Past, Present, and Future
Kristen
I'm focusing as hard as I can, but I can't seem to reel myself back to the present. Sweat pours down my spine and my hands are balled into fists. I hear a voice.
"Bring him back!" Someone says, the voice is gravely and unpleasant. I look around, but only see nothing. Blank stares suddenly appear and letters scrawl across the ceiling. Octavius Waters. I blink and see a face appear before me. I scream as the pale white face comes closer to me, it's finger's blue and dripping with blood, trying to grab my hand.
"Yes! It's working!" The unpleasant voice sounds again. I try to jerk away from the face and the blue fingers, but then it grabs my hand and I'm hurled forward across the room, no not a room. I wasn't even in a room this whole time, I open my eyes and find myself in a glass tube filled with water. Across from me is the face. Octavius Waters. I gasp and look at my hands while I can feel a bruise swelling on my cheek. Did I do this to Octavius Waters? Who is he and what does the voice want with him? Suddenly the water that comes up to my waist is being drained. Hands are coming up around me and they are taking tubes out of me that I didn't even know were in me. I can hear Octavius grunting on the other side of the tubes. I can feel the vibration coming from his noises. I am pulled out of the tubes and I fall to the floor putting my hands out in front me as they hose me down with something that looks like peanut butter and smells like blood.
"Get up, 21." I hear the unpleasant voice say again. 21? Since when have I been called a number and not a name. A sudden flashback comes to mind and then its gone before I can even process it. All I can remember is a feminine face, a wisp of golden hair and dark honey colored eyes. Who is this woman? Do I know her or is this an implant? An implant, what is an implant?
"Did you hear me, 21!?" I look up to the voice and see doctors everywhere, but no one is talking. I see speakers through the glass panels that make up the walls. I try to see through the walls, but I can't for some reason. I get up this time only to be shoved back down.
"Stay out of my way, malformed trash." An angry young scientist says to me as he steps on my hand as he passes. Malformed? Is this what I have been named, a malformed, called by a number, a person that goes swimming in glass tubes against her will? Some world this has turned out to be. I wasn't always here at this place. Or the world wasn't always this way either. I remember my mother's face. Or parts of it. She had brown hair that were always curled into tiny soft locks of hair at the tip of her ears. Sometimes if the light was right you could see strands of red in her curly hair. She had tired green eyes that had hints of hazel in them. Her nose was long and sharp, her face was the kind that angular, but still strikingly beautiful. She always wore her hair back with awkward clothes that had funny designs on them. She had a slim build that I don't resemble. In my opinion I look more like my father. His athletic build and shortness makes me look more like him. Which makes me glad. I didn't get to meet my father officially. I remember seeing pictures of him at my mother's house. The only thing I did seem to inherit from my mother was her hair. I had always loved her hair, it was the thing I loved most about her besides her nurturing nature that seemed to spread an aura around her. On her the hair made her attractive and seem like a good person, the hair color on me made me look pale and my hair was always gringy. I also remember once when I tried to cut it like my mother's in second grade, all of the kids laughed at me and I vowed never to have my hair short again. People would always comment on how I looked so much like her. I would laugh and say they were crazy. Sometimes I would wonder where my dad had really gone. Some would say he just left us because he was a pig hooked up on another girl. I never believed that one. Others would say he died when I was little, I don't believe that either. I remember, believe it or not, his face when I was born. Most kids don't remember squat when they are born. They said the reason I can remember is because I'm "special". More like messed up in the head. All of the kids would make fun of me at school for the intelligent things I would say, made me want to kill them. I know it's a mean thing to say, but it's the truth and the one I wanted most dead was Jake Karbash. Jake Karbash was one of the kids I remembered the most with his ugly taunts, rude gestures and gorgeous face profile, Jake Karbash was the worst person I have ever known in middle school. He was the one who exposed me. One day he pushed it too far and I couldn't take it anymore. Him and his popular unlikely band of misfits came in and surrounded me and start with the taunting, the teasing, the making fun of someone who is slightly different. He was saying all the normal things like he would everyday, every time pushing my limits farther and farther till I cracked. I remember like it was yesterday what he said to me in that crowd. He had called my mother a whore. When people say things to me about how I look, say things or even act I can get through it, but when people say things about my family I want to kill them. I exploded on him and everyone at the school started running yelling "malformed trash" I remember grabbing Jake while he was screaming apologies at my face like it was a stone wall. I levitated him and cut him on him arm with a sharp piece of glass that had broken off from one of the windows when I had screamed. Soon the SIPD came and took me away without even telling my mom. I've held a grudge against Jake for as long as I have lived, I couldn't kill him and now sitting in my glass of torture, I want to kill him more than ever. I look around the lab nobody is paying attention to me I slowly get up while a smiling girl who is dressed as a nurse holds an awkward hand out to me, gesturing for me to follow. When I don't respond her smile disappears and she digs her nails into my wrist and takes me out of the lab. She is murmuring under her breath and I can tell she's not happy at all. Her slim figure and thin blonde hair makes her just like all the rest of the nurses, tall blonde and plain. Not much of a mix up.
"I'm Nurse Lee. I'm taking you to the cafeteria it's time for your data taking."
"Funny," I say as we continue to walk. "I don't remember a cafeteria being a place where you take data." Nurse Lee turns and gives me a death glare before injecting something into my arm as we reach the door to the "cafeteria". She shoves me through the door not without giving a grumpy huff when the door slams shut and clicks to prove it's locked. When I look around the cafeteria I see people wearing the same thing as me, black T-shirts and loose grey sweatpants with no shoes. I look around this isn't the first time I've been in here, but why does it seem to me there's no familiar faces. I see a bigger boy about my age get up and start walking towards me, he reminds me almost of the grilled cheese my mom used to make, golden and crispy. He is now lumbering towards me and I feel the whole floor start to shake. I try not to show that I'm terrified of this new boy when he pulls me into a hug where I mush into his fat rolls on his stomach, it takes everything I have not gag.
"Kristin!" He says while hugging me more tightly while pushing more air out of my lungs. I squirm out of the hug and peer up at his tall and big form. Suddenly his hazel eyes soften when he notices my blank stare.
"It's me Biscuit." He says pointing to himself. I try not to laugh at the unnatural name while he smiles. Biscuit blushes now and realizes that I'm still staring blankly at the far wall on the other side of the cafeteria.
"It's me Gerald B. Iscuit, and then over there," He points to a table containing two girls my age and a small boy who looks about 12. "Ellis, Brena and Cary." They all wave at me and I feel awkward and wave slightly while Biscuit pushes me with a force like a persistent lion stalking prey. The two girls look at me and I realize they are twins except one has green eyes and the other has deep brown eyes that look like mud. They have long beautiful blonde- almost white hair that comes down to their waist in waves. And then there is Ellis. Ellis is short and thin almost like a toothpick about to snap. He has a blob of orange fuzz on the top of his head that curls and comes just to his ears, his eyes are a striking blue that makes me want to squirm whenever he looks at me. Biscuit sits me down next to Ellis it takes everything I have to not make my skin crawl as he looks at me with the eyes. Brena and Cary lean forward across the table and start whispering to Biscuit which leaves me with Ellis. Suddenly he's reaching for my hand. I cringe away from him into Biscuit. He looks at Ellis and mouths something and he nods,
"Kristen, it's okay. Ellis is your brother." I try to hide my shock, I don't even remember having a brother, let alone half my life. But then the flashbacks are coming back, I remember a cousin looking exactly like Ellis with the dark orange hair and the piercing blue eyes.
"Brother?" I say making myself calm.
"Your mom didn't tell you? She was um, you know." Biscuit gives the twins a weird look and avoids making eye contact with me. There is silence for awhile until,
"I'm going to go get some more juice, you wanna come, Kristen?" The twin with the brown eyes asks as she stands up. I nod grateful to be rid of this table even for awhile. We walk out to the line and sit there while everyone else gets their food, while this is happening I take a look around. Everyone looks so miserable, there are some older people here, but they are secluded from the rest of everyone else by and wall made of glass. I am finally realizing how big this place really is. There is another glass wall that protects children and then another that keeps the adults away from the teenagers. I don't understand everyone else looks normal, why are we secluded and kept in these glass cases like animals?
"Kristen?" The brown eyed twin is waving her hand in my face. I look at her blankly.
"It's me Brena, don't forget again." She says laughing to herself.
"What do you mean forget again?" I ask curiously. She pulls her hair into a long shimmering ponytail and grabs a juice, I can't help but notice, it's banana the same as her sister's.
"Sometimes the scientists do what we call the Forget-Me-Not process." She slurps her juice and she leans against the wall and I do the same.
"It's where the scientists really test your ability to bring people back to life using the insurance that the government had granted them." She looks at me with her brown eyes. "It can result in memory failure, illusions, madness, and even death." She wiggles her fingers at me like it's a joke. She snorts and finishes her juice.
"Don't take it too serious though, it usually only does the first two." She starts to walk back towards the table while I remain standing where I am. Memory failure, is that why I can't remember my name before this? And is this why I don't even know my own friends? I shake this clear of my head as I walk back to the table. Suddenly a loud buzzing goes through the room and even behind the glass walls to the other rooms, little kids are covering their ears and the old blue hairs are yelling. Then a blur of white mist fills the two rooms and almost all of them seem to drop dead.
"Oh my god!" I scream and run towards the glass walls. Biscuit is grabbing my arm before I even reach it.
"It's fine it's just standard procedure, they have to move them out or they won't do as their told." Brena is saying coming behind Biscuit. Cary and Ellis show up too, and every teenager seems to head towards the metal doors that I walked through not just moments ago. I see Nurse Lee suddenly standing with what looks like an officer, there is something familiar about him, but I can't be sure. He has sandy blonde hair that curls under his hat that is probably a part of his uniform. You can see his slim, taught, but well muscled profile under his short sleeved shirt and he's laughing. I can hear his laugh from here, it's one of those fake laughs that only people do when they are trying to be polite. Nurse Lee is obviously flirting with him as she laughs along with him, loud and obnoxiously. She seems me and straightens up and calls out to me.
"Kristen, come over here for a second." I head towards them while the officer whispers something in Nurse Lee's ear that makes her blush and giggle, before this I forgot how close in age we really were. As I'm just about to reach them he turns his head towards me. I freeze as his gaze lands on me. I feel myself grow cold and feel goosebumps rise on my neck and arms. His face seems to go white with shock as my eyes fall to the inside of his arm where a long scar that looks like exactly how I remember.