“Can you show me the arm?” I asked.
My heart was racing. I could feel the veins in my neck and forehead throb and pulse; adrenalin had the better of me, there was no hiding my emotions. This was it though, proof there were more of me, of my kind. I am not the last. They were not just part of my imagination.
They might as well be. Nothing of them could be left. They told me what I described as my home – the beautiful blue oasis in the Milky Way – looked more like a bigger version of the red planet, but much more gray.
They told me it was humans that did it to themselves. That I was lucky.
Luck. What would they know about luck? They’re stuck here just like me, behind glass, a part of some sick collection of rare animals.
That’s what I am now, an animal. An animal. Not like these creatures though. Intelligent they were, but anything resembling civilized they were not. I always thought to myself that if whoever captured me is grouping the creatures he captures by intelligence I am beyond insulted. Do you know what it’s like to spend 20 years with this bunch? They’re mostly misfit unidentifiable creatures who don’t seem capable of doing much more than play with their feces, run circles around the common area, or laugh at each other when they fight and eventually hurt one another.
That’s how I know I didn’t dream my world. I remember so much. I remember what it’s like to be civilized. To have a conversation. And I’m not really sure if it’s been 20 years or not, that’s just what my watch says. But I only set it to the last date I remembered when I woke up in my cell. I don’t know how long I was asleep. That happens a lot here too, I fall asleep, and large amounts of time go by. I’m talking years at a time on a few occasions. Those long sleeps can be almost as bizarre as my reality, I’m grateful they haven’t turned into nightmares.
I was only able to figure this was a zoo or something by deduction and logic, because there has been no one to tell me why I’m here or how I got here.
My hand outstretched, demanding a rotting body part from a towering, disgusting, yet intelligent horned beast. It was nibbling at the fingers of the pale-greenish arm, which was complete up to the shoulder and to me, unmistakably human. It even had a patch of sleeve still on it no less.
To call this creature intelligent is an insult to any creature smart enough to not sleep in its own feces. I haven’t figured out if this is just a dumb, disgusting version of what existed where it’s from or if they all look, and smell, this way. Still, it understood things. It did not communicate save for some grunts, but could repeat words (but still sounded more like Cookie Monster). The set up of this place is so that you sort of have to interact with each of the creatures at one point or another. In the morning (well, when I wake up. I still call it morning), after I eat, the common area is open and we all step out to find some game waiting for us to play. Of course I had to figure all of this out.
It looked back at me curiously, slowing the pace of its gnawing nearly to a halt, but not quite. Its eyes looked down to what I was pointing at, still a step or two away from the foul-smelling beast. It let the arm drop from its mouth. It thudded to the floor, as it settled I could nearly hear the wet sticky sound of saliva dripping from it.
The creature turned it back, uninterested in the arm.
My eyes still on this monster the size of an SUV I stepped and grabbed the arm. The smell of it nearly made me wretch immediately. I only handled it by pinching at the sleeve and put my shirt over my nose and mouth with my other hand. I brought it to my cell, but not in it. Right outside it, I wanted to examine the arm. I just wanted to see the sleeve really, the whole arm part was nearly too disgusting for me to bear. But if I’m right then I have a whole lot more questions, because I recognize that sleeve. There’s a piece of patch still, and even from across the room it was unmistakable.
I just needed to see it up close. I just wanted to hold it up to the one on my tattered old uniform to see if it matched.
I slide the piece of sleeve off the arm, the cloth is surprisingly less dirty-looking than mine. It’s a really small piece of this patch that’s left, but when I hold it up to mine, it is the same.
Everything I thought I knew about this place must be wrong.
What the hell is going on?