Something Different

September 10th, 3024. In a world where only girls exist, there were once talks about a different type of human, something called “men”. Remembering the flash backs of the stories my mother once told me about them. Anyone who were to believe something like that would be named a fool. A delusional crazy one.

That wasn’t stopping me, although it may not be real everything about it peaked my interest. I was known as a curious type, just this I couldn’t let go of. The thought of another kind of us, human. But different. Amused me. Even though there were people who has came up missing because they were too interested in the thing people called men, no one knows where those people went, some like to think they’ve been locked up because they were considered crazy by the government. So I kept my fascination about men my little secret. None of that was gonna stop me from finding out more.

I decided to take a walk to one of my favorite places, this place was quiet, some would label it a dusty old field with nothing amusing but to me, the silence was amusing, a place where I could do anything I like and no one was there to bother or judge me for anything I did. There, my problems faded away, it was my happy place. Only mine.

As I was walking I trampled over something. something big and hard, it was a hand bag, but bigger than a usual one, I looked around to see if anyone was around, surely it had to belong to someone. There was no one there. Just me. I opened up the bag only to find another bag inside, only this wasn’t a hand bag, it was a trash bag wrapped around something. I examined it a little while longer before stuffing it back into the hand bag. Since no one was around to claim it i’d be taking it with me.

I continue to walk to my spot, when I arrived I sat on the dusty old ground ready to see what was wrapped inside of the trash bag, I take the bag out and ripped it open, out fell a book, the book was huge, it was a red book but the old dust that was submerged onto it made it seem a burgundy type of color. There was nothing on the front of the book nor the back, the pages were brown. But not too brown. A light brown but light enough to see the words on it.

This book was about men. Everything in it was full of details about men, but how could there be so many details if men aren’t real I thought. I began flipping through pages, there were a ton of names listed, not the usual name types that we hear, it was names like “Noah” or “Joseph” and “Dylan”. The list went on and on it never stopped. I scanned through pages flipping and flipping through pictures of what men looked like until something fell out through one of the pages. It was a heart shaped locket.

The locket was small and silver, with little scratches on it. I tried to open up it but it was stuck, almost like jammed in, my finger nails were way too short to try and open it with them so I decided to take it home with me. I stuffed the book back into the bag and put the locket around my neck.

I was extra careful on my way home, careful so that whoever the bag was for wouldn’t be able to see it if they were out looking for it.

“Hey Mom.” I said as I entered the front door.

“Hey Madison, where have you been?” She says examining me.

“And why’re you all dirty? Go clean yourself up, dinner should be ready after.”

There was still dirt on me from when I tripped over the bag, I walked upstairs to the bathroom to clean myself up clutching the locket around my neck. After I was done I sat the bag down on my bed and went downstairs for dinner.

“Hey mom, remember the stories you use to tell me about men?” I asked.

“Yea, what about them.”

“Were they real?”

“Of course they aren’t Madi it was just me trying to scare you, I thought you would’ve figured that out already.” She said laughing.

I laughed with her only so she would’ve be curious about me asking, looks like I’ll be keeping this a secret from her for now. When dinner was over I grabbed a knife and went upstairs with it. Entering my room I sat on the bed taking the locket off of my neck. I stared at it for a while wondering what could be in it, no time to waste I took the knife and slid it through the opening of the locket and it clicked open.

There was nothing in it, nothing but a paper with an address on it. The piece of paper looked old like it was submerged into water and out again but the numbers were still noticeable. Curiosity strucked me yet again. It wasn’t so late outside so I had time to leave and be back by curfew.

I wrapped the locket back around my neck And bolted out of the front door with the bag in my hand. I used a gps on my phone to track where the location was, 3 hours away. Of course it had to be somewhere far away, I’d be able to make it by train. I took the 20 minute walk to the train station which would take me to the location fast enough, the train was almost ready to leave so I made it just in time. I take my seat in the back staring at the address written on the paper, 9120 Cypret Lane.

3 hours had passed and I’ve reached my destination, it was a town, it looked as if no one has stepped foot in it for centuries. The buildings were old with vines and wiring hanging down from them. I got an uneasy feeling but I’ve came too far to stop now. I started scanning the buildings for the address, 9120 and there it was. My heart jumped in my chest as I looked at the old building standing there in front of me.

It was taller than the rest of them, but the condition was still the same as all of the others. I stepped foot into the building, the smell was unbearable, the windows were busted and the ground was cracked up as if someone just came and smashed it in. I began to walk further only to see a bright light coming from the down stairs area of the building. The light was so blinding, the closer you got the more you couldn’t see much.

Seeing as that was the only light showing on this place I walked into it covering my eyes. once I entered it wasn’t so bright anymore, there were huge tanks everywhere with a blue almost transparent top covering the opening of them, almost to where u can see what’s inside but not quite, I walked closer to one of the tanks seeing there was a key pad next to it, now noticing that each tank has one.

I look around the room seeing if there was anything that could help me find the numbers to the tank, there was a large shelf in one corner of the room, full of envelopes, there were letters on the front of the envelopes and inside were four numbers. Something like “A-F: 4572” or “Y-S: 6903”.

I took one of the envelopes that had the letters J-L on it and the numbers 1128 inside of it. “J-L: 1128”

I looked back at the tanks, they all had letters on it, letters similar to the same ones on the envelopes, I looked for the one with J-L on top of it. Once I found it I stared at it for a while, thinking if I should open it or not, what if it was something bad in there or something I wasn’t suppose to be seeing, maybe it was hidden for a reason. I erased all of those thoughts out of my mind and entered in the 4 numbers. 1128. It opened.

Smoke filled the room in an instant, the sound of the tank opening was deafening. Once the smoke cleared the area I looked inside of the tank, it was a person, it looks as if the person is sleeping and there’s definitely a sign of life, it was different from what we see, it’s body structure was different from ours, it had short hair but long enough to cover its eyes, hair everywhere, hair around it’s chin and hair on its legs, and chest. I reach my hand out to move the hair from in front of it’s eyes, and there it was. In all of these tanks was what we would call a man.

and me and one other person are the only ones who knows about it.