I couldn’t believe it. It sounded ridiculous—that I wasn’t human, I wasn’t alive. I was just an animated mound of dirt. But as I dug deeper, everything began to unravel.
“The obituary says I died a year ago,” I whispered, staring at the article. “I don’t get it. My leave was only a few weeks—”
“You never took a leave.”
I whipped around. “What?”
“I looked you up. You transferred here six months ago. Before that, you were at the University of Delaware,” Melanie said, her expression grim.
“What? But I don’t remember—”
“When you were created, you were given memories by whoever created you. You’re not Cate; her soul wasn’t transferred into you, the golem. You were created anew, and whoever made you give you your memories.”
“So I can’t trust myself. Everything I remember… before six months ago… is wrong, basically.”
She nodded.
As she scrolled through forgotten message boards and sites on Jewish folklore, I sifted through my memories. Trying to hang on to anything I could. But the deeper I went, the worse things got. I knew I had a mom and dad—but when I tried to picture them in my head, really tried to visualize their faces, I couldn’t. I knew stuff about school—I remembered looking in a microscope in ninth grade—but as I replayed the memory in my head, I realized it wasn’t my hands turning the knobs of the microscope. They were a shade too dark.
Then I Googled the real Cate Benson. I found her Facebook page, scrolled through photos of friends and family and events. But they were all completely foreign to me. I had no memory of them.
It was just blank.
Melanie and I stayed up all night, trying to find answers. Finally, around 4 AM, she told me she wanted to see my forehead. I awkwardly lifted my bangs as she leaned in, studying my skin.
Then she gasped and led me to the bathroom. “Look!” she said, pointing at my left eyebrow.
There—right above my eyebrow—was a tiny tattoo in white ink. Almost invisible against my pale skin. It read: אמת.
“It’s Hebrew for ‘truth,’” Melanie said, her voice regaining some of that frenetic, excited energy she’d had in the lab. “Golems have it inscribed on their foreheads, according to folklore. But if someone removes the final letter—the aleph—then it turns into the Hebrew word for ‘death.’ And then the golem… is deactivated.”
I stared at the tiny inscription, my heart plummeting. “So, you mean… if someone removes it… I’ll die.”
She nodded.
“But no one else knows about the inscription,” I said, rearranging my bangs over my forehead.
“No one except your creator.”
“Yeah, but my creator wanted me alive. That’s why they made me.”
“They want you alive, until you’re not useful anymore.”
My heart plummeted. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“We don’t know who created you. It could be your parents, or a friend. But it could be someone else, too.” She sucked in a breath. “Who have you been in contact for the past six months?
“I mean… just people here. People who didn’t know me before. Some professors, some classmates.”
“No one from Delaware? From high school?”
“No.” And now that I was seeing it all in retrospect, I realized how strange that was. In six months, I’d never called my parents once. Never made a Facebook or social media account. Never texted a high school friend. All these details, things that should have been jarring to a normal person, had coasted right over me.
“What if they followed you here?” Melanie asked, pacing again. Her bare feet thumped against the carpet. “I mean, it wouldn’t make sense to just… make a golem of you, and then disappear. They would’ve followed you here.”
I swallowed.
Hiding in plain sight.
***
Melanie thought it would be safest for me to leave. I could be on a plane to California tomorrow, leaving whoever created me behind. It would be easy to assume a new identity, considering I was already dead.
But I hesitated. I didn’t want to leave the only person who had shown me kindness in my short six months alive—Melanie. And I liked it here. I liked the classes. I liked the people. It seemed unfair that I had to be the one to leave.
But my hesitation almost got me killed.
I bought the plane ticket a week in advance. Until then, I tried to live it up. Tried to keep my life on campus as normal as possible. To bury the knowledge that I was an imitation, a fake, as deep inside me as I possibly could.
I was walking back home from a dinner when I ran into Tyler.
Tyler. Why didn’t I think of him? I didn’t know him well. But we were always running into each other. In the student center, in the dining hall, outside like we were now. Just crossing paths. But it was too often to be just coincidence.
And wait. He mentioned being a transfer student. Sorry if I’m, like, being too friendly, I remember him saying, with an apologetic grin. I’m just new here, and it’s so hard to make friends…
Oh, no, no.
“Hey, Cate!” he said, with his usual grin and a wave. “How have you been?”
“Oh, hey,” I said. Trying to keep my tone neutral.
“I feel like I haven’t seen you in forever. Where’ve you been?”
My heart was pounding in my ears. “Uh, just had a lot of homework,” I said, backing away. “Sorry, I’m in a rush—can we catch up later?”
“Sure! But hey, can I ask you something real quick?”
I quickened my pace. Away from him. But he jogged to keep up, to meet me. “I was just wondering if you want to grab dinner tomorrow night. There’s this cute little bistro that just opened on Main Street. I thought we could try it out.”
“Uh… sure… I guess,” I huffed, trying to walk faster. I scanned the campus—but there was no one near us. We were almost at the edge of campus, at my apartment building.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. That sounds fine,” I replied, my voice too high-pitched.
“You don’t want to go with me,” he said. And suddenly, his voice was like ice. I glanced at him—and he was staring back at me. Just staring, as he walked with me.
I broke into a run.
My apartment was only a block away. If I could just get there—if I could just—
He grabbed my arm. I reeled back.
“Why are you running from me?” His blue eyes burned into mine.
“Let go of me!”
“You don’t want me. You never did.” He shook his head and scoffed. “And I thought it would be different this time. I guess I’m just an idiot.”
A flash of sliver.
He’d pulled out a pocket knife. He pulled me towards him, yanking my arm—but he wasn’t aiming for my throat.
He was aiming for my left eye.
The aleph.
I let out a scream. I tried to wrestle away from him, screaming so loud my own ears hurt. And just as the knife came down—
I heard footsteps.
Two guys were approaching us. “Hey, let her go!” one yelled out.
And then, in an instant, Tyler was gone. And I was crumpled on the ground, crying thick, heavy sobs.
***
I left that night. Melanie and I shared a tearful goodbye at the airport. “Thank you so much, for everything,” I told her, as we hugged.
“Of course,” she replied, squeezing me back.
As the plane took off into the night, I leaned back in my seat, thinking of the new life I’d start. Of all the things I had yet to experience. Rollercoasters, boyfriends, graduation… it was all before me like the blank pages of an open book.
We can use science to define what’s living and what’s not. What has a soul and what’s simply following the rules of animation. But labels in general can only go so far. Because I know there is something inside me. A spirit, a wisp, something that yearns to live.
And I’ve never felt more alive.
---
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