When Genesis got to school there were brand new extremely heightened security measures put in place. She was asked by a police officer if she had a phone, and when she said no she was forced to explain that her father advised her to leave it at home. Most of the school students ended up turning their phones into the office via handing it over to a police officer or soldier.
"Thank you, please step through the full body scanner, and report to class when the bell rings," said the guard. When Genesis stepped through the scanner she could see Sorren in the line behind her after a curious glimpse back at the check-in area, and he was answering the officers questions. She was cleared to pass through without any beeping, and apparently, Soren was, too. He nodded to the officer before stepping up to the full body scanner, just as she slipped out of it. Again, soundless, Soren passed and stepped into the school. He seemed to be gaining up to her, and Genesis turned a corner to go to her locker, attempting to avoid any contact with him.
He turned too, and pulled her into a corner behind one of the open classroom doors. "What the hell?" Genesis asked.
"Don't say anything. Just let me talk," he said. He looked down and winced. He took her wrist and pulled it towards him, gazing down at her left wrist, and the burn he had left. "I'm really sorry. I don't know what to say to you," he said. "I did that. I know that," he said.
Genesis stared at him, tears welling up in her deep pink irises. Her wings fluttered slow, and she stood back up, and stepped out from behind the door into the hallway, searching for her locker. "Genesis," Soren called out. "Remember what I said!" He called after her from outside the classroom where they'd been huddled up.
That was so fucking weird, Genesis thought, more confused than ever. I'm getting sick of him not minding his own business.
I agree, came the unconscious voice in a hush. Ugh, He's incredibly persistent. That's going to be annoying.
Genesis became paranoid at the presence of the voice again. The voice who's eyes glowed. She wanted to be able to do whatever this voice could do. But she couldn't. It was as if everything came naturally to this voice, this presence of another version of her. It was like this voice experienced the world in an entirely different way. This part of her was angry, resentful, and possibly even a little hateful.
She wished she could shut out that part of her and lock it away like it had once been before, when she didn't know of its existence, but deep down, she knew it was a part of her that had always been there. She had bad memory, and it was time to acknowledge the possibility that this part of her had been around for some time.
Genesis made it to each class on time, as per usual, and finished most of her assignments in class. She got great grades, and if the world was still turning when she graduated, she'd make it into one of her dream universities and go on to live a successful life, hopefully with a career in science like her father.
But truthfully, with the new way of life, police officers and soldiers on every single street, high security in any place she went, it was likely some group of people were going to get pissed off and wave their guns. Not to mention, news was reporting so much about AI and android related deaths in recent weeks that the topic had come up in class at least twice that week and Genesis had to discuss it along with the rest of her class. It was just another thing to get paranoid over. Things were likely going to be this way for a while. She didn't even want to think of the Seraph related violence.
When Genesis got to gym class, she passed Valerie, smiling at the girl, who didn't wave back when she did. The girl was beautiful, and she was also a cheerleader, but she was also normal. She was a dream for any boy, Genesis was almost certain, and she had tons of friends and often commented on parties she attended in the middle of class.
Valerie giggled with two other girls on the lower bleachers, both blonde, one with shorter hair and corkscrew curls, and the other girl whose hair reached nearly to her waist. They were gorgeous, and of course they were friends with Valerie. They each glanced over at James Arnette and Valerie hurled a crumbled paper note at him in the upper bleachers. He caught it coolly and he glanced back at the three seniors, smiling cheekily.
"Right on," he said, nudging a classmate next to him with the uncrumpled paper.
It was Jareth Coriander, who patted him on the back and whispered. "Nice, dude," he said in a hushed tone to James. Jareth smiled wide and out of seemingly nowhere their gym teacher Mr. Alexander shouted from across the gymnasium.
"Heads up!" The dodgeball was fast, and Genesis felt it brush past her face and she watched as it landed and hit Jareth in the face. He caught it with to surprised hands and it fumbled to the floor.
"Not cool," he said, shocked.
"This is gym class, not talk class, kids."
"So today we're a bunch of seniors about to play dodgeball?" Valerie asked, smirking a little, and she run a hand through her hair. "Are we picking teams or are you?" She asked the teacher.
"You guys can pick your team leaders, two teams only," and Mr. Alexander started to call off names to see who got the most votes.
Jareth ended up being chosen, and he was pretty good at gym class. He apparently benched, and he was in football, so he was bound to be picked as the captain of one of the teams, Genesis had concluded.
Judith Charlotte was chosen as the other team's captain. She was a strange girl, with deep black and cool toned hair, and her eyes were white, even at the irises. She was clearly Seraph born, but she was a track runner and had even won a few awards for her incredible speed. Sometimes people assumed Judith was blind, but she could in fact see very well, Genesis had once learned during an interaction with Judith in the library.
Jareth chose Genesis last, but chose her nonetheless with three other students having been options. She suspected it was because of her wings or something, but she was actually terribly clumsy and sucked at gym or any sport she was forced to partake in during the class. Mr. Alexander gave her sympathy C's in the class, but she technically should have been failing it. She didn't mind the extra boost in points though since it looked good, and it was the only class she put minimal effort in.
She preferred Study Hall the most, since she got to sit in the library while other students sat in the computer room where they would typically take online language classes. She had actually forgotten Judith shared both classes with her, but this was one time where she actually saw her. In the library, Judith huddled herself away in a corner where she read various books, usually advanced college level books with adult themes or dark subjects. Once, Genesis saw her reading an erotic dark novella about a vampire and a woman called Dusk or something close to that.
The dodgeballs were flying at the blow of the whistle. Judith was busy dodging left and right, and got a few students hit within the first five minutes of the match.
Genesis dodged too, her wounded left wrist a bit sore, but she was aiming, and missing by a lot with her good right hand. She had a poor throw, and she only hoped nobody would call her out on it. She mostly hid in the background, behind dozens of other students but when it was down to twelve people Mr. Alexander stepped into the middle of the match.
He rubbed his temples and stared down Genesis, "I need you all to get closer to the line please, hurry, thanks," he sighed and smiled a small smile. "Resume." He blew the whistle and stepped out of the way.
Genesis approached the halfway line across the gym, where Judith was eyeing her down a bit, holding a red dodgeball, and she was starting to shift into aiming position. Genesis noticed and stepped back just in time, watched the ball fly past her to the back wall. Genesis picked up a bright yellow dodgeball and aimed it at Judith, extended her right wrist, and she released it quickly, watched it fly in the air. It successfully hit Judith's ankle when she attempted to back away from her aim.
"Out," said Mr. Alexander. "Good fight Judith."
Judith was at the fountain, and Genesis headed for the fountains as well, desperately in need of a drink of water. "You actually tried for once at dodgeball," Judith said, turning to look at Genesis, clutching one of her two side braids. "Imagine what you could do if you tried to be like a real Seraph," she told her in a low voice, her eyes steadily fixed on Genesis.
"What?"
"Good game," Judith said, smirking a bit.
The next few games of dodgeball dragged out, but when the hour of class was up, it was lunch time, and Genesis' wings fluttered in excitement as the end of class bell rang. She hurried to her locker, unlocking the blue metal door with its padlock code. She shoved her school bag into it and made her way to the cafeteria, where she was met with another new full body scanner, which was likely there to detect metals. Sometimes the officers or soldiers would ask students to do a pat down, but this wasn't too often, though it was still happening and it unnerved Genesis a great deal.
She stepped through the scanner and approached the lunch line.
None of them know what it's like.
The voice of her unconscious self came over her, taunting her in her own mind. She wanted to ignore it, or stop it, now wasn't an ideal time to be dealing with a weird problem such as hearing voices, anyways, and all she wanted to do was eat lunch and get the school day over with.
You don't know what you've been through, you're ignorant as far as I'm concerned. The voice was insistent in talking, and Genesis was unsuccessfully attempting to shut her out.
You can only handle this much, but I will remind you now. I'll show you some of it. It's time for you to remember it now.
The voice went silent, and a sharp pain started in Genesis' temple, along with a high pitched ringing in her ears. Her wings flapped, frightened, as images flashes before her eyes. She saw a woman looking down at her, and in this flashing memory she knew she'd been an infant. In another quick but vivid flash she saw darkness but heard screaming, and two loud banging sounds, almost that of two gunshots. Her next memory flashed and burned into her mind, and it was a glimpse of a large syringe and flashes of different pills being held to her.
Genesis felt sick. She didn't know enough to put memories together, but she knew what she saw was real, and she hadn't felt emotion or remembered much of her childhood before the age of four years old, when her mother had passed away.
You'll get it soon, you'll see the true story, but you can't shut me out anymore.
Go away, Genesis thought to her unconscious mind, this over part of her. She finally finished getting her food tray made, and finished entering her access code for her lunch before she rushed out of the lunchroom and into the school library, where she would have Study Hall. She ate in silence and peace for the most part, until the voice hummed in irritation.
I can't control everything you know. I can only save you if you let me.
Genesis sighed and took a bite into her burger, swinging her foot back and foot underneath the library table. Right, and demons in hell want slurpees, Genesis thought back.
The teacher showed up on time, but it was a substitute, and she actually turned out to be married to one of the soldiers stationed at Crest High, evidently, because he came in moments after the bell rang to plant a kiss on her cheek, informing his wife and the class he was on a break and was getting ready to raid the cafeteria for some lunch. The class chuckled quietly and the soldier dipped out of the room, and the teacher, Mrs. Murphy clapped her hands and started snapping her fingers, encouraging everyone to hurry to start their homework assignments. Most of the class was filled with seniors, but there were a few juniors, and a couple of sophomores, too.
Genesis was able to complete all of the day's assignments within the hour, and she spent the next two hours in her advanced science and math classes taking tons of notes to study for the end of the year exams. Summer was approaching and the year went by rather fast, which Genesis was unprepared for.
She was about to spend the next six weeks cramming for exams in all of the other subjects as well, and she was barely looking forward to it. When she got home she was exhausted, and she collapsed on the couch after retrieving her phone from her bedroom off its charger, where it had been plugged in all day.
She decided it was finally time to check messages after a long day of having no access to the netpad or her phone. She opened the netpad, entering the code, which surprisingly failed. Then she decided to try finger recognition, with successfully opened the netpad, and Genesis opened her chat log. She remembered Dryden sending her his phone number, and she went to the chat and opened her phone separately, unlocked it with her fingerprint, and then she entered Dryden's number into her phone, ignoring Soren's warnings about his stepbrother.
The reason she decided to message Dryden was because she trusted him more, for whatever reason, but it was particularly the fact that he had stood up for her against irrational and aggressive Soren and his group of friends.
She texted him a "hello" with a smiling face, and read an instant reply back reading the same, followed by a "how are you?" which she grinned at. She replied curtly with "I'm okay" and then her fingers tapped away again at the screen, saying "want to call?" and she pressed send.
He answered her question with a phone call, and she answered right away, excited to do so.
"I haven't gotten a chance to see you at school," he said over the phone. "Exams are coming up soon. I've been studying like hell lately," he told her.
"Me too, studying like hell, and I'm so tired. I have a question about Soren," Genesis said,
"I can do my best to answer it," he said. "I'm sorry about your wrist by the way. It's the left one, right? I hate thinking about it. I get pissed off."
Genesis smiled and hummed a bit. "I'm perfectly fine, I can survive it," she insisted.
"What's your question about my brother?" Dryden asked.
"Does he ever get weird?" She asked. "With girls, maybe?"
"Not really, what did he do this time?" Dryden asked.
"Nothing much, we just talked. Maybe he just had some anxiety," she said, playing the conversation off.
"So you're talking to him now?" Dryden asked in confusion. "All of a sudden?"
"No, not like, friends or anything. He was being weird, like I said, I'm going to try to avoid him," Genesis told Dryden with a confident voice.
"Maybe that's a smart idea," Dryden agreed. "Look I've gotta really study some of this textbook for a few hours, I'll call you tomorrow if that's okay? If I don't see you in school, that is."
"Of course," Genesis said with a grin. "That would be completely fine in my book, I'll talk to you later."
"Okay, Genesis. Goodbye," Dryden hung up the call, and Genesis felt a pit in her stomach. Why was Soren so concerned about her befriending his step brother so much? He couldn't have been a bad person, so it must've been a gnarly secret he had been keeping, if there was any substance to what Soren had said about Dryden at all to begin with.
It was something she thought hard about at dinner with her father, who noticed her strange distance at the dining room table. "You don't like lasagna now?" He asked.
"What? Dad, it's awesome, seriously, I just don't think I'm all that hungry tonight.
"Okay, well, the leftovers will be in the fridge, bottom shelf," he said, finishing the last bite off of his plate. He got up and stood near the sink where he placed his dirty dish and then he continued putting dinner away.
"I think I'm calling it a night early, dad."
"What?" he asked, surprised. "Come on, no movie? Okay, fine, I get it you're growing up," he said.
"I'm eighteen dad," Genesis grumbled with a smile, hugging him. "I'll be in college soon. Maybe another time," she said to him and he nodded.
"I'll do some reading in my office then, and maybe some cleaning too. I'm sure if I don't, it'll be a nightmare in there before long, anyways. Goodnight honey, sweet dreams."
"Goodnight dad," Genesis said, walking down the hallway.
The presence of the unconscious triggered a familiar ringing in her ears, and the voice wasn't far behind. Genesis lost all control within just seconds, and she faded into a comatose darkness once again.
The unconscious came forward, and she smiled a devious grin as she gained all control, leaving Genesis with no memory. When she woke up in her bed the next day, one sentence read "I am Eve" was written on her vanity mirror in her bright red lipstick. She stared at the mirror from her bed and when she sat up, she found a pile of papers, documents from her father's office, on her lap and scattered around her bed.
Each document appeared to be from ten to fifteen years earlier, and they appeared to be medical records. All of them were lab results, both about her, and her own mother as well.
She felt a pit form in her stomach. She had a feeling something in these papers was being hidden from her, and she would take time after school to look at them, but for now she'd settle with getting ready for the day and getting onto the school bus.
When she got home she wasn't prepared to see three black vehicles outside of her house. She opened the front door skeptically and was surprised to see her father being ganged up on by men in dark colored suits, one mna wore a dark red suit, another was dressed in all black, in fact several were, and an older man wore a suit and tie, his white hair was slicked back, and he was bulky and muscular.
"What do you people think you're doing?" Genesis asked with a harsh tone.
"This man is coming with us young lady, this is official government business," said a man dressed in black dawning a pair of black sunglasses.
The men shuffled around her father, practically forcing him to migrate to the front door, where Genesis fought against the men and struggled. Two men grabbed her by the arms and kept her from following her father outside. "There's money on my card, the pin is in the drawer in my desk, in my office! Call your aunt Jennie!" He shouted over the aggressive men. "I love you so much! I'll find you honey! I'll be home very soon-" he shouted, before his voice became muffled and he was dragged to the driveway and forced into a black van, one that she just barely saw speed off as the men in black held her back.
When the vehicle took off with her father inside of it she felt a darkness moving within her. The men stared back at her, her palms glowing a deep pink color that came swirling out of her fingertips. She collapsed when the men let her go, baffled by the light she felt her body unleashing, and she let out a hopeless scream, a desperate compilation of sounds spilled from her lips, and by the end of it, the men were gone out the front door and she was left alone, sobbing, cradling herself with her arms.
She watched the two men disappear down her street in the last and final black van. Her father's car still remained parked in the driveway.