The Shattered Genesis (Eternity)

by Rudacille, T.

  “Sure we can.” Brynna replied airily. To prove it, she laid down and closed her eyes. “She will be back when she has had her tantrum. I would be angered substantially by such harsh, brutal words as well. A person stalking after me as I sought a quiet place to be angry would be the last thing I would want.”

  “Just leave her! She can handle herself out there!” I snapped at both of them as I zipped up the tent.

  “I’ll go get her if you don’t.” James said to Brynna.

  “James, I sincerely doubt that you can handle the tumultuous emotions of an eighteen year old girl.”

  “But you can. Please, will you go get her before she gets hurt?”

  I was sure that him gently prodding her into doing the right thing was a common occurrence in their relationship. If there was one person who knew how complicated women could be, it was James. I wanted to talk to him like I had earlier. Even though he had dragged me into that conversation about Alice, I had felt slightly less angry after it was over. I doubted that Brynna could comfort Alice but I knew that James could talk me down.

  But I didn’t want to be talked down. I was right. No one would tell me otherwise.

  “Fine.” Brynna sighed heavily.

  In my fury, I had pulled the zipper of the tent roughly but still hadn’t closed the flap all the way. Through the open space I saw her roll on top of him and lean down to kiss him quickly as he laid beneath her.

  “Be safe. Holler if you need me.”

  “I’ve got this. I can handle myself quite efficiently, Mr. Maxwell.”

  “I know you can.” He reached up and moved her hair away from her face. “But just in case, right?”

  She kissed him again and crawled out of the sleeping bag. He watched her walk off into the darkness of the trees that surrounded our clearing.

  “You’re wrong!” James called back to me from outside.

  “I am not!”

  I heard him chuckle softly to himself.

  “Ah, the arrogance of youth.”

  “Your little girlfriend is like, three years older than me. So I’m sure you see the arrogance of youth a lot.”

  “I do. That doesn’t mean that I’m not bemused by it. Have a good night, Quinn.”

  I knew that he wasn’t going to sleep because Brynna was out in the woods. He wouldn’t allow his guard to drop until she was safely back with him. I should have felt the same protectiveness over Alice. But my feelings for her were evaporating quickly. I never could have foreseen such a change in our relationship. I had thought naively that we would be together forever. Now, I knew that the chances of that actually happening were almost nonexistent.

  I knew exactly what my parents had known all along. Though it hadn’t been different college choices, different life goals, or even outside hatred of interracial relationships that had torn us apart, we had still been torn apart. They had always known it would happen though they had never known that it would happen exactly the way it had.

  “Well, if you’re listening,” I thought, “I want you to know that you were right. You never could have known that we would end up here. But you did know that in the end, I wouldn’t love her anymore. So you were right. I just want you to know that.”

  I sensed that in some far off place unknown to the living, my parents felt no joy in response to my admittance of failure or even in my acknowledgment of their wisdom that had been so spot-on. It felt almost as though we had their approval finally but that it made no difference now.

  I felt that if they could change the course of events, they would not have spared themselves. They would have held Alice and me together. We needed each other now, they believed. We were all we had.

  I turned over on my side and closed my eyes, shutting out those beliefs I knew to be factual. I forced myself to view them as just rambling speculations.

  But in the deepest part of my heart, I knew that they were communicating with me somehow. Just before I shut out their transparent voices, I heard one last thing spoken by my father:

  “…before it’s too late.”

  Violet

  Maura’s face tumbled around in my mind as I slept. The usual warmth that accompanied seeing her was absent, as though it had never existed to begin with. Now, all I felt was a rolling nausea as I thought about her abandonment; she had chosen our father, who would never love her, over us, who always would.

  Brynna would call it desperation. They had been young when they were in love. In fact, Maura, in her drunken state, once admitted to Brynna that he was the only man she had ever loved. I knew that wasn’t true. Maura had been married once before, to my father’s best friend, who was a good man. I remembered him so fondly as bringing us presents and telling us stories about his trips overseas. While power had corrupted my father, it had never corrupted Michael. How Maura couldn’t love him was beyond my realm of understanding.

  Maura lusted after my father with no shame in her actions. Long after he was married to my mother, she still carried a torch for him. It wasn’t a low-burning flame about to snuff out with one strong wind. It was a full-fledged inferno. I was beginning to see my father and Maura the way Brynna always had.

  Perhaps that was unwise, to feel as Brynna felt. I knew that through all the hatred and disdain, there was a tiny hurt inside of her that was the direct result of the way everything had played out. I had never been on the receiving end of Maura’s bitterness but Brynna certainly had.

  Admitting that I was fascinated by my sister’s odd personality was easy. I spent plenty of time musing on it. I understood now that I was older exactly what had bred such animosity. Admitting that I pitied her, even slightly, was a hard pill to swallow. Brynna needed no one’s pity and if she knew she had mine, it would infuriate her.

  Penny was so easy to understand because she was young. Elijah was complicated in his own right but since he had escaped much of the emotional storm by shutting himself in his room, he fared better than Brynna. Her distrust and her anger were spun around endlessly in her always moving mind. The way she spoke and the way she embraced such iciness were her defense mechanisms.

  I hadn’t understood that before. It took feeling the harsh sting of Maura’s abandonment for me to understand. I couldn’t imagine the feeling amplified three-fold; Maura, my mother and my father had all cut off their love for Brynna at the same time. I couldn’t imagine that kind of pain.

  I decided that if I saw her again, I would give her and James my blessing. If she was able to trust him, then I absolutely should have been able to as well. Of course, I had heard some stories about him from the other survivors that were not complimentary. But if I asked about the allegations that were made, I was sure that he’d be more than willing to explain himself.

  I knew they had found their way back to each other, the same way I knew a lot of things. I just knew.

  He made her happy. I saw her smile and laugh genuinely for the first time in so many endless years. When I was around, she tried to hide her happiness but I could always see it. If there was one thing she couldn’t keep hidden, it was the joy she felt when she was with James. She deserved that, especially after what had happened with Lucien.

  Elijah would see it differently. He would never approve of James. He would insist that in the end, James would only end up hurting her. She deserved sure, never-ending happiness. No gambling would be acceptable. It had to be sure.

  I awoke from my sleep to see a shape looming over me. My heart skipped a beat and I opened my mouth to scream, only to find that the sound had been cut off as though someone was grasping my throat. My hand flew up to touch my neck; I didn't feel a hand wrapped around it.

  “It’s me!” A familiar voice whispered and my fear calmed upon hearing it. I closed my eyes and reached up to touch his face; touching his distinct facial features was the only way I could be sure that what my hands felt matched the mental image I had of him and the voice that had spoken.

  Nick.

  “It’s gone mad back at camp! I ran in he
re after you because it’s not safe there anymore!”

  “How did you find us?” I whispered after sitting up. “We’ve been looking for Brynna all day and haven’t been able to find her.”

  “Remember when I told you that you smelled good? Well, somehow, I was able to follow your scent! I smelled it the minute I walked into the woods.”

  “That’s crazy.” I whispered, “Can you smell Brynna?”

  “I’ve never met her. I don’t know what she smells like.”

  “Oh.”

  “Are you alright? Have you seen those people in here?”

  “Not yet.” I shook my head even though he couldn't see me. “But I know they’re around. Can’t you feel them?”

  “Yes. It’s like they’re all around us but I can’t see them, you know?”

  “I know.” I replied as I looked around into the endless darkness. The moon had moved further away from us, taking its natural lighting along. We wouldn’t be able to see until morning. For all we knew, the reason we could feel the natives lurking in the trees was because they actually were surrounding us. They could attack at any minute and we’d have no time to prepare.

  “It’s dangerous to be sleeping out here in the open.” Nick warned me delicately. It was as though he had read my thoughts. “They can see in the dark.”

  “I didn’t know that.”

  “Yeah, they didn’t come to the campsite until later tonight. Your father made us put out our fires. It was the stupidest thing we could have done because we couldn’t see them. The moon was too far away to give us any light.”

  “So they just attacked you in the dark?”

  “Yeah, and they didn’t miss the people they were going after. They went right to them. They didn’t need any light to see, so they can see in the dark. That's what I think, anyway. There isn't another explanation for how they could see.”

  I shuddered and pulled my dirt-covered sweater around me. The days were mild but the nights were freezing-cold on Pangea.

  “Did they only take ten?”

  “No. Tonight, they took twenty. After they were gone, there was this huge fight. Your dad was trying to keep people calm but he only made it worse. People don’t trust him anymore. Not all people, anyway. The group is splitting up tomorrow.”

  “Where are they going?”

  “I don’t know. They don’t know, either. They’re just going, I think. They’re just getting out of the open.”

  “Don’t the natives know that we have nowhere else to go? We can’t go back to Earth. It’s gone.”

  “I know,” Nick replied, “Trust me, I’d love to go home now.”

  “Remember the other day when we were talking about Germany?”

  “Yeah.” I could hear him smiling.

  “I always said that if I went to Europe, I wanted to see Paris, Rome and London. But I definitely would add Germany to the list.”

  “You’d love it. I know I did.” There was a long pause before he spoke the words that we both were thinking. “The final days on Earth were so chaotic that we didn't think this through completely. All we thought about was surviving another day. We just wanted to still be standing after everything was over. Even during all of that, though, I really did think that coming to another planet would be great. But I’d give anything to go home now.”

  I was thankful for the darkness because tears began to leak from my eyes. I swallowed hard before taking a deep breath. I didn’t expect Nick to comfort me. I wouldn’t even put him into the position where he felt like he had to embrace me or offer me kind words of reassurance. So when I spoke, I made sure that my voice was steady.

  “Me too.”

  “I upset you.”

  What the hell?

  “I can see you.” He explained.

  “You can see in the dark, too?”

  “Yes. Try it. Just focus on it. Tell yourself that you need to be able to see.”

  I closed my eyes and tried. Sure enough, when I opened them, I could see. It was like peering through a lens when the camera was set to night vision. The only difference was that details were not glossed over. In fact, they were crystal clear.

  “Weird, isn’t it?”

  I nodded.

  “The natives can see in the dark and now we can, too.” I looked up at him, “That is really weird. Do you think we’re turning into them?”

  I watched him look off, his face contorted into an expression of great concern. He had been contemplating that, too. I expected him to lie in order to spare my feelings. I didn’t think that he would want to worry me. But instead, he opted for honesty.

  “I think so. I think it’s in the air here. We’re becoming Pangean.”

  “I don’t want to be Pangean.”

  “Neither do I. I read so many American comic books as a kid. X-Men, Green Lantern… You know what I’m talking about, ja?”

  I nodded. I had been friends with a couple of guys whose whole lives revolved around raiding comic book stores for “hidden treasures”, as they called them. They were the biggest nerds that I had ever met but they were also my very best friends. I had enjoyed our excursions to the store, our rambling excitement that was shared so willingly with the workers, and our hours spent reading silently within the safe confines of my indoor patio.

  “You’re way too cool to be a girl.” One of them had told me.

  I had laughed in response.

  “You just haven't met any cool girls yet.”

  I was smiling slightly at those memories. I remembered so vividly the colors of the pictures and the intricate stories. I had been a nerd. Miranda always made fun of me for it. Even though she was smart, she was a Justin Bieber fan who spent hours painting her nails and styling her hair. We had been so different. After existing for so long within the confines of high school, though, I believed that we were exactly the same.

  My smile faded as a suffocating realization took hold of me: All of those people were dead. I hadn’t thought about it in those terms before. But every last one of my friends was gone. The finality of it took my breath away, leaving my grasping my chest as I struggled to draw in one unchallenged breath.

  Nick was so lost in his thoughts that he didn't notice the sudden change in my mood.

  “I read all of those things and thought it would be so cool to have powers. Sometimes, especially in X-Men, they wanted to be normal. I didn’t understand it. How could you want to be normal when you were special, right? But now, I do understand. We’re changing over into what the natives are and I’d give anything to go back. Go back to Earth, go back to just being human.”

  Hearing him talk had lulled me back into calmness. His voice and his words were so delicate, though I'm sure that sounds strange. The content of what he was saying was a welcome distraction, too.

  “Comfort in normalcy.” I wiped at my eyes, wondering if I had muttered that phrase to him or in response to my internal musings about him. To avoid that heavy mental conversation, I addressed what he had said. “I feel the same way. I keep asking myself what I would have done if I knew everything I know now and Brynna came to me, telling me we had to leave the earth. I don’t know if I would have gone.”

  “I think you would have. I know I would have. I wouldn’t have wanted to die. I’ll take having powers and being hunted by natives over dying. Even if we’re running from them, at least we’re still alive to run, you know?”

  I did know. It was an almost paradoxical statement and yet I totally understood what he was saying. I agreed wholeheartedly.

  “We’ll find your sister, Violet. I found you.”

  I nodded again and leaned into him. He wrapped his arm around my shoulders and we stayed clasped together, protecting each other from the cold of the night and our own regrets and fears. When dawn broke, my eyes switched over to normal. I scanned the trees around us, seeing no one hiding amongst the fading darkness. Penny awoke a few minutes after the light began to descend on us. Elijah snored away and I let him; he needed to sleep.

&
nbsp; “Hi, Nick,” Penny greeted him with a wide smile, “Look, I lost a tooth!” She pointed into her mouth proudly.

  “Oh, look at that!” Nick replied as he bent down to observe the gap. “Did you leave it under your pillow for the...”

  I gestured to him madly behind Penny's back, mouthing, “No! No!” But Penny was smart enough to have already picked up exactly what Nick was about to say.

  “Vi told me that the tooth fairy doesn’t live on Pangea. She says that maybe there’s a different fairy that brings other stuff. I didn’t get anything. So I think she’s wrong. But it’s okay because I haven’t seen any stores. So I don’t think that I need money. And what other stuff could I get besides toys? I really wanted this singing thing I saw in the store back home...”

  And away she went… Penny rambled to Nick enthusiastically about everything from her lost tooth to the way Elijah passed gas in his sleep. Nick was cracking up through that particular conversation. I turned my head away, trying not to show how hard I was laughing, too. Elijah would be mortified to learn that Penny shared that information with a semi-stranger so freely and that made it all the funnier.

  “And we’re looking for Brynna. We need to wake up Elijah so we can find her. I still haven’t told her about my tooth! Well, I haven’t told her because I haven’t seen her. But when we find her, Violet says she’s going to be so excited! I think she will be, too. Hang on a second, okay?”

  She walked over to Elijah and shook him with both hands.

  “Wake up, Eli! We have to go find Brynna.”

  Elijah sat up abruptly, almost smacking into her head with his own. Luckily, she dodged out of the way in a blur of movement. Nick looked back at me, eyes and mouth opened wide in shock. I nodded and shrugged.

  “Her, too?” He whispered to me.

  I nodded again and suppressed a smile.

  “What’s going on?” Elijah asked groggily as he looked around. His eyes stopped on Nick.

  “Hey, man. How the hell did you find us?”

  “Hey. It's a long story.” Nick replied, “How’s your digestion?”

  I snorted through my nose as I tried not to laugh. But the hilarity overtook me; I leaned forward to rest my face against my legs and giggled uncontrollably.