Shadae
2134. The year everything went wrong. The world is changing; you could say the earth is dying. Regret always comes too late; people didn’t want to believe that there was nothing we could do about the situation of the earth. So we decided to throw an election. That’s the only thing we do nowadays and nothing good comes out of it. This time wasn’t an exception, we voted for a new president, an idiot I might say, he had great plans for the earth he said.
Choosing president Cromwall was the second mistake we humans made. The ‘great plans’ he was talking about, were only great for rich people or people with important positions. They were shipped to Mars, were they could keep living their lifestyle. All the others? Well they stayed here, on our dying earth.
In the past you could do everything, why people didn’t see it and choose to throw it away that’s beyond me. Everything humanity has ever known is gone, we live in poverty, misfortune and garbage. It all began with the civil war after the election of the new president, everybody was living in peace or what you could call peace here on earth. Of course when people saw that Cromwall wasn’t doing what he said he was going to do they began to protest. First it were little things like a strike but it developed to a civil war. The civilians lost and everything was destroyed. Trees are hard to find, which makes breathing very hard because of the lack of oxygen in the air. Animals, they all flee and never return. I have never seen a butterfly in my live and hardly any birds. Here and there you see maybe a rabbit if you are lucky. The outcome of it all is that we are now under the regime of President Cromwall, whether we like it or not.
The world is a mess, it’s one big giant ball of chaos and I actually just want to laugh at the horrible and beautiful chaos it really is. We get so blinded when our eyes can’t bear to see the things us humans do or have done. Not only the nature changed but even we humans evolute. The air is contaminated and people are giving birth to a new kind of human. Humans with special abilities, myself included. They have to hide from the government or they get slaughtered. Because we are different and they are scared that we could be more powerful than them.
“Alia”, says Brody in a manner of introduction. Stopping my train of thoughts I ask him: “Has it already been 3 hours?” He nods. “Hey, have you seen Onyx lately? I haven’t seen him in 15 days, since he went to check on Stella.”, I ask him before I went downstairs.
“No haven’t seen him in a while maybe you should ask Kian. Ooh before I forget he asked if you wanted to learn how to shoot.” He blows into his hands so they would warm up. I frown.
“He knows I already know how to shoot.”
Brody laughs, something I hadn’t seen in awhile. It’s a full-blown laugh, he throws his head in his neck and shows his pearl white teeth. “How could you be so oblivious? He clearly wants you Alia, from day one and you are giving him the cold shoulder.” Now it was my turn to laugh. “Of course, as if player Kian wants anything to do with little old me.”
I enter the room, the warmth hits me in the face like an avalanche. This is the centre of life in our little accommodation. The twins are both playing a new video game on their play station and kept shouting at each other. In the corner of the room are Mike and Becca sucking each others face of, as usual. Hannah is cooking a meal with meat, something that you don’t see often. I’m talking about the meat not, the cooking.
The four remaining guys are staring at it as if it’s a unicorn. Only Kian is missing, he probably is in the shooting ranch like Brody said. With nobody to talk to I decide to help Hannah, not like any of the guys were any help to her.
“Hey”, I begin to her. She smils to me. I have been living here for 8 months now and I rarely speak to any of them. I’m more of an observer than a talker, and they can’t know about my ability. They would give me up to the government in a heartbeat. The only two people I talk to are Kian and Onyx.
“Can I help?”, I continue in a small voice. She nods, “you can cut the vegetables”, she answers while pointing towards the carrots and broccoli.
Our small talk ends quickly, which makes things pretty awkward. So I decide to turn up the radio. A big mistake on my part, they are talking about the Shadae again. I hate it so much, always the same propaganda. They promise the people who turn Shadae in, that they can go to Zenith. Which is total nonsense, they don’t want pour people there. Of course, hoping for a better life, everybody takes the change and if you have an ability that isn’t useful to them, than they slaughter you. Me? I wouldn’t last a second.
“Does anybody know where Onyx is?”, I attempt to start the conversation. But to be honest I was getting worried. Onyx doesn’t just disappear.
Luis was the one to speak up. “Isn’t it obvious? He was sick of you walking behind his ugly ass”, he loudly replies.
“You know, you should really invest in a zipper for your mouth”, I sigh with a deadly serious face and go to my room. I hear the whole room going
wild. Normally I wouldn’t have opened my mouth but I’m sick of him. The only thing he is good at is being an annoying asshole.
Maybe they are right, Onyx is the only one who knows about my condition. He himself is Shadae, his ability is the ability to disappear. Which comes in handy sometimes. But now he’s overdoing it. Gone for fifteen days and not telling anybody? He normally comes back after three.
I’m going to ring his mom just in case. It rings and rings and rings and just as I wanted to give up and lay down the black worn out horn, the cutest little voice answered. “Hello, with whom I speaking?”, she asks with a lisp.
“Hello dear, it’s Alia. A friend of Onyx, is he there?”
“No, he is not. He left me here again”, she says in a sad voice. “Mommy, says he needed to go because he needed to defeat the bad guys.”
“Really, when was that?”
“I don’t know, maybe 6 days ago.”
“Okay, thank you sweety. If you see Onyx could you tell him that I’m worried and that I’m looking for him?” I hear a soft giggle.
“Don’t worry Alia, Onyx always says he is a really though and a big boy and he can fight really really good”, she declares.
I smiled to myself she is so cute and of course that Onyx says those things to her. “Yes yes I know. Bye Stella”, I say cheerfully. Just as I lay down the horn, Kian bursts into my room and falls down in my duct-taped beanbag. A few tiny white balls escape and hide under the dresser alongside a crowd of dust bunnies.
“Didn’t Brody tell you I was waiting for you in the shooting ranch?”, he hints. I sigh, his chocolate brown eyes fixate on me, following my every move. I fall back on my bed, and pick my book up. “I’m not in the mood for shooting”, I reply boringly.
“You are so lazy, only reading and laying in bed”, He laughs.
“Hey! Lazy is such an ugly word, I prefer the term selective participation.”
He just stares at me, with a small smile the size of Jupiter. ‘What?’, I ask warily. What is he thinking about? Kian and thinking is not good. “There is a spider in your hair, this big”, he illustrates what he is talking about with his hands. My eyes went wide open and I just start screaming, jumping, hitting my own head. That must have been a sight. I hear laughter coming from the tattooed boy. Really? Another stupid joke? I started running towards him.
“Wait, let me go!”, he yells while I tickle and hit him. “This is rape! Onyx, help me!”, he yells in a girly voice.
I immediately stop hitting him. He lays there on the ground for a minute, laying on his stomach. “Do you know where he is?”, I ask in a small voice. I actually quite miss him, he is the one who saved me and since that they I haven’t been more than a week apart from him. He shrugs.
*****
Hearing your parents talk about turning you in… that hurts. Their own child. I turned around and ran upstairs springing over the steps that made a noise. I can’t let this happen, I need to go just need to go.
I packet as fast as I could and only one backpack. Not thinking about it very much I throw a few socks and a big sweater in a backpack. Little did I know that you need way more stuff to survive .
*******
“Maybe we could go look for him? What do you say?”, I whisper to Kian. We are eating dinner together and I don’t want anybody to hear this and make fun of me again.
He nods. “I’m in. We can start tonight if you want? I know the last time I spoke to him he went to a party in Chicago. We could go to one of those party’s?”, he asks me with a mouth full of spaghetti.
For the second time this year I am packing a backpack, I don’t know if we are coming back tonight. With a 4 hours walk ahead of us, I’m silently cursing to myself. Why Onyx couldn’t go to a party a little closer. I was putting some make-up in my backpack when Kian almost falls into my room, giving me a heart attack in the process. “Can you never open the door like a normal human being?”
He just smirks in a manner of a respond. “You’ll need this”, he throws 4 neon-coloured tubes on my backpack. I’m confused, why would I need these? “These parties are neon-themed”, He answers my thoughts.
“Come we need to go!”, he yells excited and pretty much jumps out of my high window, which is 2 floors high. He’s crazy.
My feet are burning so hard, that it feels like I’m walking on pure bone. The full moon is low in the sky, its serenity made me calm. It’s always there just watching steadfast. It has seen us in light and dark moments. Every day it’s a different moon, sometimes weak and sometimes strong and full of light. The moon, I feel, understands what it is to be human. Alone and scarred by imperfections. It’s so cold, I’m shivering and try not to chatter with my teeth. I am not really paying attention to where we are going because I don’t really know my way around. So I‘m following Kian blindly, when he stopq I don’t notice and run into him. I’m catapulted 3 meters back. Kian looks at me as if I had grown 2 heads. “Why are you suddenly on the ground Alia?” Was he really mocking me?
“Man are you made of concrete or what?”, I yelled to him over the blazing wind. He helps me up and whispers in my ear: “We’re here.”
There is so much fog that I didn’t notice the city. “Where is the party? Is there going to be anybody with this bad weather? Nobody wants to come outside now right?”, I ask him. He laughs. That building over there. He pointed to a low one story building, it looks like an worn out warehouse.
“What are we going to do with our stuff?”, I ask him.
“I know a guy that works there, he will keep it for us.” When we arrive at the place I see the big line in front of the entrance. No way that I’m going to stand here for over 2 hours, slowly becoming an icicle. I voice my thoughts to Kian. ‘No problem, just come with me.” He just skips the whole line and goes straight to the bouncer. “You okay Kian?”, the guy asks, “she’s with you?” Kian just simply nods. How does he know so many people here?
After giving our stuff the someone behind the bar, they gave us some paintbrushes and we decide to paint our faces and our arms. Sadly there were no mirrors so we needed to do it with eachother and trust one another. Something that’s very hard because come on it’s Kian. You can’t trust the guy with anything. So after he was done, I asked to 4 different people if he did something to my face. The response was 4 time negative. Kian, the guy who always fools around, being serious for once. Everybody stop what you are doing and call the radio!
The lights go from blood red to grass green and night blue. The red lasers shine everywhere. Everywhere you look you see neon-coloured skin. The music is hard and the crowd goes crazy. The bass of the techno is hurting my ears. My black Hardrock T-shirt didn’t really belong in this establishment but nobody seems to care. Nobody stars at me like most people do when they see me, everybody was just having a good time. My T-shirt is sticking to my back because of the sweat. My hair reeks of smoke and alcohol, it’s hanging in wavy tangles over my shoulders.
I lost Kian long ago and decide to get a drink and look around. I go to the bar and take place on a very wobbly barstool. The barman smiles at me. “What can I get you?”, He yells above the music. “A beer please”, I yell back.
“You are the girl that’s with Kian, right?”, he asks me while he’s tapping my beer. I nod. “On the house”, he says and winks at me. I instantly blush. My flirting skills are pretty much non-existing so I decided to just be normal, just be cool and chill Alia. The guy bents over the bar to be closer to my ear. “So how come this is the first time you come with Kian?” His lips brush my ear and a shiver goes down my spine. This was clearly someone who knows what he’s doing.
“I came because I’m searching for a friend of mine. He went missing. Maybe you know him, Onyx Johnson?”, I ask. He laughs, “Of course I know him. He made quite a scene last week. He was fighting. He beat the shit out of some guy, I don’t exactly know why. But my guess it had something to do with a girl.” A girl? Which girl? I frown, the more I think about it the more I realise that I don’t really know much about Onyx’s old life here in Chicago.
“I saw him talking to his best friend from back in high school. I don’t remember her name but you should go to the Ivy. It’s a pub here in town, the girl works there as a waitress.” I nod and wanted to say thank you to him. But his mind was elsewhere, more specifically the cleavage of a girl who wanted to order.
We had enough information, we had a lead. We could go to the pub tomorrow in the early evening. I sigh, how am I ever going to find Kian? I jump back into the crowd and immediately I feel a little claustrophobic. There are just to many people here, sweaty bodies are pressed up against mine and the smell of alcohol and sweat is thick in the air. The flashing lights were nearly blinding.
I feel a body pressed to every inch of my back. And just as I was going to push the guy away, he whispers in my ear: “You look good with all that paint on you.” He is clearly drunk. “We could go back to the apartment and paint the rest of your body”, he hints. I turn around and look him in the eye. His eyes are trying to focus on my face and I laugh. He will so regret this in the morning.
“You have a dirty mind Mister Stone”, I try to avoid his suggestion.
“I don’t have a dirty mind”, he states all serious. “I have a sexy imagination.”
A cheerful laugh comes out of my mouth, I feel his chest vibrate against mine that indicates that he’s laughing to.
The next day and a big hang over on Kian’s part we make it to the Ivy. Which is an Irish pub right in the middle of the city. The pub is right in between the biggest worn out skyscrapers of Chicago. It isn’t how I remembered it from visiting my aunt, when I was 7 years old. The river is dried up now and goes through the city like an old scar.
We take place on two barstools on a ton. There was a band playing some songs, this is what I really like. I always like going to nightclubs, but nothing can beat the pubs. I nod my head at the beat and snap my fingers around.
The waitress comes to our table. “What can I get you?”, she asks in a bored tone. “Two beers please, can I ask you something?”, I blurt out. She looks up and waits for me to continue. “Do you know a guy named Onyx? He has dark brown hair and green eyes”, I ask hopefully. “No, I don’t but Ashley does.”
The girl she’s pointing to was a pretty tall blond. She is standing at the tap. “Thank you I said and walked up to her. I hear the heavy footsteps of Kian following me. I take place on a barstool right in front of her.
“Hey there, you know Onyx right?”, I ask her. She looks a bit taking aback at first. “Yes, why?”
“Well he’s missing, we haven’t seen him in over 15 days”, I continue.
“Really? He was here last week. The last time I saw him was after a night out at Horizon. He was fighting with a guy for god knows what. He looked very miserable, so I went outside with him and eventually he went in the direction of the woods. That’s the last time I saw him.”
******
Stares.
Whispers.
Wide Eyes.
Avoidance.
These are all common actions that people send me as I walked through the halls. It had been one week since I had almost killed someone. I felt disgusted with myself and just wanted to die.
The moment I touched the guy, I felt the power oozing through my arm. I really didn’t meant to do it. But everybody knew at this point that I’m Shadae. Something I had hidden for over 6 years now since the first time I noticed I had those powers
I still remember the cold ineffable felling of draining someone’s life force away from them. I felt his water leave his body and evaporate into mine. I need to leave as soon as possible. It’s won’t take long for Sector 20 to come and get me.
********
A light breeze blew through the ghostly forest. The leaves rustle and the trees hiss, whispering secrets to each other. The forest appears to exhale then hold its breath. It’s as quiet as a graveyard at midnight. Nothing scurries or burrows. The trees stop swaying and freeze, as if they’re hiding something.
I get the chills just walking around. There is nothing here. It’s almost ghostly hearing the forest without any animal noises. I remember them when I was very little, there were a few left. But they still were there. It almost feels unnatural hearing nothing but the leaves blowing in the wind.
“Kian? Can we go? It’s not as if he stayed here the past week”, I whisper, afraid to talk any louder.
“What did the girl say the guy looked like?”, he asks me on the way back to the apartment we broke into.
“A tall, dark handsome middle aged man. She thought it was his father”, I say back in my normal voice.
“Impossible, he hasn’t seen his father in 8 years. He can’t be in Chicago”, Kian objects.
“Open up!” There is a loud knock on the door.
“Open up, this very instant!”, I hear again. I zip up my backpack when there was another knock. Kian and I look at eachother. Three seconds later I hear the door shatter into a thousand pieces. I see the wood splinters splashing in the room. As fast as I can I climb through the window. It’s 5 floors high, I wouldn’t survive this if I jump.
Think fast.
I hang on the windowsill next to Kian who followed me. “What now?”, he mouths at me. My muscles in my arms are starting to ache. I put my fingers between the grooves of the bricks where the cement had fallen out because of old age. I feel how my right fingerless glove is getting wet. Red. My fingers are bleeding. I climb aside to the pipe. My boots try to get a grip on the smooth stones. I hear different noises coming from the apartment. I’m finally there and grab the pipe and slide down, my gloves become very hot and because of the speed are torn apart. Great, I burned my hands in the process. I’m followed by Kian, who was surprisingly graceful.
I hear the pounding feet of the soldiers at the entrance of the building. The building itself was worn out and it’s inhabited by different unregistered civilians.
The unregistered civilians are mostly deserted soldiers, escaped prisoners and people like me. The Shadae. With that thought in mind we run to the endless derelict land.
********
The winter had came early and I saw my own breath in clouds in front of me. I didn’t feel my nose, toes and fingers anymore. My hand was not yet healed because I didn’t have any water on me.
Healing myself is one of the powers water gives me. But I need a lot of energy and water for that. Three things I didn’t had to spair.
I was pretty much freezing to death, I had only been away from my home away from everything I know for maybe 6 days or maybe 7. I lost track of time, everything went by very slow and fast at the same time. I was starving to death that much I know.
“What are you doing?”, whispered a voice to me. I looked around confused. I was hiding in one of the abandoned apartments, hoping for some warmth. But no luck. ‘Don’t just sit, there the soldiers know you are here. “You are pretty bad at hiding you know? I think everybody with a normal set of brains would send soldiers on a girl who crawls in an abandoned apartment. Don’t you think?”
********
We have been walking for hours. We know we went the wrong way, when I see my biggest nightmare, we just walked 4 hours North instead of South. Right in the middle of an old town is Sector 20 located. How the hell were we going to hide, the town consists of mostly the Barracks camps in the middle of a park and maybe 20 houses in total. Behind the Barrack camps is an enormous building where a giant wall is built around. The headquarters of sector 20.
******
“You know? I’m really glad I found you that day.” he says while playing with my fingers. I look up at him, his eyes watching my every move. Taking in everything and giving away nothing. It was as if I was trapped there in his intense gaze, locked in the electric field that seemed to surround us. I smile at him. “Me too.” The golden spots in his green eyes expand when he smiles back at me. With my breath catched in my throat I look at him, how can someone be so perfect?
You know the feeling of being in love, it’s horrible. It happens in a heartbeat, a throbbing moment. It makes you so vulnerable and opens op your heart. Which means that someone can get inside en mess you up. I turned around and placed my chin on his chest and I truly made the time to look at him. He has his arms behind his head and is looking up at the ceiling now. “What are you thinking about?”, I asked curiously.
“Why do you read so much?”, he asks me out of nowhere. He’s trying to chance the subject. “Don’t chance the subject, just tell me what’s going on in that head of yours”, I say while going through his hair.
He sighs. “Okay but you need to answer my question after I explain” , he says looking at me. His eyes are sad, a big contrast to a few minutes ago. I just nod.
“You know I still visit my mother and my little sister right?” I nod again. He takes a long pause and sits up. We were sitting indian-style in front of each other. He can’t look me in the eye, and keeps looking at his hands.
“I’ve never shown anyone this”, he says with a wavy voice. “When I was 13 I found out I could become invisible. It happened at the diner table on Christmas. Of course everybody was panicking because they just knew that when the government found out. They would kill me, but my father didn’t care. You know he is in the military, stationed in Sector 20. He wanted my gift to go away, because it was just an evil spirit possessing me. So he tried to beat it out of me.”
He looks up at me wit tear-filled eyes. I didn’t know what to say, and nothing that I could have said would make any difference. So I didn’t say anything and just looked at him. Onyx, the boy who rescued me and helped me. The boy who always has my back and looks out for everybody. I always thought he was just taking what life gave him and he didn’t need anyone. But the truth is he is still a scared little boy who needs someone. Just as I need him. I gave him a half-hearted smile and gave him a hug. He picked me up and placed me on his lap. Hugging me as if his life depended on it.
“Can I see them?”, I ask referring to the scars. He nods and takes of his T-shirt. I climb of his lap and go sit behind him. His back is full of them, I study them. White lines are covering every inch of his back. They are the words that he can’t say, stories he doesn’t know how to describe. But he doesn’t need to, I understand him in every way.
He tries to lift the mood up with a fake laugh. “Now your turn”, he says while he puts his T-shirt back on. “Well, it’s not a fantastic thrilling reason. I just like reading because I believe that words are unpredictable creatures. No weapon or person will ever be more powerful than a sentence or a book. Knifes may cut and kill, but words stab you in the heart and stay there. They bury themselves in our bones.”
He laughs: “Wow you are poetic today.” Our previous conversation forgotten.
*******
We searched for something like a shelter. We found not really anything, so we just hid behind a garden shed. Not really the warmest place to shelter. Just as I wanted to ask Kian something I hear a voice. Two soldiers are patrolling the streets and they stop right in front of us. They didn’t see us so we dive behind a bush. I looked at Kian, he was way too relaxed for the situation and smiles at me.
“Lieutenant Johnsons son is stationed here, have you met him?”, I hear the blond one say. Than everything clicked, Onyx’s father is in the military maybe he took Onyx or something?
“No, I heard he is a real pain in the ass of the lieutenant, searching for trouble”, the redhead says. “Yeah but that’s just for fun and laughs…”, the blond one replies. I couldn’t hear the rest of his answer because they walked too far.
“Could Onyx be captured by his father here?”, I ask Kian. He looks darkly at me. “I don’t think so.’”
“Is there a phone I could use?” He nods and gives me his phone. I dial Onyx’s phone number. It goes over and after the second ring he pickes up. Just as he is going to say something I beat him to it. “Onyx, Onyx? Is that you? Where are you?”, I yell into the phone. “Alia, are you okay? Why are you calling from Kian’s phone? Alia, you need to listen to me. Don’t trust him! He’s trying to get you to sector 20.”
“Yeah we are here to look for you”, I reply. He wasn’t making any sense.
“NO! Alia get way from him…”, the phone is snatched away from my hand and Kian’s fist comes into contact with my stomach.
You are small use it, don’t try to overpower someone because you are not strong enough to do that. Onyx’s voice says in my head.
I throw him a punch, but before I knew it darkness surrounds me.
I come to my senses in a small room with a small window. I look outside, I’m in the head quarters of sector 20. What do I do? What do I do? The door opens and in comes Onyx. I sprint to him and throw myself in his arms.
“Where were you! I was worried sick, I looked everywhere for you”, I yell at him. He hushs me: “That’s for later.”
I looked at his outfit. “Why are you dressed as a soldier?”, I ask him. “There is no time. Over 5 minutes you need to look outside the window, open it en jump down. I will be there to catch you”, he says. “Are you crazy?! That’s 4 floors down!”, I whisper yell.
“Trust me okay?”, he says with pleading green eyes before he leaves the room. He is absolutely crazy. I go stand by the window and indeed after 5 minutes he was standing under it. He motioned to me to jump. I can’t. Alia man up this is life or death we are talking about. So I trusted him and just jumped and oozed in the air.
I breaks my fall and we both end up on the ground. He immediately pulled me up and we just ran and ran and ran as fast as we could.
There was nobody following us. Se We sheltered in a little shed on the edge of the town.
“We don’t have much time, I have to be back at my post before they notice that I’m gone. You need to wait here, a friend of mine will come and get you. Her name is Savannah, she will knock 5 times. She will bring you to a safe haven, where more Shadae are sheltering. You can meet other people with abilities and live a normal life instead of hiding from the government”, he explains. I start sobbing.
“I’m not leaving you!”, I yell with tears coming down my cheeks. “Kian will hurt you because you helped me”, I continue. “No, I killed him”, he says deadly serious. I look in shock at him. He wouldn’t do something like that. I know him that’s not who he is.
“I’m going, I’ll be back after my year of service. I promise I will find you”, he says before he closes the door. I’m left there a crying sobbing mess.