The Humanoid

“I don’t know Mr. Stone,” said the Humanoid. His wide, deep black eyes were fixated on Agent Andrew Stone. “I don’t understand how I ended up to be here or anywhere at all. I only know that I wished for it.”

“Then try to describe your origin as best as you can. Anything and everything you can remember,” said Agent Stone.

“Origin? I’m not familiar with the concept,” remarked the Humanoid, “as far as I know, I have always existed.”

Agent Stone didn’t like the humanoid’s condescending attitude; this thing might be playing with him. He looked at the roof, juggling concepts inside his head so he could ask a simple question to an alien whose perception of time deviated diametrically from that of people.

“Tell me about the place you come from. How is everyday life like? How does your kind come to be born?”

“We are never born; we just change. If it is to my self-awareness and when did I acquire it to what you refer, then I’ll explain.” Said the Humanoid. His position was still and unchanging. This made Agent Stone uncomfortable, but, somehow, he perceived that the stranger’s eyes were not looking at him anymore; “Here is where it begins, if there is such a thing as a beginning.”

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The only thing he could think about was his need for warmth. The cold hurt his skin and the muddy soil made it worse. He tried to get up, but his limbs felt wobbly. He just rolled over his back, face up to the sky; it looked like an underwater aurora borealis.

An hour, or a day, passed by until he became aware of his situation. He didn’t know where he was, he didn’t know who he was, and the sky wasn’t supposed to look like that.

He was overwhelmed with absolute panic. No matter how much air he tried to get into his lungs, it was not enough.

Thump, thump, thump. The mud was pumping like a heart. He felt a disembodied push, and then he became aware of the hoarse, muffled voices approaching him. Three gray shadows sled near him. He was sure he was going to die. The gray creatures surrounded him, and then he felt as if he was floating. He closed his eyes, waiting for his destiny.

He woke up inside a cave. The grey beings were sitting near him. Now he could take a better look at them. They were the three previous individuals; all of them looked outstandingly different from one another. The first one looked like a concrete chunk; The Lost Man was unsure whether it was an animal or an intelligent being. The Chunk was big, rough in the edges, and it moved slowly. Green fuzz formed around it like a slimy aura.

The second individual had a round figure, like a snowman covered in rough grey skin like an elephant. Although he was short, he also looked fierce, and his gaze had a hunter-like focus, always calmly alert.

The third individual was female. Her figure was human-like and slender. Her skin was light grey, almost white, with brown and pinkish stripes that went through her body like marble veining. Her facial features were smooth, and she had yellow eyes that seemed to look into the Lost Man’s mind.

Welcome.

The Lost Man wasn’t sure if he had heard the word or if he had thought it. It was more of a feeling that had made its way from the ground to his feet, and then into his brain.

“Where am I?” said the Lost Man. His own voice sounded strange to him, like if he were talking through a pipe.

The Chunk moved his lumpy head to the side. It was clear that he didn’t understand what the Lost Man was saying. The Marble Lady took a step forward, the Lost Man stepped back frightened, his hands up, ready to fight.

It’s okay.

That strange, voiceless communication again. He felt like the concept had come into his mind by crawling through his feet. The Lost Man looked instinctively towards the Round Hunter. The strange being was looking at him attentively.

You are safe.

The intention of those words penetrated de Lost Man's psyche. He felt inexplicably calm and, with a meek attitude that felt foreign to him, he let the Marble Lady approach him. She put her arms up slowly without losing eye contact with the Lost Man, then she crouched down and touched the ground. She looked up to the Lost Man and then to the ground, indicating him to imitate her.

He put his hands on the ground. Suddenly a wave of thought invaded his head like a million chaotic voiceless speeches. He closed his eyes, hoping to silence the loud thought. A voice was louder and more clear than the others.

Listen to me. Focus.

The noise in the Lost Man’s head became relegated to background sounds. Somehow, he knew that the voice that he had heard belonged to the Marble Lady.

Uncover your feet.

The Lost Man took his shoes off. When his bare feet touched the ground, a new wave of thought came by, not only invading his brain but his consciousness and emotions as well. He felt connected to the ground as if his feet were tree roots that he could move freely and twist around any object he wanted to know.

“Now we can engage in proper communication,” said the Marble Lady without moving her mouth. Her voice made itself audible in the Lost Man’s brain without using his hearing.

“What is happening?” Wordless waves of doubt and fear accompanied the question.

“It is your time to join,” said the Round Hunter. His speech felt hard and in constant motion, like a rolling stone. The Lost Man gazed at him and realized that the Round Hunter didn’t have a mouth.

The Lost Man panicked. He could feel every muscle of his body trembling. He didn’t want to join strange creatures. He wanted to go home, wherever it was. He turned away from the strange beings and ran as fast as he could without looking behind. His calves felt on fire. His head was like a balloon full of hot air. His sight turned blurry. He closed his eyes as he could no longer use them.

He could not tell how much time he had been running. Eventually, he couldn’t continue any more and stopped. He calculated that there should be a considerable distance between him and the creatures. He turned around to check his surroundings. His heart fell to his feet when he saw the exact same scenario he was in before running away.

The creatures were looking at him. Their vibrations communicated patience and amusement.

“You can’t go back, not in the same direction you already walked,” said the Round Hunter.

“The only direction is forward,” Said the Chunk, making his deep and crumbly voice present in the Lost Man’s mind for the first time. It was like listening to a coral reef.

He turned to the Marble Lady. Her more humane appearance gave him a little comfort. He pondered that it was this similarity to himself that made her a better communicator.

“Am I dead?” He Asked.

“No.” She said. Her voice was like an echo in a museum. “You just came to join us without changing.”

“What?”

“If you want to understand, you will have to learn to communicate like us instead of making use of your over-processed language.” She looked at him with a spark of fun in her eyes. “You can’t even understand yourself.”

Each explanation just made the Lost Man feel more and more puzzled. His survival instinct urged him to do something. He evaluated his options. Running away was not a possibility; he could not even move properly. He had no idea of where he was. He neither knew his name. His only option was to stick with the creatures and face whatever it came.

“You have your conclusion,” said the Marble Lady, knowing what the Lost Man was thinking. He stared at her, surprised.

“I told you nothing.” Said the Lost Man.

“You are loud.” Said the Round Hunter. “Now we go forward”.

The Lost Man’s sight blurred. Everything around him became a confusing swirl of vertigo. A push of gravity pressed his body from every direction. He could not tell if he was moving or remaining still. The land changed around him, constantly forming and destroying peaks and valleys. Sometimes it looked as if the landscape itself was made of living beings.

Finally, the swirl stopped. The Lost Man looked around. For a moment, he thought he was in a village, making him feel at ease. That feeling went away almost immediately when he realized he was surrounded by grey creatures.

The creature’s shape varied from round to edgy; there were creatures bigger than houses and as small as thumbs. That wasn't a village; it was like an otherworldly gathering.

“Don’t panic. Look at me.” The Marble Lady’s echo brought the Lost Man back to his feet. He concentrated on the Marble Lady’s unfathomable yellow eyes. “Use your roots. You will feel a sphere of red air. Hug it gently.”

The Lost Man concentrated on the unfamiliar tickle of thought he had felt in his feet before. He could visualize how tiny veins grew from his feet into the ground. As his veiny roots made their way, the Lost Man felt a gentle push, like a breeze in the form of an orb. Everything became red in his mind, like a lightbulb in front of a closed eye. His roots wrapped around the air orb gently. A spark came out of the air push and ran through the Lost Man’s roots. He felt an electric pinch on the back of the neck that brought him out of the trance.

He moved his toes, feeling the ground beneath them. He looked around and realized that he could now understand his surroundings.

He was now aware of the vibration of the atoms that formed his body. He knew that he could interact with the objects that vibrated at the same speed as him. The creatures around him seemed to be part of the landscape because everything was alive, no matter the speed of their vibration.

The Lost Man noticed that his hands were now grey. Confused, he turned to the Marble Lady. She now seemed normal to him, but he could not tell why; her appearance had not changed in any way.

“Now you know me,” she said. “You are connected with my energy print. You are not lost anymore.”

The Man understood what she was saying. He knew her name now, her real name, which was the uniqueness of her existence, her energy print and not a word to call her. His thinking was more abstract now; he used his inner speech significantly less than before.

“Am I changing now?” he asked.

“No,” said the Round Hunter. The Man flinched in surprise, he had forgotten about his presence. He turned to see him and noted that he didn’t look the same anymore. Now the Round Hunter was flatter. The Man turned to look at the Chunk. His edgy lumps were smoother now.

“You are still loud,” said the Flat Hunter. The Man understood now that the creatures communicated through conceptual thought and non-phrased ideas. For them, phrasing thoughts was like shouting for everyone to listen.

He felt exposed. The desire of being alone shouted in the back of his head. The fact that they could know what was happening in his mind beyond what he wanted to show infuriated him.

The landscape changed around him. The three creatures disappeared into the ground like melting ice. The Man was now alone, and with his enhanced understanding, he learned how to move in that strange world. He wanted to be alone, and the others had respected his will to be so. If he wished to get out of that place, he had to really want it, which would make his atoms vibrate to the same speed as the world he had left behind.

The Man concentrated on his desire. The landscape got deformed again. The Man could feel the gravity push within him. His sight got blurry, and he fell out of the world.

The Man woke up. The landscape was desolated. Thorny desert plants pinched his gray skin. He thought about getting up, but his body didn’t respond. Now he had to move as he had learned in the other world. He wanted to move his right leg and it moved. He wanted to lift his torso and it lifted. He desired to roll his body to put his hands on the ground and it happened. Finally, he wished to be standing on his feet, and there he was standing.

A metallic fence entered his visual field, then a grey road of asphalt. The sky was dark blue, almost black, with some dots of light. That felt somewhat familiar.

Two lights came running through the road; they belonged to a motorized vehicle. The living beings inside saw the Man. Eyes wide open like plates. The vehicle crashed against the fence. The creatures inside shouted, terrified. The Man could feel their emotions irradiating through the ground. They were loud.

He kept standing on the road until vehicles with brighter lights came to the scene. The creatures driving the vehicles saw him with terror. In his feet, The Man could sense that they were afraid because he was not exactly like them, but similar . He was a humanoid.

Big black vehicles came into the site. Human creatures wrapped in biohazard suits forced the Humanoid into the backdoor of the big black carriage and locked him into a box. The Humanoid was curious about where they were taking him.

The humans finally released the Humanoid from his box to put him into a cell, where he had no other entertainment than trying to connect his energy with the creatures around them to know how their communication worked.

He waited there until a human came inside the cell to question him. The Humanoid connected his energy to the human’s using his veiny, intangible roots. It was there was when he knew that his will to go back exactly to where he was when he disappeared was respected.

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“So, you are saying you are human?” Asked agent Stone.

“No. I am me. My vessel has changed, but my energy print remains the same,” said the Humanoid.

“Was your vessel like mine, human?” Agent Stone lifted a little of his hand’s skin to make his point.

“Yes. Moreso, I am you.”

Agent Stone eyed the Humanoid. The last comment was disorientating. Maybe it had to do with the Humanoid’s concept of identity.

“What do you mean?”

“Our energy prints are identical; then we are the same.”

Agent Stone was disconcerted. After a moment of tense silence, a voice in Agent Stone’s earpiece broke him out of the trance. The time of interrogation had finished.

Agent Stone signed procedure and confidentiality papers on his way out of the military base. He got inside his car and drove it towards home.

He could not get the Humanoid’s words out of his head. He didn’t understand why they were more disturbing than confusing to him. But he had to think about something else. He could not take his thoughts and emotions about secret operations into his home.

As he was making up his head, a grey shadow crossed the highway. He drifted to avoid running over the shadow’s owner. His car crashed in the highway’s fence and rolled out into the desert. Agent Stone was thrown out of his car with overwhelming force and landed on the ground. Thorny desert plants pinched his skin.

The Agent was in so much pain that he wished to be out of that reality with all his heart.

He disappeared into the ground like melting ice.