The alarm goes off beside me, filling my ears with piercing white noise. I smile to myself, reaching out to slap the regular sized appliance off the bedside table to silence its wailing. My hand swipes cleanly through air, whacking the alarm clock hallucination of the equally fake table. I groan, rolling around on my regular sized bed and tug the flimsy sheet over me to muffle the still ever-present alarm. Strange, how a single sound could have taken me that far back into my past, to a time where everything was okay. A time where I was five foot six instead of four inches tall.

The alarm continues to blare in my ears, although this time, it’s accompanied by a voice. Deep and rumbling, as everything has sounded since becoming a Nazaree, but still clearly female. And familiar. Yes, that too.

“Jesus Andrew Jr.! Even for a robot, you’re so goddamn unresponsive!”

My blood freezes in my veins as the memories of the previous night return. How the hell did I manage to forget all… that?

I’d talked to a human. I, Andrew James Lawson had spoken to someone for the first time in four years… without the screaming and without the humiliation.

I, Andrew James Lawson am a complete idiot.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” I hiss, barely able to hear my own voice over the constant ringing of the alarm outside. “She’s gonna call the FBI or something and I’ll become some kind of alien freak!”

Nope; not the best way to start a guy’s morning.

I tug off the not so sheet-like covers off my shaking body and rush to the controller’s seat of Andrew Jr., the amplified sound of an alarm clock penetrating even the ‘sound proof’ cockpit of my exterior. As it turns out, my super sensitive ears (which is a trait only a yellow or an animal would have) have proven too much for the machine.

Just as I’ve seated myself down before the closed windows of Andrew Jr.’s eyes, Emily’s voice sounds again, at an alarmingly close proximity to my smaller body. I shiver, my hand pausing over the ‘wake up’ switch as I listen to what she’s saying.

“Please, Andrew… I don’t want to be the insane one on this boat. It’s just… you’re the first person who’s willingly spoken to me since…”

She swallows, her voice cracking.

My hand wavers over the switch, the decision nagging at my mind already.

“Andrew.” I say sternly. “You can’t risk this…”

“Since I got here.” Emily continues, each word causing me to flinch. “I know I’m a huge klutz and you probably see me as a skinny little sick girl who deserves all your pity… but… I just wanna know, you know, that I’m not…”

You’re going to pay for this, Andrew. A dark voice in the back of my head sniggers as I succumb to her pleas and mash my fist down on the button. Instantly, light spurts from the widening cracks in Andrew Jr.’s window-like eyes, revealing the giant… and very close face of Emily Sharpe. Wielding an alarm clock in one hand had, until now been jammed up against my exterior’s ear, she looks practically…

“Insane?” I finish her sentence, the words slipping from my lips. And before I know it, they’re out of Andrew Jr.’s mouth, as if he’s the one speaking in the first place. It’s meant to be that way, I guess. Always has.

Instantly, Emily jumps up from her position… on top of me, and flicks off the alarm clock. The first thing I notice about her is that her eyes, framed by huge rectangular glasses are blinking rapidly, as if trying to convince themselves that I’m awake. Slowly, I program my exterior to sit up in bed, rubbing his own eyes; a simple gesture that makes sure particularly curious people don’t know the difference between a regular seventeen year old boy and a robotic replica.

It’s then that I notice that Emily’s IV is gone. I mean, it’s still beside her bed and everything but she’s not hooked up to it, as she had been the night before.

I also notice that she’s crying.

“Emily?” I say gently through the mouth of my exterior, flicking a few switches to up the volume of the voice projection. “I’m sorry. Are you okay?”

Her voice is shaky when she replies at last.

“Y-y-y-you’re… the t-t-tiny guy still? It wasn’t a dream?”

I tense up, out of habit. Millions of feelings seem to gather up inside my head at the same time. Regret, pain, hope, fear, shock, sadness. I’d go on, but that’d mean I’d be dwelling over them all day. Right now it’s best that I focus on… whatever I’ve gotten myself into.

And the consequences of that.

“There don’t have to be consequences, Andrew.” I whisper, shuffling forward in my seat. “You’re… you’re…” You’re going to be tiny forever. It doesn’t matter anymore.

“Shut up!” I snap at the voice in my head.

Sorry, but it’s the truth.

Emily’s timid words jolt me back into present. “P-p-p-please tell me you’re r-r-real.” She says, bowing her head.

A wave of pity clouds my ability to make conscious decisions and I stand up slowly from the creaking mattress of the bed Andrew Jr. had slept on. I cross the room in two steps flat, the tiny guy part of my brain watching in awe at my exterior’s gigantic movements. Without good old Andrew Jr. It’d take more than two steps to reach Emily. But that’s beside the point.

Feeling shaky myself, I sit down quietly beside Emily on her bed, causing the girl to inch away.

“Shhh.” I mumble through my exterior’s mouth. “I want to show you something.”

“Andrew…” Emily sighs, giving me a half smile.

“Don’t speak.” I instruct. “Just watch.”

Putting on a brave face, I flick a switch to my left and the illusion of my exterior’s giant yellow eyes fades away to reveal glass. Glass that both allows me to see straight ahead at Emily’s face from the cockpit of Andrew Jr. and her to see inside, right into the tiny room I spend my life inside.

“See?” I say loudly, so she can hear my own voice as I speak from inside the room.

“I’m real.”

It’s real.