Original Stories Fan Fiction ❯ Ela Shades ❯ Happy Birthday ( Chapter 1 )

Notes: This is the very first thing I've posted openly. I would like to continue it and feedback would be wonderful.

I remember. I remember my birth, the time I spent in womb. I remember seeing the world through my mother's eyes. I know I shouldn't be able to remember these things. In truth I don't remember it all, what I do remember I force to the back of my mind. But I can't forget his eyes.

The eyes of my father. I could feel the hate within his eyes even before I knew what hate was. The way he looked at mother, no, the way he looked at me. Eyes that wished me out of existence. It was like he knew I could see that I was watching him. Taking in everything but understanding nothing. He knew so he put mother to sleep. I had nothing to watch but darkness.

Then one day there was light. I looked at the world not through my mother's eyes but with my own blurry vision. From what I remember all my senses were dulled. My limbs were weak, I wanted to move but couldn't. Gargled noises sounded around me, someone picked me up. I remember crying at the shock icy cold hands pawed over my body, inspecting me like I was some expensive piece of equipment.

That is what my life has been. I remember coming to this place, I now know as home. The Kelter laboratory. Apparently I was some sort of great discovery. I hear them whisper about it, how I could be the end of mankind. Death and discord, destruction and chaos. I pretend I don't know and they pretend I'm not special. I they treat me like an employee. I was told to scrub floors ever since I was able to hold a brush.

Every day was the same. They run test on me, under the guise of routine check ups. Every day I choked down the same pink pill they called a vitamin. I don't know what it's made of but it made my insides itch and my tongue feel furry. I think the pill is what turned my fingernails green. I tried to stop taking them. I felt horrible for days. I body was always sweating but I felt so cold I couldn't stop shaking. Pain raced through my bones, they felt like they burn and cracking in the heat of an inferno. I'd rather have my insides itch then feel like I'm being burned alive. So I keep taking the pills. Sometimes I think I enjoy it.

Today is different. Its 7 am, no one has come in my room to wake me. I usually start my cleaning duties at five. My bed squeaks in relief as I left my weight off it. If no one is coming I guess I'll get myself started. With a stretch of my limbs I make way over to my armoire. Today what shall I wear? I have my pick between so many lovely garments: a brand new dark grey jumpsuit, a jumpsuit that's a slightly lighter shade of gray due to years of washing and of course a gray jumpsuit that is a size too big.

The worn jumpsuit is the best by far. It knows my skin better than all the other clothes. It's my favorite. Once dressed, it's time to tidy up my room. Make up my bed with my lovely grey sheets and blankets. Dust off my marvelous grey furniture. I only have a bed, an armoire and a chair, but they are still quite marvelous. The floor and walls are immaculate as always. I still wash them once a week to be sure. Everything is so grey, so clean sometimes I mistake it for white.

“Miss Kelter?” There's a knock on my door. The voice sounds like Dr. Maven

“Yes, sir, I'm here.” I answer even though that's not my name. “I know I was supposed to start cleaning two hours ago.”

“No, no, that's no it.” He had entered the room, without an invitation and sat in my freshly dusted chair.

Dr. Maven is the kind of man that is short in stature and likes to prove himself as big man in other ways. Even before I learned to speak he was bragging to me about his great advancements in science. His stocky hands would always make such excited gestures. He headed Project Caste, where a group of scientists that made a break through regarding human DNA or something.

That was the work, he most proud of. Work he had finished almost thirty-five years ago. He babbled on and on, using words I didn't understand. Genes this, mutations that. As far as I know he hasn't done anything else worthy of recognition. Dr. Maven is a little mouse of man, puffing himself up with over sized words. The way his salt and pepper moustache twitched as he spoke only made him mousier.

“You do know what day it is, don't you?” Dr. Maven asks this with an expectant look on his scrummed face.

“I believe it's Tuesday. Today's the day I scrub out the-”

He interrupts me. “No! Child it's your birthday! Why do you think you go a new jumpsuit?”

Oh yes, today is my birthday. Today I'm fourteen years old. Today I got a new grey jumpsuit.