By Sophia Krich-Brinton
Her face looked delicious, so I stole it. Reached right out and snatched it off of her. She almost screamed, but her head crumbled up before any sound could be heard. I wasn’t worried: I’d worked this out ages ago, and it always went smoothly now.
I pressed the new face onto my own and waited as the skin knitted itself to me. It itched, like a half-healed scab, and an odd ecstasy feathered into my scalp and neck. I wanted to scratch the new bits, but I knew not to touch it. If I did, it would never set all the way. Humans could tell when that happened.
Waiting, I looked down at the pile of clothing and dust and bone chunks, as the whirring slowed, then stopped. I patted my forehead, my ears and chin. No bumps or grooves, just smooth, fresh skin.
With a tentative stretch of my new cheeks, I strolled back to the busy street and checked my reflection in the passing windows. A human female in her middle years looked back at me, with smile crinkles around her eyes and mouth.
I stuck my hands into my skirt pockets, glad I’d dressed female today. People nodded at me as they passed, some eyes lingering longer than others. I hadn’t attracted this kind of attention in a while and I soaked it up, smiling left and right. How easy it would be to lure someone into a quiet alley and trade faces now.
“Morning, miss,” a stranger said, leaning in too close.
Male-coded clothing.
“Morning, sir.” I blinked my new eyes at him and waited. Let him try some humanesque bullshit and see what happened.
He narrowed his, looming over me.
Come on.
He shrugged and turned away. A crow of victory surged in my throat, but it didn’t last long. Scaring a human was barely worth cheering over. I’d spent too many years stuck here, trading faces, chasing happiness as if anything on this dump of a human planet could fill the void in my chest.
What I wanted was the weightless warmth of home, barely more than a vague memory in gold and brown at this point. Sometimes I’d catch a passing scent and be transported back for the barest second. My heart would leap, my entire body tingle—then I’d recall that my planet was destroyed and my kin fled throughout galaxy.
And here I was, marooned, with no way off and nowhere to go anyway.
The old ache gripped my chest. I should have grown out of this pain, but whenever I thought I had, that same old longing would make me teary-eyed. I was so alone here. So lonely.
Shaking it off, I kept walking, meeting every passing human’s eyes, as a female in this part of the planet should never do. Try something, I dared them. See what happens.
If I kept doing this long enough, the males would learn. Or the females would get the message and start lifting their own eyes.
“Stupid,” I muttered. I’d played this little game for over a human generation, and nothing had changed.
“Did you speak to me?” A big human cocked their head in my direction.
Sudden hot anger bubbled up my throat like bile. I didn’t like how this human’s eyes ate me up.
“I’m lost,” I said. “I think I need to go that way, but I’m not sure. Can you help me?” I pointed to a narrow winding alley, the kind that spilled off these streets like veins.
“Of course.”
I guided him toward the alley. At the first curve, I reached up and ripped his face off.
It didn’t come off.
I frowned and tried again.
Still, his face remained on. He was smiling, wide white teeth, his human eyes merry. “What are you trying to do?”
“I—I need to…” Words failed me. This had never happened, not in all the years I’d been stuck here.
He bent down to put us eye to eye. “Are you trying to reshape?” he whispered.
My human mouth fell open. He’d used a word from home, in a language I’d never hoped to hear again. I couldn’t speak. Could barely breathe.
His smile widened as he put a hand to his forehead and pulled off his face. Beneath it, a young genderless person with pink skin and blue human eyes looked out at me.
“You’re welcome.” He handed me the face.
He spoke my language.
My ears popped, my body went weightless.
It felt like the moment I’d landed on this planet after a year in my escape pod. The lid had popped open, and air had rushed in, so sweet and fresh I thought I’d never get enough.
I held the face, making no move to put it on. “Who are you?”
“I’m a human.” He grinned. No, not he, but humans had no word for our genders.
I grinned back. “As am I, of course.”
“Of course.”
He put out a tentative hand, one human finger outstretched. It was a pale copy of the old greeting, but I mimicked the gesture. Our skin wouldn’t meld at the touch, not this stiff human skin, but when our fingertips met, I knew who they were. In that instant, I saw their escape as our planet exploded; their endless journey through the stars; the long, lonely years spent here.
“Alone no more,” I said. Language tasted odd in my mouth. I hadn’t spoken it aloud since my pod had catapulted off my home planet.
Our planet.
He put out an arm, and I took it the way I’d seen countless humans do.
“Shall we peruse the faces?” he asked.
“I’d love to.”
Together we strolled back onto the street, mixing seamlessly into the human throng as I’d never quite done in the past. I took a deep breath of the evening air. It had never smelled so sweet.
* * *
Sophia Krich-Brinton (she/they) lives in Colorado with her partner, kids, and cats. They write weird stories to help deal with the panic of living in the US right now. She has words upcoming or in HAD, Ghost Light Lit, Moss Puppy Mag, and more. They also box, play the banjo, and sometimes scream into a pillow. Find her at sophiakbrinton.com or on Twitter/Instagram at @sophiakb_writes
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