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PALINGENESIS
prologue;; no man's land
The world is terrible, sucky and mainly a bitch to live in.
Kudos to it.
So when she barges in to my room unannounced and starts babbling about exploding stars and multi-coloured meteors in the sky, I start thinking that maybe an air bubble burst up there, or something.
No one is scarier than my sister. Seriously.
Her hair was in desperate need of shampoo-conditioner treatment, sticking up at all bizarre angles and topping afros for frizzness. And her normally sane green eyes bulged out like Marvin the Martian’s; I’m sure this would scare even Medusa into hiding. Also, I’m certain she was doing some serious nostril work. Either that or she’s somehow related to a bull.
Anyway, here was me trying to complete this hopeless Physics homework that went on and on and on about quantum theories and the quark-lepton relationship, so I was kinda annoyed when she came in. I mean, obviously she’d abandoned all responsibility and stolen Morphine from the nearby hospital, or something. I know people who take it generally can’t walk, but this is my sister.
I’ll bet if she gave a chunk of her brain to every starving kid in Ethiopia, she’d still have enough left over to power all the world’s computers and still remind me patronisingly about when I spelt ‘idiosyncrasy’ wrong (which was unfair as I was only eleven at the time).
Okay, sorry, my train of thought went whoosh and crashed off-track and then it had an aneurysm and all the randomness I’ve been suppressing during homework time went boom.
Back to my sister.
“Just look!” she points out of the window wildly to emphasise this, like a mad cavewoman. I’m starting to doubt actual biological relation to her even more than I normally do.
“That’s not normal! It’s some sort of meteorological phenomenon! The news, they know nothing, but once the scientists figure out how––”
“Okay,” sez me. “Calm down. What have I told you about drugs?”
She stared at me for a full five seconds before her nostrils started flaring out in an imitation of a familiar horned animal just before it squashes the guy with the red cape.
“You idiot! I’m not crazy! Look!”
I turn, I look… and I see nothing. It’s overcast out there. Not a star in sight.
“There’s nothing there,” I tell her. This is, like, the only time I wish our parents weren’t full-time workers who chose night shifts in favour of daytime ones. “See? It’s cloudy. Y’know, when those big puffy white things cover the sky and make the Earth all wet sometimes? Yeah, those. Now, take a deep breath and get out of my room and count backwards from a billion until I tell you that you can––”
She hit me. Ow. For a geek who abhors everything to do with physical education, she has one mean right hook. On another note, I’m wondering where exactly she learnt to punch like that. Meanie. I’m so telling dad, and then she’ll be grounded, and then it won’t matter cuz she has no friends but she’ll be pissed at me anyway.
“Don’t patronise me,” steam erupted from her ears. Proverbially. “There is something out there. There were these things, in the sky, and they started exploding––but they didn’t seem to be manmade. There were all different colours, and then it all stopped. But everything went silent outside.”
“I wonder why that is?” I remark sarcastically, glancing at the clock. “Hmm, maybe because it’s almost midnight? And it’s Wednesday. And, like, zero degrees out there? Only crazy people go outside.”
Hint, hint. Nudge, nudge.
Her eyes narrow into a glare, and go all slit-like. I dunno. She looks retarded like that, but for fear of getting decapitated by my own hair straightener (which is dangerously close to her hand) I’ll stay quiet.
“Would you come and look?” she barks into the silence. “It’s not normal. Something’s up. And why would I bother interrupting you for a practical joke? I’m not that immature!”
“Well, actually––”
Instead of listening to my ultimately coherent and wondrously articulate speech, she practically drags me to the back door and pushes me out. It’s freezing, mainly because I’m dressed in my Winnie the Pooh pyjamas and pink fluffy rabbit slippers. Which are fine for nice central heated places, but not so good for backyard jaunts.
“No need to be hasty,” I grumble as all my fingers fall off from frostbite. Or, at least, willeventually do so. “I can see the bloody sky from my bedroom window, and I know you’re wrong, so why don’t you just––”
“Sssh!”
I was about to point out that I was well within my rights to speak about whatever I liked, especially since I’d been dragged from my nice and warm bedroom into Santa’s personal Winter Wonderland. Santa being the anagram for Satan. But then this loud bang-bang-boom noise stopped me. I mean, come on, it was way louder than your traditional firework type of explosion.
“Oh-kaay…” as soon as it’s over, I round on her. “You’re in a gang, aren’t you? Oh my gosh, you are! My responsible, nerdy, over-achieving sister is in a gang and is smuggling illegal fireworks! Most probably dodgy ones, due to the cheap manufacturing. How loud are they, anyway? You could probably make them yourself and they’d be more efficient, I mean, all you’d have to do is ask one of your equally nerdy and over-achieving pyromaniac Internet friends to send you a manual and you’d be––”
She hits me again. This time a resounding slap to the arm. Ow, it burns.
“I. Am. Not. In. A. Gang.”
“…then you’re probably gonna follow this up with something corny, like that the world’s ending, huh?”
“How the hell you managed to pass your exams, I’ll never know,” she rubs the bridge of her nose (lacking her glasses, I see) and groans into her creepily ivory-pale hand. “Just be serious. They were too far away to be fireworks. Those noises are after-effects. The light was too fast for the sound, and so it’s only just caught up.”
“Your point being?”
Her eyes snap open. Cue Marvin the Martian-ness, take number two. “Look!” she suddenly screeches and I whirl around, expecting to see a jail breakout or an axe-murderer, or maybe an axe-murderer that broke out of jail.
But no. Instead this silvery strand of light snakes across the sky. At first I think maybe it’s those weird air trails that planes leave when they go across too fast, but then I realised that it was cloudy. As in, overcast. As in, oh my gosh, did my sister manage to have a point?
The silvery light expanded, and then all at once, multi-coloured beams of light sharply exploded across the sky. I blink. And rub my eyes. And blink some more. I’m wondering if this is some sort of out-of-whack meteor shower, or maybe some other astronomic occurrence, but my sister’s awed expression is way too confused for it to be anything scientific. Trust me, she’s a know-it-all. If she doesn’t have an answer, it’s bad. (Ruling out the Northern Lights here, too; wrong part of the world. Eck.)
It went poof as quickly as it existed.
“Umm…” my knee cartilage was suddenly replaced with a jelly-like substance; either that or my synovial fluid decided that it wanted to be a dictator-tyrant and forced my cartilage into oppression. Yeah, it’s part of me, so I guess it’s possible.
“See? Do you believe me now?”
“I believe I’m dreaming,” I respond, while thinking that perhaps excess sugar is a bad idea for brain-food. “I think I fell asleep over my Physics book, and then I conjured this up, because my sub-conscious is craving for something interesting to happen––but then I’ll wake up and it’ll be morning and I’ll have to finish my homework on the bus and probably my teacher will be pissed it’s illegible but it doesn’t matter cuz right now I’m relaxed, I’m dreaming…”
“No, you’re not.” Wait; was that excitement in her voice? “This isn’t a dream. It’s some sort of––”
Oh, but the slowpoke sound decided now would be a good time to catch up to its light friend and the booming noises spilled across…well, everything Earth-related. Then the ground started shaking. Usually I’m not freaked by anything that’s not artificial, but I’ve never lived through an earthquake before.
In conclusion: I started clutching the ground and screaming for Mother Teresa.
My sister was much more refined about the way she panicked. She merely looked like she’d been on a particularly nasty rollercoaster ride, becoming all green and sickly. I hope she doesn’t puke on me or anything, because in my earthquake-induced hysteria, it might not be so good for my sanity.
It lasted for about two minutes, I suppose. Endless rattling and the sound of things smashing––cue a wince here, cuz I think part of that smashing might be accredited to mum’s china collection––and the nausea and then everything stopped. I fell back and flopped unto the grass, thanking gravity and cursing the Richter scale into oblivion.
My sister retched into the nice little patch of grass next to me, though luckily no stray vomit-pieces landed my way.
“…I hate you,” I tell her mildly.
“Not my fault,” she responds.
“It is.”
“How so?”
“I don’t know. You exist. That’s reason enough to blame you. D’you think anyone else heard it?”
She primly adjusts her totally conservative and utterly uncool skirt, before refastening the buttons on her cardigan and then marches towards the back door. As an afterthought, she pauses.
“How could they not? I’m calling our parental units. See if they’re okay. You go and see if the neighbours are. Then we’ll figure out what it was that caused it.”
“Huh?” I sit up. “Wasn’t it just an earthquake?”
“We’re not near a fault line, dorkus.”
With that kindly reassuring message in mind, I manage to get to my feet and vault over the back fence. Well, we’ve lived here since beyond current memory, and our neighbours are more-than-used to my tendencies to retrieve lost footballs or glittery papier-Mâché wands (yes, I’m probably bi-polar) and so I don’t think that, immediately following an earthquake, they’re going to care so much about etiquette.
Plus, I don’t feel like going out unto the main road in my PJ’s, seeing as everyone’s probably doing that whole collective-huddle-of-people-what-just-happened thing on the pavement outside.
“Hello? Mrs. Beaufort? You there?” I ask the dimly lit living room (the door is wide open). Hmm, seems more sparse than usual. “Mrs. Beaufort! Are you okay? Cuz yeah, there was just a big earthquake and I was wondering if you got hurt or something,” sez me. “Um, Mrs. Beaufort?”
Okay. Not a good sign. What if something heavy and/or pointy landed on her? Ick! What if I walk in on … on … on blood? As tomboyish as I have been accused of being, I do not take to the sight of blood well.
What if she’s dead?
Repressed hysteria. I basically hop-skipped it to their upstairs bedroom, then to their laundry, then to the kitchen, and then to all the other rooms, but no one was there. Their car was in the driveway, though. I peeked out the front through their curtains. Nope. No one out there, either.
So what did I do? I ran out their front door (unlocked) and rang the bell hysterically on every single door down the street. No one answered. I started shouting, ranging from ‘RAPE! RAPE!’ to ‘I just gave birth to a pterodactyl!’ to ‘Oh my gosh, there’s an arsonist on the rampage and he’s burning down all the TREES! Save the trees!’.
But nothing happened.
The people in our neighbourhood are nosy, uptight and extremely jumpy. If any of them were home, they would’ve run out screaming, pepper spray and butcher knives in hand. Especially at the ‘rape’ part.
Becoming more disconcerted by the millisecond, I flew at the speed of light back to our house, tramping in and finding my sister with the phone cord twisted so tightly around her finger that it was turning purple.
“Monkey livers!” came my screech when she didn’t acknowledge my presence. “No one’s home! No one! They were there before, I saw Mr. Beaufort take out the rubbish, but now they’re not! No one’s home, no one’s home, noone’shomeohmygoshwe’reallgonnadie!”
She just gave me a look. “No one’s answering their phone, either,” was her simple response. All matter-of-fact and practical, like it wasn’t the single most disturbing thing in the whole entire universe.
So what did I do in response to this?
I fainted.
…my life is about to turn shitty, and you are going to witness it.
Please enjoy.
My first story. All the ideas belong to me, but Marvin the Martian doesn't. Unfortunately. He's so cool. I'd be mighty flattered if you provided feedback and comments on this, because it was an idea born for ... well, basically the form of inspiration that comes when you least expect it. The plot will unfold properly in the next chapter; for now, you probably don't know what's going on. Keep up with me to find out! Peace out,
white winged
