Dwindle

“Wait a minute – wait!”

  She stood up, breathing heavily. Her eyes darted back and forth between the corners of her room. There were tears in them all of a sudden. They took on another nature of such frustration and confusion that she was shaking her head.

  I tried to play it off as a joke, as I believed I could. I said,

  “You’re not a human…it isn't the end of the world!”

  “My parents – no! They told me – they said!”

  She breathed heavily and a shakiness about her unsettled even me.

  “They went out of their way to show me where I was born! They showed me – right before they died! Why would they do that? Why would they die to get me over the Gate? So I can save people?”

  “Yeah, probably!” I said loudly.

  “But I didn’t do anything!” she shouted. “I’m not special or smart! You even said so! What does all of this mean?”

  It suddenly meant the world to me that she understood what she was instead of who.

  “Haven’t you been listening?” I shouted at her, suddenly standing. “You’re special, and we’re at war! You get over that wall, you can prove to the world that Halflings like you are possible!”

  It was liberating to yell at her – directly to her. I wanted, needed, to yell at something, and she was suddenly just so easy to yell at.

  “But I’m not a Deviant!” she shouted back desperately. “I’m not! I was born! I was born here, in Dwindle! I had parents! I had –”

  “You’re just a Deviant!”

  “I am not – I am –”

  I grabbed her wrist and made her look at me.

  “This mark – touch it!”

  Her hands in mine were shoved to what she thought was just a burn.

  “This is a number – you’re number 22-13!”

  I had ogled it enough times to have it memorized.

  “That’s a code. Alpha and Omega. It’s the Bible verse!”

  “What is the Bible?” she shrieked hysterically, but I was undeterred.

  “’I am the Alpha and Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End.’ That’s what you are. The Aio. The beginning and the end. The first and the last of your kind!”

  “Shut up, Ollie!” she said, putting her hands on her ears. “You’re wrong! I’m not special! I’m not an Aio! I’m normal, like you!”

  “You are NOTHING like me!” I roared.

  “Why not?” she shouted back weakly.

  “Because of what you are! What you represent!”

  “I don’t understand…”

  “I’m human! I’m not a lying, manipulating murderer who walks around with this noble self-righteousness! I am a victim!”

  “Of what?” she asked, and I heard the defensiveness growing.

  “Of being around you!”

  There was a long pause.

  “So this is it, huh?” she whispered to me harshly. “This is the heart of your pathetic insecurity.”

  Her words sounded strangely vicious, and I felt castrated beneath their wrath. They had never been directed at me like that.

  “You can’t decide on anything, can you?”

  I opened my mouth in the silence but no words came out. I felt small.