tagnone
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You’re not entirely sure how long you’ve been on the road. It’s certainly been weeks, at least. Maybe months. You barely even remember what it was like to live between four sterile walls- you don’t remember much about that time of your life beyond that, really, although the shattered shards of memory of it all still cut at you, like broken glass across the floor of your mindscape.
Still, in moments like these- where the puttering hum of the RV and the hushed chatters of the others fills every aspect of your senses- you finally feel at peace. At home.
You’re hunched over at the back of the caravan, in what amounts to the kitchen. You like it here, alone and pressed up against the cold steel of the refrigerator, but you don’t entirely remember why. You tried to once, crawled through the broken glass of your psyche to find whatever sits on the other end, but all you got was flashes- burning flesh, blinding light, a scream from inside your own head. You haven’t tried again.
The others, you think, must be the same. None of them talk about their past, but you’ve seen their restless sleep, the paranoia in their eyes when the headlights of another car stream through the windows in the dead of night, you know there’s something similar lurking in all four of them.
Muffy and Sandy always sleep next to each other, are always touching, because when they aren’t you can see something creep into them, some panic, concern, that you can never discern. You don’t really understand why they do it, it’s so unwieldy for them, Muffy is slender and covered in chitin plates, jagged and multi-eyed, all those arms that get everywhere. They say she’s made of spider, and that’s easy for you to understand- but Sandy is so smooth, her skin thick and rubbery, limbs thick and flat at the same time. You don’t know what she’s made of, but she clearly wasn’t made for the land, for living in an RV, and she’s always making a mess of your corner with her trips to the sink to wet herself. Clean herself? You can’t tell. You don’t like it.
Toto, at least, you can understand. He’s a little like the you that you see in your reflection- wrong, missing bits, metal put in its place. Like he was hurt, and someone put him back together wrong. You heard Muffy whisper once, during one of your short trips outside the RV, that he wasn’t like the rest of you. That he was built to kill, to keep the ones like you in line. You don’t know what to think of that.
He’s bigger than you, though, more fur, more teeth, more claws. You’ve seen dogs, wolves, out the windows a few times, when it was safe to look out of them, and you think that’s what he’s made of, between the bits that are metal. He has their face, and his voice sounds a little like the noises they make in the night. He doesn’t like to hear those, though. That’s when you see what’s most familiar in him. He hides it from the others when it happens, but you know, you’d know it anywhere, even if you don’t remember from where. The furrowed brow, the hungry eyes, like he’s sizing you all up. Like you’re nothing but meat, like you’re even less than meat. Sometimes he cries when the look disappears, when his muscles un-tense and the hunger fades, he buries his face away and sobs until sleep takes him. You don’t know if the others have noticed, don’t know if they watch all through the night like you do, but you always make sure he sleeps before you. Something deep inside you tells you it’s the safest way to do it.
It’s Sylvester that you understand the least. He doesn’t look like the rest of you, doesn’t look like he’s made of anything. He has the brand of The Company, the mark you all do- even you, through the burns and the twisted metal- but to you, he looks incomprehensibly Human. The Driver even lets him out when you have to stop, when the blinds are pulled down and you’re supposed to stay quiet and pretend you’re not there. He doesn’t have ears, you suppose, just the scars running down the sides of his face, all hidden beneath all that hair of his, but you’re not sure what that makes him. The others look at him, sometimes, with looks something deep within you tells you is envy. Jealousy, even.
You don’t understand why he’s here, when he can live out there. You don’t understand why he flinches, whenever anyone touches him, why he interrupts your nightly watch of the cabin with shouts and sharp movements in his sleep. Why his eyes seem to flood with fear whenever any of you loom over him- an inevitability, when he’s the smallest of all of you. You don’t dislike him, not like some of the others do, but you don’t understand why he has to be the most bothersome of them all.
You like them all well enough, though. They’re nice to you, and most of them talk to you even if you can’t talk back. You suppose that means you have to like them in return. Even The Driver, though he doesn’t say more than a few words to any of you, though you sometimes catch that glimmer in his eyes through the rear mirror- the disgust, guilt, and cold killer instinct in equal measure. Even he sometimes gives you things to drink, things that fizz and bubble in your mouth, sweeter than the sugar water you usually have- that means you like him too. Like him enough that you ignore the voice deep down, the one that tells you never to trust him. The voice never gives you anything, nothing sweet, nothing bubbly, so it’s overruled.
They’re all occupied right now, though. Just like you stick to your corner, they stick to their routines.