Juniper’s eyes
are glued to an electrifying LCD display, her face expressionless, but
in her eyes is a raging fire. A whole different world. Her fingers jump
from one shape unto the next, left and right triggers spamming in
anticipation and haste. Timed at the right interval, calculated but
fired based on the impulses of her reflexes.
“Jun…”
There is no
world outside, there is only the moment, the thrill of the experience.
The hunt. Vibration, humming in her hands. She taps the buttons like her
life depends on it, her body circling like a bull dominating a rodeo. Kill, kill, kill, kill. All you need to do is to kill.
“Juno?”
She twitches,
there is a disturbance, a distraction, it is detrimental. Downright,
dissociating, her eye bugs out, and the world blurs and blends as she
feels a hand touches her skin. She didn’t like being touched. The little
hand was tugging at her. Dragging her away from where she wanted to be.
“Juniper!” her little sister attempts to drag the controller from her, initiating a brief tug of war. “Juno, listen to me…”
“Let go of you
me, little goblin!” She tried pulling her off, but her sibling threw
herself into a path of collision. Sprawling her body all over, clinging
to her face, pinching her cheeks.
“Jun! I’m hungry…”
“Well, you’re nine years old, you whip something yourself up.”
Visible tears
had formed in the younger sibling''s eyes, and her mouth opened, ready to
bawl and moan until her needs were met. She started raking and clawing
at the Juniper’s delicate skin, only irritating her a touch further.
“I can’t eat
another Peanut butter and Jam sandwich, Juno. I’m going to die if I do,”
she sobbed along, her crying canceling out the noise coming from the
monitor. Her immersion died with it. “You…promised you were going to get
me something sweet from the grocery store.”
Juniper’s head
started throbbing when the day started this way, then it was sure to be a
hard time later. Ever since the catastrophe that took them from their
parents. The role of Guardian and caretaker was thrust upon her, taking
care of her two siblings, was an exhausting task. Especially Euphemia.
“But that’s tomorrow Effy, can’t you wait a day…I''m busy right now, and I don''t wanna go outside.”
She started
rolling on the ground, a stress-inducing sight for the older sibling.
Juniper sighed, taking her phone, and pulling up what was left in their
savings. About 9000 credits, it was depleting fast, and there was
anxiety that came with that. She’d been a NEET for most
of her life if you could exclude her school career. Most of their
livelihoods depended on the generosity of the government. She could
never have the courage to work among the public, her fear of being
exposed to a lot of people was devastating, and then there was the cape
who could nuke you if you so much as peer at them in the wrong manner.
It wasn''t an unheard of thing either, forget being stabbed for a single
credit. When in the presence of a cape prepare to grovel to the ground.
If things go on
this way she may have to find a job in public. She dreaded the idea. Her
online plans of being a streamer never went anywhere.
“Juno,” he
called out, from the other room. Distracting her from the little
nuisance beside her. “The social worker tried to contact you again.
She…uhh...wants to discuss our living situation. Again.”
She tensed. She
knew what the woman wanted, to take them away from her. It had almost
happened twice, the previous time, she had been verbally attacked by the
social worker. Who called her unfit and too immature to take on a
parental role. Threatened to take away the Government relief fund, which
would make sure would not only lose them but she would be homeless. In
full mercy of cape ganglords.
“Ignore her,
please. Remy,” she stuttered. Emotional turmoil had built up, but she
refused to show it to her siblings. “I’ll speak with her soon.”
She’d have to find something for herself, soon, which scared her as all the super freaks ran about outside, in the city.
“Remy, if push
comes to shove…I,” she started. Her frail brother started coughing
again, leaning against the doorframe, his knees went weak. She ran over
as quickly as she, holding him by the shoulder. “Did you take your
medicine?”
He nodded. A
mistlike smoke left his lungs. His face grew paler, and his already thin
frame went limpish. Psychic sickness. A testament to the catastrophe
that ruined all their lives. Something she didn''t want to think about.
“I’m fine, I
just need to lie down for a bit.” he worked out of his mouth. Which in
itself was a chore for him. He''d keep quiet mostly.
Effy clung to
his leg. As if she was attempting to comfort his pain. Juniper’s heart
sank, the weight of their future hung on her shoulders.
It is too much.
She carried him
towards his room, keeping a slow pace as much as he could muster. She
laid him down on the soft bed, tugging him in. Staring at the amount of
medicine he had left, he was running low on pills. Another worry for
later. Another stress for her to think about.
Her brother
stared at her with the widest smile she had seen all week. She ruffled
his messy hair. Giving him a kiss on the forehead. She couldn''t help but
look mopey. “It’s okay, sis, Once I’m done with my studies, I’ll take
care of you both." Comforting and yet it was years off.
“Remy…” Euphemia moaned, tugging at her sick brother. “Jun promised something sweet from the store, but she won’t buy it.”
Her brother
giggled, not knowing how to appease the little girl himself. He didn''t
have the extra tension right now. Best to keep her calm while he is
sickly.
“hmm, I think I’ll go grocery shopping right now.” she gave in. Better to get it over with, than deal with tantrums later. If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.
“Yay!” the girl exclaimed.
“Can you afford to go?” he whispered to her.
“Maybe…”
She knew she’d
had to cut in their savings, their groceries were running thin, so she’d
be forced to go anyway. It was times like this she missed her parents,
they would know what to do. There were all sorts of problems looming
around the corner, yet she has done nothing to try and solve
them. Analysis paralysis.
She beelined to
the front door of the apartment, her eager sister trailing behind. “Can I
come with you?” She held her hands together in a prayer sign. Goggling
her little eyes together, like they were marbles in an ornament. “Pretty
please.”
“No!” she shouted. Making the little girl shake in fright. “It’s dangerous outside, you know this.”
“But…you let me leave when it’s time for school,” she argued with her squeaky voice.
“That’s
different, Euphemia, there are crazy people with crazy powers outside,
when you go to school, you get an armored bus and a police patrol behind
you. It’s not safe.”
The child started hitting the backside of the door.
“But I wanna see the outside world.” she rambled on, pouting. Clambering towards the door.
“No, stay!” she pointed with her finger like she was a little lost puppy. "Go watch a movie or something, play a game."
"But I don''t like video games," she complained.
She slipped
outside. Then briefly shut the door behind her, locking it, she could
feel her tugging at the door calling out to her. She was safe in there,
not that some massive superpowered brute couldn’t break down the door.
She could only pray.
Pray to who and whom
Turning from the
apartment door, instant terror stood in front of her in human form. The
rent lady. Her shoulders dropped, her fingers shuffling, she held her
hands together as the elderly woman confronted her. Social anxiety, a
tight feeling gripping her lungs, her chest heavy. Fear of saying the
wrong thing.
“Juniper,” Her
voice was heavy, ripe with exhaustion. “I hope, your rent will be on
time tomorrow. These days, even the air costs money. And I''m barely
making it.”
Barely making it by with several real estate properties, blasphemous. Fat as a coddled pig. What a witch! She thought, but would never dare to say it.
She nodded. “Of… course, Mrs. Louise.” she struggled to bring out the words. “I will bring it on time.”
“Please do, I’d
hate to be ‘forced to let you go,” she said with a twisted sadness. "Had
to let old Samuel go last week. Life''s hard out here young missy."
Not for you it isn''t. Landlord''s the enemies of the people. And she wasn''t even a communist. They were just generally awful people. Sometimes
it felt like it was just her who had to deal with people like her, but
old Samuel was proof of struggling life outside her apartment door.
“How you is your
brother if I may ask, and the little one. I saw her attempting to climb
up the roof yesterday, best to keep a tight lease on her. Don’t know
who could be swooping by.”
More daytime terrors to add to her long list.
“He’s alright,
just a little under the weather with the condition and all that. As for
Effy, she’s a ''pain'' sometimes, but she’s starting to listen to me, with
a good time.”
The lady’s eyes
went wide with joy, gripping her shoulder awkwardly and whispering.
“Dearie, You should come by sometime, I have ‘natural’ remedies that
could cure even cancer in a decade, but don’t tell the government,
they’d be all over me. Might even ail your brother''s illness.” Juniper
nodded, sweating a drop for every heartbeat.
More like dying in five years. Who knew what she concocted in that old herb room?
Just then one of
her more elegant neighbors walked by, a Japanese woman, someone she had
a crush on, but saw no possible future with. Kanako, she believed her
name was. She wore a stylish office suit and expensive loafers she could
never hope to try and compete with her fashion-wise. A bright smile on
her face as he greeted both of them, walking downstairs.
“Ohayo
gozaimasu,” she said, in fluent Japanese, bowing her head to the two of
them. Her striking features stirred a sleeping devil in her heart. She could only dream of kissing a girl like her.
Juniper bowed her head as well but struggled to utter a word. Feeling
some heat in her face. The rent lady simply stared angrily.
“Strange one that one is, wonder how she got here from China after the whole catastrophe business,” Louise commented loudly.
Ignorance and confidence were a great combination.
Refraining from
saying anything rude, and shaking her head. She made her way to the
damning path of the grocery store. Saying her goodbyes to the landlady
who attempted to cling to the conversation.
The very first
and most frightening thing she saw was another human zooming by. She
knew it was only one of the superheroes patrolling the city. But the
anxiety of being crushed into a pulp wasn’t so far-fetched, she feared
she may die on the streets one of these days.
Entering the
store. “Depotmart.” is a makeshift rip-off of some American superstore
that sprang up when the city-state was brought into existence and
seceded from the unUnited States. It was the cheapest option for her. It
came with great discounts, even though being spotted here by old school
classmates of hers would give her an ample amount of humiliation. What
was important was the survival of her siblings.
The fluorescent
lights of the store were overly bright and cluttered with neon signs, a
sign of a dystopia that has yet to come. Lost of things in the glow,
that she couldn’t afford but wish she could. Grabbing the essentials:
rice, beans, soup stock, and other forms of staple food. She stopped at
the bakery division. Her eyes searching like a drone for a sweet treat,
she grabbed a chocolate cake. It was the cheapest thing she could afford
without draining too much of her savings. Her eyes observed the other
items with jealousy: Things she couldn’t touch or taste.
“I hope you’ll be happy with this Effy, better not complain about it,” she said to herself, and an absent sister... Man, I really need a job. Yet the fear of people and capes made her creep inside her room.
Moving over to
the payment counter, she hesitates over the total. Her hands tremble as
he brings the card down to swipe, hoping there isn’t some complication.
Her eyes were fixed on the receptionist. A beautiful, bright-eyed girl
whose hair was silver, strapped in a ponytail. Was she a cosplayer or
was she naturally like that? She could only wonder. She knew if she was
as beautiful as that, she would be making millions on the internet
selling ‘stuff’. It always was an option, she knew it came morally with a
fault. Her brother didn''t want her to demean herself.
The girl smirked at her, chewing a host of bubblegum. Speaking within her mouth “Thank you. Ma''am”
She nodded,
blushing. There was something strange about it, she seemed very
familiar, though she couldn’t make a recollection. Her mind is filled
with the brain fog of visual novels and action games.
As Jun leaves,
clutching the bag tightly in case a criminal attempts or takes advantage
of her. She strolled, letting out a heavy breath. It’s never as bad as
she made it out to be. Maybe she should be more outgoing, there was only
one way to get rid of the fright.
A deafening loud
explosion rocked the street. The lower floor of a building across the
street explodes into a flurry of shrapnel and rubble. A small static
wave went through her body, like a telepathic cramp. Smoke fills the air
with flames.
Her ears went
deaf for a small moment and then she could hear people start shouting
and screaming. The ground starts shaking, under the shoes that didn’t
fit her, and throws her off balance. The grocery bags fell to the
ground, and she sprang to grab them.
"No, no, no, no, no!!!"
Juniper bent down, attempting to clutch it from the ground, the cake loose from its container, she held the bag on her chest.
“Wrong place at
the wrong time. If only the rent lady didn’t bother me” she muttered
through her panic, not that blaming someone else would make the
situation go away.
Running in the
direction of the parking building. She sees two flying figures, crashing
into each other. One collided with a rooftop, and the other circled to
the ground, as he let out a beam of energy on the street, rupturing the
ground and blocking her path with an eroded tar wall. Water sprayed out
from the underground Sewer system.
“Over here!” A
man shouts from an obscured alleyway at her. Head peeking out of what
looked like a sewer tunnel. It was one of the many shelters the city had
built for civilians in times of crisis.
"Hey, girly. Into the shelter."
She runs across
the road towards the man, hoping she could make it out of there alive.
Her legs hurt with every step, she wasn’t fit for parenting much less
running.
A slick black
oversized car, with spikes on its hood. Starts spinning along the road,
flaming fuel vents crackling along its sides as it storms down the
street. She didn’t notice until it was too late.
The air was
knocked out of her lungs, her body was sent fleeing into the air. She
collided with the hot asphalt, blood leaking from her face. She felt
something break inside of her. Her lungs struggled to breathe. Her
grocery bag went flying away. The cake lay squashed on the ground.
The sound of hot
metal churning about, several car alarms going off, and a woman letting
out a blood-curdling scream all shook her up. Her eyes went wide as she
gasped for air. Adrenalin flooded through her veins.
Juno tried to get up, She couldn’t feel her legs. Lifting herself into a bloody crawl.
I need to go home!
She needed to,
she needed to help her brother, see her sister again. Her sister who she
treated so badly, wanted to hold her in her arms andcoddle her again.
She crept forward, in the direction of the apartment complex.
“Hey! Don’t
move….” An older woman had shouted at her. She ignored the cry. She
couldn’t stop no matter what. Her vision started blurring and everything
started to slow down. She could see nothing but black static. She
didn’t want to die, she had so much she wanted to do, to say. Her last
thoughts settled on her younger sister whom she mistreated, her brother
who could die without proper medical care, and her parents who''d
probably never see her again.
Then the
darkness came but she could hear something as her heart was still
beating. Electrical low, static, very alien, blooping, zapping, and
zooming. It got louder, and it got louder. Then it got really LOUD!!!!
As her life flashes before her eyes,words get type out like her brain was a digital document:
SYSTEM MESSAGE: You Live, but your body is broken. Rest Well.
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