" Mom? Who's that?" the boy tugged on his mother's sleeve. She was focused on something else. Her eyes saw through the room's thick glass walls and to the girl. A girl was strapped to a gel-made bed that was put up vertically. The boy climbed atop the stool next to his mother's chair and became overcome with curiosity.

" She's beautiful, isn't she?" his mother looked down at him. Her eyes glinted green. The boy nodded. His mother straightened her white coat with her palms, staining it with moisture. " You may not understand now, but she is not like us. A humanoid, we call it..." she trailed off. Her face lit with alarm as the loud beeping started.

"She's stirring!" someone exclaimed through her handheld device. The boy climbed onto the table in front of him and pressed his face against the glass. The girl looked so fragile. He gave off a little sigh. Little did his mother know, this boy understood more than most.

" Boy! Get down!" his mother ordered.

" Where is she from?" he asked. His mother grabbed him from below his arms and situated him on the steel floor. She placed her handheld device on the table and let it grow wider and wider. Its light lit the viewing room, making the boy squint.

" Quarter 2, Sector 50, Room 400. The humanoid is waking. I need backup." The boy watched his mother's fingers wave over the glowing hologram. Minutes later, the beeping abruptly stopped just as the boy got used to hearing it.

" Mom?" he whispered. His mother turned to him, pushing her long black hair out of her face. She nodded at him.

" What is it Ax?" She waited for his answer.

" Where is she?"

The boy's mother whipped her head toward the glass to see if the humanoid was still there: she was.

" What do you mean, Ax?" she gave a long exhale.

" What world is she in?" he replied. The boy's mother's expression deepened.

" An artificial world, made in her brain. She will be like this until we have every morsel of knowledge about her-"

" Doctor! We need your presence immediately." a high-pitched voice sounded from her handheld device.

" Understood. I'll be right there," The boy's mother spoke through the device's recorder. " You should head home, Ax. I'll be home soon." she started to exit the viewing room.

" But Mom-"

" Head home, Ax." She left with the metal door closed behind her. The boy turned to the glass walls and made a silent promise to himself.

***

" Turn your textbooks to page two and finish questions 1 to 15 for warm-up."

I flipped the brand new textbook to the page and sighed with relief. The questions aren't that hard. In this classroom, I recognize a lot of people. Today, I attend the most prestigious public high school. The uniforms are nice and everything has been going smoothly. I gave a short speech as the first-year representative during the opening ceremonies and all went well.

Allie was somewhere else down the hall and a few of my old classmates are in my class.

So far so good. Nothing unusual this entire day.

Except for this morning when the sky went crazy and Allie froze.

One thing. That's all. I began to start the math problems when the class door flung open and everybody's eyes drifted to the source.

" You're the late one. Take a seat behind Ms. Howard."

I put down my pencil as he said my name. I followed the gaze of all my classmates and found a guy who looked like he went through a tornado. His black hair seemed all over the place, his bag was placed awkwardly on his arm and he didn't wear his tie. How embarrassing.

I continued to work and acted oblivious to all the noise that came from him having trouble settling down. He pulled out his chair but was stopped by the teacher.

" I would like you to introduce yourself, first, late one." Mr. Glads said. The boy stood up and whispered nearly inaudibly.

" Willson. Ax Willson."

The name was so familiar. I turned my head to face him. His eyes were looking down on me, a bright shade of green.

***

I wonder why I thought his name was familiar. I've never met him before and neither has he. But his eyes always followed me in the halls, to the point where everyone would notice.

"Strange guy, isn't he? I heard he moved here last night." Allie and I sipped on our juice boxes in the courtyard.

Throughout the first block, Ax kept whispering to himself too quietly for me to understand. He kept his left hand under his desk so he could've been hiding his phone. I paid no mind and didn't say anything about it.

Allie got called over by her other classmates and I was left alone in the courtyard. That is— until Ax approached me from behind. I jumped and dropped my juice box.

"Oh, I'm so sorry! I'll buy you one back," I watched him as he picked it up and handed the empty juice box back to me. "My name is Ax, what was yours again?" he asked.

"Uh... Eris." I said. I didn't want to keep up the conversation. If anyone were to see us like this, I was afraid my reputation would fall. But he looked a little more cheerful than this morning.

"So I wanted to ask, have you ever met an older lady with long black hair? She had green eyes and rectangular glasses too," He looked expectantly at me for my answer.

Why approach me to ask for a person? I racked my brain to search for a memory of someone, but no one appeared. So I shook my head.

"I see. That's expected," He looked away. "Thanks, I'll buy you a drink when I can next time." Ax waved and headed back into the school. He tried to hide it, but his fists were clenched.

He never bought me a drink since that day. I didn't care much, but his question still lingered in my head. Somehow I wanted to help him after seeing his reaction, but I didn't. Unfortunately, I had a picture to maintain as a top student of the school-- and talking to him could ruin it.

***

What is a humanoid? The boy would ask his parents. They replied the same thing over and over. But the boy didn't want to know that. He couldn't put his true question into words at that time.