Emily had always dreaded this question teachers seemed to love asking new students. While all her classmates could answer to the question without hesitation, most showing a part of their arm or of their leg, showing something that looked like a tatoo. This was known as a mark, a so-called sign from the gods, more likely just an excuse that scientist came up with after they weren't able to. Same story every time, on the 3rd birthday of every child on earth, somewhere ont their body a mark shows up and from then they are set for certain mediocrity.
At first sight, this kind of society doesn't sound inherently bad, telling people what they should do their whole life could teoretically result in a much more eficient and productive society, it just so happens that all marks seem to assign a job that the individual finds as the worst possible thing they could do with their lives. It could be just the child being told what they will do since they are young and automatically not wanting to do anything to have with it, like any child being told what to does. But multiple studies showed that there could be a possible link between the personality of the child, and the mark that seems to form in the opposite direction. Bottom of the line is, following your marks is going to bring you one thing: a stable job and a stale life. But despite the way this kind of life sounds, it certainly is much better than that of those who decide to not obey their fates.
Emily remembered what she regularly sees on the news, stories of people who tried to live their live how they wanted, some seeking solitude in remote locations of the earth, some just trying to work in the domain they felt fitted them, but the end of their story was alwasy the same, a long , agonizing, death. It was the mistery of this century, why, and how did these people, that not even their families have heard of in years, could just, always end up the same. This made everyone shake even at the thought of trying to do anything other than what their mark has assigned them to. The best explanation that ever came out of these strange occurances, was that, again, the marks were a sign from god and their fate was a way of Him showing the rest of the world what happens when you try to fight back against It.
"Ms. Sawyer? Are you gonna answer my question, or will you just keep observing whatever it is you deem more important than it?
Emily snapped back from her train of thought, realising her gaze wondered off towards the window, directly at the FateMatch tower she passed on her day to school. "Uhmm yes. I'm sorry but I don't actually have a Mark, so.."
And then there was Emily, the first case ever discovered of a person without a mark. Her family had tried to keep this information as secret as possible, knowing that knowledge of this could end up bad for the little girl. This was always met with mixed reaction, for example the surprised gasp Mr. Smith tried and failed to hide the moment he heard such a thing, or the judgemental glances of her peers, some thinking that something is wrong with her, some thinking she is the luckiest person alive, and some just ignoring her. She was already used to whatever someone would say after hearing she was like this.
"Pardon me, I just, was not expecting such an answer. So your Mark never appeared you say?"
"No sir" 'just let me sit down already' she thought, feeling the glances of her classmates directed at her. She just wanted this day to be over.
"Okay, well, you can sit down" when she heard her teacher say that she immediately sat down, and was glad this was over, now hopefully the rest of her day would go down a little more smoothly. The rest of class she and her classmates were given the timetable, then they were told to go to the library and get their textbooks, so they headed out of the class. On the way there, she hoped maybe at least her being Markless would result in a few kid thinking it was cool and talking to her, but they all rather seemed uninterested in the subject, or just seemed to avoid her and talk to each other. She wasn't surprised, she knew this was how things were gonna be, but still she was a little dissapointed. Afterwards they were told that for today, that was all and that they could go home.
Emily crammed her textbooks in her backpack and started heading out of the schoolyard. She exchanged some glances with some of her classmates that looked rather annoyed just by her existence , but she just kept walking towards her home. On the way home she felt her phone vibrate. She checked to see what the notification was and her day immediately got better.
-Alex
hey how was first day :)
She was happy, her friend always made her day better, and she felt like she nedeed to see him more now than ever.
-Emily
meh it was the usual
yours?
She kept walking, sometimes checking her phone in case she missed the notification. Once she arrived at home she dropped off her backpack, and took out 2 eggs from the fridge and poured some oil in a pan.
*buzz*
She checked her phone while waiting for the oil to sizzle.
-Alex
it was alright
wanna meet later?
-Emily
sure :)
She cracked the eggs and let the inside flow into the pan, and then waited a few more minutes for the eggs to be done. She liked the well done, even though Marla considered Emily's well done to mean burnt, but hey, she liked her eggs how she like her eggs.
She put on a plate, and after she was done, she looked at the clock hanging on the wall of the kitchen.
"12 pm, guess i have a few hours before going out"
She cleaned up the table where she ate then washed her plate and fork and placed them on the drying rack. She headed out of the kitchen and into her room. She closed the door behind her and then looked around the room, observing the mass she had created while leaving for school. She started picking up the clothes on the floor and piling them up to get them to the laundry basket, then started picking sheets of paper off the floor, checking for the dates on their backside, and piling them in order before putting them back in the box where they belonged. Her fingertips, covered in the shiny graphite that rubbed of her drawings felt nostalgic, so she decided to look through the stack of paper a little.
After a few minutes of flicking through the drawings, she found one she always seemed to forget about, despite how much the worn out sheet of paper mattered to her. She looked at the colourful lines she created, years ago. She could recognize herself as the little girl with long black hair, playin with her wooden sword she had just gotten for her bithday,
She still remembered how her hands felt on the handle of the toy, the smoothed out surface, perfect for her little hands.
Her fingers traced the shape of the drawing, away from the little girl and towards the ripped off edge of the paper, and she felt a sudden sting in the back of her head, barely remembering where the rest of the drawing was, before the memory faded away, as if something kept it out of her grasp, for a reason unknown to her. She brushed the the feeling aside and continued cleaning up her room, and by the time she was done, she decided to go into the garage for a little training.
As she made her way towards it, passing various paintings on the walls of the hallway, some made by her, some even winning some awards, she finally reached the door to the garage. She opened it and went in, then grabbed a rope that was attached to the ceiling and led above it through a gap. As he pulled on it, a punching bag followed along through the gap in the planks that formed the ceiling, leading to a little storage space above the planks but below the roof. She brushed off the dust that settled on the bag, that started her usual training routine.
Since she was very young, she knew that some people were gonna be a little, agressive towards someone different, proven by the time a boy grabbed her by the hair and smacked it against a boulder, luckily not hitting her eye but still making a pretty deep wound that left her a little scar on the right side of her forehead, digging a little into her eyebrow.
Ever since then she decided to teach herself martial arts, and with the help of countless hours of videos on the internet and some begging Marla to buy her a punching bag so she could practice, she was able to defend herself to an impressive extent for a 13 year old kid. After her warmup and her training, she felt sweaty, exhausted, but proud of her progress since she started.
She checked her phone and noticed it was 4:30, and as an unspoken rule formed over the years, she'd always meet up with Alex at 5:00 so she had half an hour left to take a shower and dress up with something less, dirty and soaking wet, so she rushed to the bathroom and started getting ready.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
It was 4:55 and Emily just got dressed, and started heading out towards the frontdoor, ready to leave, when she heard it unlocking from the outside, adn was met with Marla.
"Oh hey" she said startled, as she entered the hallway "How was your first day?"
"It was fine, the usual."
Marla looked at her "And where you planning on telling me you were going out or?"
"Oh yeah sorry, I was just about to call you"
"Mhmm, who are you meeting up with?" she asked, slightly annoyed by Emily forgetting to tell her she was going out again, but clearly used to the routine already.
"Oh, just Alex" she said , slowly going around Marla and heading for the door.
"Okay, just make sure to be home by 10:00 alright?"
Emily nodded and headed out of the house, and as she started walking towards Alex's house, her glance was again set on the building towering above the rest of the city. She felt a cold gust of wind touching her skin, sending shivers down her spine.
"I have a bad feeling about this week" she thought, as she continued walking, more cautiously now, as if something were watching her, waiting for the right moment to strike.
Comments (0)
See all