Disclaimer: Many of the characters and much of the dialog in this story belong to Bioware and EA. No profit was made in the making of this story.
Hello, my name is Kit. I'm a blond, blue-eyed sophomore in a small town high school in Alaska. But I'm also a green-eyed, redhead Commander of the Alliance Navy. My life has never been easy, but at least I only had one life to deal with. Then one day I took a walk outside, needing some fresh air and, more importantly, space from my family…
Walking down the front porch steps, I place my hands on my temples and breath in deeply. In and out. I just need to breath I tell myself. Snapping at my brother won't help anything. All he wants is attention and snapping would give him that attention. Don't feed his behavior.
I've acted out in anger against him before. It only leads to me being reprimanded and a smirk on his face. Reporting him only leads to a sob story on his part and another smirk on his face when I'm told I am simply being to hard on him. The best solution is to ignore. It does not solve the problem, but it keeps me in the safe zone and leaves his efforts fruitless.
I look up, for the first time registering where I am going: the woods. Changing my course slightly left, I head towards the river on the other side of the gravel pit. Its ice is starting to break up and I want to go to the other side one last time before it's uncrossable.
Yes, it's dangerous, but that's why I love it. My life has been so safe and full of comfort lately, I miss the danger it used to have. It's this little thing that reminds me of my past, of who I am.
Of course, no one knows. My grandparents would not approve. My siblings would try to follow me. Plus, it's nice to have a secret again.
I used to carry many secrets, secrets that could ruin my family, my neighbors, and my peers. But they are all irrelevant now in this new world Alaska has given me.
Nothing is secret here. Everyone knows everyone. That's how it is in a small town. They think they know everything about me. And while they do know much, they are wrong. They know the stories, but they don't know me.
Having reached the river, I step onto the ice cautiously, testing its strength. Satisfied that it is able to support me, I approach the center of the river. About fifty yards back, I begin to run.
To cross the river, I will have to jump across the flowing part, which is growing in the wake of spring. Falling in would mean hyperthermia if I was lucky enough not to be pulled under while the river carried me away.
Near the edge, I hear the ice start to crack, but my feet are already off the ground. Landing softly on the other side, I continue to run as the ice cracks near the open water's edge.
After a few yards, I resume walking, knowing that here the ice will hold. When I return, I will cross a different spot of the river marked out by footprints of my previous journeys here. I'm not stupid enough to recross the cracked path I just took.
I cross the remainder of the river and into the forest. While the other side of the river is dotted with fish wheels, cabins, and other markers of civilization, this side is nothing but forest for miles, the only thing beyond them mountains and more forest.
I don't go far into the woods before I find a fallen log to sit on. Reaching in to my near empty messenger bag, I pull out my notebook. It takes me a moment longer to find my pin, having drifted from its standard pocket to the main compartment.
As I open my journal, I spot something reflecting sunlight, but when I turn to look at it, it is gone. Disregarding it, I turn back to my journal to write. I am very cautious with my journal, as I do not wish it to become a weapon to be used against me.
To ensure this, I log everything I do, record every person with a false name, and use in-text citations to reference coded emotions and/or secrets in the back of the journal. Having been taught the code by father when I was young, I have improved it to make it unreadable to even my dad.
When the journal is stolen, people soon realize that front journal entries are only simple, uninteresting facts they already know or don't care to, often not even noticing the coded secrets in the back.
Recording the events from the past day in my journal, I again see the sun's reflection. Again when I look it is gone. This cycle repeats it self several times until I finish writing in my journal.
Placing my notebook and pin in my bag again, I stand and approach the area I saw the reflection come from, curious as to what has caused this interruption in an otherwise natural location.
Twigs and long, dead grass peek from the ever-receding snow, but nothing capable of reflecting sunlight show itself. Crouching, I brush my gloved hand across the snow. I find a small, solid object, a sphere, covered with snow. Passing it from my right hand to my left, I wipe of my right hand, not wishing the snow to soak my cotton glove.
Observing the sphere closer, I see it could not have been the object the sun was reflecting off of. It is metallic, grey with black lines creating an intricate design across its surface and simple golden lines diving the sphere into eight equal slivers.
I remove one of my gloves to feel it surface, but as I touch it, it glows faintly. Snatching my hand away, its light dies. That must have been what I saw. Not the sun's reflection, but this object glowing along its black lines through the snow.
As it did not shock me or harm me in any way, I touch it again; curious as to if my touch is what caused it to glow. It begins to glow again, slowly at first, then getting brighter until it filled my vision.
I try to pull my hand away, but it has gone numb. My whole body has. I can't even blink. Then I see nothing. I can't feel, hear, or smell. I am senseless.
I feel, even though I feel nothing, as if I can't breath, yet at the same time, not doing so does not cause physical pain, because I do not feel and my brain is not shutting down.
Mentally though, I am panicking. My core functions, breathing and heartbeats are gone. I need them, not to sustain my body, but my sanity. This feelingless does not last long however.
After just moments of becoming this way, I am flooded with feeling, both physical and mental. I feel pain, regret, loss, fear, hopelessness, sorrow, and many others that I have never felt before, all of them terrible. The only relief is a tiny ray of hope.
Then it is gone. I am feelingless again, but the horror still lingers in my mind. Then I see the light again.
It is still blinding, but slowly recedes to a single rectangle as I blink. I flinch my hand, but find it not holding the light in front of me, but laying at my side, empty.
A man's anxious voice says, "Doctor? Doctor Chakwas? I think she's waking up."
Author's Note: I hope you've enjoyed this chapter of Double Life. My goal is to publish a chapter at least every two weeks, but they may not all be this long or they may be longer. Thank you for reading.