Parasite. That's all I am, all I ever will be. They whisper it in the corridors and declare it with their pointed fingers and not so subtle glares. The hatred is inescapable, and cannot be masked by even those who love me. Jamie, Mel, Sunny, Doc, and so many more make up my family. They make me human, but when the shadows blanket me in the night, even Ian's embrace can't save me. Nothing and no one can save me from what I really am. A parasite.
I had woken curled in Ian's strong arms with a smile on my face and a grin on his. It was the perfect start to the day, but soon my smile wavered and fell. While working with the few students I had to teach, we began discussing the different universes and their inhabitants. I was lost in a story, and it was only by a stroke of luck that I overheard Shanon and Maggy's conversation.
"It doesn't belong here. It can't hide behind its new body, no matter how angelic it looks,"Shanon sneered, her voice dripping with disgust.
Without looking I could imagine Maggy's puckered lips turning down in a grimace and her piercing blue eyes narrowing in hatred. "And the way Ian looks at it, like it isn't really a silver worm, an alien."
I tried to tune them out and focus on Jamie's face in front of me. In the past year he's grown from an innocent boy to a young man. His shock of pitch black hair curls under his ears and he towers over me, much to his delight. But as he laughs I get flashbacks of when I first came here to the caves. He reminds me of our conversations and the acceptance he offered me immediately. Since the moment I came back, even in this new, smaller body, he's loved me like a second sister, and some days his smile is what gets me through. But then, the force of Shanon and Maggy's cruel words hit me like a blow to the gut.
"That's all for today," I told the three students I have, making an excuse to exit abruptly, hiding the tears welling behind my eyes.
Immediately after making it to a deserted hallway, I broke into a sprint, longing for the silent solitude behind the familiar red door. My pounding footsteps echoed in the dark hallway like the stabbing words bounce of the walls of my mind. Parasite. Worm. Alien. It.
Finally reaching the crimson door, I shoved it aside and took in Ian's and my room through blurred vision. Our single sheet was twisted and hanging off the side of the mattress, a pile of his clothes sat in the corner of the room, and a single beam of sunlight broke through a crack in the rock above us. It was my home, but as the tears streamed down my face I began to wonder if I could ever truly have a home.
I'd become too human in the past year. I had let selfishness overtake me. I had accepted the kisses of a man I didn't deserve and the love of a family I didn't belong with. Maybe I truly was a monster, pretending to be as human as those around me. In reality all I was, was an invasive worm curled in the back of a host's neck.
Letting the sobs overtake me, I curled into a ball on the cold, hard ground. I let misery wash over me and realized that I didn't belong here, and never would. I was everything Shanon and Maggy called me, and as the glint of silver caught my eye, the obvious choice dawned on me.
Rising on trembling legs, I stumbled across the room to the small ledge where Ian and I kept our belongings. I paid no attention to anything but the hunting knife shimmering in the last rays of sunlight. It was my last option, and my only hope to give those I loved a second chance at life without an alien.
