The Last Mate on Earth

Part 1 - Chapter 16

* * * Hayden’s POV * * *

I close the door to the sleeping quarters and smack the lock with my trembling fist. I can’t stop the shakes. I managed to contain them a few moments ago outside the lift, but now I’m alone and my body is free to react as it wants. I stumbled backwards. They started in my hands, but then my full body began shaking. Trembling. My temperature began rising as the intensity of the shakes increased.

A greyish blur is forming a frame around the edge of my vision. The bedroom spins. Bed, floor, window, door. Bed, floor, window, door. My balance fails as my legs give in to the weight of my thoughts, which are dedicated to one thing.

Hope.

I’m dragging my case through the corridor of my home in the castle. We’re high, somewhere on the upper floors. The sky presses on the glass windows, the rain-filled clouds turning it grey.

As I stare out at the hazy world, the clouds start to glow. A pair of huge luminous eyes suddenly appears outside the window, staring back at me. Your gift from the moon goddess. The last hope for a future.

A kind voice echoes through the air outside, muffled by the glass. Our future. The mist dissipates, revealing the pretty face projected on the screens mounted on the castle walls and around the grounds.

“Do you know who that is?” my father asks.

Of course I do.

“Hope,” I say, but my eyes are drawn back down the corridor towards the sound of my mother’s sobs behind the door.

“Hope is going to be your new friend,” my father says, then notices where my attention has drifted. “Don't look back,” he drones. He stands at the lift door, waiting for it to arrive. “This is your one chance at a better life. You’ll thank me for it one day. For getting you out of this place.”

“But, I want my Mummy,” The sound of my voice makes me realize I’m crying. Sobbing inconsolably. “I want Mummy!”

“You will not see that woman again and you’ll certainly not be needing that, not where we’re going.” He tugs the small silver moon-shaped necklace pendant and the chain breaks, falling from my neck. “Foolish beliefs for a foolish woman. The gods and goddesses will not save us. We must save ourselves. You will not speak of her.”

Hope!

I sat up suddenly. It’s cold. My cheek is stinging as if I’ve been slapped repeatedly.

My vision is blurry and has no colour but I can make out Joven standing over me, hand raised. His mouth is moving but I can’t hear him over the high-pitched ringing that’s vibrating inside my skull. He pulls his hand back and slaps me. The stinging in my cheek becomes a burn. “Hayden!” he whispers, in a hushed panic. “Hayden, if you don’t come out of this soon I’m calling the medic.”

“N … no…” I mumble, as I pull my cold, clammy body off the floor. “I don’t need it. I’m okay.”

“Are you?” he asks, looking doubtful at my assessment of my current condition.

Am I? What the hell just happened to me? The colour slowly returns to my sight, and with every deafening beat of the pulse in my ears I feel normality returning. “Hayden, take some deep breaths and drink this.” Joven hands me his flask.

Without hesitation, I take a gulp and the boiling liquid hits the back of my throat. I spit it out instantly. “What the hell is that?” I say, handing the flask back to him.

“Mint tea.” He shrugs.

“You could have warned me it was hot!”

“I’m sorry. I just thought it might help calm you down.”

“Joven, did I black out?” I ask, although I already know the answer.

"I don’t know, man. All I know is that you bolted the second they took Hope away. When I got here, the door was locked, so I had to hack in again, and when I finally got it open you were sprawled out on the floor, eyes in the back of your head, mumbling all sorts of weird stuff.” He swigged his tea. “Well, s**t, that is hot!”

I don’t bother asking what I was mumbling. Not because I’m afraid of what it might have been, but because I already know what it was. The last thing I was thinking of before I blacked out and the first thing I thought of when I came around. Hope. My stomach convulses and, within a split second, my throat is full of its contents. I projectile vomit on to our dorm floor.

Joven jumps out of the way just in time. “Seriously. What the actual f …“ He doesn’t get a chance to finish before a second round erupts from my mouth. “That’s grosse, man.” He hands me a towel.

I rip off my suit and fell back on to my lower bunk with a heavy sigh. What’s happening to me? I closed my eyes.

Hope.

I suddenly remember her gazing into my eyes. No one has ever looked at me like that before. It’s like she was staring through me, into my mind, trying to see the person inside – she has never looked at me that way before.

She knows who I am. She connected my name when Hedley f****d up and addressed me by my surname. “We have an emergency meeting in thirty minutes but you’re staying here,” Joven says, as he mops up my mess with a towel.

“No. Honestly, I’m fine, I need to hear what’s happening,” I argued.

“You’re in shock, Hayden, you need to rest.”

“I’m in shock?” I almost laughed.

“Yes. Shock. You witnessed something horrific earlier, man. This is your body reacting to it.”

Something horrific? What’s he talking about? Then it hits me. The memories flash in my brain, cutting like glass.

Parent Hannah’s body, motionless on the floor. The cold stare of Lawrence and the blood on his hands, filling the creases of his knuckles and congealing in his fingernails.

Horrific.

“I guess you’re right,” I lied.

“You’re not a soldier, Hayden. Things like that don’t happen every day. At least, not up here. I mean, s**t, is this what they’re all like out there? Are they that messed up?”

“Don't you remember it?” I asked.

“My life before this place? Barely. Thank God.”

“I do,” I admitted. “Bits of it. Just flashes really. It wasn’t that bad.”

“Not that bad?” Joven gawps. “You must be ill, mate. It was a bloody war zone for about thirty years.”

“Yes, that was all before Hope was born, before we were born. Things got better after she was born, things were more stable.”

“You’re right, it got better, better for us! If it weren’t for her, we’d be out there, in the storm with the rest of them, counting down the days to extinction.”

“We could have been frozen, our bodies preserved for the future,” I joke.

“Ha, yeah. Or upload our brains into one of your dad’s computer programs,” Joven replies. “No. Thank. You!”

“I thought you might like that. Your mind living forever as a program.” I say. “You love everything about computers!”

“No, I’d rather not be turned into one.” Joven blows on his tea and takes a sip.

“Right, you. Stay. Rest.” I keep silent. It’s best he thinks I’m struggling with the death of parent Hannah, rather than knowing the truth.

He was right about one thing, though. My body is in shock. My mind is in shock. But mostly my heart. I’ve never felt it beat as hard as it did today. Beating for a purpose. Beating for someone. Hope.

“I’m going to find out what’s going on. If you start to feel like you’ll pass out again, you call the medics,” Joven says, throwing the filthy towel into the laundry chute, then going to wash his hands in the basin.

“I will,” I say, knowing I wouldn’t.

“I’m being serious, Hayden.” he replies, also knowing I wouldn’t. He shoots me a look as he opens our door and disappears. I lay my head on the pillow and stared up at the bunk above. With every blink of my eyes, I saw a flash of green. Dark forest green. Hope’s eyes.

They’re in my head, staring back at me as if they are permanently burnt on to my retinas. I hear the soft swish of our door sliding open. “I’m fine, you don’t have to worry about me,” I say.

“That’s good to know,” replies a deep voice.

“Dad?” I sat up instantly, banging my head on the top bunk. Great.

“Lie down before you do yourself some damage,” he says, obviously unimpressed. “Shall we discuss today’s events?” He was never one for small talk.

“Yes. Shall we start with what the f**k happened and how a complete psychopath was allowed into a room with Hope?” I snapped. Maybe I am in shock.

My father certainly looks as though he is. “Some mistakes have been made,” he replies calmly, not rising to my anger. “We are addressing and researching how and why Lawrence slipped through our net.”

“Slipped through your net? I’d say it must have a pretty big hole in it. It is not just today with Lawrence. Look at the meeting with Jason. She could be dead now. Gone.”

“We’re all aware of the severity of the situation …”

“Really? Are you? Because I’m not sure you are.” I interrupted, anger and frustration bubbling inside my chest.

“The future of our species was almost erased in that room today and it must have been more than an accident. Someone has to be held responsible.”

My passion has brought me to my feet and I’m standing face to face with my father. “And who do you suggest takes that responsibility, Hayden?” he barks.

“Me?”

“Yes, you. You and Miss Rita. You i***t, boy.” His palm connects with my throat faster than I can react and he slams my head against the steel frame of the upper bunk. I don’t fight it. He’s too strong. Physically and mentally. We’ve had fights before. I have the scars, physical and mental.

“That’s enough from you. Did you really think I came here to discuss the flaws in our system? To hear your opinion? Do you think I care to know what goes on inside your insignificant mind?”

I feel his hand flex and my throat is free of his grip.

“I’m sorry,” I mumbled. “It’s just that …”

I hesitate and he gives me a strange look.

“That what?”

“It’s just that parent Rita. Dad, she’s …”

“That is enough, Hayden. I would be very careful with your words and where your thoughts are leading. You do not have the authority or intelligence to challenge a woman like parent Rita,” he warns me.

Once again, I am a child in his presence.

He moves to the window and touches his palm against the glass. The computer scans his hand and grants him access to any file or program he wishes. He begins by accessing the security footage of this afternoon's events.

He fast-forwards through the meeting. I watched it all unfold at twice the speed. I watch as Hope is dragged from the room. The camera changes and I watch myself panic and charge to her, desperate to save her.

“I came here to discuss Hope,” my father tells me as he turns his hand and spins an imaginary cog that rewinds the feed. This time he selected a different camera.

“What do you want to know?” I asked him as I watch parent Hannah die for the third time today. My father's face is emotionless and cold.

He changes the screen yet again and this time I watch as Joven and I charge towards the lift. I watch as I bolt into the lift and punch Liam’s jaw. The footage is played in real time. I watch Hedley’s arrival and Hope’s reaction to it all. There is a brief moment where she flinches when Hedley arrives.

That was the moment Hedley addressed me by my surname. The moment he addressed me as a facility employee and not a student.

Fuck.

“Be very careful, Hayden. You may be the best friend. But you are very replaceable. Tell her he got your name wrong. Fix this mess. If the school environment fails, the fact that you are my son will be irrelevant,” he snaps at me.

I watch after him as he storms through the door, leaving it swishing. Leaving me to ponder what has happened and to try to understand my body’s reaction to it all.