As his eyes closed, as his breath stopped, as his life slipped away, a single thought clawed at the edges of his fading consciousness:
I… I wish I knew how to be human!
I wish I could laugh… really laugh!
I wish I could feel… not just pretend!
I wish… I wish the mask could be real!
It echoed in the dark, a scream without sound. A life ending with nothing learned, nothing held, nothing real.
He was dead—but not. He could think. Could recall his last moments. Yet his body was gone. No form. No weight. No skin or bone. Only the endless, infinite void.
Time had no meaning here. Minutes? Years? It didn't matter. Yet even in the endless void, a faint beam of light pierced the darkness.
Desperation clawed at him. He wanted to escape, to grasp something, anything—but there was nothing to hold. Madness whispered at the edges of his mind. The light grew, and instinctively he reached out—then realized, with a shock:
Huh. I don't have eyes.
Suddenly, he was somewhere else. Not his room. Not anywhere familiar. A hospital—but not of Earth. The walls, the instruments, the lights—it was alien, impossibly advanced. Yet something felt… human. A faint warmth, a precision that whispered care, a rhythm that hinted at empathy.
And then he felt it: his body. Or what felt like a body. Alien. Sleek. Seamless. Slightly luminous. Rigid and untested. Yet when he moved, it obeyed him perfectly. And yet… he was still him. Every thought, every memory, every heartbeat—his own. Alien skin, alien form, but the mind inside? Unmistakably human.
Pain rippled through him as he adjusted. Every motion burned. Keeping his eyes open was nearly impossible. When he closed them, it wasn't darkness—it was a pool.
A pool—vast, endless, impossible to ignore.
Half of it was him: his alien body, luminous and alive, responding perfectly to his consciousness. The weight, the hum of life coursing through unfamiliar veins, the strange muscles rippling at thought—all alien, yet intimately familiar. Every motion sent ripples across the pool, shocks of sensation that were foreign but instinctively recognizable.
The other half was not him. It was memories. Floods of lives he had never lived yet somehow knew. Faces blurred in and out—laughter he had never heard, cries of fear that made his chest tighten, fleeting joys, endless sorrow. They moved like currents, pressing against him, merging with the alien form he now inhabited. Each memory whispered, coaxed, demanded attention. Some felt familiar, as if he had always known them; others were utterly alien, leaving him trembling with awe and confusion.
At first, the memories were overwhelming. He recoiled. He trembled. Yet slowly, as they poured into him, patterns emerged. He felt the weight of connection in joy, the sharp sting of loss, the warmth of care, the awkward delight of laughter, the quiet ache of longing. Through these foreign yet familiar sensations, he began to understand: this—this chaos of feeling, fear, love, and pain—was what it meant to be human.
The pool pulsed. Alien and human collided. Identity stretched thin, yet his core remained. With every memory that flowed into him, he understood more: human wasn't just flesh, or a body, or even a mind. It was experience. It was empathy. It was connection. It was knowing what it felt like to exist, to struggle, to feel both joy and sorrow, and still continue.
The tide of memories grew stronger, filling the half-empty pool. They entered him fully, merging with his consciousness, blending the alien body with the human soul that still lingered inside. Pain became knowledge. Fear became empathy. Laughter became recognition. Every experience, every emotion, every truth he had never known became part of him.
And then it happened. The pool was full. The memories and sensations integrated completely with his consciousness. He was whole. Not the same boy he had been. Not fully alien. But human, at last. Human, with the mind, the heart, and the soul to recognize it. And alien, in a body that could hold all this, a vessel for learning, for feeling, for becoming.
He understood where he was. It was shocking. It was overwhelming. Yet he could do nothing but accept it—and step forward.
A soft hum filled the hospital. A light shifted. Instruments glimmered faintly. For the first time, he perceived the world around him not just as shapes and colors, but as sensations he could feel, understand, and relate to. His new form moved fluidly. He flexed his fingers, tested his legs, felt the hum of life, the pulse of this place, the silent echoes of the memories that had become him.
And then, somewhere deep within, a thought emerged, unbidden yet clear: I am human. And yet… I am something more.
For the first time since the life he had left behind, he laughed. Not the forced, performative laugh of the gamer in his room. Not the hollow echoes of someone pretending to feel. This laugh was real. Raw. Filled with shock, fear, wonder, and joy. It vibrated through his alien form, resonating in the pool of memories inside him.
The hospital was silent. The walls were alien, the instruments advanced, the light unfamiliar—but he was no longer lost. For the first time, he understood what it meant to be real.
And somewhere, deep in the flood of memories and life, he smiled.