The Children's Game, chapter 1

-1-

Like a flower bursting through a patch of packed-down earth, a lone life form appeared.

DNA bases began to stack and spiral around in each other in an elegant, fluid dance.

AT

AT

CG

AT

CG...

Around them formed the first cell, and then another, and another, like hundreds of buds unfolding to reveal more buds. They glued together and organs formed, their pulsations and flutters reminiscent of newborn caterpillars, drinking in the world for the very first time.

Out sprouted arms and hands with wiggly little fingers, and legs with feet and short stubby toes. The head burst into being, with the brain budding and layering inside. Out from the crown of his head sprouted velvet-soft petals of hair. The first ebbs and flows of consciousness spread through him like warm water, and the curious fingers stretched forward, eager to grab that little ray of light that lay just barely out of reach.

The bright eyes began to shine, and the new lungs gasped in their very first breath.

In, out.

The young boy gained consciousness on the sidewalk.

In, out.

***

He blinked in the white-hot sunlight, and squinted them shut almost immediately as they began to burn. The salt tears that sprung up didn't do much to help at all. His skin felt like it was about to boil and drip off, and some inner common sense told him that that clearly wasn't supposed to happen. Occasionally, a blessed zephyr would float along and give him some respite, but it was always too short. The sensation began again each time, driving him half mad as he made a futile effort to edge further away from the sun.

He tried to stand up: once, twice, three times. Each time, a nauseating sense of vertigo dragged him back to earth. He tried a final time, his hands singed by the burning pavement as they pushed him upward, and managed to balance himself on his feet with a minor wobble. He dusted his hands off in content and opened his eyes just enough to gauge his surroundings.

He had been deposited in a long, narrow road, straight as a rod, as if the architects had taken a ruler and drawn two parallel lines on a grid, pointed to it, and said, "Road." Along it were shops and storefronts, watched over by cloth awnings and the occasional parasol atop an outdoor table. One could imagine huge crowds gathered there, filling the place with echoing laughter, with children gawking through the big shining windows at new toys and people dozing at tables by their cups of coffee, still puffing away, long forgotten.

Instead, the silence that infested the place was enough to blow out one's eardrums. There was something off about the colors on the signs and awnings. One would think someone had scoured them with bleach and clouds and left them to dry. The boy began to hum an off-key tune to fill in the silence. Attracted by the big window near him, he peeked into it and saw a shop as well-arranged as a new dollhouse, but the tables had no coffee stains, the walls had no smudges, the floors were just a bit too clean. It all seemed unused. He dashed across the street and peered into another one to see if it matched, but the sun was behind him, making it difficult to see past his reflection.

His appearance explained his light intolerance very quickly. His skin was as pale as a new sheet of paper, and his irises were a watery hazel. His hair was feathery to the touch, he noticed as he ran his fingers cautiously through it, and bone white. He wasn't exactly built for sunny climates.

The hammer blows of heat on the back of his neck were acutely noticeable again. He ducked under the nearest awning and sighed in satisfaction as the chilly touch of the deep shadow flowed over his skin. Exhausted, he sat down and leaned against the store door, feeling his consciousness being tugged into the darkness.

A sudden wave of swishing sounds nearby made him jump to attention. It was as if someone had thrown a switch; at first, nothing, and then a rolling mass of people appeared on the sidewalk. The susurrations of their shoes on the pavement, perfectly in time, ruined the silence for good.

Excited to finally see a human presence on the barren street, he ran out into the crowd and began begging loudly for someone, anyone to tell him what was going on. They didn't seem to heed a word he shouted and continued marching, not a twitch on their stony faces. He grabbed a hand and relinquished it immediately with a cry of disgust. Their skin was too smooth, like oiled candle wax. Their monotone hair and clothes wove in and out with the equally basic environment. There was a person in pastel green, like that storefront; there marched one in bleached red and white, like that motionless barber's pole over there. On they marched, a plethora of expressionless color.

Above the rest of the crowd towered the tallest man he had seen yet, in a shirt of pale yellow. As he approached the boy, his arm reached forward and out, like a robot arm. The boy, in all of his naïveté, walked right up to him.

The man scooped him up with a grip like a giant clamp and threw the stunned boy over his shoulder without a slip in his step.

The boy's heart screamed into action like it had been jabbed with an active cattle prod. He screeched and wailed with the cries of a wounded animal, kicking hard and flailing wildly. He pulled at the man's hair, but his head could be dragged around and shook wildly, doing unearthly things to his neck, and not deter him at all.

At this point, he did what any child with no other recourse would do.

"Ts'not m'real dad!" he shouted. "Please help, ts'not m'real dad--"

There was a sudden clang, the man's head was whacked to a complete 90 degree angle, and he and his army burst into translucent confetti.

The boy smacked onto the ground with the sound of a wet noodle. He jumped up and looked himself over: dusty, with some gravel pressed into his skin and leaving a welt or two, but ultimately unharmed.

Out of the white, bright haze came the oddest apparition he had seen so far (and considering what he had just seen, that was saying something), framed by the slowly falling confetti: a woman, panting hard, balanced on highly modified stilts, clutching a cast-iron skillet, the light reflecting off of her jet black hair to form a fuzzy halo.

This new figure stared down at him with the attitude of the angel of death about to pass her judgement, and spoke one sentence:

"Damn right he ain't."