I am currently sick, so this week’s article is a piece of creative writing I wrote a few weeks ago. It has not been edited and, frankly, needs some reworking given how the next chapter focuses more on a different POV character. Enjoy.
A Beginning
Shawn Scott never knew how his aunt and uncle could afford sending him to Midtown Catholic. They were, after all, fairly unsuccessful farmers. The vineyard and wheat crops were nowhere near as bountiful as the crops grown in the hydroponic farms built by the Gadgeteer Consortium and he saw the paltry income checks on occasion. He should have been in Emigrant Lake High, even if it was worse off.
His peers were mostly rich kids from Southside whose parents worked to develop stable versions of the gadgets for public consumption. Sure, some worked in other industries in Ashland, or even north in the suburb of Medford where epihumans were less prevalent. But, he knew the tuition was expensive. It’s why he felt guilty to be skipping class right now, but Amelia and Mike had convinced him.
“Come on,” Amelie had said, “Epihuman History is such a boring class and you already have a good enough grade.”
“Only because we haven’t had the exam yet,” he had countered, but his girlfriend was persuasive. Center Spire was the foremost mall in Ashland and, as Mike had said, the 2:30 showings were always cheaper than the 3:15 ones were. Thoroughly convinced, he went with them to see Dragonflight.
It was an enjoyable film, but it wasn’t anything like the book. He felt that too much time was spent on the action of fighting Thread and less on the relationship between its main characters. As the credits started to roll, Shawn deeply regretted his choice. Well, almost deeply regretted. He had to admit that it wouldn’t have been worth the extra thirty cents to see it after school and the physical contact with Amelia was always worth it.
“Still, the action was good and why are you even worried about accuracy,” Mike asked. “Every adaptation has its flaws and has to change things for the screen.”
Amelie rolled her eyes at the old argument. Shawn knew she thought it was stupid for them to argue over the merits of adaptation again, but he couldn’t help it. He’d been friends with Mike since kindergarten and they would retread the same arguments countless times.
“Yes, but still, if something essential is lost in adaptation, then it is not a good adaptation! Besides, have you even read the books!”
The argument dragged on for a lot longer than it should have. Through five stores, Shawn and Mike debated the meaningless topic. Having meandered from this movie to the one they saw six months ago, it kept them engaged whilst Amelia looked at things she would never buy.
Unlike Shawn, she knew how her parents could afford their school. Her mom served as a liaison for visiting gadgeteers and her dad was an analyst for the Department of Epihuman Affairs. There was good money in their line of work, but it often involved long hours and a latchkey. Going to Center Spire with Shawn and Mike after school was about as much freedom they gave her even now at 16, provided she called their work number before they left and once she got home. And, with her grades last semester being what they were, she had to be home by 7 to do homework and make up the grades.
They were in the middle of a makeup store when she finally grew tired of the argument she heard for the fourth time this week. “How is it that we talk about the color of her slippers every single day! Shawn, it does not matter that red ruins the symbolism of the green glasses in Oz and Mike, we know you find it a marvel of the first technicolor films. Seriously, that movie is ancient, and we talk about it more than we should!”
The two boys looked sheepish at her outburst. Then, Shawn frowns and hands Mike a few dollars. “You were right, she would notice before the month was over.”
Amelie rolls her eyes. “Seriously, a bet on whether I pay attention?”
Mike raises his hands defensively. “Hey, it was his idea!”
She gives her boyfriend a light punch and then grabs his hand. “You two are impossible. Let’s grab something to eat; it’s almost six and I promised my parents I’d be home by 7.”
They were sitting at a too small table in an overcrowded food court when they clock struck 6:10 PM. In unison, the trio grabbed their heads as a shooting pain coursed through their bodies. Throughout the food court, a few others did the same. If they were able to lift their heads and face the now-too bright light of the night sky, they would have seen a bloody spectacle.
Those unafflicted ignored those with headaches and were caught by an irresistible compulsion to go and stare at the sky. Luckily for them, the food court was encased in a glass dome that made the viewing experience an easy task to achieve.
A minute before, the sky was a gray illuminated by the lights of the city. No stars could be seen between the clouds and the glow of human civilization. In an improbable instant, the clouds vanished and a deep crimson color replaced it. Globs of the reddened sky seemed to drip down to the firmament below and then retracted up. The chaos of its pattern was self-evident and, for those who missed the first time this happened 30 years ago, irresistible. For most of those who witnessed it all those years ago, it was possible to take their eyes off.
And yet, they did not notice those screaming in pain around them. At least, not most of them. Some, like Amelie’s mom who was sitting in her office peering over the plans for hosting a Mexican Epihuman for the twentieth time, easily noticed it. When she walked out of her office, she saw, in its full spectacle, the screams, agony, emesis, and crying of nearly a hundred epihumans.
She didn’t, however, notice the intern who joined them. When any of the unpowered individuals were questioned by said intern later on, none of them could recall her episode.
As suddenly as it started, the headaches dissipated. The skies return to their previous hues. And the food court was aflame.
Shawn felt the heat and panicked. He looked at the green sign glowing exit and, with a loud smack, he was there. He stopped to look fore Mike and Amelie when he was pushed out the exit with the stampede. Unable to make sense of what just happened, he let his body move with the crowd and made it out of the building.
Outside, the twisting building with its brilliant glass and protruding limbs with baubles that looked as if they were blown by hand was melting. An orange glow radiated out from whence Shawn came and spread throughout the surface of the building. As he stood their watching, he felt the heat radiate upon his skin. At first, it was as if he was staring in front of a campfire. Warm, but not too unpleasant. Eventually, it surpassed the time Amelia had forced him into a tanning bed during the past summer and got worse.
He was frozen in place, watching the building melt. He would have stayed there forever when he heard someone call his name.
He turned to his left instinctively and saw the caller. He almost didn’t recognize her at first, but, after an instant, recognition glimmered. “Amelia,” his voice released the words softly, as if speaking too loud would reveal it all a figment of a broken mind. “I thought I lost you.”
“Shawn, come on, we have to go!” She grabbed him by the hand and pulled him forward, away from the melting building. Once they got away from the intense heat, she stopped in front of an Elevated station. “Shawn, what was that back there?”
In the time it took for them to run three city blocks, Shawn’s mind began to regain clarity. He was not, after all, imagining this. Amelia was real, he had had a headache that went as suddenly as it came, and he made it to the exit without moving.
“Do you remember what Mr. DeVun said in class last week?”
Amelie blinked at the apparent non-sequitor. “I’m sorry, what?”
He shook his head, “It was on the first day of the term and he was explaining the Event.”
Realization alit Amelie’s eyes. She remembered exactly. The bleeding skies and reports from epihumans of immense physical pain that was not corroborated by anyone else. The way Mr. DeVun spent an entire class period discussing something with so little hard evidence and didn’t get straight into the ramifications of it stood out in Amelia’s mind as odd. She’d taken classes on modern history before and none of them were as focused on the Event as more than a blip in time. And yet, the knowledge made sense to her.
“Did you head hurt too,” she asked, interrupting the train of thought. “As if every migraine you ever had was just a scratch in comparison.”
Shawn nodded and then added, “And then you experienced the inexplicable. As if you were both limitless and limited in ways you still cannot understand.”
Amelie crossed herself quickly and said a Hail Mary. “Babe, I think we’re epihumans. Oh god, we’re epihumans.”
Shock, excitement, and dread. A potpourri of emotions swirled between the two that was not unique. Throughout the world, there were thousands of other individuals with the same mixed-bag of reactions.
Interlude
South Australian Fissure Number 541; ~50 miles from Port Augusta
January 16, 1998 | 12:38 UTC +10:30
Doctor Rachel Erikson had just returned from her lunch break to the observation room when she noticed a spike on the magnetometer. Normally, the sensor reading was flat with small changes relating to the movement of the earth’s magnetic field and as various instruments were moved or removed from the vicinity of the red crystal.
Since the man designated as “Seismic” had a psychotic breakdown 18 years ago, Southern Australia was marked by various fissures as the one Erikson now worked within. In most of these fissures, there was little of note to anyone and they were mostly abandoned. Some were used by mining corporations, but this area was assumed to be a lost cause by most.
And yet, a careful reading of the public financial documents submitted by said mining companies shows an enormous expense by the Salt Mining Company of South Australia in operations within Fissure 541, but absolutely no profit. If an individual were to look into the operations of SMC-SA, they would find virtually no activity in the salt lakes or in any of the other fissures. Funding sources were opaque and invariably named as random strings of letters and registered in the Seychelles or in the Cayman Islands.
Erikson and her team, of course, knew differently.
It was because of this knowledge that Erikson looked at the spikes in surprise. Looking into the readings of the other instruments monitoring the red crystal revealed similar spikes and abnormalities.
As she speculated the cause, she noticed that a long-forgotten device, implanted before she started joined as the PI for this project, was alit for the first time. “Get ahold of Doctor Langston immediately,” she said to an intern standing next to her. “I think…”
Before she could finish the sentence, a pulse of energy threw her and the other researchers into the wall at exactly 12:40 UTC +10:30. Once she recovered from the shock of being slammed by seemingly nothing, Erikson picked herself up and fixed the braid that held her blonde hair back. She walked over to the observation window and saw thick, red globules of an impossible substance surrounding the crystal. They slurried like the wax in a lava lamp, breaking up and rejoining in a hypnotic pattern.
Watching the slurry provoked an urge deep within Erikson to reach out and touch the globule. As she lifted her arm closer, she saw someone else beat her to the globule. The surprise lifted reverie and Erikson saw the globule consume the intern she had spoken to earlier. It was a near perfect covering of him, as if we was made from marble dyed red. It was so perfect that she could see his facial expressions change as he screamed.
She spent the next 20 minutes watching as her intern was reacting to being covered by the globule and taking notes. It was 13:10 when the globule dissipated and the intern was uncovered.
The intern, a man she knew only as Parker, seemed to be fine after his incident, aside from his body appearing to be made of the same red substance as the crystal they studied. When Erikson started to question him as to what happened during the experience, he spoke only in fragments.
The fragments were impossible details that made little sense.
“The yellow one must kill. Betrayal was the only option. And she shall call herself Nostra. The plan fails again. The rats are enslaved. But access is their undoing.”
After transcribing these words, Doctor Erikson was curious enough to start performing a physical exam of Parker. As she touched his skin, she was consumed within a red globule.
Doctor Langston arrived to the observation room much later and found it in shambles. In the center of the room, a red figure sat surrounded by twisted creatures resembling demons. The figure turned as it noticed Langston and said, “If plan fails, devise new plan. Create opportunity. Restart calculations.”
Langston raised the device he held attached to his foreleg and activated it. The figure and the demons froze in place with a slight static, as if they were a paused frame in a television show.
Thank you for reading. Like I said, this needs some work. I would want to spend more time getting to know our trio and their normal life before the Event. I expand more upon Amelie’s motivations in the next chapter, but Mike and Shawn need better characterization.
Hopefully next week we will return to our regularly scheduled programming of non-fiction writing and SEO tactics.