulder.

Heather didn’t respond. She zoned out, letting her hearing and focus drift off to the soft conversations in other corners of the library as the last of her tears dripped down her chin.

“It's terrifying. It’s spreading so fast.”

“I’m just wondering how it spreads.”

“Oh, so you believe it is contagious?”

“It has to be.”

“How can it be though, I mean, it’s not like a disease, is it?”

“Maybe it's mental; I saw something on Facebook, the other day, about mass hysteria, I think? It's very bad stuff.”

“Oh. Oh, no…I don’t want my kids anywhere near school, right now.”

“I know the feeling, I’ve been fighting with my husband to have them pulled out until this all blows over.”

“Can you believe they’re talking about discussing it in classrooms, now? Honestly? The kids don’t need to hear about that!”

“That’s unbelievable!”

It was like that everywhere you went. In grocery stores, Goodwills, and restaurants, at gas stations, and on the radios and televisions. Social media was the worst. Heated conversations about wakers was something you just couldn’t escape.

“Can we pick out a book?” Asked Dante, apropos of nothing.

Heather felt suddenly exhausted, “You know what? Yeah. As long as it's fiction.”

The non-fiction section, particularly anything on osteology (a term everyone had all together, suddenly, become too familiar with) tended to feel a bit like a war-zone. There was no small chance someone would be willing to get into a valiant and violent debate with anyone picking up a book from that particular shelf.

Despite herself, she whispered as she wandered to the aisles, “You wanna get a coffee after? I’m still cold.”

“Jokes on you, I’m warm,” He teased.

“We’re getting a coffee, you get no choice,” She said flatly, rubbing her hands together.

After a few minutes of wandering, Heather had found what Dante had been after.

“Good Omens-”

“The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter,” Dante finished, “You tried to read it a while back, didn’t you?”

“I did…I didn’t finish it, I’m not great about finishing books.”

“Well, you should finish this one, there’s a tv-show now.”

“Yeah, there is, isn’t there?”

“And I wanna watch it. But you wanna read the book first.”

“Point taken,” Said Heather, and she checked it out with no protest. It had been good from what she could remember.

The coffee shop wasn’t far from the library, but it was a far cry in atmosphere: loud, and slightly chaotic. The warmth was well trapped in the bustling place, despite the many windows.

Heather stood back a ways from the counter, surveying the menu. They’d rolled out their fall favorites a while ago, there was too much good to choose from.

“The maple spice is your favorite, you know you don’t come often enough to get anything else, and get the large this time.”

“No, it's too expensive,” Heather said, a little too loudly, and felt embarrassed; she knew she was drawing attention to herself.

“You deserve it.”

“I don’t.”

She went up to order before Dante could argue any further.

“I’ll have a maple spice latte, hot, please.”

“Alright!” Said the barista, chirpy, and not even fake. ‘Thalia’ read her name tag, “What size?”

“Large,” said Dante.

“Large,” blurted Heather. Then, she whispered, “Why would you do that?”

Thalia nodded, “Large?”

Heather bit her lip, “Yeah.”

Thalia leaned to the side, looking past Heather to where there was no line behind her. Satisfied with what she saw, she leaned forward, almost conspiratorially, “Hey…Are you?”

“Am I…What?”

“You know…Are you?” She waved a hand.

“I don’t understand,” Heather said, meekly, suddenly feeling cold again.

“Are you like me-us? A waker?”

Heather’s mouth gaped.

“Say something,” said Dante, having the decency to sound nervous, ”Don’t just stand here, you’ve already outed yourself by taking this long to answer, so you might as well just say yes.”

“Don’t say it so loud, please,” she answered, finally.

“Sorry! Sorry…I get excited…”

A man had come up behind Heather in line, she could see him roll his eyes out of the corners of hers.

“Would you wanna…Talk? I can take my break early?”

“Sure,” Heather said, feeling like she had no other choice.

Maybe she did…But her own curiosity was peaked.

Thalia made the man’s coffee, then one for herself, than Heather’s. She carried the two over to the booth Heather had slunk over to, and sat down.

“My name’s Thalia.”

“We know,” Dante said, amused.

“...I’m Heather.”

Thalia extended a hand, “So…”

She smiled at Heather, leaving the stage open, the mike prepared and ready for Heather and Dante’s little two part act that they had never practiced. Heather got a rush of stage fright.

“What do you call yours?” Heather asked, feeling like she’d tripped over her own words.

She reached for the coffee and took a sip.

“Hm? Oh!...Well, she’s Thalia too.”

Dante made a noise.

She had thrown Heather for a loop, “...What do you mean?”

“Well, we both agree we’re both Thalia. It was a little weird at first, but we’ve gotten used to it…”

“Oh…Is-...Is it like that for everyone?”

Thalia shrugged, taking a sip of her own coffee, “I’m not sure.”

“Introduce me,” Dante cut into her train of thought.

“Uh…Well, mine-uh-He’s called Dante.”

“Oh,” said Thalia, the awkwardness settling over her, despite her resistant smile, “Sorry, I’ve not met a lot of others…”

Neither had Heather, she’d never met another.

“But you have met others?”

“A few.”

“What were they like?”

“Just…People…Like us. I don’t know, I didn’t really get to talk to them.”

Her eyes drifted around the room. Heather’s followed. A silent unspoken question between them: how many more might be in the room?

“Ask something,” Dante sounded urgent.

“What?” asked Heather.

“Anything! Just say something to make it less awkward!”

Thalia was smiling at them when they looked up.

“Have you met anyone who’s-...”

“Hatched? No, not yet…I think I heard of someone. I don’t think anyone’s been brave enough to try around here.”

Heather tried to picture it: a skeleton walking down the street, freed from flesh.

“I wonder what it’s like?” Heather asked of no one at the table, really.

“Me too,” whispered Dante.

“Us too,” said Thalia. Then, she continued, “We were thinking, if we ever…Went through with it, that we might pick a new name. One that fits both of us together, instead of separate.”

“Cool,” said Heather, stupidly.

“We’ve gotta get back to work, so she says,” Thalia says, still smiling, “Thanks…Good luck.”

“You too,” they said, or was it Dante said using Heather’s mouth, or Heather said using Dante’s jaw.

Late that night in bed, Heather lay rubbing her jaw, rubbing her hands together, running them over her ribs. Who’s were they, she wondered. Were they hers? It didn’t feel like it…

“I’ve been meaning to ask…” Dante broke the relative silence in her head.

“Ask what?” she prompted, trying not to break the silence of the house.

“Why’d you call me Dante?”

“I dunno…I’m sorry, it was the first thing that came to mind.”

She’d been reading a passage from Dante’s Divine Comedy for class. The character in the book she was reading was called Dante; the character in the book she was trying to write was called Dante…

It was just her default name, then. If she’d had to come up with some fictional person to chastise or joke about ala “Yes, Blank, these wakers are so scary, and probably are government sleeper agents,” Dante would be that person.

On the day when she’d started hearing a voice inside her head, she hadn’t been feeling particularly creative about naming it.

“Don’t be sorry,” Dante said, finally.

Heather could feel his finger bones twitching beneath her skin.

Another cold Saturday, it hadn’t really been warm again since that first cold day, all those weeks back, they woke.

They’d head out, that was the plan.

“I’m going out,” said Dante using Heather’s voice, or was it?- What did it matter? It felt bad, wrong.

“I don’t think you should go, Heather.”

And they flinched.

“You don’t look good,” Their father continued. He turned the volume back up on the tv, the glow casting the dark lines of his face into even darker relief in the dark room.

The light would never reach the other side of the house.

“I have to,” protested ???

A reporter on the tv cut them off, “The hearing is happening today. It will determine, hopefully, this divisive matter on if or not the hatched should be considered people.”

“Of course they shouldn’t, god, we need to lock these sick people up before they spread this shit any further,” he spat at the TV, covering his mouth once he realized he’d just cursed in front of his legally adult child.

“I’m sorry, I’ll be careful,” continued Blank, “But I have to go out, I need the library for research, we’re not allowed to use online sources.”

“They need to cancel school. It’s not safe.”

Blank nodded, trying to mean it.

He sighed, “I’m starting to think you just don’t want to be around me.”

“No, it’s not-”

“Just-...Just text me when you get there.”

Blank wasn’t going to the library. They were heading to the coffee shop, bones moving clumsily, weighed down by skin and meat and organs and names that just felt wrong.

Blank had been going to the coffee shop for weeks to meet with Thalia. They’d met others too. They’d learned a lot…Learned that when the skin died the bones died with it, meat and bones both had only one life they had to share.

They didn’t always talk about that…About being them…They’d all watched the Good Omens mini-series, and they talked about that a good bit, too. It was nice, it was a relief, it was a break.

Inside the coffee shop there was a fight.

“Keep it down,” cried a man they didn’t recognize.

“You’re the one who’s yelling!” Replied a skeleton they might have recognized.

“Get to work, Thalia,” spat the man.

“That’s not my name.”

“It is, I hired Thalia.”

“Well, then why am I here, because I’m not Thalia.”

“You are, I don’t care how much you fucking change your body. You can mutilate yourself all you like, you’re still Thalia.”

Blank felt sick, their stomach all the heavier.

Their friend caught their eye and they could feel them urge them to leave.

So they did. Blank piled back in the car and drove, aimlessly.

A while down the road their phone buzzed.

“What?” they answered, it was their father.

“You didn’t text. Are you in the car? Where are you, Heather?”

“We-”

“Who’s we? There’s a fight with some waker that broke out at that coffee shop near the library. I don’t want you anywhere near that, you need to come home.”

The words bubbled up their throat, muscle, tongue and teeth failing to restrain them.

“What if they’re not so bad?”

The phone went silent in their hand.

“What?”

Blank took a deep, shaky breath, “What if they’re not so bad, everyone treats them so unfairly.”

“They kill people, Heather, they’re sick, psychopaths, monsters-”

“Have you even spoken to one? Do you know if it's like dying?”

“Heather-” his voice had turned cold.

Blank hung up. Tears turning cold as they leaked down their face and neck, gathering at their shirt collar.

It was a few miles out of town when they pulled over and shrugged off their skin like shrugging off a coat. They hatched.

Blank dragged themself out of the boiling pit of sulfur; Blank climbed the mountain out of hell and turned to look back at how far they’d come.

“I picked out a name,” said Blank.