What's a Monster?

When I was a kid, I saw this thing. It was fifty eight pages of color covered in huge bubble letters. I couldn’t read the words, but I knew the letters. I knew who the good guys were and who weren’t, but above all, I knew I liked it. The pictures gave me a good idea of what was happening, but for everything I didn’t know, my friend, the boy who brought it, explained. 

At the time I sat and listened, having and asking no questions, but looking back I’ve got to wonder what the world thought of their hero. He was an immensely powerful man that didn’t look like everyone else. He would’ve stuck out like a sore thumb which would have made people hate him, no matter what he did. They’d hate him solely because he was different. People do that, they alienate, I just never realized they did. I never asked the questions that would have clued me in. I never thought to wonder. I never questioned what it was like to be the person they ignored, never even noticed that there were people being shunned. 

I grew up with bubble letters on colorful pages, but I never took the time to read what else was there. I never wondered what it’d be like to be the bad guy. The one born different. The one no one’s supposed to love.

In a hero’s world, what would people think? They wouldn’t think what I think, but I never realized that, not till I started questioning. I'm asking if the people saved in the pages started calling the hero a monster? I’m wondering if they watch him die with smiles because they’re scared of what he can do or maybe they do it out of hate? What about him? Did he wonder why they ran? Did he question why they hated him? Did he know who he was in their eyes? Did he know who he was outside of their eyes? 

I never questioned these things, but now I do. Why’d I start wondering these thoughts? Because things changed. Things like to change, they always do. When things change, people start to wonder things they’ve never wondered and question things they’ve only started the things they’ve always thought. I should know, I’m someone who’s changed. 

When everything changed I started thinking new things, wondering new thoughts and questioning everything. Now I can’t stop.

It started a week… No, not a week. I think it was more like a month ago. 

Things started changing the night I got locked at work overnight. I worked as a lawyer for a company that made plastic bottles. It was my job to keep them from getting sued. I was the top lawyer working there. I probably would have gotten a promotion by now, if I still worked there.

It was a normal day. I worked from nine to five, like I did everyday. I was about to go home when my boss bought me a stack of papers. He told me I didn’t have to do it till tomorrow, but there was nothing waiting for me at home so I stayed and worked. I probably would have worked all the way through the night if the alarm hadn’t started blaring. There were lights flashed red and a voice announcing that I needed to evacuate. We’d been having a lot of false alarms, so I took my time leaving. 

I was putting on my coat when the alarm stopped, when everything stopped. The lights went out and most of the doors locked. My door wasn’t one with an electric lock installed, so it was still manual. I was able to get out of my office, but I was still trapped.

Between me and the exits, a locked, glass door and a sea of cubicles. I knew that if I got out I’d have to walk across the room and take a right at the elevators, then I’d reach the emergency exit. I knew it because I’d worked there for years, not because I could see. It was too dark to see. The lights were dead and it was the witching hour. I couldn’t see anything, but I still managed to find the second door. I tried to open it but it wouldn’t budge. I couldn’t leave and it was starting to smell funny, like bad perfume. I was worried about a gas leak. 

God, how I wish it was just a gas leak. 

I was growing tired so I started pounding on the door. I wanted out. I needed to escape. I needed… to sleep. With every passing second I grew more and more tired. Even though I knew that if I fell asleep, I’d probably never wake up. Despite that, I curled into a ball in front of the door. I remember, as my mind started drifting, thinking I was dying. I thought about the deaths I’d heard about, and compared to them being rocked to death. I remember thinking that my death didn’t seem so bad.

I was floating in darkness, waiting for the mythical bright light that’d appear and take me to the afterlife. That’s when the alarm started blaring. The sun was rising, but I was still alone, laying behind a locked door. It still smelled, but a lot less. From everywhere, the alarm screamed, but the first thing I did when I woke up, was thank my lucky stars. I thought that someone had caught the leak and stopped it before there was enough gas in the building to kill me. I thought I was safe. 

I couldn’t have been more wrong.

I didn’t think the alarm was necessary, after all, I was ‘safe’. 

I wanted the screaming warnings to stop. I wanted to leave. I wanted the doors to open. I wanted proof that I was safe.

I sat up, despite my head feeling murky and my body feeling bulky. I remember thinking that I was taller than I should be, but I wrote it off as my imagination. I sat with my back to the locked door and I waited, hoping someone would free me or at least stop the constant blaring. 

I remember the moment the door to the floor clicked open. I was so happy. I turned as quickly as I could. There were people in bulky yellow suits. I smiled at them. I was about to call out to them when they started screaming.

“A monster!” one yelled as they turned and left. 

“Run!” The one who said that waved their hands as they screamed. Those two and one other ran back out the exit, but I thought it’d be okay. Two people remained. I might have been confused by the screaming, but I thought they’d still save me, instead they just stared.

I tried to say something, I don’t remember what it was, but my mouth gurgled and cracked around the words and turned them into a horrible sound.

“What do we do?” one of the two asked the other.

I tried, again, to speak, but the only sound I could make was a garbled moan. I couldn’t believe that such a horrible sound came from me, so I tried again. As I kept trying, making muddled screams, the people talked. They acted like I wasn’t there. 

I was so scared, but they didn’t care. They left me alone behind a locked door. I pounded my fists against the glass as I tried to scream for them to help me. They didn’t care. They closed the floor’s door. I wanted a way out, somewhere to run. I wanted to know what had happened. I wanted to know why they left me. I needed to know.

The grass cracked the fifth time my fists hit it. I was confused. I remember wondering how I managed to break such strong glass, but I didn’t care enough to think it over.

Once the door shattered, I ran. My feet were caked in shards, but it didn’t hurt. I should have thought it was strange, but I had no time, I had to run. I burst into the staircase. The workers in yellow looked at me and screamed. I needed to escape. 

I jumped down the center of the spiral stairs. I landed on someone. They crunched under me, but I didn’t care, I needed to run. 

I burst through the wall. There were trucks, tanks, tents and more. There were crowds, large crowds, and they were screaming at me. They called me a monster. They ran and hid, shouting that I was going to kill them. I didn’t want to kill, I just wanted to run.

They shot at me. It felt like needles of snow. They kept screaming. I screamed with them, but my scream sounded like a monster's roar instead of a girl’s pain.

I was surrounded. They were getting closer and they wouldn’t stop shooting. They wouldn’t stop shooting. I couldn’t hear, I couldn’t think, all I could do was run. I ran through them. I pushed and toppled, but I didn’t care, I needed to keep running. 

After a while I was past the crowds. The floor was green. I liked the green. I ran towards towers of brown topped with green. I kept running. I ran between everything I saw. I almost ran into many things, but it didn't stop me from running. I didn’t crush the fluff that ran alongside me. This was its world, not mine, not yet.

I ran and ran and ran till I couldn’t run anymore. 

I toppled and fell into dirt surrounded by fluff, green and stalks of brown. I laid in the grass. I felt insects crawling over and around me. I listened and heard no one scream. I liked it there, in the middle of nowhere so I stayed there. I still stay there in their world. I wish I could keep staying there, but they won’t let me stay. A mob came after me. They brought weapons and fire. They were looking for a monster, but they didn’t find one. They just found me. 

I ran from the first few but now I’m surrounded by those thin gangly things. I can’t run now, they’ll keep chasing me. I know I should try to run, but I’m tired. I’ve already run so much. Why should I keep running? What use is it to run from people that’ll never stop chasing you?

“Someone kill it!” One of the humans shouts. I guess it’s time for the monster to die.

They run at me. One of them lances me with something sharp and cold. It hurts. If I was who I was before, I wouldn’t have, but I’m their monster now, so I let out a roaring scream as the red bleeds from me and puddles. 

Why do I deserve to be hurt? Why do they need to kill me? Why do I have to die?