Oscar

Antibelonging

24
Hypothesized to be immortal

Male
Gender is a meaningless, alien concept to its kind

He has another, but he can't remember anymore.
It can feel the name lodged in the back of its throat like a hot coal. Part of it wants to howl until it shapes the right sound, part of it fears that doing so would cause everything to crumble. Until it remembers and understands again, there is no name. Only THIS.

Erased One
It met a child on the street. The child asked if it was an angel. It replied--as it refracted the sun and bled on the sidewalk--that it did not know.

Slight beard
There is no face

Thick and curly
Curl and writhe like snakes

Black
Black as mole's eyes

5'10"
Not so much tall as vast, insidious, fluctuating

150 lbs.
Crushing the dark soil without touching it

Very dark brown, almost black
There are too many eyes, all of them are watching us and rolling around in rage

None
Arms in great multitudes, a cloak of flesh and shadow, a seething ribcage that crushes its own bones as it breathes

A thin, very fresh vertical scar on his forehead, running from the tip of his nose to his crown. It bleeds when he's angry or scared. There's always blood caked under his fingernails and sometimes they bleed too.
A void in both eyes that draws us in, triangular teeth below it, a rasping breath and the step of a hunting tiger

Broad-shouldered, muscular, long-legged
A body. What a disgusting thought. Skin and muscle and intestine, yes, but to be confined within it is abhorrent. Reject. Abstain. Cast off. Shun.

Light brown
Sink into the inky night lake, let it coat you until no details can be made out amid the storm of furious waves

Prejudices are built on the stories you are told as a child and the snatches of information you learn, out-of-context, over years of life in a limited environment where there is You and I, us and them, male and female, good and bad, God and the Devil, truth and lie. But for this one there was no childhood, no parent to feed it a filtered version of reality, no understanding of the perceived importance of the self-formed opinion concerning that which you do not fully understand or partake in. There was only eat, be eaten, sleep, wake, and burn.

SWARM - This is the End.
Patricia Taxxon - Breastbone

By human standards: Anger management issues, ADHD, possible psychopathic tendencies, anxiety, extreme self-image issues.
Something is fundamentally wrong. There is no air here. There is unending hunger--or perhaps just misguided emptiness. It is stiflingly warm and noisy and bright. Things rush and gurgle, whistle and creak, and it is somehow its own self that is causing such a horrible symphony. Can't breathe. The limbs are so heavy and weak, and composed of horrid cells which scurry with such malevolent yet sightless purpose that it makes the panic build up along with the revulsion and birth a frantic sort of wrath, a desire to tear it all away and be free again--

-rarely smiles
-has a tendency to stare
-speaks sharply even when he doesn't mean to
-picks at his skin and would probably scratch himself raw if no one stopped him
-doesn't know how to be gentle
-not even with himself (gets hurt a lot)
-awkwardly planks until he falls asleep
-eats food the minute he sees it, regardless of whether it's up for grabs or not
-smiles when hunting or attempting to frighten an enemy
-sees/smells/hears/feels the tension and hatred simmering in those around it and is enthralled by the oily-smoky glimmer
-it's difficult to open its mouth without screaming....the shouts often feel like barely-maintained whispers
-breaking things is both difficult to avoid and immensely satisfying
-and the pain of the glass splintering under its palms is barely noticeable against the background of agony that is its current existence
-even the times when the "brain" shuts off and the body lies helpless are not free from this ache
-consuming things is nearly as comforting as breaking things. To consume is to fill the hole, at least for a second, and the sweet taste of a tangerine reminds him in a hazy way of a better time.

He just wants to go home, but he doesn't even know where "home" is.
Have you ever stood on a stage alone with a dark sea of faces staring mercilessly at you? Have you ever felt the dig and twist of a hot poker and been unable to express the pain? Have you ever laid in the middle of a country road in the time between the stars and the sun and begged with everything you had that whoever cursed you this way might release you? Have you ever wondered if anyone was listening as tears fell unasked-for down a face that wasn't your own, and the urge to destroy fought tooth-and-nail with the urge to devour, and a total stranger knelt beside you and said things so unimaginably far from comforting that you didn't know whether to split them in half or run until you
fell off the
edge of
the
w

Lacks empathy, patience, and self-restraint. Often loses his temper and lashes out, even around those who only want to help him. Struggles to understand or sympathize with the suffering of others, and acts recklessly with no regard for the consequences for himself or the world he lives in. Tends to completely ignore authority and social convention.
They have no right to judge it as "flawed" when it is in this weak, unhappy, sickened state. It is not its true self and has no way to show them how it really feels. The disgusting weight of the earth drags it down, then arrogantly reprimands it for trying to escape.

He is incredibly good at absorbing and retaining information--thus, he's an inhumanly fast learner with an excellent memory and an aptitude for grasping new skills and concepts. He also has good reflexes and physical strength, and he can endure severe injuries without faltering.
Staring at the rust on the train tracks, it pointed. Discovering the dead rabbit on the side of the road, it pointed. Watching the fields become swallowed by smoke from a controlled burn, seeing the shadows grind the day into dust, it pointed.
"I can do that," it said.
"Show us," the others replied. "Those are useful talents."
But it could not recall how to begin.

He recently took up painting, and sometimes enjoys singing as well, although reading is his favorite pastime.
Turning the longing into a smear of color on a canvas is a way to try and pin down the memories, although it always fails. Singing is a gentler way to cry, one that others are less likely to run from. Reading is a way to feel vast again, in an extremely second-hand, inadequate sense of the word.

Is cold, violent, and unstable, but mostly out of fear. If someone has the kindness and patience to win his trust (a difficult task indeed) he becomes loyal and affectionate, almost to a fault. Over time, his friends must be careful of his possessive, overprotective tendencies, and his habit of becoming much too reliant on them for happiness and purpose.
Personality is a construct of identity, and for THIS, identity is as new as fire to a fish. The idea of Self is a dangerous toy, a blade in the hands of a toddler. Self brings with it the idea of Other, and with Other, comes power THIS does not know what to do with.

Possibly his books, but he has yet to bond with material objects very much.
The trap of things is easily fallen into. Recoil from it. Things are one step away from rocks, a step away from trees, from bugs, from animals, from humans, from bodies. They all end someday, and contain no meaning. THIS doesn't end. THIS is what it is, what it will return to. THIS is the only thing that must be clung to, though it is so easily forgotten among the candy wrappers and friendship bracelets and July sunsets.

He doesn't use weapons much, although it's starting to sink in that blindly flinging himself at his enemies isn't always the most effective strategy.
It doesn't matter how it happens. Just break things. Transfigure them to the shattered state they were meant to be in. Set them free. Maybe if enough things are reduced to rubble and smoke, one of those things will finally understand that it is expected to return the favor.

Sweet things with lots of energy stored in sugars are best: Ice cream, fresh fruit, honey, flavored drinks, candy.
It tried meat at first, thinking the hunt would be the same, but this meat is heavy and dead and bitter. It makes the churning worse and the panic increase tenfold. In this world, that which is sweet resembles its natural prey far more closely.

Black or possibly warm, golden brown.
The singed edges of the gilded blistering in the air around it, at night when the dreams finally come and its feeble new brain does everything it can to try and process the worlds of Knowing trapped within, laboring hour after hour and spinning ever-brighter tapestries of memory and wishing against the backs of its closed eyes, until the day comes and it wakes, remembering nothing except the way the colors all looked different and the same.

None
Death in the jungle, the gods' curfew. Minimizing the excess of all that shines and moves and duplicates. Fire in the old farmhouse.

He is curious about politics, but sees himself as uninvolved with the strategies humans use to coexist and command each other.
Justice is the fang and belly, and to stumble in flight is the crime. There is only the circular hierarchy of living and dying, and even THIS must occasionally bend to it.

While interested in the concept of religion, he fails to understand why anyone would seek the will and wisdom of another, especially under such seemingly nebulous circumstances. As for the various spiritual codes of conduct he's read about, it's almost physically impossible for him to see why one should live in a certain way unless it directly benefits one's survival.
The church trembled when it stepped inside, and the painted windows cried out--whether from terror or rapture, no one knew. The woman bent in prayer on the hill by the prairie was struck by lightning--she survived to paint priceless masterpieces by day and rant about her relentless hallucinations by night. The white cross on the side of the highway sang in tongues after it passed.

English, French, German, and Spanish. Is currently learning Arabic, Chinese, Russian, Hindi, Portuguese, and ASL. Hopes to add more over time.
So far, it still hasn't found the words to say why it's so afraid.

He's not very fond of animals, and many of them are downright terrified of him.
They quiver on the edges of its vision, barely perceptible, their simple instincts and rudimentary emotions laid bare in concentric, wobbly layers like the cross-section of an unbroken egg. They contain no value, only a fleeting cure for boredom in their rapid heartbeats.

He started out with no knowledge whatsoever of the world, but quickly began to educate himself as soon as he figured out how. The vast majority of his current education is based on things he can learn from books, and his personal experiences are still a very limited source of wisdom for him.
Knowing is being, at the end of things. Speaking is being, is feeling. Knowing is touching, is speaking. Touching is seeing, is knowing, is speaking, is feeling, is being.

He can't remember. He came to earth against his will, with no memory of how he got there, or who he was before, or what to do next. He can only remember that home wasn't so hot and bright, so flat and meaningless and suffocating. He can only remember what it was not, what he was not. He wasn't a tiny, helpless blob of matter with only two nearly-blind eyes, he wasn't a pitiful creature with a thin, scared voice, he wasn't a cage of meat, I wasn't a worm in the mud, I wasn't a bug on a windshield, I wasn't a thing that collapsed to the ground and shuddered and mewled and wept like a child who lacked the speech or strength to master their own misery.
I--

So did THIS. THIS is still waiting to wake up.
--Young-Dusty