Human

Chaper One

Seven stepped out of her high school into the darkness of the day. She pushed her way through the crowd of her peers to the hovercraft marked with her name. It was short and flat with a glass dome over the top. She placed her scaly hand over the scanner.

"Please recite your name and age," the machine stated robotically.

"Seven Mignemi, age seventeen," she recited into the microphone. There was a beep before the glass dome lifted and a step materialized in front of her feet. She took her hand off the scanner and stepped into the hovercraft. The step dissipated and the dome shut on top of her. The hovercraft blasts forward into the line of other hovercrafts taking the students home.

Seven pulls her tablet out of her bag and starts reading her homework: a report by a Mmadusawian student whom was studying on Earth. He would be returning to Seven's planet, Mmadusawee, in two weeks. She will then travel to Earth and study there for three years as her graduating project.  She needed to know the customs of humans before going there, hence why she had been assigned to read the report. This one was from one year ago:

November 14, 2015
I have come to the conclusion that humans are more saddened on cloudy, dark days. They drink a liquid called coffee which contains a substance, caffeine, that keeps them awake.
I decided to try some. It tasted bitter like soil but I enjoyed it as well. The coffee did not make me more awake until an hour or so later. Suddenly, I became very jittery and anxious. I will not be drinking coffee again.

As Seven completed the first reading she thought about what he had said. How peculiar, she thought, why would the darkness make someone sleepy and why would they drink a dirt-tasting liquid?

She decided to read more, as she would need to know all she could of humans before acting as one.

    And she read all of them throughout that weekend. The whole 1,084 of them.

***************

    Seven woke up to her jellipup, an animal similar to a dog but rounder and translucent like jelly, jumping on top of her.

    "Wednesday! Stop it!" Seven objected, laughing. "Oh! Today I'm going to Earth, Wednesday!" She picked up her pup and embraced her, "I'll miss you sooo much, Wed! But don't worry, Blue will take good care of you! You remember him, right? My best bud? Ah, of course you do!"

She gave Wednesday a push off the bed and then got up herself. As her toes sunk into the plush carpet, the round, flytrap-style bed folds up into the wall. She gets dressed and goes down the hall to the staircase.

When she steps onto the first step, the stairs move like an escalator. She travels down the escalator-steps with Wednesday tumbling down behind her. She giggled at her clumsy pet as she reached the bottom of the staircase.

Seven made her way to the living room and sat on the fluffy couch. She brought her hand forward and looked at her watch. Blue should be here soon, she thought.

She touched the button on her watch for a hologram call and picked Blue. He answered on the second ring, his image appearing above her watch.

"Hey, I'll be there soon, Seven. You excited?"
"Yes! I'm scared too, though."
"Oh, don't be! It'll be the best time of your life! I'll miss you!"
"Awe, thanks! But don't say those things now! I'm not leaving quite yet!"
"I know, I know. Hey, I've got to go, someone else is calling me. I'll be there in a few minutes."
"Ok, see you soon."
"Bye."

She hung up and lay down on the couch. Today was going to be insane.

***************

After telling Blue how to take care of Wednesday it was time to say goodbye. Seven had said the necessary goodbyes to her other friends and family throughout the past week.

    "So... I guess you've got to leave now," Blue said, rubbing the back of his scaly neck. He looked down at the floor.

    "Ya, I guess so," Seven responded blandly. She pursed her lips. A tear ran down her cheek before she said, "I'm going to miss you so much, Blue," her voice cracking on the last word.

    "Oh, it's ok, Seven," he said, walking to Seven and wrapping his arms around her in an embrace. Her sniffles turned to sobs as she leaned her head into his shoulder. "Cry all you want. It's ok. I promise, you'll be fine. I promise."

    Seven looked up to Blue, her sobs fading, and met his eyes. "But will you be ok? I won't be able to talk to you. I won't know if you're ok."

    "I'll be ok, too. We'll all be fine."

    "Ok. We'll all be fine. It's going to fine," she agreed, trying to believe it herself. Something just didn't feel right. And she didn't know what it was.