Humanity, Chapter 2: Beyond Locked Doors

Humanity: Chapter 1 (and prologue!)

This is the second part. I hadn't had time to edit and post it, since I was so busy with drama.

Anyways, the part where she describes her apartment is what's really messing me up. It just doesn't seem right. Anyways, thanks for the help!

And now, I present to you:

CHAPTER 2: Beyond Locked Doors

Nicole pushed a button and a tall, slender Japanese girl entered

the room. Her expression was guarded, her hair a deep purple-black, and it

was braided down her waist. If such a color would have a name, it would be

shadows, evil, pain.

She bowed to Nicole and asked me to follow her. We left the room

and walked into a hallway. The corridor was gold and once again depicted

with supernatural battles. While I was observing, she started walking quickly

down the hall. I ran to catch up and asked, "Who are you?"

She looked almost scared as she glanced at me and said, "I am

Mayu Retten. I will be your guide in the Colony."

"The Colony, huh?" I remarked. "Is that where we are?"

"Yes, but 'Colony' also refers to the guild of shape-shifters," She

was definitely scared. I could hear it in her voice. She hesitated before

asking, "May I ask who you are?"

I felt content to be answering this question. "I'm Minn. Minn

Azarola."

"The Clever Fox," She murmured to herself.

I couldn't tell if she was insulting me or not, so I said in a

nonchalant way, "Excuse me?"

"Nothing... Just speaking to myself."

So, she didn't trust me.

We finally had reached the end of the long hallway and entered

into the room with twenty doors. We had come from the golden ornate door: I

could see the door I had escaped from earlier had prison bars engraved

over it. I had been a prisoner.

"This," said Mayu, "is the Crossroads."

It was just as full as before, but this time, everyone turned

immediately and gave me a nervous glance before averting their eyes. We

turned and entered the door with the bed. Mayu looked back at me again

with that afraid look and I just had to ask.

"Why is everyone scared? Have I done something wrong?"

This question terrified her, apparently. Her voice even trembled a

bit as she quickly said, "You are not normal. No other shifter has been able

to master alchemy so fast."

"Alchemy? Like, lead-into-gold alchemy?"

"That is a myth, a tale created by those who did not understand

why we can do what we do. Our form of alchemy is moving atoms. We call it

shifting."

As we continued our walk, we began to pass doors with numbers

and engravings in them. She stayed silent and quickened our pace. Finally,

we arrived at a door with no number or engraving.

"This is where you will live." She leaned forward, put her palm on

the door, and squeezed her eyes shut. When she removed her hand, a

shallow, poor rendition of a fox was there. I moved forward.

"May I try?"

Before she could protest, I placed my palm on the door and

moved the atoms around. When I removed my hand, a deep and detailed fox

was etched deep into the wood. Mayu began to tremble.

"Look, I may be different!" I shouted. "But why are you so afraid?"

Even Mayu could not keep her cool this time. "Because you could

take down the entire Colony! Less powerful shifters have been killed for

being too potent and yet you have not been executed! You could bring down

our race and take down the rest of nature with it!"

After she had finished, a look dawned on her face that looked like

hit it the back of the head. She fell to her knees.

"Forgive me, Azarola-san! I did not mean it, I did not mean it...!"

I was shocked at her reaction. "Stop, stop. It's fine. Let's... Go

inside. Don't worry. No worries."

She was humble and silent as I picked her up, opened the door,

and walked inside.

I was so surprised that I dropped Mayu and she let out a huff

before standing up again that she almost blurred.

---

I was stunned.

The room was enormous. The ceiling was fifteen feet above my

head. In the corner was a white marble kitchen with stainless steel

appliances. There were white couches and glass tables. There were three

doorways leading off into other rooms. I wanted to spin in circles in the

middle, jump on the couches, press all the buttons on the microwave. I felt

childlike in my glee, but what else did I have to look forward to? Besides, in

waking hours, I couldn't remember being alive for more than maybe a day.

I opened the door to my left. It opened into a pristine bathroom

with a giant jacuzzi, a glass shower, and white stone counters shot through with shimmery

silver.

I ran across to the the second door. Inside was a bedroom with a

king-sized bed with white sheets, a desk, drawers, and a vanity. In the

corner, a table was laid out with red, blue, yellow, white and black paint, and

glass and metals of all sorts. Seeing the bright colors, it made me realize

what was missing in the apartment. I walked out to the main room to ask,

when I saw Mayu standing exactly where she had stood up.

"Would you like to sit down?" I asked sheepishly.

She bowed and sat down gracefully with her hands in her lap.

I looked around. It was true that there was no color. It was all steel,

glass, and white. "Why is there no color?" I asked. "Is this... normal?"

Mayu just looked confused. "Did you not see the paint in your

room? This is an alchemist's apartment: You paint the room yourself."

"That sounds... Entertaining."

Mayu just nodded. "I must leave, for I am due for my conference in

a hour," she said. "But if you need help, you may call me with this." She set a

small silver phone on the table.

It had a green, a yellow, and a red button. It had one speaker and

was as long as my index finger and thin as a piece of paper. I was surprised

to find when I picked it up that it was extremely light, but not fragile. It must

have been made the same way as the piece of glass that I had shattered

earlier.

"The green button connects to my handset," she explained.

"Pushing it once allows you to speak to me. Use it if you have a

question."

"The yellow button calls the request line. For instance, if you are

hungry, you may request food, or a change of clothes."

"The red button is for emergencies, and will bring the nearest

person to you to your location."

Mayu then took out another paper bundle wrapped in paper from

her messenger bag, which I noticed was white and trimmed in silver, like her

cloak. She placed it on the table and tore the paper away.

It was a cloak, shirt, and pants like everyone else wore. It was

trimmed the color gold. The outside of the cloak, unique from the rest, was

covered in interlocking spirals.

---

Mayu bowed and left. I went into the bedroom, sat at the table with

the paint, and stared at the wall. What could I paint on it?

I thought about myself. I hadn't had time to think up any personal

preferences. Who was I? There was that question again. But for now, simpler

ones. What was my favorite color?

Green. Definitely green. What was green? Frogs. Witches. Plants.

Plants!

Where are plants? In forests. So I would paint a forest... At night.

With creatures in it, but subtle, so you had to look for them to see them. I put

my hand on the paint cans and shifted the lid away. Where was a paint

brush?

Then it hit me: I didn't need a paintbrush.

I touched and shifted the paints straight into the air, moving their

molecules through the oxygen ones, looking like shiny colored snakes. There

wasn't a drop left in the can. I grinned. This was seriously awesome.

I closed my eyes and imagined that forest again. It was night: I

could see the moon leering from behind the trees. Foxes, wolves, and

squirrels (particularly nasty looking squirrels. I obviously didn't like squirrels)

glared from branches and underbrush. Malevolent shadows whose yellow

eyes stared watched from behind tree trunks. The ceiling was black,

speckled with yellow-white stars.

When I opened my eyes, the scene was around me, staring at me.

but my bed, and the floor (which turned out to be a carpet) were still white. I

put paint into the carpet and sheets and pillows, mottling them brown and

green like the grass, dirt and moss that coated a forest's bed. Moving the

atoms a little faster caused everything to heat up a bit, drying quickly.

I realized that after all the shifting, I was hungry in a weird sort of

way. It felt like a mix of heartburn and my limbs falling asleep.

I went into the main room and pressed the yellow button. A male

voice answered.

"Yes?"

"Hi, I would like to order some... food."

The voice sounded annoyed. "What kind of food?"

I felt like an idiot. "Uh... Just... Um... Food."

"On the way," The voice said. Then it hung up.

I sat down, wondering how long it'd take. Within a couple seconds,

the door opened and a silver cart with a stack of five pizza boxes and a few

liters of soda appeared before the door slammed shut again. I picked a few

slices of cheese pizza and a regular pop and gobbled it down before finding

a note also on top of the cart. All it said was to leave the cart outside the room when I was finished.

My heart still ached for some reason, but I ignored it. What else

was there to do?

I remembered the third door in the room. I went over and turned

the knob... And it was locked. That was disappointing. I suppose I would have to find something else to do.

Then I had a thought.

I put my hand on the doorknob and moved the atoms, liquefying the

locking mechanism. Oops. I hope whoever did maintenance around here didn't mind.. I opened the door and peeked inside.

Sure enough, there was a passage. I walked into it to find a

narrow steel hallway with lights on either side every couple feet. It sloped

upward. What else did I have to do but go in and follow it in its ascent to who

knew where?

---

As I followed the hall upwards, it abruptly stopped with a doorway to

the right. I turn the corner, and to my right was yet another hallway. I walked

up the hallway and turned another right corner into...

Yet another hall. It was a scissor back trail. Or hallway. Whatever. I

continued up.

After forty more halls, I finally found the exit. It was door identical to

the one I had come through, except it had an eye with a blue mountain

engraved in the pupil. A glacier? Also, this door had no doorknob. So I would

go through the middle.

This time, when I tried to shift it, I found it harder. It wasn't as thick

as the glass panel, but it still took me about five minutes to shift away enough wood

to squeeze through a hole in the middle. Ducking inside, I was sorely

disappointed.

The room was large and round, plain but for the door I had come

through, and a door parallel on the other side. I walked across and placed

my fingertips against it. I was not surprised to find it was just as tightly shifted

as the other door. I looked back at my door and noticed something I hadn't

before. In the center of the room was a glass circle with a ten-foot diameter

instead of floor. I had walked across it without noticing.

Walking back, I gingerly stepped onto the glass and looked down.

Twenty feet below me, lay the Crossroads.

I quickly put my hand on the glass and checked its thickness. It

was thicker than the glass I had shattered earlier. It could hold my weight. I

sat down, still somewhat tentatively. But I soon relaxed and looked down at

the scene below.

The teens I had saw went around their business below my crossed

legs. They darted out of openings and into others without stopping. I smiled

to see people under normal conditions, not being chased or threatened. I

wondered if they could see me.

"I thought you'd come here."

I whipped around to see none other than Nicole Flame standing

behind me, grinning.

---

I was trembling as Nicole sat beside me and looked down. "Calm

down," she laughed. "I'm not going to hurt you." Yeah. That really made

me feel better.

"Just want to talk about the... Conditions you'll be living under

here."

"Minn, I realize that there will be a lot of opposition against you, and

a lot of reasons for it. Not the least of which, once they know about you, you

will be a direct target by vampires if they attack-"

"Vampires?" I sputtered. "There are vampires?"

"Yes, Minn. And any shifter who kills a human will turn into one. I've

had to kill former... Colonists before. And also, there's another risk and cost

to being a shifter. If you lose your, um, virginity, you'll also be turned into a

vampire."

This stunned me. So now was there not shape shifters and regular

people thrown into the mix, but vampires. Of everything imaginary, vampires.

Why couldn't it have been leprechauns or fairies or at least something that

wasn't going to most likely torture you before you died?

"As I was saying, you also have enemies within the Colony.

People do not like that with your strength I have allowed you to live. There are

radical thinkers who would kill you for the sake of everyone else."

"But they do not see, as I do, that you are invaluable to us. You

could help us destroy the vampires after centuries of fighting. Do you see

why I have not exterminated you? It would be a waste of talent."

Was that all I was? Who I was? A weapon?

"Are there questions you'd like to ask?"

I looked down at the young people below me. "Why are there only

teenagers here? Is their a... Colony for adults nearby?"

Nicole barked a bitter laugh that made me jump. "Minn... We don't

grow old. Shifters stay young forever."

"Young forever? But how-"

And that when the alarm went off.

"Shit!" cursed Nicole. "Vampires!"