Written By: Anja Tangeberr
The DiscoveryGen wasn't what you would call average. She looked average, if that counted for anything; she had an average sized family, which didn't actually mean anything. For though she looked average from the outside she wasn't, and though her family would seem average it was anything but. Gen's father was a surgeon; a heart surgeon. Her mother was a college professor of English, as well as a world famous novelist. Gen had an older sister in law school, and a younger brother at Santa Maria private school for academically accelerated children. In layman's terms Gen was the middle child in a family of super geniuses. Like in every other family, being the middle child, Gen got ignored quite often. She was the only member of her family who, at a young age, was no labeled "Genius," and made to conform to society's image of what a genius was. Up until Gen's sixth grade year no one had even considered that she might be a genius like everyone else in her family. She was put in regular classes where she got regular grades, and made regular friends.
Gen's sixth grade English teacher had signed her up for an examination to decide whether or not she would spend the rest of her life studying to become something that fit in her family. She hadn't expected the test results to shock her as they did. As it turned out she was smarter than both her brother and sister, and was immediately told that she would be transferred into accelerated classes, or perhaps that she would skip a grade or two. Gen, for the first time in her life, took her future in her hands, and made a life changing decision. She told her teacher not to change anything, to keep everything a complete secret, and to make certain that her family never knew the true nature of her intellect. Things stayed just as they were, and Gen kept her title as the sole person in her family to not be a genius. Her parents pretended to support her as they always did, but quickly went back to caring about Katy, her older sister's grades, and Tram, her younger brother's future.
Currently, Gen was the average freshman in high school. She was in average classes, got average grades, and hung out with her average friends, just as she had done her whole life. Mediocrity was her way of survival, though she knew she could pick any life she chose. It was an average day in Gen's average life when her abnormalities began.
"Hey Gen," Tram hovered behind Gen, looking over her shoulder, "are you doing homework?"
"No," Gen said distractedly, as she typed with her 60 words per minute average.
"Then get off."
"No," She replied in an offhand manor, her eyes glued to the monitor before her.
"Gen," Tram whined, "it's my computer, and you've been online for three hours already!"
"Check the screen poindexter, I'm not online."
"Why don't you just use your computer?"
"Because it doesn't work."
"It does do."
"Prove it." Tram stomped off angrily. Gen smiled to herself, and continued to type. She was writing up a theory of hers. For the past three years she had been writing a book of her own theories on life that she someday hoped to publish.
"It's working!" Tram announced.
"Yeah right," Gen continued to type.
"It's starting up right now. Get up and looks you retard!"
"Four eyes."
"Lazy."
"Metal mouth."
"Just go!" Gen grumbled, as she saved her document to a disk and got up. Five seconds later Tram was completely sucked into a mindless computer game that Gen imagined every boy his age was playing all at the same time. Gen stood before her computer, and stared at the start up screen. It was frozen at start up. Gen shut off the computer, and grumbled to herself tossing her disk on the computer desk, then walked away in a huff. Whenever Gen got fed up with her life, and the way she was treated she walked. Never to any particular place, just "around." Gen was usually lost in thought, as she was today. She walked through the labyrinth of neighborhoods around hers, not noticing the sun grow closer and closer to the horizon. It wasn't until Gen had made her way out of the residential area, and into the wilderness north of the city that she realized where she was. Normally she didn't go this far, but she decided, that as she had come all this way, moved by her subconscious, there must have been a reason.
She followed the bike path she found herself on, and before long she was looking at a hill. It was a very steep hill, almost at a 90-degree angle with the ground. She half walked, half crawled up the hill on all fours. The hill leveled out on a ledge type thing with a waist-high brick wall behind it. There was a great flat surface on the other side of the wall. Gen peered at it wonderingly. The flat surface was round, and made of stone, but other than that she couldn't really tell. Gen climbed not-so-gracefully over the wall, and onto the round surface. She looked close at the polished marble. It was a compass rose, a great big compass rose. Gen looked at in bewilderment. Why would someone put this beautiful thing out in the middle of nowhere, and why would they make it the end of a bike trail, and why would they put such a steep hill at the end of a bike trail. Gen shook her head, and brushed off her questions. The view was unbelievable. She sat there, in the center of the compass looking down on the wild world below. She felt like she was on the top of the world.
It was there that Gen made the greatest discovery of her lifetime. She was silently meditating, imagining some other world where her family would actually care if she lived or died; where every person was equally loved, and important. It wasn't long before she could see the world perfectly in her mind. She saw a girl, just like her, with parents who loved her, and siblings who were nice to her. Soon she saw it so well in her head that she thought she saw it mirrored in the sky, in the clouds. She gazed at her perfect world for a while, as though it was a dream, and she was asleep. There was a nagging at the back of her head. Something wasn't right. She wasn't just imagining that the image of her world was there, it really was. She could see it clearly, not just in her mind, but also with her eyes. Suddenly she snapped out of her strange daze, and looked intently into the picture. Gen reached out with her fingers, to touch the image. Her fingers met no barrier, but she felt something all the same. The feeling was backward. She could feel her fingers touch in her mind, and then it traveled the opposite way, through her nervous system, and into her fingertips. She snatched her fingers away; the feeling was too strange.
She stared at the image, wondering if what she had felt was real. She watched as it began to fade away before her eyes. It was leaving. Gen could see it leaving her without so much as a glimmer of proof as to whether or not it was real. She reached out to touch it again before it was completely gone, but before her fingers reached the now semi-transparent image she lost control of her body, and doubled over, sneezing loudly. When she straightened back up the image was completely gone. Gen cocked her head to one side, staring, wondering if she had seen a reality. She quickly shook her head, as if trying to shake of her questions, and hesitated only a moment longer, staring with one eyebrow raised slightly above the other, then turned, to leave. She climbed over the wall, and stood on the ledge for a moment, using all the will power in her being to keep from turning about.
Gen started to climb down the hill, which was unsuccessful, so she simply slid down sideways on her feet, with her hand out. She almost looked like she was snow boarding. She got to the bottom of the hill, and brushed the dirt off her pants, then started walking back down the bike path, trying to rid her mind of the image she had seen. Still, a voice in the back of her head whispered for her to turn around. No, she certainly wouldn't. She had imagined the whole thing, but there was still that shadow of a doubt. Go back, look, make sure. No, absolutely not! I'm not that crazy! Just make certain! No! Yes!
Gen turned around, and went back to the hill. She couldn't believe she was so crazy to go back, and make sure. Oh well, no one would ever know, and if they did who cared? She climbed up the hill with great difficulty, and stepped over the wall. She looked into the sky where the apparition had been. There was nothing there. She thought intently on what had been there, and what it had looked like. Nothing happened. Gen stood there for a long time, willing the image to come back. She was just about to give up when she saw a glimmer of the image. She concentrated harder on the spot, and almost as if the clouds had opened up a portal into another world she could see the replica of herself. It was really there.
Gen reached out and touched the image. It felt strange, but after a minute the feeling became bearable, and she reached in further, wondering if the girl in the other world could see her, or hear her. Gen tried to get a grip on something to pull herself closer to the image, and maybe even bring a greater portion of her body into it, but there was nothing solid about the image. Gen looked around. She had nothing to stand on, to make herself higher up, except the wall. Gen climbed up, and planted both feet atop the brick wall. She bent her knees, and then jumped as high, and far as she could toward the image.
She fell a foot short, and landed on her left wrist that she threw out in just enough time to catch herself. The land seriously jarred her wrist, but she was still undaunted. She felt the need to prove to herself even more that it was real. She climbed on the wall again, and then bent low, before springing up with all her might, and propelling herself toward the image.
She fell short by two inches, and hit the edge of the stone surface. This time she failed to catch herself, but threw her weight to one side, making her hit the sharp edge of the compass with the whole left side of her body, and roll down the hill. She rolled down through the thorns, rocks, and overgrown brush, before slowing to a stop somewhere before the hill flattened out completely. For a long time Gen lay on her back in a strange kind of semi-conscious agony. She had lost all feeling in her left arm, and she could hear a faint ringing in her ears. Suddenly she heard the words, you idiot, I told you not to go back, in her mind. She sat up. She knew she had been lying there for a long time, because the sun had almost set, and it was time to go home.
Over the next few weeks Gen came back to the hilltop every day, doing experiments on the image. She had a heck of a time explaining her bruises, and cuts to her parents. All along her left arm, and hip there was a slightly curved line of a bruise, and her arms, and midriff were all scratched up. Her left wrist wasn't broken, but seriously torked. She iced it for days. But the end result of her experiments was worth the pain, and the scolding. Gen had made a theory of alternate detentions over the years of her writing theories, but her theory was nothing like the reality that she now saw. Gen now came to the assumption that every time a person imagined a world, separate from their own, they actually created another world, whether or not they knew it, and whether or not they knew it they were a sort of god to that world. It was an interesting thought, though she knew no one would believe her unless she could get solid proof, and that was exactly what she planned to do.
Okay, first chapter's up. Hope you liked it. The second will be up by next Thursday if not sooner. Much Love!