New Life

• Grace Mews, Grade 8
• Short Story
• 2018

When I died, I wanted my body to be shot into space. I didn’t want to be stranded underground with the musty earth surrounding me, an inescapable place, cold and damp. I didn’t want to be disturbed or moved. I wanted to be left alone in peace. I wanted my body to be released where my parents died. When they shot themselves into space, thinking they were safe. The ship they were in exploded as soon as it left the safety of the Earth’s atmosphere. I never got to say goodbye to them and I hate myself for that.
***
My eyelids fluttered open to see bright lights. ‘Is this what the afterlife looks like?’ I say to myself. Then it all came back to me, the memories. The crash, the shattered glass from the window slicing my skin. The pain was unbearable, the most agonizing thing ever. One of the last things I remember was the slow beeping of machines and nurses running frantically around me, yelling. Then black. Nothing but black. Then I started to see parts of my life, my first steps, my parents, my 13th birthday, my 16th birthday. And all of my favourite times with them. The park down the street where we walked the dogs, movies, beaches and the hardest year of my life without them, trying to tell myself that they’re not coming back. That they never will.
All of these memories were disrupted by the turn of a door handle. I listen, not opening my eyes in case I could get hurt. Its footsteps sound heavy against the hard floor. I get the feeling that something is watching me and I open my eyes slowly. I see a young woman. She doesn’t look human; her ivory skin has a shade of black underneath the surface and her eyes just a slit. Then she walks to the other side of the room to what looks like a radio and speaks into it.
“Experiment 856 conscious. I will inform you on progress,” she turned and walks towards me. “So you’re probably wondering what is going on, am I right?” I nodded. “The year is 3247. You are on a space ship orbiting Krypton. You died in a car crash and your body was shot into space. We found you a few years ago and you have been in a coma ever since. Your body did not decompose in space. We decided to see what life was like all those years ago, so we took out your memories and copied them.
She handed me a mirror. I didn’t see what I expected, I saw a girl with the same black hair and green eyes, but there was something different about her. Beneath her skin was a black tinge. I looked down to my arm. I didn’t see blue veins, they were black.
“What am I?” I said horrified.
“An experiment.” she uttered, a sly smile spreading across her face.