Brian McLane was an huge basketball fan and enrolled Bath in basketball when he entered 6th grade. By now Avery was five-and-a-half and was Bath’s greatest cheerleader, always watching while he practiced in the front yard. She was a bit young for the game—her height and strength were sorely lacking—but Bath enjoyed playing with her all the same.

Bath thought his father amusing. Brian seemed to think him a basketball prodigy, which was true, in a way. Bath didn’t see the point in being second-best (except when Lisa was involved. He had made a firm rule for himself to keep the game challenging: no in-game shifting, and no enhancing his body beyond human limits. Bath always played well, but that was because he spent hours refining his technique every week. In particular, he found basketball interesting because he had never before needed to lob objects at a target: the skill was wholly novel.

Bath knew Brian had a dreamy notion that Bath would play in the NBA, a conception that Bath tried to upset at every turn. The NBA wouldn’t solve Global Warming.

Over the past four years, Bath had grown steadily more concerned with the current state of the Earth’s climate. Since he didn’t need to sleep (though he could, and often did), Bath had snuck out frequently over the past years to investigate the melting of the ice caps in person. He never liked what he saw.

He had started marking the glaciers with thick claw marks, keeping track of how many claw marks disappeared over time as the ice broke off into the ocean. Each time he checked the marks, he return home incredulous: how could so much ice just disappear?

By the time Bath entered high school, his concern for the environment had already reached a near desperate peak. That was when he started to confide in his greatest friend.

Bath had never confided in anyone—or anything—for the entirety of his existence. He had never felt the need.

Humanity is leaving me soft, he scoffed. But really, his desire to speak to someone nagged at him daily. It worried him: barely a decade and a half as a human, and he felt a need to speak to another about his problems.

It doesn’t just worry me...it terrifies me, Bath thought, shuddering. He had never thought of himself as opposed to change. After all, change was the essence of nature. But now, staring change in the face, Bath felt a sense of dread that sank into his bones. Perhaps the problem isn’t change itself, but the time frame over which the change occurs, he mused.

One day, when the two were hanging out at the local park shooting hoops, Bath asked her to come over to a shady tree.

"Lisa, I want to talk to you about something." As he said those words, a sense of vulnerability came over him. It was one of the most uncomfortable, alien feelings he’d ever felt. He wanted to end this feeling, to destroy everything and leave the park a splintered crater—

"Bath, I'm listening," she said softly, looking at him with soft, knowing eyes. Knowing? What did this tiny human child know?

"You can tell me anything."

And then, for some unknown reason—perhaps for every reason—Bath began to cry. Of course, he dematerialized the tears as they welled up and manually calmed his heart rate, but these were all measures that failed to address the disquiet in his Center.

In that moment, he wanted to kill Lisa. But he couldn’t. And so he just looked at her, his face a blank mask.

Lisa smiled and pulled him into a hug, then sat him down against the tree. She guided his head to her shoulder and rubbed his forearm with her hand. She remained silent, waiting for him to start.

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"How do you know me so well?" he said softly. It was as though she had read his mind. Each one of her actions seemed staged.

"Bath, we've always been together as long as I can remember," she replied, then swallowed. "I don’t know anyone better than I know you.”

Bath looked at her, moving his head from her shoulder. She reached out her hand and wiped his cheek, seeing past his fixed, stony expression.

“I’m not crying,” he murmured.

Lisa smiled. “I know.”

Bath sighed and turned away.

"Lisa, I have something I want to tell you."

"You can tell me anything."

Bath cracked a smile. "Are you sure?" he trailed off, looking now to the horizon and the clouds. "You probably won’t even believe me," he muttered, "but if I can’t tell you, then..."

"God, what is it? Are you a serial killer or something?" she wondered out loud, rolling her eyes.

He locked eyes with her. "Lisa, you’re the only real friend I've ever had.”

“That’s my line,” she said, voice insistent.

Bath snorted. “No, like, ever.”

“We’re the same age,” Lisa pointed out.

“No, we’re not,” Bath replied. “I’m over five-hundred million years old.”

Lisa showed no emotion as she took the information in. Bath took this as signal to continue.

"That’s it," he said. “Don’t you have anything to say?”

“What do you mean you’re five-hundred million years old?”

“I’m not human,” Bath added. “That’s what I mean.”

“So you’re...an alien?” Lisa asked.

Bath started. Actually...I probably am an alien lifeform. I certainly didn’t naturally come into being on Earth.

“I guess,” Bath replied. “That’s a good way of thinking about it.”

Lisa nodded. “So why do you look like a human if you’re really an alien?”

Bath looked left and right. “Watch.” He turned his hand into a snake, complete with flicking tongue and slitted eyes.

Lisa jumped back and gasped. “Holy crap,” she breathed. After Bath reverted his arm back to normal, her eyes snapped up to his once more. “You were totally serious.”

Bath nodded. “Yep.”

“Okay,” Lisa said, nodding her head. “Okay.”

“Why did I assume the form of a human?” he said, posing the rhetorical question in anticipation of her curiosity. “To understand humans, and to understand that which threatens this world’s natural order.”

He sighed. “And now, I'm talking to you because I feel lonely for the first time in my existence.” He laughed self-deprecatingly.

He waited a full minute for her to reply.

“Lisa?”

He reached out for her hand. She grabbed his palm quickly in her own and squeezed.

“Thank you,” she said brusquely, as though squeezing the air from her lungs. Bath had already lowered the power of his hearing; he didn’t want to hear her reaction via heartbeat.

“For what?” he asked, taken aback.

“For trusting me,’ she said, smiling, her eyes closed as she tilted her head. She pulled him into another hug and kissed his shoulder. “What else do you have to say?”

“You should be terrified,” he said, grinning sardonically.

She looked at him but didn’t say anything.

“Lisa,” he whispered. "You honestly should be terrified. But don’t fear me.”

“What do you mean? Be terrified, but not afraid?”

“Think of God. The Christian God that we humans here worship.” Both his and Lisa’s families believed in Christianity. “God tells man to be terrified before his might.”

“But then He tells them, ‘Do not be afraid.’ This is what I mean. You should be terrified at the things I can do, but never afraid ‘cause I’m not going to hurt you.”

“You aren’t God, Bath. But regardless of what you are, I’m still your greatest friend.”

Bath flinched, feeling something quiver in his heart. He felt his heart thump, felt the tips of his fingers go slightly numb. His stomach tightened.

Is this was it means to feel undeserving?