The awakening, p.2
The Awakening, page 2
part #1 of Eve Series
Evelyn Janine Kingston,
On behalf of the esteemed Billington University, it gives me great pleasure to offer you a place for admission in September 2087.
Sincerely,
Finnegan Furst
Acting Dean of Admissions and President of Billington University
“Look legitimate enough for you?”
Stuart ran his fingers through the hologram, expanding the flickering image.
“Wow, your phone is really old.”
“All of my things are really old.”
He ignored her retort, his eyes wide as he reread the letter. “It’s
impossible… Smarts aside, the tuition must be astronomical. You could never
afford it.”
“I got a scholarship. It covers my freshman year.”
“Then what? How will you pay for the rest of college?”
“I’ll find a way. I always do.”
“I can’t get over it.” He finally tore his gaze from the letter and looked at Eve.
“The Billington?”
“The one and only, down in SoCal.”
“I know where it is, I’m just—”
“An ass.” She offered him a patronizing sneer and shoved her phone back
into her pocket. “Pleasure doing business with you, as always.”
She headed for the door, but just as she reached it, she stopped; she could hear
the radio far behind her, the volume raised once again, now to its highest
level.
“Now, to those out there who say, ‘Heck, give these people a break,’ I must correct you; chimeras aren’t people. Just because they look like us doesn’t mean they have the right to be regarded as people. They are aberrations. They are creatures.”
The back of Eve’s neck became hot, tingling with a fire that surged down her
spine and illuminated her entire body. Her vision faded to darkness, a thick black that pulsed with each beat of her heart. She didn’t bother to stifle it this time, despite the nagging voice that begged her to stop, that insisted she walk
out the door and never look back. As she took one last breath, she allowed the
power to flow through her, making its presence known with the slightest flick
of her wrist.
The patrons gasped in horror as the radio dial spun furiously as if suddenly
possessed. It flipped from one channel to the next, finally stopping at a
booming rock anthem, the heavy bass and thumping drums echoing throughout
the tiny shop.
Eve turned to look at Stuart and the others. Their faces were drained of
color, their eyes gaping with fear.
“Looks like your radio is broken,” she mumbled. “You should probably get
it fixed.”
And with that, she left the shop, wincing as the sunlight stung her eyes and poured across her face. She cursed to herself; she had made a mistake, clearly.
What she did—the looks on their faces, the terror in their eyes—was hardly constructive, and yet she couldn’t shake the feeling of prideful retribution that
festered deep within her chest. It was too much, sometimes, to hear the
opinions of others. To hear that she was an atrocity—a creature. After all, she certainly looked human. Her skin, blood, and bones were human. She walked,
talked, laughed, and cried like a human. But Eve was not like other humans, because she was a chimera.
To be fair, the correct term was humanovus: the new human. They were the
first of their kind, an advanced breed with all of the same traits and DNA as the
standard human, except that, for some reason modern science couldn’t yet
dictate, their genes were simply better. No amount of research could pinpoint a specific cause. The genetic makeups of humans and humanovi appeared
identical, and scientists of every field remained frustrated by the mystery of the humanovus, for despite their physical similarities, the two beings were clearly
so very different. The new humans were physically stronger with unparalleled
muscle memory and stamina. They were faster, their energy boundless, their
bodies rarely in need of replenishing. Their immune system and healing properties were unimaginably resilient, causing doctors to speculate that the average life expectancy of a humanovus could easily surpass one hundred and
fifty years, though no one yet knew for certain.
But above all else, the most extraordinary feature of the humanovi was the power they held in their minds. There was no proof that they were inherently
more intelligent than normal humans, but each humanovus possessed one
particular brain function that no other human had ever been able to attain: the
power to manipulate and move objects with the force of their thoughts.
Telekinesis—it was a term linked to countless pieces of fiction, and yet it was now real, a mere fantasy come to fruition. Yes, the humanovi were, in fact, telekinetic, though the title itself seemed so frivolous and romantic, and thus
people began referring to it as “the gift.”
As is common with any sudden change in modern society, the appearance of
humanovi was met with fear and apprehension. Some theorized that humanovi
were simply the next step in the human evolutionary chain. Others found them
to be miracles, a gift to rid the human race of disease and weaknesses. Still, others believed that the new human was brought forth by evil; they were
powerful, too powerful to be good or pure. Thus the debate began—as did the riots, the protests, the persecution and prejudice. Panic ran rampant across the
globe as human beings began to feel increasingly threatened by the presence of
humanovi.
Humanity’s fright ultimately led to the creation of a colorful new term. The
general public decided to regard these new humans as chimeras, a particularly interesting choice of word in Eve’s opinion. In the sixth grade, she’d learned that the chimera was a creature from Greek mythology: a fire-breathing
lioness with the head of a goat on its spine and a snake serving as its tail.
During vocabulary discussions in high school, she’d discovered that a chimera
was also a fantasy or delusion of sorts. And through her own research she’d found that a chimera was also a random, arbitrary blend of different tissues: a
mutant. And from that, she understood how society truly saw her—as a
fantastical blend of monstrous parts.
A freak.
Eve was especially freakish in the eyes of her peers. The typical chimera was
hard to diagnose initially; a child with great muscle memory could simply be
labeled a superb athlete, and a teenager who never caught a cold was just seen
as the winner of the perfect attendance award. The only obvious distinction between humans and chimeras was the gift, and ironically, a public display of
the gift was considered as crude and taboo as strolling the streets in the nude.
Most chimeras kept their gift to themselves, locked away indoors where no one
else could see or judge—if they could even control it at all, which many could
not.
In fact, a majority of the public was ignorant to the details of emergence—
the deliverance of the gift. Once chimeras reached their early adulthood, their
gift would develop suddenly, in what felt like a random instance of mental anarchy. Shooting pain, loss of vision, a sense of displacement, and, of course,
the erratic misfiring of the gift—they were all associated with emergence.
Scientists maintained that age and maturity brought the deliverance of the gift,
although there was an exception to the rule: the emotional intensity and
exaggerated brain function triggered by extreme trauma could also precipitate
emergence, at any age. That, unfortunately, is exactly what had happened to
Eve, approximately twelve years too early, at the age of eight, after witnessing
the gruesome death of her parents.
Eve stopped in front of the pawn shop, almost too angry with herself to take
another step, though her feelings of regret soon subsided as her attention
drifted elsewhere: back to the pharmacy, or what remained of it. A uniformed
officer was sweeping up the shards of glass, leaving behind streaks of a
yellowish substance across the sidewalk. She peered inside the building and
saw tables, cabinets, and chairs all overturned and destroyed, along with a sea
of papers, vials, and herbs scattered from wall to wall.
“Can I help you?”
Eve winced; she hadn’t even noticed the policeman approach her, and wished
that, for once, she could be the slightest bit inconspicuous.
“Just looking,” she answered, slowly stepping away from the scene. “I’ll get
out of your way.”
“Not so fast.” The officer extended his finger, beckoning her forward. He
cocked his head toward the pharmacy. “You know anything about this?”
“About what?”
“The chimera medical clinic.”
“No.” Eve crossed her arms, her shoulders tense, her stance defensive. “Why
would I know anything about it?”
“Look, I know what you are.”
What she was: as if she were an animal or an object. No matter how many times she heard it, it still stung just as much as the first.
She sneered, offended. “Then you should know that I don’t have much of a
need for medicine.”
“Clinics like this are illegal, you know. If you were in any way involved—”
“Don’t you have more important things to worry about?” she interrupted.
“Like the Interlopers?”
“We handle raids like this every week. You let us do our job.”
“I most certainly will. In fact, I’ll leave right now so you can get back to work.”
“Hold it right there, I’m not done talking to you—”
He didn’t have time to finish—a raspy cry captured their attention, followed
by a series of crashes, from deep within the pharmacy. Suddenly a short, stocky
policeman ran out of the pharmacy door, scuttling through the taped-off crime
scene with a trail of blood oozing down his forehead.
“It’s here,” he panted, his face white with terror. “I don’t know how we
missed it. HOW THE HELL COULD WE HAVE MISSED IT?”
“Missed what?” another officer asked.
His question was soon answered. Another noise sounded inside the pharmacy:
a loud boom. Again. And then again, the pounding followed by a
shrill screech. Eve knew what was coming—she could hardly believe it, but
there was no other explanation—and then it stormed from the pharmacy, its
enormous wings breaking through the shop’s frame, leaving a gaping hole in
the building.
The thing stood over seven feet tall, yet its body was lean and gaunt. Its skin
was grey and slick like rubber, puckering at its joints and around its bones, which protruded grotesquely from its flesh. Long, spindly limbs hung limply
from its hairless body, and each hand and foot—if they could be referred to as
such—was adorned with sharp talons. Two immense, bat-like wings expanded
from its back, wavering slightly with each fervid breath it took. Finally, its face
—its bald, wrinkled skull; its large, black eyes; its mouth filled with hundreds
of foot-long, needle-like fangs in a glistening silver—yes, its face was the most horrifying sight of all.
It was an Interloper.
The creature shook the debris from its back, letting it fly across the street like specks of dandruff. It arched its shoulders, stretching its skin far across its
bones, and then, with a deep breath, it let out a guttural roar.
Eve jumped, staggering backward with the horde of policemen who
scattered across the street like frightened children. One lifted his gun, his hand shaking so severely that the firearm nearly fell from his grasp, and fired two
poorly aimed bullets at the creature. The Interloper hardly reacted; instead it swiped its wing dismissively at the policeman, knocking him over with a single
blow and sending him toppling into what was left of the pharmacy storefront. It
stomped forward, its inky eyes scanning the terrified faces until it abruptly stopped—when it saw Eve.
Eve had seen an Interloper before, but never this close—close enough to
hear the air puffing from its slit-like nostrils and feel the slight tremor of the ground as it paced from side to side. She wanted to run away, but her feet were
firmly rooted to the concrete as if unresponsive to her screaming thoughts. She
was scared, yes, but not as scared as she should’ve been. After all, the
Interloper was staring right at her.
It inched forward, tilting its head slightly as it eyed her up and down. It took
a step closer, and yet Eve still could not move. Its teeth—God, its teeth were like awful knives, and she could see her faint reflection in each and every one
of them.
And then, unless she was mistaken, she could’ve sworn she saw the creature
smile.
Six gunshots resounded in Eve’s ears, and the Interloper lurched backward.
Another gunshot, and another, and then finally a swarm of bullets showered the
Interloper, sending yellow fluid bursting from its perforated skin. It swatted at
the balls of lead like they were pestering insects and unhinged its jaw, roaring
loudly as strings of saliva sprayed from its teeth. With one last breath, it glared
at Eve, undeterred by the bullets still burrowing into its flesh, and then it finally bolted into the sky, beating its wings until it soared out of sight.
“SONOFA-GODDAMN-BITCH!” a policeman cried, his face beet red as he
kicked the rubble at his feet.
“Can someone check on him?” another ordered, pointing at his comrade who
was still lying in a heap on the ground.
“I swear to God, those things are like raccoons. Giant, ugly-ass raccoons.
Vicious shits with a knack for picking fights and digging around in the
garbage.”
“I hate those freaks. I HATE them.”
“How could we have missed it? We covered the entire pharmacy three times.
How the hell did we not see it?”
The ramblings of the officers faded into the background, becoming nothing
but a distant haze in Eve’s mind. Her eyes were still set firmly on the sky—she
wasn’t sure what she was looking for, as the Interloper was long gone, but for
some reason, she couldn’t help but watch the clouds above. Maybe because she
knew that it was up there, watching her.
The Interlopers had arrived when Eve was just a baby, and though she had
never known a life without them, the slightest mention of their existence still sent a chill through her body. If Eve was a monster, then the Interlopers were
the offspring of Satan himself, though neither was true. The Interlopers were aliens: creatures from somewhere beyond this world, surely of another name
and possibly from another galaxy altogether, but there was no way for Eve or anyone else to know for sure, because they were simply impossible to engage
in conversation. Sure, they could speak—a multitude of human languages
along with their own dialect, surprisingly enough—but communicable and
friendly they were not. Regardless, they had made their intentions more than clear: they came to Earth seeking one thing and one thing only.
Chimeras.
What horrendously terrible luck for people like Eve. Already the entire
globe had been up in arms about the chimera population—and then the
Interlopers arrived, and the majority opinion was solidified: chimeras were
intolerable. A curse. Damned. For not only had they brought fear into the lives
of humans across the planet, but they’d also brought a flurry of winged aliens
who terrorized their homes.
Goddamn chimeras.
Fortunately—as if a silver lining was even possible to find—while the
Interlopers were terrifying enough, they had yet to prove themselves inherently
dangerous. They were nothing more than scavengers searching for data, blood
samples, and anything else that could tell them more about chimeras. Some
speculated that they sought the chimeras’ health and strength, though that
possibility was widely rejected; the aliens were already nearly impossible to kill, and although bullets and blades tore through their skin, the damage
appeared to be insignificant to them. Many assumed they were after the gift,
and that they destroyed facilities like the Shang Wu Holistic Pharmacy in desperate search of something, anything that could reveal the key to the power they insatiably desired. And while initially people revolted and rebelled, they soon learned to simply stay out of the Interlopers’ way. After all, not a single
unprovoked Interloper had ever attacked a human or chimera. The provoked
ones, however—well, that was a different story entirely.
“Can someone get her the hell out of here?”
Eve blinked; she was still standing in the middle of Haight Street amid the chaos. Spectators were beginning to gather—and the last thing she needed was
people watching her.
“He was looking at her, you know,” another officer added.
“Probably wanted to take her with him.”
