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Hollow Flesh

Beep.

The machine in front of me beeped in a steady rhythm as I passed the items over it, one by one. Each ordinary, dull item passed through my hands and into the bags without my mind even taking notice of it. The Long, black, and filthy conveyor belt brought the next item to me as I scanned each one.

Beep.

My feet were aching. The only thing between my thin shoes and the concrete floor was a thin rubber mat. Blisters were forming on the bottoms of my toes. How long had I been there? I rocked back and forth on my heels, hoping to gain some relief.

Beep.

I looked up at the harsh, artificial lights that lined the roof of the building, illuminating the rows upon rows of checkout stands exactly the same as the one I was currently standing at. A large mural to my left read “BUY-STORE, WHERE YOU BUY MORE!” in large, white letters against the red wall. It always caught my attention when I looked around the sales floor like this, as though it was put there to remind me that looking around was not being productive.

Beep.

I looked at the other rows of checkstands. Each one with the exact same items on them. A receipt printer, some pens, some signs to remind customers of online deals, and a rarely touched bottle of cleaning solution. The numbers that lined the stands were all switched off, except for my own, and all the ones I could see had numbers counting up from 50, all the way off into the distance. The furthest one I could see was 72.

Beep.

The stands had computers at them acting as the registers. Each register came equipped with a touch screen, a scanner, a drawer for cash, and a massive camera lens that watched our every move, our every word, our every facial expression. Maybe even our every thought.

Beep.

I turned the rack of bags I was using, each one covered in small, thin, plastic sacks that needed to be filled to a certain capacity before being turned for pickup. God forbid you underfill a bag or two. I heard that management fired the last person who was consistently underfilling bags. I never met them, unfortunately. In fact, it had been ages since I had met any real person.

Beep.

I watched as the creature standing across from me stared at the bags, not removing them from the rack. I needed the bags out of the way before I could turn the rack again. Trying not to let my frustration show on my face, I tried to get the creature’s attention.

Beep.

“Excuse me, ma’am?” Addressing them as people felt wrong. “Can you please take the bags off of the rack?”

Beep.

The creature sat perfectly still for a moment, apparently unsure of what to do.

Beep.

They aren’t human. That’s something I can say for sure. Each one is almost human, in a large variety of ways. Some of them are obvious, they’re missing entire features of their body. This woman was one of these. She appeared to be a normal human woman. Slightly thin, wearing a pink shirt, with blue jeans and her blonde hair in a ponytail. The only difference between her and a human woman was her face. This woman had most of the features of the face, green eyes, nose, ears, everything a person needs. Except a mouth. Instead, a twisted, gnarled looking piece of flesh took its place, with no opening to speak of.

Beep.

The creature in front of me made a gurgling noise, as though she was trying to speak to me, but obviously lacked the physical capacity to do so. She then reached towards the rack and placed her bags into her cart. These creatures didn’t seem evil, and they normally weren’t violent, but they definitely were not human. No matter how many I saw, no matter how convincing they were, they all lacked that special spark that makes someone human.

Beep.

I scanned the last of the creature’s groceries and spun them around for her to pick up. All that was left was payment. The moment I hit total, I heard more gurgling from the creature. My only guess was that I messed up somewhere along the way.

“Is there an issue?” The voice suddenly materialized from behind me. I turned around to face the other half of the endless, repeating sales floor, shocked to hear the man behind me. My manager, Chris, had noticed the commotion.

Chris was almost there. He was almost human. He had every feature he needed, brown eyes, small lips, nose, white teeth, tongue, ears, even brown, curly, hair. Unfortunately, almost human did not mean human.

The creature’s gurgling noises grew louder.

“I’m so sorry to hear that ma’am.” Chris said flatly. “22-87, come with me.”

“That’s not my-” I began to protest.

“Your name is not something I need to know” Chris cut me off. It was amazing to me how much Chris could look, act, and talk like a human, yet somehow wasn’t. Whoever put this abomination in front of me together managed to completely forget any and all emotions. He acted like an automaton, seeing the world entirely through the lens of company policy.

His short, fat body turned and walked off towards the back of the sales floor, apparently expecting me to follow him. I sighed, and finally gave up, slumped my shoulders and followed him to the back of the store.

Chris led me to the back of the sales floor, past endless racks of cleaning supplies and paper products. Eventually, I followed him through a set of double doors into the back office. The office was small and cramped, it was really just one walkway with some wall mounted computers on the side, watching the entire room with their cameras.

“22-87,” Chris suddenly reminded me of the situation at hand, “That customer was extremely upset.” His voice was flat and emotionless, as though he were reading this discussion off of a script.

“I already told you my name is-”

“And I already told you that isn’t information I need to have.” Chris cut me off coldly. “Now, I can’t have a team member out on the sales floor making the customers upset.” His voice had yet to change inflection. He continued to deliver a long, drawn out speech about the company policies, all in a flat, monotone voice.

Throughout his extended lecture, he never once emphasized any of his words or any of the company policies. It was nearly impossible for me to tell what issue the customer had with me, and I had a feeling that Chris didn’t know either. Eventually the lecture ended.

“Unfortunately I have no choice but to send you home for the day,” Chris eventually said, right as I was about to fall asleep. “I hope you can reflect on the day’s events and come back tomorrow ready to help customers.”

--

I walked down the empty, frigid city street, hoping a warm home and a cold drink would help me forget the events of today. The mouthless monster’s gurgling noises and Chris’s long monotonous speech both repeated in my head, making me wish I could get home faster.

I looked both ways before attempting to cross the street, although I couldn’t tell you why. Cars never drove down here. In fact, as far as I know, I’m one of the few people that live in this old, run-down part of the city. The pavement that makes up the sidewalks was cracked and jagged, and the road didn’t have it much better, almost being more pothole than roadway. As I hurried across the street, the bitter cold air stung my lungs.

Once I made it to the other side of the road, I looked up at the sky. The sun was barely on the horizon, streaking the sky with small bits of orange. Was it sunrise or sunset? I couldn’t tell anymore. It didn’t matter to me. No one was waiting for me at home anyways. I could just walk out of town and never return to that old dump, and no one would even notice.

I seriously considered doing so as I unlocked my door, and forced my way inside the small apartment. I stood in the doorway for a while thinking about how much I missed being home, and dreading the next time I’d have to leave this place. The room was cluttered, filled to the brim with unwashed dishes, clothes, junk mail, and beer cans. The futon tucked into one corner of the room, opposite the T.V., was ratty and old. The mattress slipped off of the frame, which had long since given up any illusion of being safe to sit on, with pieces of sharp metal poking out of it at odd angles. The carpet, once you found it, was in desperate need of a vacuum cleaner. The dim light bulbs flickered on and off, begging to be changed.

Looking at the living room was far from my favorite activity, so I stepped over the clothes, beer cans, and piles of useless papers, and worked my way into the back of my apartment. I arrived in my own bedroom, the only place I was able to feel truly myself, truly human.

My bedroom was in a much better state than the living room. A small amount of furniture was scattered throughout the room. My bed was pushed into one corner, cloaked in a large, red comforter that was far too large for the twin sized mattress. A single large pillow sat at the side of my bed, likely knocked off and left there as I scrambled to get ready for work. Next to my bed sat a nightstand, which had nothing on it except for a lamp and a phone charger. A dresser sat against the wall closest to the door, which would normally be filled with clothes had they not been all over the living room floor. A large mirror sat propped up against the wall. Aside from these things, my room was basically empty.

As soon as I entered the room, I tore my uniform off as though it were burning my flesh. Once the red polo and company vest hit the floor, I turned to look at myself in the mirror. I studied my own reflection, like I did everyday. A pair of sunken brown eyes glared back at me, with deep, dark circles under them, threatening to consume them entirely. The figure in the mirror was incredibly thin and pale, with almost no muscle and long, slender limbs. Short, brown hair sat on top of its head, with a hairline that was receding more and more as time went on. It opened its mouth, and slightly crooked white teeth shined back at me.

No. My slightly crooked white teeth. My sunken brown eyes. My short brown hair. My thin frame. That was my body. No matter my flaws, no matter the terrible job or the filthy, lonely apartment, that was still my body. It proved that I was still me, that I was still human.

It proved that I was not like them.

I walked out of my bedroom and back into the filthy living room. Familiar anxiety rose from seeing that room again. I figured that feeling would go away once I finally did something about the mess, but I had just gotten off of work and was absolutely exhausted. I walked into my cramped and dingy kitchen, and pulled a beer out of the fridge. I carefully sat down on the futon, taking care to avoid any pieces of jagged metal, and turned on the T.V.

I woke up in a cold sweat, still sitting on the futon. I looked at the T.V. through bleary eyes. It was displaying nothing but static, and the beer can was empty and lying on the floor. Groggily, I checked my phone to see the time. I still had 8 hours until my next shift at work. Great. I turned the T.V. off and looked around the room. I only had 8 hours to myself and I was not going to spend it cleaning that room. I decided that anywhere was better than my apartment at that point in time. I slipped on a scarf, gray sweatpants, and a sweater, and slipped out of my apartment, heading out into the cold, lonely city, whose name had been forgotten long ago.

--

The sun had finally shown itself, although it did very little to warm the cold winter air. Frost gathered in the long drawn out shadows cast by the low hanging sun. As I walked closer to the more populated sections of the city, more and more of those creatures were around. Seeing them outside of work always made me feel uncomfortable. They waited for buses and sometimes even got on them, circling around the city before getting off at exactly the same stop they got on. Some sat in front of coffee shops, drinking from empty cups with large brand logos on them, enjoying the imaginary heat of the liquid. One sat in front of a bookstore, diligently reading a book, although they never did turn the page. At first glance, the city was normal, but looking any closer than that revealed how synthetic everything was.

I entered the city’s business district, a large street designed for foot traffic, with a large number of barren trees, their branches reaching high into the bright orange sky. The pavement here was smooth and white, without so much as a crack in the sidewalk.

That day, several of the creatures stood outside of the many stores that lined the street. Each and every one of them was sweeping the sidewalks, perhaps mimicking the behavior that they thought real humans would show. One with no upper arms attempted to sweep the sidewalk as its broom lay on the ground, unmoving. What existed of its arms still moved side to side, like a windup toy with broken parts.

“Good morning” it said to me. It appeared to be a small, old woman, and outside of the arms, it was almost believable too. I decided to humor it.

“Good morning” I said back, with a small smile and a nod of my head. The creature did not change its expression.

“Good morning” it said again. This time I ignored it.

“Good morning” I heard it yell after me as I walked up the street. “Good morning! Good morning! Good morning!”

I sped up my pace and tried to ignore the now broken creature as it apparently got stuck on its new task. My curiosity got the better of me, and I turned to watch the broken monster as it tried to leave the infinite loop it had gotten stuck in. The creature’s voice had gone hoarse with screams as it continued to screech good morning at me. Green Ooze ran down its face, dripping from its nose and eyes. Eventually, it collapsed onto the pavement.

Most of these monsters were like this. Even the more believable ones would collapse in on themselves when engaged in conversation. A few of them knew how to handle basic conversation prompts. Even fewer knew how to follow basic commands when asked. These rare entities could understand if you ask them for a bottle of water, although what they bring you back might not be exactly what you ask for.

As far as I could tell, this was the only kind of creature that existed in this city outside of me. I was the lone human, barely making ends meet in a terrible retail job that I despised. It wasn’t always this way. I had met a handful of other humans in my time in this city. My class in school contained about four others, and a large number of childlike creatures, who were entirely incapable of aging. As the years went on, each of those four disappeared. If they moved to some other city, none of them ever told me. All I knew was eventually my phone grew more and more silent. Even my own parents stopped contacting me entirely. My phone’s primary function became less about keeping in touch, and more like a clock, which only allowed me to think about how long I had until I was due back at work.

I sat down on a bench, facing a street lined with eternally parked cars, and pulled out my phone. The cold bit at my nose as I stared at my contacts list. There were only 6 numbers in its directory. My four former classmates, my parents, and work. I tapped on the entry that read “Mom/Dad” and hit the call button. The phone sat for a moment, as though it had entirely forgotten how to make a call, but eventually started to make some noise.

“I’m sorry, the number you’re trying to reach has been disconnected.”

Figures. I wondered how many years it had been since I last heard from them. The last time I spoke to either of them was the day I left home. We fought, as we so often did, although I don’t remember why anymore. That time, I just packed up my stuff and left. The last time I saw them, my father was standing outside our suburban home, red in the face, screaming something unintelligible, and my mother sat teary eyed on the front porch.

Eventually I stood up and crossed the street, passing the cars and a couple of the creatures as they wandered back and forth across the road. Across the street was a large park which marked the center of the city. Its borders were drawn by a small row of hedges that ran around the perimeter, except for some small gaps which allowed people inside. Frost sat on the short grass that covered the ground. A winding concrete pathway branched out across the entire park, eventually leading down into a pond that sat motionless right in the middle of the city. A small number of trees dotted the area, each one had at least one or two creatures sitting underneath it, unmoving. I walked towards the pond and sat down on its edge.

I stared at my reflection again. Maybe this city was where I belonged. I had no friends, no family, no ties to other people. Nothing to set me apart from them. I woke up every day, went to work, and came home and slept. I was no different from these bizarre creatures that inhabited the city around me, who lived their lives on autopilot.

As I stared into my reflection in the water, I noticed something I hadn’t seen in years. There, just above my own reflection in the water was the reflection of another man. He was wearing a large blue jacket and gloves, and a pair of jeans which looked worn and faded. His hair was long and messy, as though he had just rolled out of bed and wandered down here. He stood out like a sore thumb. None of the creatures ever looked at their own reflection. None of them had ever shown signs of self-awareness.

Was this real? Another person? An honest to God human being? In this city full of these twisted monsters? I looked up from the pond, and raised my hand to wave at him, but hesitated. Once I moved, he stopped staring and looked up at me. He apparently made the same conclusion that I did, as he stared directly at me, wide-eyed and mouth hung open. I felt my pulse quicken. We stared at each other, both of us entirely unable to look away. Two real humans in a city of fakes.

--

I sat across from him at the table. The diner was the closest building near the park with an open dining room. It wasn’t someplace I had ever been before. Honestly, I had never considered actually attempting to enter any of the businesses that lined the streets of the city. But that wasn’t what was on my mind at the time. My mind was too distracted by the man sitting across the table from me. The room was bustling with activity. Creatures filled nearly every booth, holding fake conversations and pretending to drink cups of strange liquids. The room smelled of fresh brewed coffee and crisp bacon. The stranger and I stared at each other, afraid that if we blinked, the other would vanish as quickly as we had appeared.

This was the first time I had ever gotten a good look at this face. His eyes were a bright blue, and his dirty blonde hair was just long enough to cover them, although for the time being he had it swept to one side. A 5 O’Clock shadow was just beginning to form on his face, and his cheeks were still red from being out in the cold. There was no doubt about it, he was a flesh and blood human.

“Can I get you boys something to drink?” a voice suddenly asked us. We turned to see a creature dressed as a waitress next to us, dressed in a faded pink uniform with a large coffee stain on the front of it.

“Water” the stranger said, and the waitress ran off to the back of the restaurant. “We have to tell her something, or else she’ll get stuck. She’ll just keep asking us over and over until things get bad.”

“Guess you have this place figured out, then?” I asked, unsure of what to do with myself. This was the first time I had been near a real person in years, and a different kind of terror than what I normally experienced with the creatures set in. How was I sitting? Was it weird? What about my body language? Do I seem too closed off? Too open? My throat felt dry, and all of my limbs felt uncomfortably long in the small booth. My entire body was on the verge of locking up when the stranger across from me sighed.

“I come here a lot, just to…I don’t know, I guess pretend that everything’s normal?” He finally said, after what felt like ages. I felt my body loosen a little. He was just like me.

“I never really put too much thought into how weird this is, I guess.” I eventually said after a moment of silence between us, filled only by the sounds of the other diners. “I’ve lived like this for basically my entire life.” It felt strange trying to actually articulate my thoughts to a creature that could actually understand them. Not just a creature, but a human, an actual human being.

My train of thought was interrupted by the waitress returning with two cups. One seemed to contain water, which was surprising, but the other was filled to the brim with cooking oil. The waitress smiled blankly as she sat the two cups down and wordlessly walked off, apparently forgetting that food might be something we wanted to order.

“So,” the stranger spoke suddenly, breaking the silence, “what do you like to do?”

“What do I like?” The question caught me off guard. I hadn’t thought about enjoying anything in quite a while. I thought back to my disastrous apartment, my barren room, and the T.V. which mostly displayed static.“I guess I enjoy drinking?” I said finally, thinking about my fridge which was mostly stocked with several different kinds of beer.

“Oh, really? Me too.”

To meet a stranger was surprising. To meet a stranger who shared my love of alcohol must have been a miracle. The stranger and I chattered about the different kinds of beer that we had tried over the years. Most of my favorites came from work, but his favorites came from all over the world. Apparently, craft beers were still made somewhere out there, all I had to do was order them. We excitedly compared favorites, trying our best to describe the flavors that we had never had a reason to describe before. He described a variety of craft beers and their different flavors. I described the beers from Buy-store, how most of them were fairly similar, but each one had a slightly different taste. We spoke like this for what felt like hours, forgetting about the busy diner around us, and the waitress who hurried between tables. Eventually the waitress stopped at our table again and interrupted our conversation.

“Can I get you boys something to drink?” She still had not asked us about food, but that was alright, I wasn’t here to eat.

“Yeah, how about some more fryer oil?” I said, looking to the stranger across from me for a response.

He picked up on the joke and started to laugh. I laughed right alongside him, happy to be sharing a joke with someone for the first time in years. As we continued to laugh, the waitress stared blankly, unmoving. The stranger across from me started to laugh harder. He laughed harder, and harder, and eventually the smile drained from my face. I sat across from this stranger, who was now howling with laughter, in the extremely cramped diner booth. As his laughs devolved into screams, I suddenly became aware of how empty the diner around me really was.

The stranger’s face was turning a crimson red, and he braced himself against the table, still unable to stop his screaming. Spit flew from his mouth onto the table in front of me. I began to inch my way out of the diner booth. I took another look at the stranger breaking down in front of me. Green blood began to ooze from his eyes and mouth. I threw myself out of the booth, pushing the waitress to the ground as I ran towards the door.

--

I slammed the door shut as I arrived at my apartment, relieved that I no longer needed to look over my shoulder the whole way home. The apartment was still dingy and disgusting, but it was at the very least safe, free from any of those monsters outside. I turned on the T.V. and went to grab a beer from the fridge. I hesitated. Was anything the stranger told me true? Could I really order craft beer? What about his favorites? Was any of that real?

I grabbed a generic Buy-Store brand can and threw myself down on the futon in front of the T.V., which was still displaying static. The moment I hit the futon I scraped my leg against one of the sharp pieces of metal jutting out from under the mattress. I screamed and cursed and instinctively reached for my leg. I pulled my hand back, and, in the flickering of the dull living room light, saw the dark red blood which stained my fingers.

I finished my beer right as my phone beeped. There was only one reason it beeped anymore. I threw on my uniform from the previous day and left my house, ready to work yet again.

--

Beep

I scanned the items one by one as the creature across from me watched. His large, fat body heaved with each breath as he watched me work. He towered over me and watched me scan his items one by one. His lower jaw was missing, and his tongue hung out of his mouth, drooling saliva onto his shirt and the floor.

Beep.

I felt so stupid. Of course there wasn’t another real person here in this hellhole. It was only me and an army of these monsters.

Beep.

I felt an anger rise up from my chest. How dare they try to trick me? My face started to feel hot. How dare they try to be so lifelike, so humanlike that even I fell for it.

Beep.

My hands were starting to feel numb, and my head started to feel dizzy. I grew angrier by the second. I had kept my guard up for years, living in this city and avoiding getting attached to any of these artificial beasts. How dare they trick me? I grabbed a can off of the conveyor belt and

BeBeep.

Oh no. The giant in front of me attempted to make some noises, but only really managed to fling some spit and flap his tongue around. I had scanned the can twice, which was apparently one of the biggest sins I could commit on the sales floor. In an instant, Chris appeared behind me.

“What seems to be the issue, Sir?” Chris asked the massive beast. It flapped its tongue some more and slammed its hand down on the conveyor belt with a loud thud, knocking over the rest of the items that had yet to be scanned. “I’m so sorry to hear that. 22-87, could you please follow me?”

Chris turned and began to walk to the back of the sales floor. I was still holding the can, dumbstruck at what had just occurred. I felt the anger from earlier begin to rise up again. I tightened my grip on the can. How dare these monsters try to control my life? I felt the weight of the can in my hands. The anger I felt continued to swell. I started to follow Chris. I felt dizzy with rage. I raised the can up and slammed it into the back of Chris’s skull.

In an instant he collapsed to the floor. Red blood pooled beneath him.

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