FictionPress.com - let the words flow| FictionPress.com - let the words flow |
| Home Just In Communities Forums Beta Readers Dictionary Search | Login Register Extras |
PALINGENESIS
chapter oo1; éminence grise
Yeah. My life is what some people would call sweet. I like the term boring better, but still, I wasn’t complaining or anything.
This is just what happens when Fate decides to screw with you. Evil bitch.
Hmm, that’s strange. Sounds like someone’s calling my name…?
“Meliora! Don’t you dare die on me. Mum’ll never forgive me! I’ll be sent to military school; I’ll never get into Oxford University like I plan to––wake up!”
Someone distinctly familiar and over-bearing, it seems.
As I grudgingly (and yes, it was extremely grudging) open my eyes, the outline of a pink cardigan-donning girl with wavy brown hair and a way-too-long skirt comes into view. Ahh, crap. Just when I thought I could go into the light and ditch her.
“…I’m not dead!” I tell her indignantly.
“It’s just as well,” she replies without much sympathy. “Not as if we’re really in the position to hold a funeral service.”
Everything comes floating––or rather sprinting––back to me. The pretty lights, the not-so-pretty earthquake, and the fact that nobody answered their phones or doors. I gulp as I sit up and accept the glass of water proffered by my sister. No one’s answering their doors or phones, there was an earthquake––everyone mysteriously disappeared.
“The aliens! The aliens abducted them!” I say aloud after gulping a big dosage of water.
My sister looks at me like I’ve grown a second head (hey, I wouldn’t be unreasonable about that; I need all the brain cells I can get). “Did you hit your head?”
“Maybe. I hope so. Then this’ll all be a hallucination and oh my gosh what if everyone’s evacuated the city and we didn’t know and now we’re gonna die?”
Sephenie Weringer (my dear old sister; and yes, I’m serious, her name is Sephenie, as in, without a t) taps her foot impatiently on the linoleum at this. Me thinks she’s kinda tiring of my presence right now. Fine with me! I’ll hijack Mr. Beaufort’s car and go find civilisation. Even those cannibal tribes sound like a better option than her.
“We’re not going to die,” came the king (or rather, queen) of the deadpans.
“Oh yeah? Well, explain what’s happening,” I snap back. “Cuz I don’t think it’s anything normal. And if it’s not normal, then it’s not good. What if it’s like one of those creepy sci-fi movies where big hunks of steel are gonna shoot out of the ground and make me go poof so all my clothes float into the sky and are stolen by hobos who somehow manage to survive because they paid more attention in physical education classes even if they, like, didn’t go to school but they must have to run from the cops so they don’t get arrested for vagrancy anyway––”
“SHUT UP!” yells my sister, brandishing the meat-cleaver.
I shut up.
“Firstly,” lots of smoke coming from the nostrils at this point. “War of the Worlds is fictional. As in, it is not real. Secondly, hobos would never steal your clothes.” Ouch. Coming from Miss Prude of the Century, fuchsia-was-never-in-fashion-you-dork. “And thirdly, I may not know what’s happening exactly, but give me time. I’ll work it out. In the meantime, we’re going to go find mum and dad!”
See, this is why she makes all the plans and does my assignments for me. She inherited the logic; I inherited the stunning good looks. Har de har. No, what actually happened––she got all the intelligence which my mum has, and I got all the nothingness which my dad has. See? Fair’s fair, I guess.
“Um,” I blink. “Neither of us have our licence, Sephi.”
“Does it really matter?”
“Uh, yeah. You don’t know how to drive and they wouldn’t even let me take the road test cuz I knocked over all the cones.”
My sister, for once in her life, hadn’t appeared to have considered this obstacle in her calculations. She just followed her mental blank up with a shrug, grabbing the keys for the spare car off the tabletop.
“So? I’m a fast learner,” she announces proudly.
Um. There is no way I’m letting someone who’s never even touched a steering wheel before drive. To the other side of town. With the possibility of police cars and/or trees. Either one seems particularly formidable.
“Need I reiterate? You’re fifteen! I’m seventeen! Hey, I’m the older one, so how come you have to go all child prodigy?”
“Because I am a child prodigy.”
“Touché.”
Is anyone else seeing the madness here? I mean, my sister will probably be a world leader when she grows up, or highly successful, or famous. But still. Driving skills are completely different from schoolwork. They’re opposites. This policy means I should be the Stephen freakin’ Hawking of driving, but whatever. I’ll live.
For now.
“Can I just ride my bike?” I whine as she gripes about my slowness.
“Be my guest, if you really want to ride your bike right now. And about fifty kilometres, too.”
Ooh. Okay. That doesn’t sound so appetising.
“Fine,” I concede eventually. “But if you crash and we both die anyway, after your heated reassurances that we won’t, then I am totally going to get you back for it in the afterlife. If there is one.”
“I won’t crash. I’m not you,” she responds loftily, before stalking out of the room.
Fact: our spare car is pretty run down and is in dire need of servicing (which is why I would’ve hijacked Mr. Beaufort’s) so my bike probably does go faster than it. It’s an old model, but my dad’s weird like that. He refuses to scrap it, if only because he claims that it’s ‘there for an emergency’. Coming from the girl who is now living through said emergency, I wish he’d had a midlife crisis like a sane dad and bought a Porsche or something.
As I hesitantly get into the passenger seat and pray to whatever God is out there that I survive this predicament, my sister puts the key in the ignition. See, I’ve never been real fond of driving. I mean, most people don’t have a problem with it, or don’t even really register it very much. To them, it’s just; well, goes from A to B, doesn’t it? Don’t they ever wonder about the inner workings of a car and its predictability?
I do. If only because I sometimes am prone to severe cases of motion sickness. No-wheeling is my specialty (well, unless it’s a bike). I must be the only girl my age who despises more efficient methods of transportation, but then again, being in the minority has suited me up till now.
“If you feel nauseous, please tell me so I have a chance to pull over,” Seph warns me carefully, before slowly driving out of the car port.
“Because you always take into consideration my feelings on the subject. Especially back there. I swear, it was inches away from me,” I grump.
“It didn’t actually hit you. Besides, that was grass. This is dad’s car.”
“Well, when he finds out you have been driving, you’ll be dead.”
“No, I won’t.”
“Yes, you will. And I’ll laugh. Not as if you socialise with people in this reality, anyway, so being grounded doesn’t affect you, but whatever.”
She glares at me out of the corner of her eye. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“You’re all for the virtual, right? You associate with people who probably come from … like, Peru or something. Your Internet buddies,” I add at her bemused expression. “Seriously. Have you ever, like, met any of them face-to-face? They could be circus freaks.”
“Judging someone by their looks is superfluous,” she replies.
“Never said you had to judge them. Just that it’s nice to have some idea, right?” I sigh. “There’s no talking sense to someone who thinks she knows the world, anyways. And are you sure you haven’t driven before?”
“Not once,” she affirms triumphantly.
I feel the serious desire to burst her bubble. Or smash her pedestal. Whichever metaphor floats your boat (haha, I’m feeling overly ironic, yes).
“You’re driving too close to the line, though,” I comment nonchalantly. “It’s like you’re pavement-phobic, or something. Also, you’ve forgotten to indicate when you turn corners. Important, y’know. Someone could crash into you.”
“There’s no one else here,” she responds through gritted teeth.
“You can never tell with motorbikes, though.”
However, the skyscraper looked eerily … well, silent.
Fact: I, Meliora Weringer, hate silence. I abhor silence. It’s not just that there’s an absence of noise, it’s that no one’s making any. I dub this an unnatural occurrence. Humans were given the ability to understand each other for a reason. Silence renders Pentecost completely obsolete. Silence is just … abnormal.
(Abnormal things aren’t in. They suck.)
“Well, it’s certainly cheery,” my sister notes sarcastically, trumping up the stone steps.
“Where’s all the people?” I ask concernedly. We’re in the middle of the city. Well, close to the middle, at any rate. While out in good old suburbia it’s okay for it to be empty sometimes, the centre of a bustling economy being devoid of its human inhabitants is daunting.
This is the first time I thought: well, something is up. Okay, okay, I knew this in the first place … but it was the first time I seriously considered it. I babbled about the aliens before. Seriously. Sci-fi is overrated.
“I don’t know,” and I think it’s the first time Sephenie Weringer has answered me, in complete honesty, without an answer. “Really, it doesn’t make sense … before the earthquake, they were all here …”
“Well, we’re mildly sure on that point,” I point out.
“No,” she whirls around to face me. “We are sure of it. You saw Mr. Beaufort take out the rubbish. Mrs. Beaufort came home from her poker night. Dad phoned to say he would be delayed. Some of my friends had just signed off on IM. That all happened before the earthquake. And not that long before, either. This earthquake is a sign. Something. Maybe we’re hallucinating, but maybe we’re not. Either way, being logical about it is the only way to cope. We have to accept it, because if we don’t, we’re useless. Meliora, just stop worrying and help me out here!”
Is that a vein pulsing in her temple?
I really feel like saying: “A sign, as in, a fantasy sort of sign? Like magic? Are witches gonna come out and strut their voodoo stuff?” or “You are definitely hallucinating, my dear sister” or even “That’s it! I probably dropped you on your head as a baby, and while it has given you intelligence up till now, the real brain damage is finally showing.”
But instead I said: “Okay.”
She seemed surprised. “Okay?”
“Yes. Okay,” I pause. “If it’s not okay, then what is it? Seriously. Okay. I will attempt to help you on the freak-fest. But,” I narrow my eyes. “This does not mean I accept your theories. I still believe this is some sort of whacked-out dream. But people say you can die in real life if you die in your dreams, and I saw Nightmare on Elm Street, so I’ll do what I can till I wake up.”
She stared at me for a very, very long moment. What? Do I have something grotesque on my face? I pat around the area vaguely but feel no bruises or lumps or generally unpleasant things. She continues to stare. I stare blankly back at her. The streetlight nearby flickers unhelpfully.
“You,” breathes the unfashionable one finally. “Are the absolute weirdest person I have ever had the misfortune to meet.”
“You’re related to me,” I retort in my defence. “That counts for something.”
“But out of all the people I could be stuck with in this situation … you’re the only person I could cope with,” she admits next. “You might not have the book smarts and you might not test well, either, but I know that brain of yours works for something.”
(I’m unaccustomed to my sister admitting she can stand my presence, let alone that she would rather be in my presence than, say, Orlando Bloom’s. Because let’s face it, when your sister says something like that, you do begin to wonder about her sanity. But I’ve heard that Orlando Bloom in real life is not the Will Turner you’d want him to be. So maybe it’s all good. Still. Working with Johnny Depp must have done something for him.)
“And that something is…?”
“Well,” she hazards. “You do cheer people up. I mean, back there, in the car … I thought this was it. When I saw everyone gone … how they couldn’t possibly disappear like that through conventional means … I thought it was just over. Because this is honestly terrifying for me. But you … with your idiotic comments and your … eccentric mentality … well, it comforts me. Just a little. Makes me think that perhaps there’s some sort of hope left over for us.”
I blink. She turns away and walks starkly through the revolving doors. I blink some more at her retreating figure.
“Oh,” I say. “That’s … nice.”
No, it is not nice. It’s creepy, sez the me that would wreak havoc if I let it.
“What did the news reporter say before, y’know, the TV went off?” I inquire as the elevator goes bzzzzt up to the something-or-another floor.
“That’s what I don’t understand,” Sephenie shrugs. “They said something about ‘updating the situation soon’ and then … the TV just stopped working. But it couldn’t have been a power cut. Everything else is still operative. The radio and computer didn’t work, either.”
“Why?”
“If I knew, then I wouldn’t have said ‘I don’t understand’, Meliora.”
“My bad.”
We reached the appropriate floor and Seph clambered out, immediately scouring for clues as to the whereabouts of dad or, really, a nice little co-worker who will provide us with some hope that we’re not the last two humans on the planet.
(A world without TV? And … and guys?)
(On that note, a world with just my sister in it? She might think I’m the most ideal person to be stuck with, but I certainly don’t think the feeling’s mutual. Sure, she could probably find a cure for cancer if given the tools to do so, but she’s admitted she has no clue in hell what’s going on, which leads me to suspect her brains won’t be so helpful here.)
“No one,” she announces a few minutes later.
“Whoop!” I reply, with feeling.
“Can you just be serious?” she sinks into what I dub a spinny chair and massages her temples. “What are we going to do?”
I shrug helplessly. “I don’t––”
CRASH.
Holy crap! I think. What the hell was that?
“What the hell was that?” asks my sister.
Freaky.
“The aliens are coming! They’re gonna eat us and we’ll be dead and oh my gosh it won’t even matter cuz they’ve already got everyone else!”
Sephenie Weringer fixes me with the Medusa-look from before. If she believed that The Odyssey wasn’t a myth, then she probably would’ve turned me to stone already. I’ve heard the mind can do strange things.
“It could be dad,” she announces, attempting to go over to the source of the noise.
Oh, hell no.
I grab her arm quickly. I’m the older one in the equation, which means I have some semblance of responsibility and if this escapade ends up with my sister getting an autopsy from weird blue aliens then … well, I’ll be dead. More so than her.
“Don’t! It could be someone … not-nice,” I finish lamely.
“Like who?”
“Like … an axe-murderer. Or a rapist. Or an axe-murdering rapist,” I shake my head. “We’re defenceless teenage girls, Seph! Think about that for a second!”
“We are not defenceless and we are intelligent young women, not girls,” Seph hurls the rejoinder at me harshly. “Mel, I think you’re suffering from … cabin fever, or some derivative.”
Cabin fever? “This is not cabin fever! Cabin fever is when you’re stuck in a small space with lots of people! But we are stuck in a big-ass place with absolutely no people! It’s, like, the opposite of cabin fever! And now there’s some freaky noise and it could be absolutely anyone and––”
CRASH.
“Aiee!” I finish helpfully, ducking under a desk.
Unfortunately, my sister uses this opportune moment to move away and inspect the noise coming from the opposite end of the floor. I, being the capable and pragmatic older sister (right), follow her after a long pause.
But I don’t reach her before the shaking starts up again.
Something––rectangular, black, small––dislodges itself and comes hurtling at me. I don’t feel it collide because I can already feel unconsciousness coming on…
Is this unfair or what?
I think I’ll just lie here for a minute.
“…think you overdid it…” came a voice from somewhere to my left.
“Did not,” responds a voice to my right, closer.
“…generally don’t…heal as fast…you know?”
“Be quiet. The girl will be fine.”
Huh. What girl?
Oh, wait, probably me. A new wave of pain assaults me at this point and I groan, hazarding movement. I open my eyes to see who my captors are (because I am not regarding them as saviours unless they prove they have no respective fetishes about axes or, uhh, other pointy objects).
Someone kneels down beside me. They’re kinda a big blurry blob. Nice use of the letter b.
“You okay?” asks the Blob.
“Gnngh…” says I, the one of witty responses.
“Where does it hurt?” the Blob asks next.
“Gnngh…”
“Girl, can you hear me?”
I feel myself fading out again. Sleep … sleep is good …
“…told you…overdid it…” says Blob’s friend.
Yes, this is when the really bad stuff starts happening.
The second chapter. So, who is the Blob? What has Mel gotten herself into? Or, really, just kind of walked into?
white winged
