Humanoid

Chapter 1: The Beginning

Chi was leaning on the rail of the second-story balcony at her "Home" when she heard soft footsteps coming down the sidewalk, getting louder. She looked up and saw a small child, looking to be about 7 or 8. The young girl had long gray hair similar to her own, and bright blue eyes that seemed to glow, even in the clear light of day. Her clothes were scratched up, but her skin looked perfectly fine... weird. She had an eye patch on her left eye and she as hugging a large purple stuffed bunny.

Chi put her head in her hand as she thought. looking at the girl. Shouldn't kids that age be in school right now? She smiled to herself. In spite of her saying that that girl should be in school, Chi was skipping school herself. The kid looked slightly dazed and lost. Chi really wanted to go find out more about that kid, but she didn't want to get herself into any trouble. But on second thought, what kind of trouble could a kid that size cause? She jumped onto the drainage pipe beside the balcony and shimmied her way down. Once she hit the grass of the front lawn, she broke into a sprint so she would't be caught by any of the staff working on the lawn. It was better to sprint across than to sneak across. She had learned that the hard way.

Once she was safely out of sight, she approached the small girl with a smile, the smile that she used for kids. Once she was close enough, she crouched down so that she was at eye level with the mysterious girl. "Hello," She said slowly, "Are you lost? Kids your age should be in school right now."

The girl just stared.

"My name's--" She couldn't finish her sentence because the little girl made a small sound and dropped her toy.

"Mother?" she said, tilting her head.

Chi froze, her mind working. What kind of mother would let her child wander around wearing this, at this time of day? Sorry, 'Mother', but I'll take your kid out of your hands for now. She's obviously searching for another one. (Or I just look like her mom, but that's not important.)

"Hi, sweetie." Chi held out her arms, and the kid willfully ran into them and hugged her. But it wasn't really a hug. It was more like a monster truck slamming into a drywall. The force of the 'hug' knocked Chi onto her behind. "W-Wha...?"

"MOTHER!" The girl wailed. "I knew it was you! I knew the man was lying when he said you had been eliminated!"

Chi's face paled, but she kept her smile. "Well, the man was wrong." Eliminated? What does that mean?

"Come on!" The girl urged. "Let's go home!" She picked up her toy and started dragging Chi across the sidewalk. Literally. She didn't want to risk getting her butt sheared flat, so she stood up and walked beside the girl, letting her lead them through dark alleyways and weird narrow passages. Finally, they arrived at a run-down shack in a small opening. It looked to be on the brink of crumbling. Chi really did not want to go in there, but she had little choice. She didn't want to know what would happen if this kid found out that Chi wasn't her mom.

"Hurry, hurry!" The child said, leading her through a broken window to get inside. "Let's go into the basement! You remember the basement, right?"

Chi gulped. The basement was always the worst place to go into houses like this. She absolutely couldn't wait to see what was down in that basement. As they went through a couple of busted hallways, Chi's hands turned into fists, clenching and unclenching with apprehension. They stopped at a door that looked way different than the others. It was clean, perfectly straight up, and polished so that she could see her own reflection within it. The only part that differentiated it from regular doors what the red paint on it. That was paint, right? It looked like it was still fresh--the she stared at it, looking at each letter until two words formed in her head.

'THE CHILDREN'

Chi's shaking had approached the doorknob. She gripped it tightly, her knuckles turning white.

Slowly, she turned the knob and the door swung open.