Story #8 - A Different Way to Live

Here's the next story! This one's pretty wacky. It might be the weirdest idea I've had so far. The basis of the idea was "someone who feeds on tears or needs tears to live". Originally it was going to be a horror story, but I decided against that approach. There's still a slightly horrific scene, though, because I wanted to try my hand at writing horror. What else... Well, here's a little trade secret - the name of the main character ("MC") was inspired by what I kept on calling him in my notes. Which was MC, short for main character. ;)

As always, thank you to the people who read and reviewed my previous story, and happy reading for this one!

Title: A Different Way to Live
Warnings: violence, creepiness
Summary: It's tough needing human tears to live when you don't like to make people cry.
Length: ~ 2,700 words
Notes: First point of view, present tense. Genre is supernatural, which might be the same as fantasy but I'm going to say it's different. ;)



A Different Way to Live

            The road is long and winding, and it’s dark. Dawn is around the corner, though. I watch the ground as I walk – not to keep my footing (I can see fine in the dark), but to add to the monotony as I think. Left, right, left, right. Thump, thump, thump, thump.

            The movie tonight was different from the others. I had heard in good confidence that it was “sad”, but this one must’ve been really sad. With the number of crying humans in the room, I’ll be set for weeks.

            But what’s on my mind right now is what happened when I walked out of the movie theater. I accidentally brushed my arm against a human male. I was (still am) wearing short sleeves because it’s hot and muggy. I should’ve known. When I go out into town, I always cover myself, just to prevent this from happening. But at any rate, when I brushed up against him he made this horrible, groaning whimpering sound and started to cry. I wasn’t even hungry and the tears just made me sicker than I already was. I hate making people cry. I hate hurting them. I know I shouldn’t care. Humans are practically our food, but just because we feed off their tears doesn’t mean we have to hurt them to make them cry.

            The worst part is that the entire thing was completely preventable. That really got me down. Honestly, the movie kind of got me down too. It was sad. I might not have cried (I can’t cry), but I wasn’t completely unaffected by it.

I glance up from my feet to see where I am. I’m getting close. My community is on top of the hill, at the end of the road. Humans never come this way, which is why the Elder chose this place. We like to be apart from humans, but close enough to get to them when we need to. It’s convenient that most big cities always have a “haunted” area or some place humans won’t go.

It means there’s somewhere we can go.

I reach the top of the hill and look around. The movie got out pretty late, and most everybody is home. Hopefully the Elder is asleep and I can just sneak in.

“Hey, MC!” a voice calls mockingly.

Great. It’s Karza and his gang. So much for sneaking in.

I stop, and wait for Karza to come to me. I try to stand tall. I have dignity, I remind myself. Karza is inferior to me.

“Ya just watch another sad movie and cry with the humans?” Karza asks. Some groupie in the back giggles. The sound grates on my ears.

“Yes, I did,” I say. “Well, watch a movie, that is. Um, I didn’t cry with the humans, obviously, because Aliyo can’t cry.”

“Thanks for the biology lesson, moron,” Karza says in a bored voice.

I bite back a frustrated groan. Why does everything I say never come out right? This is part of the problem, I swear. I open my mouth to say something else, but after a few seconds, I give up. I don’t have anything else to say.

“Have something to say?” another groupie asks, trying to rise in Karza’s favor. More giggles.

“If you’re going to be in a bully gang, at – at least have better laughs,” I say, and then glance down. What am I saying? I have dignity, I remind myself. Dignity.

“Typical moron,” Karza mutters, shaking his head. He looks me straight in the eye. I struggle to hold his gaze. Karza has the reddest eyes I’ve ever seen on any Aliyo. One of his claims to fame.

“So, MC,” Karza says after I don’t respond. “Me and my friends are planning to visit the city tomorrow night. Have a little fun and games with the humans while we feed. Wanna come with us?”

“I fed already, just now watching the sad movie,” I say. “And… and you know I don’t do that.”

“Right,” Karza acknowledges with a toothy grin. “MC the pacifist. The disappointing pacifist.”

“Yeah, well,” I say. “Yeah, well.”

I shut up. It’s a relief to everyone.

I half expected a huge fight to start up between me and Karza and the gang. It wouldn’t be the first time. Karza’s pretty violent. But thankfully, I managed to get through the whole thing unscathed, and, more importantly, quietly. So quietly that the Elder should be asleep.

He’s not. When I walk into the house, he’s sitting at the table, writing something. He looks up as I close the door behind me. I gave him a short, perfunctory nod.

“Sir,” I say.

“MC,” he responds. “Where have you been?”

“I was feeding.”

“Oh?” He raises one arched eyebrow. I can’t read the expression in his eyes.

“K-Karza invited me to go, uh, h-hunting? with him tomorrow night.”

Why did I say that? I must be a masochist.

“Speak up, boy. How many times must I tell you to control that flaccid tongue of yours?”

“Sorry, sir.” Maybe he won’t say anything about Karza. We sit – stand – he sits and I stand – in silence for a while. As usual, I can feel the disappointment radiating off the Elder in waves. It makes me nauseous.

“I don’t know why you bothered to tell me about Karza,” the Elder says flatly. “We both know that you won’t be going with him.”

“Y-Yes, sir.”

The Elder sighs. He suddenly seems decades older. I age him just be existing.

“Sometimes,” the Elder says, “I can’t believe that you’re my son.”

“Yes, sir.”

“You may go.”

I go.

I’m sick of being a disappointment to the Elder and I’m sick of being a disappointment to my species. So what if I’m squeamish and totally hate causing pain? It’s not like the other Aliyo (well, except for Karza and Co.) enjoy hurting humans. But they’re our prey. We’re biologically designed to make them cry.

I just wish we didn’t have to hurt them when we make them cry.

But enough about that. I need to regain my dignity. Somehow.

It takes a long time for me to get to sleep. But when I do, I sleep the day away.

“I’ll go,” I announce the next night. Karza whips his head around and stares at me disbelievingly.

“What?” I say.

“You’re going to go with us to the city. To feed on a human.” Karza doesn’t even bother to raise his voice as if he’s asking a question. His tone is flat with disbelief.

“Y-Yeah, I am. I – I just figured that, well, hey, y’know? Um, it’s always good to try something new, and maybe I’ve… maybe I’ve been missing out all this time?”

“Uh-huh,” Karza mutters. “Suit yourself. Don’t blame me if you can’t handle it.”

“I can handle it,” I say. And I can. The days of me disappointing everyone are officially over.

We walk into the city quickly. Karza knows a shortcut out of our place. He muttered something about don’t tell Daddy all our secrets but I wasn’t really listening. My heart is pounding and the blood is rushing through my veins. I feel more alert and alive than I have for a while, but I’m also scared. Maybe this is a mistake. But I have to prove myself.

The only place I’ve ever gone to in the city is the movie theater. We start out walking that way, and for a moment I think it’s all some cruel joke and they’re just going to drop me off there and then go on their merry way. But then we turn left, and then right, and another right, and a left, and I’ve lost track of everything when we stop. We’re in the middle of an alley.

“Is this really the best place to, um, I don’t know what you guys do, lie in ambush? Because, l-like, wouldn’t… wouldn’t…”

I hate losing my train of thought in the middle of a sentence. Mercifully, Karza and his posse stay quiet.

I stand up straighter as I remember. “Wouldn’t there only be tough people who don’t cry that would go down alleys?”

Karza shakes his head and says patronizingly, “Poor baby MC. Our touch makes anyone cry. Even the toughest of the tough.”

“If – if you say so.”

I’m not really sure how to do an “ambush”, and no one seems eager to tell me what to do, so I just kind of situate myself in a corner. I’ll watch, learn, and enjoy. Maybe I’ll even throw in a scratch or insult or two, when I really get into it.

This is a mistake… This is a mistake. I have dignity… I have dignity. I’m getting dignity.

I hear a sound to the right of the alley. Someone’s coming in from the street, taking an unwise shortcut. Karza and his cronies tense and exchange glances. Karza elbows me in the side.

“Get ready, moron,” he hisses.

A human stumbles into view. It’s a woman (great, I hate making woman cry even more). She’s blonde and tall and thin and she might be one of those supermodels I’ve heard about. She also might be drunk. She can’t seem to balance.

Karza steps in front of her. She sways a bit but stays on her feet. She glances at him, brow furrowed in drunken confusion.

“Who’re you?” she slurs.

Karza smiles. “Your worst nightmare.”

I almost groan. Seriously?

Two other Aliyo come up beside Karza. They’re staring at the woman hungrily. The three of them move forward, backing the woman into the wall. The woman fumbles for something, takes it out – a cell phone. Karza knocks it from her hand. I watch as it shatters on the cobblestone.

“You won’t be needing that,” he growls. He takes hold of her hair, rubbing it between his fingers. The woman’s breath hitches. She’s about to cry.

“Yes, cry for me,” Karza whispers.

“Cry for us,” whisper the other groupies. “Cry for us.”

The woman’s eyes widen with fear or – recognition? “You’re one of –”

Her words end in a sharp gasp as Karza grabs hold of her arm. Automatically, tears start to flow, and I can’t help but feel a little better (wait, I mean, I was feeling great before, too, obviously). But then –

Karza grabs at her again. The other groupies all crowd around her, calling her horrible names (they know what to say to hurt someone, to make them cry, they’ve been doing this for a while) and – and then –

They start kicking her. What are they trying to do, kill her? (“Murder of humans is not uncommon,” I remember the Elder telling me the first time I found out what other Aliyo do – what I should do. “It’s natural.”) I want to yell at them to stop, but as usual, my voice isn’t working for me. My body’s rebelling against me, too – I can’t move. I’m stuck in this corner watching and I can’t even close my eyes or look away. And her tears are so good and this is just horrible.

Karza and the others leave the woman a broken, sobbing mess on the ground, surrounded by rats and dumpsters with a broken telephone. They file out past me one by one. I don’t move.

Karza glances at me. “What’s wrong, MC? You coming? Or maybe you want to bring this human to a sad movie?”

Giggling. I stare mutely past Karza. The woman is still. Did they kill her?

“Whatever,” Karza says. “Stay here and rot for all I care. For all anyone cares.”

He leaves and I’m left alone with the woman. I know I should help her, but I don’t know how to function around humans. Maybe I should go to the movie theater and tell someone I… heard someone scream in an alley? I don’t know. But as I stand there in my corner thinking, I hear another noise. Someone else is coming, and I’m stuck. I just have to hope they won’t see me.

            “Oh my,” someone gasps. It sounds like a woman. She rushes over to the other woman.

            “Casey? Are you okay?” the new woman asks. It’s a silly question, because obviously she’s not. I should help. I can pretend I just came in the alley.

I unattach myself from the corner and quickly walk up to the two women.

“What’s wron–” I get out before the woman forces all of the air out of me by slamming me against a wall. I grunt, because ow, that hurt. The woman is holding me by my shoulders and she looks furious. I fear for my life.

            “You did this,” she snarls. “Your kind is always ruining things.”

            “I didn’t – wait – wha – you know? But humans never – never know what we are…”

            The woman loosens her grip on my shoulders and takes a step back, baring her teeth. Her red eyes lock on to mine. “Exactly,” she says.

            I inhale sharply, massaging my back. “Wait a minute – you, you’re Aliyo? But that can’t be right, because you know this human woman, you c-called her by name…”

            “That’s right, Stammer Boy. This woman and I are partners.”

            “P-Partners? You mean you’re – sexually involved?”

            The other Aliyo laughs sharply. “Of course not! I mean that we’re partners.”

            I shake my head, staring at the beaten woman. Surely, she needs some kind of medical attention. “I don’t understand.”

            “You’re community isn’t the only Aliyo community in the world, baby. There’s another one not too far from here that I’m sure your Elder never bothered to tell anyone about. And we have partners.”

            “I knew there were other – other places,” I say. “Um, I just, I didn’t know, like. I didn’t know that there were Aliyo p-places that were friends with humans.” Because that’s what this is, right? The human and the Aliyo are friends.

            “There’s a lot you don’t know,” the Aliyo says cryptically. “I’m Val.”

            “MC,” I say.

            “What’s that stand for?”

            “How come you stopped slamming me against the wall?”

            Val frowns at this subject change, but shrugs. “I could tell you weren’t the type who would do this to a human. I don’t know what you’re doing here, but you’d be better off somewhere like my home.”

            Could this be what I need? Of course, the ultimate disappointment would be to run away, but…

            “At your home, Aliyo are friends with humans?”

            “Yes. At birth, every Aliyo is paired with a human. The human feeds the Aliyo and the Aliyo heals the human. Did you know that we can heal humans?”

            “N-No.” That would explain why Val isn’t doing anything for the woman.

            “Well, we can. And we grow up together with our partner, and if we have been paired well we become great friends. We never go hungry and the humans never hurt, because we can heal them. Sometimes they even cry for us… tears of toy, that we’re friends. Do you understand now?”

            “I – I think so.”

            Imagine that. A world where humans and Aliyo coexist, and it doesn’t matter that touching a human causes them pain because we can cure them. No more being a disappointment for not being savage or bloodthirsty enough. No more going to spectacles like what happened here tonight to prove something that doesn’t matter.

            The only thing is… how much does the Elder know about this? Does he know that Aliyo can heal humans? That we can coexist, that maybe we were meant to coexist? Has he been keeping all of this from the people? Has he (my own father, who knows how I feel) – has he been keeping this from me?

            “You’ve given me, um, a lot to think about,” I tell Val after a while. She gives me a wicked grin.

            “Just what your Elder wanted to avoid, I’m sure,” she says.

            “Yeah, well, at – in any case. I’m sorry about your partner. I should’ve tried to stop them.”

            Val shrugs. “Maybe next time you will.”

            Imagine that! Standing right up in Karza’s face and saying, strong and sure, “Stop!”

            Maybe he’d even listen. And if he didn’t, I wouldn’t have to listen. I could go.

            There are other ways to live my life. Maybe I should start checking them out.

            THE END