Tomorrow Lost

When I first heard the news, I threw up the near empty contents of my stomach. I was unbelievably disgusted with myself. They told me that everyone was dead. That I had been the one to kill them. Everything within a five mile radius had been obliterated. Every family, house, pet, tree, insect, structure--gone. Destroyed. By me. I recall that I just sat there, crying and dry heaving after I couldn’t vomit any more. Normally the people around you would comfort you; these ones did not. They just continued to stare at me. Coldly. I may have been a child, but I wiped out thousands of people. I did not blame them for their contempt. The worst part was that, years later, I couldn’t remember much of anything. This still sickened me. My mother had died a year before everything, but she was already gone in my memory. I was too young when she had died. Of course, I couldn’t really remember what she looked like without any memorabilia. Then there was Mr. and Mrs. Weiss, it was weird how vividly I could picture them in contrast to everyone else who had played a far larger part in my life. Mrs. Weiss wore too much makeup, perhaps to hide the fact that she was no longer as youthful and beautiful as she used to be. Her graying hair had been dyed an unnatural shade of blonde, and she wore extensions to hide the fact that it was thinning out. Her clothing, perfume, earrings--all were knockoffs. I used to wonder who she was trying to impress. Then there was him. Tall, skinny. He had been with her long enough for her to suck all the marrow out of his bones. Mr. Weiss was incredibly unremarkable. Just a hollowed out husk of a human. Now they were dead. I never got to tell Mrs. Weiss that, when I got scared at night, I’d look out my window and out at her garden that was illuminated by lights. When I gazed at it, everything felt as if it had been fixed. It was so ethereal. Something out of a painting. That was what my sister used to tell me. Yeah, Stella. She was beautiful. We were only half-sisters--her mom, like mine, had died. Only hers was murdered, so I guessed that made it a little worse. But I had tried my best to ignore and deny Stella’s existence while she was still alive. Stella and I hadn’t been close, not until towards the end. That’s what I regretted. Too little, too late. She had seven years on me, and there was more than just that age gap between us. I used to be jealous of Stella; she was perfect in every way and I just... wasn’t. She had friends; everyone loved her. I thought about them everyday. Somehow, my father was always a passing thought. I’d think, “Oh yeah, he was there, too.” My dad, I think, didn’t know how to be a father. Not to me. I was strange. Unnatural. So he ignored me. He kept me at arm’s distance, treating me as if I wasn’t his flesh and blood. I was the person lurking in the corners; I was never in family photos, either. I used to hate him for that. I hated him so much. I mean, I was his child! I didn’t ask to be born. At school, I’d hear about everybody else’s dad. How he did this or that, and how he embarrassed them in front of everyone else. I wished that I had that. I wished that my own father didn’t look at me like I was some sort of monster. “I’m your daughter!” I wanted to scream at him. “Love me. Why won’t you just love me?” But now, in hindsight, he had the right to be afraid of me. I was the one that killed him. And everybody else. The kids at school, their parents, their grandparents, babies, siblings. All my fault. Was it poetic justice that they threw me into this cell? Where everything was white? Just like that day. I remembered how I had woken up in that crater, ash drifting down from the sky like snow. I tilted my head back, staring up at the fluorescent lights and letting them burn my eyes. Why wasn’t there a rewind button? Why couldn’t I go back to the day that I was conceived and tell my parents to wait so that I wouldn’t be born? I should’ve told them what I was going to do, about the lives that I was going to take. I wasn’t the only one of my kind, but I was the only one who had caused such mass destruction. Strangers, that was what we were called--it was not the technical term. A little over two decades ago, we started to appear all over the world. Babies were born with strange gems embedded in their chest and were impossible to remove. It was found out later that the gems gave us powers, the type that superheroes possessed in the comics and that TV shows and movies would portray. Only, we weren’t treated like that. We weren’t supposed to exist. Humans weren’t supposed to be like this. It was wrong. Horrifying. At first, there was hysteria. The government stepped in immediately, taking children away from their parents so that they could be kept away from the public and examined (Read: tested on). With the passage of years, Strangers began to become common. Not every child was born with the gem; we were within the one percentile. But even that was a lot. The government gave the families their children back but kept the facilities open for volunteers who wanted to help “better our understanding”--AKA, become test subjects. Then there were the others who were taken in more forcibly. Ones like me, whose abilities had either jeopardized or taken the lives of people. We were kept in cells, away from the rest of the population. And then there was me, who was even further removed from the rest of the criminals. They had constructed an entire new wing to keep me in. The only plus of being in isolation was that my little box was bigger. It was the size of a bedroom--a small one. When I was ten, they’d given me this room, and now I’d been in here for eleven years. It felt even longer than that. I was only allowed out once a week. Not outside (I was still considered too dangerous for that), but to the lab where they’d run tests on me. Try to understand why I was so powerful. Even among the Strangers, I was an oddball. I had too many powers--when I was younger, I struggled to keep it all in. Everything had been so overwhelming back then. Bright, loud, scary. But now the world had faded into a dull and monochromatic scale. The door to my cell beeped and slid open; a woman strutted in, her nude heels tapping against the tile as she walked over to me. Her short hair bounced, the blonde strands seeming to glow under the fluorescent lights. It was blinding to look at so I averted my eyes. Laura Boyle. She was the only person that I was allowed to talk to (if I even dared speak to anyone else, I’d get punished--and that was the worst) because she was my doctor. She had that position since I first came in. She had been with me the same amount of time that my mother had, maybe longer. It was getting hard to tell. No, now it was longer. Laura held two years over my mother. Laura was currently in her late twenties or early thirties--I was surprised to see someone so young attending to me, but that meant that she was smart. She was more handsome than she pretty; she fit the definition of a woman in power and control. She was taller than most, probably clocking in around six feet. The heels gave her even more height, made her intimidating. The most important thing to know about Laura, though, was that she wasn’t nice--or mean for that matter. She was cold and logical. Efficient. She was the type of person who had a strict schedule that they followed daily. I wouldn’t be surprised if somebody told me that she was a robot. I constantly debated the possibility that she was an AI. It’d be cool if she was. “Hello,” Laura said, her voice clipped. Her steely eyes focused in on mine, lips pressing into a firm line. She wasn’t in a good mood. Why? “Hello,” I whispered in response. “How are you?” No response. She had never answered that question in the eleven years that we had been together. Sometimes, I liked to make up our own conversations. I’d say, “Hey.” Laura would respond with, “Hello, Thea! How are you today?” “Well, I’m doing about as well as you can do when you’ve been trapped in a cell for nearly have of your life.” Maybe not that part. That was too much. But instead, Laura stated, “We have some tests to run today.” I knew that. There were always some tests. Some new experiment. I was waiting for them to start testing products on me. But I guess I wasn’t human enough to be used in that way. Was I even human? Some would beg to differ. Technically, maybe. I wasn’t sure. All of my scientific knowledge was based off what I learned nine years ago in fourth grade. And what I saw on Stella’s science homework and whenever the doctors at the lab would talk about me. Not that I really understood any of it. Laura and I began to walk--she put handcuffs on me today. Further evidence that she was upset about something. I thought that we had reached the point in our relationship where she trusted me enough to know I wouldn’t try anything. Not if I wanted to live another day. I knew what had happened to the others that acted out. Heard the whispers from the others in the room. They didn’t know how good my hearing was. We went to the usual place. A hard, metal chair that I had to sit on. More shackles. Binding me down. The workers moved quickly, as if they didn’t want to be around me for too much longer. I had known them for years (not their names, no name tags, and Laura never referred to them by name). Why were they treating me like some wild animal? Something was wrong. My mind tried to run through the possibilities. They weren’t whispering like they normally did when there was a new inmate. Instead, there was a silence. The sort of somber quietness that would be at a funeral procession. Had somebody died? I debated peeking into one of their minds and finding an answer (this action was very rude though and I did not allow myself to do it), but that was when Laura walked over to check my straps and I noticed something glimmered on her left hand, hiding underneath her clear glove. “You’re getting married,” I realized, eyes bugging. The thought of her, a possible robot, getting married--falling in love, was completely foreign to me. I hadn’t even thought of the possibility that she was capable of feeling emotion. She wasn’t bad looking, so I guessed it was possible for someone to be attracted to her. Physically, sure. Personality wise, Laura was seriously lacking. Laura stiffened. She had never reacted to anything I said, not really. I was mostly met with a slight frown or disapproving gaze--never a full-body reaction. She straightened out, her piercing eyes narrowed into slits. “What?” she demanded. “The ring--” The sound of skin meeting latex echoed throughout. I sat there in shock, my cheek stinging. She slapped me. Hard. Comical-handprint-on-cheek hard. This was new. A different type of pain. Needles, poking and prodding. I was used to that. Not this. Everyone stopped what they were doing and turned to look, equal amounts of surprise on their faces. I didn’t need to use telepathy to figure out what they were thinking. “Watch what you say,” Laura hissed, her voice laced with a venom I had never heard before. “Or we’ll find a way to keep that mouth of yours shut.” I nodded my head numbly. Too confused to really understand what was going on. Or why. No, I knew why. I crossed that barrier that I wasn’t supposed to. We weren’t friends, not even acquaintances. We were strangers. That’s what it was. She knew everything about me and I knew nothing about her. And it’d stay that way. Back in my room, I sat down on the mattress. That was all they had given me to constitute as both a chair and a bed. Everything, somehow, managed to feel muted. Even the disgustingly bright white walls were dull. It was that sort of day. They had drawn my blood for the tests as quickly as possible, and that was all that they did. Normally, they’d test my reaction speed or how much weight I could pick up. How fast I could heal, what I could endure, the interval of time between my energy blasts. But instead, they pricked me a few times before throwing me into here. But it simply fit in with the rest of the weird occurrences happenings today. I curled up into the fetal position, pulling my body as close together as physically possible. I was lonely. And cold--they always kept it so cold in here. I didn’t really know why. I guessed that they just wanted me to suffer. It made sense when I thought of it like that. A thought occurred to me then. One I used to entertain myself with when I was younger: I was going to grow old and die here, and I would’ve lived basically my entire life within this little cell. It used to make me sad, thinking about it, that was. When they had first cut off all my hair and gave me a buzz cut, I had cried for a few hours. My long locks had been one of my connections to my mother. To me, that had seemed like the final sentencing. I was really alone. And I couldn't accept that. Now I had become resigned to the idea. I’d live out my life in this cold, tiny cell within the lab. People would forget about me, but no one would forget about what I had done. No one would know that it was an accident--not that they cared. I’d lost my family, too… not that anyone would care about that, either. Murderers did not deserve compassion; therefore, I did not deserve compassion. That was why I was fine with staying here. It was better for everyone this way, anyway. I just wished that they had thrown me in here sooner. So there was that. “Thea,” a voice called out in my mind. “Are you there?” And then there was him. “Go away,” I commanded, putting my pillow around my face and holding it tightly as if that would block out the voice. “Thea,” the man sounded frustrated, “listen to me. To us. It’s time.” I ignored him and rolled over, tightening my grip on the pillow. “We just want to help you.” “I’m being helped enough,” I argued. Even if the people here were a little… mean… they weren’t that bad. Clearly, whatever they were doing was working because I hadn’t hurt anybody since the incident. “No, you aren’t, listen--” I closed my eyes tightly, squeezing the unwanted presence that I felt out through an invisible door. I could feel its desire to stay, almost as if it was pleading with me, but I ignored it. Out. It needed to be gone. Silence. I breathed out a peaceful sigh, moving the pillow back to its original position. Without that irritating voice in my head, everything was right once again. A smile pulled at my mouth. I much preferred it this way. It wasn’t as if I wasn’t aware that Laura and them were not good people. And that they did not like me. Even without the voice telling me, I knew all of this. But he didn’t understand. He didn’t know what it was like for me when I came to. They had put me inside of a cell much like this one. Chained me down to a chair and watched me through a one-way mirror. I remembered the crackle of the speaker when they spoke through it. I recalled how my spine arched--the warmth of my vomit as it spilled on my lap and pooled at my feet. I had a lot of low moments in my life, but that was within the top three. The first did not need to be mentioned. The third was equally as painful to remember, so I immediately suppressed the memories that dared flare up in my mind. Stupid. My eyes opened, blurriness coming into focus as I gazed at the white ceiling. Long ago, I had come to the decision that I did not like the color. But, I think that it suited me. It was an empty color--no, that was wrong. One day, Laura had sharply informed me that it was not a color. She said it in a tone that meant that I should have known this. When I asked her why, Laura had glared at me and continued doing whatever she was doing. That was fine, though. I figured that I would be able to find out one day. Sometimes, Laura would answer my questions. Other times, she’d ignored me. Very hit or miss. I giggled a little. Laura was kind of funny. I almost forgot that she had slapped me earlier. The soon-to-be Mrs. Whatever had an odd personality. It was like she hated me or something, but she didn’t! She couldn’t. There was no way that she could hate me. After all, she and I went way back. I wouldn’t say that we had the best of relationships or that we were friends, but we understood each other. I chuckled and flipped over once more in my bed, shutting my eyes once more and urging myself to go to sleep. In my dreamland, it was peaceful. But I did not expect, in these moments, the world would shatter.