[20] What does it mean to be... human?

When we talk about Times Square, what really comes to mind? A lot of things, right? Let's face it, Times Square was a monumental place, its mark even more indelible in Hollywood movies. Joe didn't know how many times he had seen Times Square in various movies, television, and social media. In his past life, he would never have sheltered the thought of visiting New York City due to his busy student schedule, but currently, it was no longer a dream. Joe took a subway train to 42nd Street.

'So this is it.' Joe smiled as he sauntered out of the exit, his eyes devouring the metropolitan beauty in front of him. He noticed that he stood out like a sore thumb or like a bouy among the sea of people moving here and there. New York had a lot of wonders, and Joe's striking features held a magnetic allure. What else would you expect from a kingcard? 

"Ma, look at that person. Lemme talk to him," a cute little girl, around six years old, gently tugged her mother's cardigan while pointing her chubby finger at the approaching Joe.

Joe noticed the child heading his way. When he inadvertently heard her words, he didn't know how to react.

"Honey, didn't I tell you not to point at others? It's bad manners!" The mother hissed a warning at her child. 

"B-But he looks like Prince Charming." The kid pouted, her cheeks puffed in indignation. 

As they passed near Joe, the young mother cast an apologetic smile at him, her cheeks reddening in embarrassment and shyness. 

'Children. Maybe only the infinity stones can stop their innocent but painful truth.' A wry smile played on his face. 'But I am no Prince Charming. That's an insult, kid.'

'Being ogled is honestly becoming a cliché. I didn't ask to be this attractive; the fault lies with my mother's blessed genes and my nonexistent father whom I'll never know,' Joe thought in grievance, focusing on enjoying the moment instead of caring about the unholy thoughts of his admirers.

The cacophony of sounds coming from yellow cabs, tourists, street vendors, and common New Yorkers intermingled to create a unique musical vibe. Joe removed his AirPods to fully immerse himself in the free Dolby Atmos demo. The surround effect was so surreal that he felt like closing his eyes. There were times when Joe would totally abhor extreme noises, but the current situation was an exception.

Anyway, what truly stood out at Times Square wasn't the people or the oddly mesmerizing noise; it was the billboards. Kaleidoscopic neon lights flashed like Prometheus' torch, showering life at the nexus of the world. Joe nonchalantly walked as he admired the numerous advertisements on the gigantic LED displays. The most exciting of them all were the 3D Live Ads. There was a 3D model of a stunning, sultry woman smiling down at him. Joe thought he had suddenly become Ryan Gosling in Blade Runner. Well, he still preferred 3D over 2D girls any day.

There was a huge green dragon smoothly and majestically coiling around a building. Props to the Samsung team. 'Never expected to see Linley Baruch coiling around a random building in New York.' Joe chuckled in his mind, finding the comparison somewhat goofy. 

'On second thought, I think I will use these billboards in Times Square if I succeed in developing Candy Crush Saga. What better way to advertise than to showcase my creation at the crosswalk of the world? Then bam—social media acts as the medium to spread the news to millions. Hypothetically, it could take minutes, hours, or days for the game to become a hit.' A shrewd glint flashed in Joe's sapphire eyes. 

He knew he was thinking big, already visualizing his success, even though he had yet to put in the work. He was blatantly counting his chicks before they hatched. Joe thought that sometimes cracking the eggs and frying the yolk was better than waiting for the hatchlings. 

Joe wrinkled his nose as he inhaled the pungent cocktail of perfumes, exhaust fumes, and street food scents – pretzels and hot dogs from the vendors. 'Oddly suffocating and nauseating,' he thought, 'but nothing I can't handle.'

He passed by a group of European tourists taking selfies and snaps of their surroundings and posting them on their social media. 

'That never gets old in any universe.' Joe pursed his lips as he enjoyed the scenery with no destination in mind. He subtly observed the people, their communications, and their intermediate environment. Joe was subconsciously studying human nature. As much as there were tourists, the majority were workers, people who were looking for daily bread. Their faces and expressions differed, but Joe noted that they all had one thing in common. 

'They are like programmed machines, exuding the stench of monotony from doing the same set of actions almost every day just to pay the bills. We humans are truly more machine than the machines themselves. That's the sad reality. What does it mean to be... human?' Joe's eyes seemed lost, drowning in the abyss of existentialism as he tried to decode the bizarre notions of humanity. There were things that even with NZT he couldn't know and comprehend. Was that what it meant to be human? To be like sheep? To be incapable of knowing? To be oblivious?

'Humans will always be curious despite their ignorance,' he mused. 'Without guidance, they flock together like sheep, procreating. They love, betray, sacrifice, save... Yet, why do my soliloquies sound like a divine entity's contemplation when I'm no different from them? How amusing.' 

"Hello, can you please give me the vanilla ice cream?" Joe asked as he stopped by an ice cream cart.

"Here you go, buddy," said the middle-aged vendor, handing Joe the ice cream cone with a practiced flick of the wrist after skillfully scooping it and placing it on the cone, all while wearing a friendly smile.

Joe took the cone, the cold sensation immediately cooling his hand. "Keep the change," he said, handing over a bill that was a little more than necessary, intending it as a tip for the hardworking vendor.

"Thanks a lot, man," the vendor replied, his smile widening with gratitude. "Enjoy your day!"

Joe didn't say anything and continued his leisure walk while slowly licking the creamy vanilla. 'Now I know why Selena Gomez and Black Pink sang an Ice Cream advertisement on Earth.' 

He felt like he had returned to his childhood days, recalling how he used to annoy the hell out of his mom to buy all sorts of ice cream and confetti. But who was Veronica? If he had been a little devil child, then she had been the Devil Empress. 

As Joe enjoyed his evening with a cone of ice cream, an almost unnoticeable seismic tremor traveled across the road. Joe didn't sense it at first, but the second time, he felt the anomaly and it nearly made him lose his ice cream. The nerve. 

'What the fuck was that?' Joe furrowed his brows as he looked around, trying to figure out if others had also sensed the tremor. However, he was disappointed as almost everyone was trapped inside their own bubble of tapping at their phones, taking photos, or just minding their own business. 

Joe knew that something was bound to happen. The first tremor, which he hadn't noticed, could be ignored, but the follow-up... 

'This is Marvel. Imma start leaving this place ASAP! If I were Scarlet Johansen overdosed with CPH4, I could just stop the darn time in Times Square...' Joe began jogging away, forgetting his sweet ice cream as it hit the ground. He had to prioritize his safety. Was he being paranoid? Nah, the sixth sense, a consequence of shitting NZT on a daily basis, could never be wrong. 

He wasn't Spidey with his broken spider-sense, but what he had was instincts. Joe had seen death in the eye succumbing to it once, tasting its flavor. He was kinda experienced in that aspect. 

As Joe swiftly and deftly zigzagged around the throngs of people, it was then that the inevitable struck. 

A full-powered tremor made the whole Times Square tremble as if it was suddenly the end times and the Four Horsemen were about to ascend from hell. Then, an underground explosion followed next, creating a shockwave blast that minced every living being close to the source. A rain of blood, unsightly entrails, and disconnected limbs simultaneously painted the world red. 

'I can't stop. I can't stop.' Joe witnessed the events of this gilded hellscape, his adrenaline-fueled legs propelling him forward. Murphy, like a stalking predator, picked his timing well and assaulted Joe's behind. Unlucky, Joe was still caught in the shockwave, his figure hurtling through the air like a cannonball until he collided with the door of a Black SUV. The impact knocked the wind out of him, causing him to expel a geyser of spit, crushed innards, and blood from his widely opened mouth.

'Argh! Fuck!' Joe cursed inwardly, white-hot, excruciating pain assaulting all of his pain receptors. With the little bit of rationality he still held onto, Joe knew that shouting would be detrimental to his current state. He tried to silently brave such pain he'd never felt before. 

"Multiple rib fractures, a collapsing lung, and a flailed chest... Once again, I am FUCKED!" Joe's ragged voice rasped out the bitter words as shards of broken glass protruded from his back like grisly spines. His battered body tumbled down from the shattered window above, each sickening impact on the unforgiving ground sending fresh lances of agony through his shattered rib cage.

Despite his perilous state, a crimson grin stretched across Joe's face, perhaps due to the delirium of unbearable pain. Rivulets of blood seeped from the corners of his mouth as he gasped for air, each stuttering inhalation a tortuous reminder of the collapsed lung straining to draw breath.

Joe lowered his eyes to his slightly caved-in chest, his shirt horrifyingly distorted by the blast. He could feel his blood pressure slowly dipping and all the muscles in his body screaming at him. The pain was akin to numerous invasive acupuncture needles pricking every surface of his skin.

His consciousness was slowly slipping away as he instinctively coughed up clotted blood in front of him. His collapsing lung protested in defiance, shooting another mighty dose of unbearable pain to his brain. Joe was using all his willpower not to faint. He couldn't faint. He had to hold on until...

Until...

'Am I going...to die...again?' 

'Was all that talk about not dying, stupid and baseless—just useless drivel?'

"Hahaha! Outta my way, pieces of cheap meat!" An energetic voice tinged with an unmistakable Russian accent, reverberated in the plaza. 

Joe, his hands flailing by his side without strength, achingly turned his head to look at the bastard who found it funny to bomb Times Square. The fucktard was the perfect example of 'I don't want peace; I always want trouble!'

"Spider bug, you can't dream about catching me!" A gigantic man dressed in a high-tech exosuit designed like a rhino bellowed as he began spraying high-caliber bullets omnidirectionally, without care. A manic grin deformed his ugly face as he swatted a small car that was on his way with his mechanical arms, sending it rolling over a few unlucky survivors. 

Pandemonium broke loose as dead bodies littered the road like a fucking death parade! 

'Rhino! Rhino! It seems that I won't need to send you to the zoo but instead, eat you alive!" Joe struggled to stay awake as he branded the brutish man's face into his memory. 

Turning his head away, Joe knew that if he didn't get immediate medical attention, then he would be a goner. As a former pre-med student plus NZT, how could he not know that he had begun exhibiting paradoxical chest movements? 

'Sigh, it is what it is. If I die, then the lingering regrets I would leave behind would be enough to induce insanity.' Joe weakly coughed as he thought. 

Joe's blurred gaze shifted to the side, where his hazy vision made out distant figures frantically snapping pictures of the devastation unfolding before them. He mentally recoiled in disbelief, disgusted by their callous disregard for the potential loss of life. Didn't they know that anytime soon they could become collateral damage? Or were they just insanely stupid?

As time waned, blackness began dotting his vision like a blanket. The last thing Joe saw was a blur of red and blue swinging towards Aleksei or Rhino. 

"Who let the Rhino outta the zoo? It seems zookeepers are slacking on their jobs!" 

Joe closed his eyes, a small smile spreading across his lips. 'That's so like him. Always talkative! If I had a web shooter, I would have webbed your mouth bro.' 

There and then, Joe breathed his last or so he thought. 

Death stood by, arms outstretched, ready to embrace the child's soul. But at the last moment, she retracted her arms and smirked. Then, like dissipating fog, her figure vanished as if she had never been there – wordlessly, for in death, there is eternal silence, no need for voices.

In the grand calculus of the Multiverse, Death noted a singular anomaly: a soul that bore her essence yet resisted her embrace. Intrigue flickered within her, but it was fleeting. Who knows how many death escapees were there in the infinite realities? The child wasn't special in that regard.

…

Enjoy 15 chapters ahead if you like the cook: Patreon.com/OneArmedImmortal

[Word Count 2258]