Young Writers Society

The Ellulics are pink and green. Coral green hair and hot pink skin that changes to a dull peachy color after they’ve been dead for a few weeks. Their eyes are a sun yellow color that’s all iris, except for their pin sized pupils that are a dull amber color and barely visible unless you look very closely. They have smooth skin that is almost flawless. When they receive wounds, they heal quickly and smoothly and are barely visible. Their lips are full and lush and never dry, and their teeth are always pearly, never stained. Their bodies are slender and graceful, and they have long fingers that have squishy pads at the tips. These pads change blue in hot weather, and red in cold weather. Ellulics have a hard time functioning properly in these types of weather. The color change is a warning sign.

Ellulics don’t have a strong sense of touch, which is why they need this warning sign. In fact, the senses of the Ellulics are very undeveloped. They don’t use their ears, so they need no hearing. Ellulics communicate by written word and telepathy. Ellulics like things to be very quiet. There is no music or loud noises in their communities. Silence is golden. Being noisy is far too human for their liking.

The only developed sense they have is their sense of sight. Every Ellulician has 20/20 vision. They use their eyes more than most humans. Sight is how they learn and understand everything. Sight is very important. If an Ellulic tells another Ellulic to look at something, and they don’t see it, the Ellulic pointing will often think or write “Yucky, yucky, yucky, open your eyes!” because sight is a very huge part of knowledge to them. Not being able to spot something to them is like miscalculating something in mathematics. Terrible. Sight is very important.

Ellulics all look the same. They’re completely identical, except for of course the standard differences between the sexes. The only difference between Ellulics, except for some minor mutations in some of the newborns, is their hairstyle. Ellulics can cut their hair in any style they want. That’s one of their few liberties. Ellulics aren’t a very commanding society. They’ve just had certain rules set down for hundreds of years that have never been changed. No one ever questions why these rules were set or why things are the way they are amongst their race. That’s just the way things had always been. Things being any other way was unthinkable. Ellulics don’t question things. Questioning things is so very human.

Another difference between humans and Ellulics is how they’re named. When an Ellulic is born, they’re name is etched into the flesh on their back. Ellulics have black blood, and when these wounds heal and scar they turn a dull gray and look almost like smudged words written in gel pen. No one knows why they have black blood, or why they have this naming ritual. It’s just the way things are. This, of course, is another difference between each Ellulic, strange race that they are.

Ellulics speak English and think and write and learn in English. Because they’re telepathic, their thoughts have a tendency to travel and reach the minds of humans instead of the minds of other Ellulicians. Ellulics can be just as careless as humans sometimes. Have you ever gotten a time when a completely random thought will occur to you, and it will interrupt your train of thought and seem completely foolish? That’s an Ellulic crossing over some wires, in a sense. In fact, that’s how Lily ended up encountering Silver. They were the same age. Ellulics age in the same manner as humans, die in the same manner as humans. In fact, Ellulics are identical to humans except for their skin and eyes and hair and the pads on their fingers and their under developed senses and the fact that they don’t talk and their ethics and morals and rights and all that. If you were colorblind, you might mistake an Ellulic for a very strange human being. And Ellulics are all beautiful.

Have you ever tried to explain the concept of color to a colorblind, or even a blind person? It’s impossible. You can’t describe a color without using a color related adjective. They won’t know what you’re talking about. Blue. Red. Green. Yellow. Go ahead. Try it. It’s impossible. You’ll fail horribly. How very human.

Lily was colorblind, which was a very appropriate thing for Lily to be. She was an extremely pale girl, with black hair and gray eyes. Almost everything about her seemed to be monochrome, except for her ruby red lips and everything else on a human being that should be pink or red or whatnot. Lily didn’t understand color. Her little brother, being a human, often tried to explain color to her. It just confused Lily. It was something she would never know or understand.

Lily met Silver one summer when her family was living in a small cottage by the ocean with her grandmother. She went off alone to explore the caves down by the ocean one particularly warm day. There were a lot of caves down there. One caught her eyes and she slumped into it. The sun against the rocks had created a bright sparkle, which drew her to it. Lily liked sparkles. Sparkles could be beautiful even in black and white. Had she had the full use of her vision like most humans, she would have seen that the rocks in this cave were shades of blue and purple and green and black and gray. There was water and slime and stalagmite and stalactite and all sorts of cave like things. Lily found it interesting, and she liked the rich earthy smell the cave had compared to the salty smell of the outdoors.

Lily didn’t know that Cycle 13 was inside this cave. Cycle 13 was the Ellulic community Silver belonged to. You see, Ellulics live underground, in caves, and in deep forests. Places where humans normally wouldn’t think to go. Even if a human did begin to stumble upon an Ellulic community, they wouldn’t see it. Walls and layers of rocks and metals seal these communities. No one knows where these communities came from, or who built them. They’re just there, and have always been. That’s just how things are. Most of these communities are semi-large, and sealed inside a dome that keeps them the same temperature at all times. Their finger pads are always pink. All is well. Each community has homes, a city hall, and some clubs and theatres and things like that. Ellulics mostly don’t leave their homes except for events and such. There’s no money. They never need to go grocery shopping or out to eat; all their food for the day is sent to their homes. That’s just the way things are. It’s much easier. They never question it. They grow all their food in special greenhouses and barns and the like. They clone animals for meat. They keep medicines and supplies in stock, and whenever they need more they order them from somewhere. No one really knows where, but Cycle 13 has never run out of food or medicines or any other necessities. Everything is kept on file and on records in the main computers, so things are organized. It’s much easier. Who needs money?

All the Ellulic communities are called Cycle and given a number. No one knows why, or how many communities there are. That’s just the way things had always been.

Ellulics normally aren’t allowed to leave their communities. In fact, they aren’t at all. Humans react very strangely to the abnormal. This is a very bad thing for a creature with pink skin that can’t speak or hear or smell or taste very well. Silver left the community because he was bored and felt like doing something differently for a change. Silver always questioned things, always wondered why things were this way and that. No one else knew this besides Silver. Some Ellulics have trouble separating speech from thought, but Silver was a genius. He never had a problem with this. Silver understood and felt and saw more than most Ellulics ever would. In some ways, Ellulics were very small minded, though they believed they were a superior race. How very human. Only Silver realized or thought about these things.

So Silver left, only for a little while. But it was long enough to encounter Lily. Lily was wandering into the cave; Silver was wandering out of it. And that was how they met. When they first saw each other, they were both completely shocked by what they saw opposite them. Silver was shocked because of Lily’s complexion and hair and eyes. He had of course seen girls, but never one who looked like this. He knew immediately she was a human, there was no question about that. But he had never seen one before. And Lily was gorgeous; there was no mistaking that. Lily was shocked because she didn’t expect to find anyone inside the cave. She was also shocked because Silver was naked. Ellulics think clothes are overrated, and unnecessary. I agree with them. But most humans don’t expect to see beautiful naked boys wandering around dark caves. Lily didn’t know he was Ellulic; she figured he was just some guy who had wandered in there to change after skinny-dipping or something. Silly girl.

The sun coming in from the outside was enough for them to see each other. Both of them were struck by each other’s beauty. Both of them were curious to know about the other. Both of them felt this strange, melting curiosity as they scanned over each other. As they looked at each other, they began to understand each other more and more and more. They were in taking every bit of knowledge, every thought, and every piece of each other. Mentally. Silver was telling her everything, in microseconds, giving her thousands of thoughts and memories and recollections. Lily didn’t know she was doing it, but she was doing the same thing with him. Silver could read Lily’s thoughts. He understood everything.

Lily was different than most humans. Like Silver, she realized and understood every single lie and flaw and imperfection about her race. She was intelligent. She was beautiful. In Silver’s eyes, she was exactly was perfection was. Truth and understanding in human form. In a way, thinking someone is perfect, no matter what kind of genius they are, is imperfect and ignorant. It’s very human.

Lily and Silver made love, had sex, became as one, fucked. Right there in the cave, Silver clumsily undressing Lily (he was very unfamiliar with clothing), and Lily grasping and touching every piece of Silver she could. In this act, Lily gave Silver something besides her knowledge of humans and her beauty. Silver heard noises and sounds and spoken words for the first time in his being, and coming from between Lily’s ruby lips he thought they were the most beautiful sounds in the world. This single beautiful creature had caused all his senses to heighten, strengthen, and come to life. Neither of them had ever known another human being, or another Ellulician, in this way before. Lily had done stuff with other guys before, but never like this. When he penetrated her, she felt sharp pain, then intense pleasure with every thrust. Silver’s heart was racing and smacking against Lily’s chest. Sex does that to you. Lily’s tightness and sweat and rhythm and kisses and licks and nibbles and caresses made Silver moan and cry and speak. Silver spoke. Silver’s first word was “love”.

Sex is dirty and when you think about it, really gross. Silver and Lily thought it was the most beautiful thing in the world. With this one act Silver discovered another world and became something else and found a feeling that wasn’t made a big deal of in his world, which was of course, love. Lily discovered more than earth and humans and everyday things, and many other things, which she couldn’t process into words or thoughts. She just understood. She just knew.

True love is pure understanding and adoration and emotion. Most humans never feel this. Lily and Silver did, with every moment they lied together on the rocks, even afterwards when they lay side-by-side, moist with sweat and bodily fluids and saliva. They were bearing smiles that were as mysterious as Mona Lisa’s and just knowing the truth about everything in both their pathetic little worlds. Life on both sides was pointless; that was another thing Ellulics and humans have in common. Everything was just an excuse. Because, because, because.

How very human.

Lily and Silver had to leave each other eventually. Lily had to get back to her family and Silver had to get back to Cycle 13. But they were different, in a way. They were complete.

Lily found out she was pregnant a month after her encounter with Silver. She had a miscarriage. She named the children World and mourned its loss for most of her life.

Lily never saw Silver again. Lily moved to New York and lived in a shitty apartment for most of her life. She never got married, and she never loved anyone again. Yet she didn’t feel the kind of desperate longing for Silver that most girls feel upon losing the one they love. He was still inside her. They were still together in thought.

What she didn’t know was that Silver died. After he returned to Cycle 13 they interrogated him about his whereabouts and hooked him up to machines and drugged him and ran all sorts of experiments on him. He had disobeyed a law. It was necessary. Silver eventually confessed everything about Lily and the sex and the cave. They shot Silver in the head. Silver's beautiful face was destroyed and the rest of him turned a dull peachy color.

Silver died. Lily never knew this.

Lily lived alone all her life and died from an accidental overdose when she was almost 50. Lily wrote thousands of novels and stories and poems about Ellulic and humans and the World and everything else that her and Silver’s combined knowledge had taught her. These were never published, but her brother kept them and read them. And he passed them along to his children, and so forth. He didn’t understand them, but he knew someone along the line would. He didn’t know why he thought this, and he didn’t question it. That’s just the way things were.

How very Ellulician.