365tomorrows: A Flash of Science Fiction, Daily.

By: submission | January 22, 2026

Author: Rhett Pritchard

I thought humans were a myth, something you tell kids to keep them away from the outer boundaries of reality. Those are the stories I grew up on, listening wide-eyed and curled up with my brother in the loft of the motor home. Stories about how humans had an evil touch, conspiring with their minds of mush and their hands of flesh.

Up until a few days ago, I’d never seen one, and I’m not sure what to do with the one we found. Those stories and parables had no lessons for this. My brother and I liquefied it, put it in a specimen jar, and decided we would reconstitute it when we figured out exactly what to do. The liquefying was something of an accident. A reaction. A defensive maneuver learned in our childhood. It made no noise as it melted. It doesn’t seem at all like the humans in the stories now. My brother is convinced we can put it back together, molecule by molecule, atom by atom. I’m not convinced we should.

It came wandering into our encampment, and I’m not sure if it even knew where it was. It seemed lost. A husk of flesh. Father did such a good job of concealing us. It staggered into our little circle begging for water. I’d learned they can’t survive without it, which doesn’t seem reasonable considering how much of the jar it filled.

I’d debated going to pour it out in the sand while brother was napping. Let the baking sun dry it up and take it out of here. Let it become clouds. Transmute like we do. Let it become a little more like us. I think that’s what father would have done.

But my brother was always so damned curious. I caught him smelling at the jar yesterday and just this morning, I could have sworn he took a sip of it. He denied all of it.

Now he sits around a small fire he built, singing a strange tune. Father always warned us about fire when he was still around. Said it was a human creation. I remember when brother argued that humans aren’t the only thing that creates fire and pointed up to the hot desert sun.

He didn’t have any interest in blending in with the scorpions or basking in the sun with the lizards today. He didn’t even think twice about becoming cacti with me. He just brushed me off when I asked. I sat there absorbing knowledge through roots, and he just sat around the fire, singing.
Just before sunrise, he asked me if I had ever considered why we had to stay out here, away from them all.

I told him no. It’s not my place to consider these things. I didn’t think it was his place either.

“It’s because father thought god couldn’t find us out here,” he said and put the fire out, “But that’s not true, is it?”

I was confused. I asked him what god was, and in the murky light of dawn, he held up the specimen jar, uncapped and empty.