Page 1 of His Human to Adore

A12-04

Twohoursandforty-sevenminutes left until I’m forced from Earth and sent to another world. I’m scared, but I should be terrified, right? I shouldn’t be excited to explore a whole other world. Especially not when I’m being sent to have some weird alien-human-hybrid babies.

I can’t help the slight hope growing in my chest, though. It’s almost like I’ll be happy even though it’s a messed up situation. Or at least I’ll make my own happiness. Maybe find some happiness? I don’t know exactly, but I know I’m more excited to go than not.

Soon, the Hands will come find me. They’re the aliens that came to save what was left of the human population on Earth after we may or may not have let the world fall into an actual world-ending calamity that we never even bothered to try to fix. The Hands ushered all the women in New York City into a baseball stadium in the Bronx. All the women willing to follow orders from a species that came out of the sky without warning found shelter there.I don’t really know what happened to the others, but I’m not sure I want to know either.

The Hands have kept us fed, housed, and healthy for the last two years, and now, in payment, I’m getting sent off the planet. If someone had asked me a couple of months ago if I was excited, I would have been crying hysterically about it and complaining incessantly about how unfair it all was. Now? I’m ready to leave Earth and start a new life. Simone and Nia are the only things holding me back, but they’ll be sent not too long after me.

The last woman the Hands sent off was picked up two hours before they sent her to get prepared to leave Earth. So, I assume I have less than forty-seven minutes until I’m being sent to live amongst actual aliens. Less than forty-seven minutes until I’m sent to procreate with an alien species because humans are going extinct, and so is their kind. Less than forty-seven minutes until…

Less than forty-six minutes, and I’m forcing myself not to think about what’s about to happen. These are my last few minutes with Nia and Simone until we meet again on whatever the new planet we’re being sent to is called. They’re what’s important right now. Not daydreaming about what my alien might look like. And yes, my alien, because I’ll be damned if I get sent to a new world and don’t at least get a commitment out of it.

“Where’s Simone with the snacks?” I ask Nia as she snags another of my braids and snips at it. “She said she’d be back before they came to get me, but at this rate, I’m going to leave Earth without having some chips.”

“Well, I’ll just eat enough for all of us.” Nia laughs as she throws the braid on the floor and starts to unbraid the remnants from my natural hair.

A little earlier, one of the Hands stopped by to tell me that my braids couldn’t be sent through the portal that would take me to the new world. Apparently, anything that doesn’t naturally grow from me isn’t allowed to go through.

Simone threw a fit at the Hand before stomping out of our room, saying she’d be back with snacks. Nia and I tried to tell her we didn’t need any snacks, but we both knew she was off to talk to her mysterious boyfriend, alienfriend?

Simone’s been talking with one of the Hands that presents as a human man. We don’t know which one, how long they’ve been talking, or how serious they are about one another, but we know she’s not being honest with us when she talks about where she disappears in the evenings. Why she even talks to any of them is beyond me, but I stopped asking about it after she begged me to drop it months ago.

Nia is helping me get all the braids out of my hair. Simone braided the extensions not even a week ago, which means we wasted our time, and the pain wasn’t even worth it. I’m tender-headed to the extreme, and I hate the maintenance that comes with my hair. Simone convinced me that the pain of braiding my short hair would be worth it to keep maintenance lower until she was there to bug me and remind me to take care of my tight curls.

“Oil your hair, Deja.”

“Use this new leave-in conditioner I convinced a Hand to find for us.”

“If you use that brush on your hair, I’ll shave your head myself.”

Simone cares more about me taking care of the tight curls I have been attempting to tame since I was twelve than I do. If I had my way, she’d make good on the threat to shave my head. I bet I’d look great with no hair. Well, maybe not great since it’ll probably be something a bit dramatic, but I’ll feel great.

I didn’t have the heart to ask her to shave my head when she came to me with extensions to braid into my hair, so I never voiced it. What she didn’t consider, or what the Hand she’s talking to didn’t tell her about, was that I’m not allowed a protective hairstyle, and my natural hair isn’t long enough to start dreads. Hell, it’s barely long enough to keep these braids in, but we thought it would be better than going all natural.

“Just shave my head,” I pout as Nia works on snipping another braid short enough that she doesn’t have to do as much work to unbraid the rest. We’ve been going at this for twenty minutes already and aren’t even a quarter of the way done. “We both know I’m not about to take good care of my hair until Simone joins me, so let’s just shave it and call it a day.”

“Seriously?” She shakes her head, knowing that Simone is going to lose her shit if she comes back and sees me with a bald head. That’s why we need to do it now before she can come back and talk me out of it. She’ll be able to, too. She always knows exactly what to say about how beautiful my hair is if I take care of it. I think about that, and I forget about how much I hate taking care of it for long enough that the urge to shave it off goes away. Then, I regret not just shaving my head, and the cycle continues.

“We’ve known each other for two years now.” I grab the scissors out of her hands and toss them on the bed next to me. “In that time, how much have I given a shit about my hair?”

“You need to care about it now,” Nia warns me. It’s easy for her to say when she’s got soft and easy curls compared to the tightly coiled mess that happens to mine if I don’t take the time to treat it right. Not that I hate my hair, I just hate the work, and I think that’s fair. “Simone is going to murder you if you shave your head.”

“Nah,” I laugh as I click the buzzer on and start running it across my hair. It snags on the braids that I definitely should have cut off before attempting this, but after a few passes in the same spot, I’m left with a nice, smoothish spot on my head and a handful of hair that someone else can use if they want. I won’t be able to take it with me, so maybe someone else here can use it for their own braids or something. “If she kills me, I won’t be there to keep her company when we’re thwarting the advances of alien men left and right.”

“Hey, I’ve heard through the rumor mill that we all apparently love alien dick. Maybe you won’t be thwarting all their advances,” Nia laughs as she tells me the latest nonsense that’s being spread about us.

How the other women in the stadium can even think any of us are that willing to be sent to a new planet to be bred is beyond me, but here they are, gossiping about how much we all like alien genitals. It might be funny if I wasn’t so annoyed about how I’m going to be remembered when I leave. Not that I’m not excited to go, but I don’t need any of them knowing that because it only adds fuel to whatever bullshit narrative they’ve decided to spew.

The whole world goes to shit, and twenty-three of us are forced to go to another planet to breed with a species of alien so the human race and this other race can live? All in exchange for the safety and comfort of all the women we’re leaving in the baseball stadium. You’d think we’d be treated like saints or martyrs, but no. The Hands have enacted the rationing of medical supplies, food, and other things. All of which those in unit A12, the breeding unit, can still access if they have any need or desire.

“They’ve only sent three so far. How could they possibly already be making up such bullshit?” I ask as I run the buzzer over a new section of hair.

“Well,” Nia’s eyes dart back and forth before she moves the fabric that works as a partition to my room. “You’ve heard the rumors about Simone, right?”

“Nia.” I give her a pointed look. “We both know she’s out there flirting with him right now. That barely counts as a rumor.”

Nia throws her head back with a cackle. Her soft curls puff up around her as she falls back on the bed. I wonder for a moment if she’s going to keep them as healthy and nice-looking once we’re on the other planet. Will they even have anything she’ll need? The thoughts make me feel better about going completely bald.

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