Crystalline

Empty

Pale light; blue and white at once, indescribable in its beauty, flashed across the boy's skin, disappeared into the depths of his body before making a reappearance in his eyes, a bright flash in the green.

He pressed a button, turning up the voltage to its highest; the boy shuddered, light spinning along the surface of his skin. His fingers shook uncontrollably, his eyes sparking brightly til he could not determine the colour, could hardly force himself to look at them, for it seemed as if lightning lived inside of him. The boy's body arched against the restraints around his wrists and ankles, strapping him onto the table.

James flicked a switch, and the boy collapsed back against the table, shuddering and gasping for breath. Slowly, methodically, James removed each of the electrodes from the boy's bare chest, gloves shielding him from the charge that continued to run through him. He undid the straps at his ankles and wrists, stood back and crossed his arms over his chest as the electricity receded into his body. Never before had he seen someone so alive. And he had created him.

Slowly, the boy sat up, ran shaking fingers through his hair, his skin shedding sparks that followed the strands, soaking into his scalp. He turned his eyes to James, the glow receding as they faded to green. "Better?" the man asked.

The boy nodded and slid into a sitting position on the table, picking up a shirt from a hook on the wall and slipping it on carefully, as if his joints were stiff.

"How do you feel, Cal?" he asked, resting a hand on his shoulder as he did up the buttons with exaggerated care.

The boy finished the last button and looked up at him, his face as expressionless as usual. "Charged," he said.

James laughed and roughly patted Cal's back. He was not sure if it was a joke, but he pretended that it was one; it made him feel better to imagine that the boy had a personality, even when he seemed not to have one at all.

The first few weeks had been hard: he had had to teach the boy to walk, to talk, to think and move and act. And he had progressed with surprising speed, his mind that of a child in an almost-adult body, a sponge ready to soak up all that it was given. He was almost perfect. But there was something different, something that was not completely there.

Because he remembered being with Katrina on hot summer days, lying in the grass with their son between them. Before things had turned wrong. Before his life had started to feel empty again. When they had grown distant from him, and their brief presence had not been enough to fill his life anymore, and he had needed something more, something that was his. But then she had found out. And she had left. And he did not like to think about that day in the rain, much like another day, years and years before but different, like a movie played in reverse. Her leaving instead of coming closer. Drawing further and further away until he could not see her any longer. Until she was a distant memory, a painful throbbing inside of him that would not go away.

He did not like to think of that day. Of feeling human. And so he looked at the facsimile of his son and pretended that there was a person inside of him, and not a mind filled with nothing but air. Just like the empty memory of her leaving him. Their son's hand clasped tightly in hers. Everything and air between them.

The world was an odd place. If he stood, as tall as he could, he could see the horizon, could imagine the slight rounding of the earth. But he felt as if he were missing something; as if, once, there had been more. He felt empty, but he did not know if that was how people felt, because all he could remember was being that way. It still did not feel right. It seemed as if there should be something inside of him. Something to fill the space. Like the trees and the sky and the grass and the ocean filled the world. There should be something inside of him. Something alive. Because all he felt was empty. Dead. Like the grass that stood around him. Burnt and crisp and lifeless.

He turned, looked out over the horizon again, and then crouched low to the ground as he heard a loud sound. The man's car sped away, into the distance, a sleek black machine prowling across the landscape until it disappeared in a burst of stale dust. He rose to stand, to go back to the room he had been given. Because it was more peaceful when the man was gone. When he was not being taught new things, forced to learn when he did not want to. Because peace was the only thing he knew and wanted, though he always found himself wanting something more, longing for something else.  

He did not know what he longed for. But it was far and unattainable, as distant and beautiful as the stars. And he felt as if, maybe, they were what was missing, they were what belonged inside of him, where there was empty space and air. And that was all he knew.

So he turned and walked inside beneath a cloudy sky, leaving behind a field scattered with scorched grass, black and green, dead and alive. A parallel of his own sense of being.