I know where they died. I know where all the bodies were buried.
My name is Julia. If you see me on the street, you probably won’t recognize me. You won’t see how I’m different. You won’t know how I’m special.
They made me this way. Why me? My parents were part of them. They chose to have me, they chose to make me the way I am.
When they modified me, they chose to make me a boy. They chose to confine me in this hell of a body. Said that only a man could hold this power.
I am not a boy. Part of this is in spite: of my parents, of my difference, of them. I wanted to distance myself from their plans: a perfect boy, a perfect death-sniffing boy. Their little pet. The rest is the fact that I just am a girl, which is what I am and would be no matter what body I have.
They chose to test their experiment on me. I don’t know what technology they used, but they managed to make me able to sense death. I can see where someone’s soul was released from their body, the exact point where and when they died. I can see how far their body is from their death. If I’m there when they die, I can tell how close they are, when there’s no coming back, I can see their soul physically leaving their body like I so wish mine could.
They use me in their fights. They use me to help them avoid risks.
Then they use me to loot corpses. I guess it all boils down to that simple thing: they just want what they don’t have. Like I do. They show me a map and ask me to drive that route, and report to them if I’ve found any corpses. Even though I don’t have a license, not even a permit.
They’ve bestowed on me the power to sense death and made me use it since before I could comprehend the loss of life. I’m only fifteen now.
I go to school. I live in a small apartment in Queens. I have a group of friends. I’m normal. I live normally, for ten months of the year. I live with a couple semi-aware of my situation - in July and August they let me go in the black car that takes me up to Maine, but they don’t know what I do there.
In New York I can be myself. In New York I can wear the clothes I want, do the things I want, act the way I want. I can pretend I’m not what I am: I can pretend I’m not different, I can pretend I don’t see the places where students have died: in the 1944 fire, the 1998 flood that the building was unprepared for, the 2020 shooting.
I can pretend I don’t see the bodies under it.
I can pretend I don’t have to put on the boy costume in the summer and do jobs for them.
I can pretend, I can pretend, I can pretend. WHY AM I ALWAYS PRETENDING??
It’s time for me to go. Time for me to leave Anna and Greg, time for me to leave Lilly and Kai and Riri and Charlotte and Fred. Time for me to leave my house, all of the support, the comfort, the belonging.
It’s time to be an alien. It’s time for my soul to pretend to be attached to my body.