#wip:dissociate

The world came back to the boy slowly. He could hear Gemma’s voice somewhere, it seemed far off and far away, or maybe underwater? He wasn’t exactly sure. Memories sloshed in his head, when he tried to grasp onto one it would just slip away and tumble around. Slowly he lifted a hand to rub at his face, if he could only get back into the world of the waking maybe he could figure out what was happening. 

“Oh good, you’re awake,” Gemma said, her voice cool and toneless. He opened his eyes, flinching against the bright clinical light above his head. Gemma was standing at the foot of the bed he was laying in, her arms were crossed over her chest and she looked angry or maybe just mildly irritated. It was always hard to tell with an imperfect Apathetic what they were really feeling. She let her arms fall to her sides and adjusted her lab coat. “You manage to be a constant and never ending string of surprises Julian.” She said, stepping up to his bedside. Her hand brushed against something at his throat.

He opened his mouth to speak but no sound came out. He tried again and met the same end. Raising a hand to the place Gemma had just touched, he could feel the new stitches right around where his vocal cords were located. Opening his mouth he tried to force some kind of sound out but only managed a strangled noise of sorts. Gemma just stood there watching him, watching the panic that was rising. Julian quickly scrambled off the bed and stumbled into the bathroom, bracing himself for what he saw in the mirror. Three tiny little stitches were prominent against his skin, he ran his fingers over them again.

“Just another addition to your ever growing android system,” Gemma said, she stepped into the bathroom behind him. “I should have thought of it years ago but you have never spoken out of turn like that, and in front of a client no less. For that, I believe that an addition to your vocal programming was needed. It’s just a little chip that will allow me to control your ability to speak.” There was an almost smug look on her face. “I believe that we will leave that pesky voice of yours off for a little bit, you can earn it back of course, in time. But understand one thing,” she grabbed his dark hair in a tight grasp and yanked his head back. “You may be my child Julian but if you ever try to come between me and my project again I will not hesitate to dismantle you.”

A/N: So this is a piece of older writing, it is one of the many things I’ve had floating around and it fits for today’s prompt. I had no ability to concentrate tonight so this is what is happening. Some of the info is no longer relevant and needs to be changed but I have no focusing abilities at all even for that tonight. 

  Kal stood back from the group. Markus and Zane stood after a table, blueprints spread out before them. This was the culmination of all their work. They’d been working tirelessly for years to bring down EEP, with efforts heavily reinforced since EEP’s announcement that they were going to be using widespread tactics to eliminate the rest of the Empathetic in the word. Julian stood at Zane’s side, point to the weak points of EEP’s central lab. He’d grown up there, being trained and taught by their head scientist.

  “Her name is Dr. Gemma Michaels.” Julian had said. “She’s been working with EEP since its inception, some even speculate that she may have been the first in the world to be infected with the micro-inhibitors.”

  “Are there more of you out there that she has created?” Markus asked, his mouth twisting around ‘created’. He was more heavily against an android being at the head of operations than anyone else in the coalition.

  “Yes, as far as I know there are six others like me.” Julian said, keeping his voice matter-of-fact, not letting Markus get under his skin.

  “And are all of them trained the way you were?” Zane asked, holding a hand out to Markus to silence him.

  Julian considered this for a moment. “Yes, each of us was given the mission to seek out and eradicate the Empathetic.”

  “And how were your targets selected.”

  “I never knew. Gemma was good at keeping her methods a secret and none of us questioned it. We were given our targets by number and told to learn all about them that we could in order to get close enough to kill.”

  “Can you get us in?” Zane asked.

  Julian nodded. “It won’t be easy.”

  “Never thought it would be.”

  Seeing them bent over the blueprints and plans, Kal couldn’t help but wonder if Markus really trusted Julian now. He had been the biggest challenge to convince out of anyone on the coalition. And really, only Kal’s trust and assertions of Julian were what made them trust him.

  He turned away from the planning, his mind playing out the worst-case scenarios in his mind and the loneliness was eating at his insides. It was then that he saw Carter standing away from the group, attention fully fixed on him. Kal gave a little wave. It was rare to see Carter anywhere near these meetings. His job was always more based around the base, keeping things in order, making sure people had the food and comfort. He disliked everything to do with planning and operations.

  Carter gave him a little nod and turned to walk away from the group. Kal followed, hoping to find some way to be helpful. There were always things to do around the base but Carter didn’t head towards anywhere Kal would have expected him to. They ended up near the entrance of the abandoned subway system.

  He couldn’t figure out why Carter would have come this far out from the base. “Carter, everything okay? Are you expecting someone?”

  Carter turned to him, shrugging slightly. “Just you kiddo,” the word was so comfortingly familiar, he’d grown so used to it over these past months. What wasn’t familiar was the cold expression on his face or the harshness of the gun in his hand. Carter was such a warm person. He was the first to offer advice and kindness even to the most undeserving individuals.

  “Carter?” Kal asked, confusion evident in his words.

  He didn’t get a reply, Carter merely gestured at the entrance.

  Kal took a step back instead and received a click of the gun being cocked. “Don’t make this difficult Kalum.”

  “Make what difficult Carter? What the hell are you doing?” Kal searched around frantically for a way out but there was no one around and no cover to duck behind.

  “Kalum,” Carter’s voice was sharp as glass. “There’s no way out, now, just walk out the door with me and we’ll be fine.”

  An alarm behind them started blaring, Kal whipped around at the sound and tried to dash away but Carter was faster, he tackled Kal to the ground, an arm wrapping around his throat, choking off his air supply. “Don’t fight.” Carter snapped when Kal tried to struggle. “I’ve been instructed to bring you to her unharmed, but I will hurt you if you keep fighting.”

  Kal’s vision was bleeding to black, eyes stinging with tears of pain. “Jules!” he screamed on a gasp. The name came out muffled but he screamed again, trying to twist free. Carter yanked him back brutally. Just as his consciousness slipped away, he heard Julian call his name.

A day late I know but here it is. Max doesn’t know how to deal with baby Kal when he’s sick. (Max uses gender neutral pronouns and one of the common parent “names” I’ve found is renny, so basically the gender neutral for mommy or daddy). This is still light on the whump but I’m having fun. 

“Kal’s sick,” Max said into the phone. They were staring down at their baby’s flushed cheeks and teary eyes. Watching their miserable two-year-old was making Max feel teary themself. They hated to see Kal sick, especially when Emily wasn’t around. She was out with Marcus scoping the streets and who knew what else for their little gang of rebels.

Emily sighed into the phone, “He hasn’t been feeling good all day,” she sounded tired. “Just take his temperature and give him some children’s cold medicine, there should be some up in the medicine cabinet. I’ll be home as soon as I can, Marcus and I are almost done.”

“Yeah okay,” Max said, “Be safe, see you when you get home.” They hung up the phone and slid it back into their pocket. “Okay little guy, let’s see what’s up.” Kal reached up for Max and they leaned over the playpen to pick him up. The toddler wrapped his arms around Max’s neck, burrowing his face into their chest. 

The little whine Kal gave was the saddest thing. Max bounced him lightly and carried him into the kitchen. They put him down on the counter below the medicine cabinet and pulled down the medicine and the thermometer. “You have to hold this under your tongue okay? Just for a minute and then we can get some of this tasty medicine in you and you can sleep in renny’s bed okay?” The toddler frowned at the thermometer but nodded, opening his mouth and letting Max put it under his tongue. Max watched the numbers slowly creep up higher than they liked. They pressed a kiss to Kal’s forehead and pulled the thermometer away. “Okay you, this is not allowed,” Max said, opening the medicine bottle and filling the little measuring cup. Kal was a good sport about taking it, his face squishing up in disgust at the taste. Max scooped him up off the counter and carried him slowly towards the back bedroom, avoiding toys that littered the living room floor.

The coughing started not long after Max put Kal in bed. It was a soft, miserable little sound that rapidly became chesty and left Kal gasping for air after a fit. Max sat Kal up, propping him against their chest. “It’s okay Kal, it’s okay,” they tried to sooth their baby. They kissed the top of his head, feeling the sweat dampened strands against his lips. Another cough tore through his chest. “I’ve got you,” Max murmured.

“Renny,” Kal whined. “Cold.”

“I know sweetheart, I know but you can’t cover up right now,” they said and fumbled for their phone, holding Kal tighter. They dialed Quinn’s number again, this time she picked up. “Quinn, Kal’s sick,”

Quinn sounded distracted when she responded. “Uh-huh,” there was a soft rustling of paper. “Did you give him cold medicine?”

“Yeah but…” Max could feel a little tremor go through Kal’s body.

Quinn cut him off, “It’ll take a little for the medicine to kick in then, give it time,”

“But he’s getting worse,” Max said, feeling the little tremor again. They adjusted their hold on Kal, rocking him gently. “I think his fever is going up, his skin is so hot and he started coughing really bad.”

“Just give the medicine a half hour to kick in and let him rest,” Quinn said.

The tremor was getting worse. “Can you come over, just to check on him, please Quinn? Emily is out patrolling with Marcus.”

She sighed and Max could hear her slam something down. “I’m working on something very important right now Max, I’ll come over later if he’s still feeling bad.”

Kal whimpered and the tremors turned to fits. “Quinn what’s happening, he’s shaking so bad, Quinn, Quinn,” Max’s voice rose in octave and they tried to hold Kal still. “Quinn what’s going on?”

“Max, deep breath for me, he’s probably having a seizure, it happens in kids when they get high fevers. I’ll be there in five minutes, hold him on his side and keep him calm okay? I’m coming.” Quinn said, she sounded sure and calm which helped to bring down Max’s anxiety. “Can you do that for me?”

Max stared down at Kal’s convulsing body. “W-what?”

“Max, carefully turn him on his side for me, I’ll be right there.” Quinn said.

“Y-yeah, okay,” they took a deep breath and very carefully turned Kal onto his side. The convulsions were easing but Kal was breathing very fast. Five minutes felt more like five hours to Max but Quinn’s voice brought them back to reality. They could hear her calling through the apartment. “Our room!” Max called back and rubbed Kal’s back gently. “Auntie Quinn is here, your going to be okay,” they said, it was more for their own benefit than Kal’s. Kal seemed to have drifted off to sleep after the seizure.

Quinn came quietly into the bedroom and sank down beside them. “Okay, let’s look at you,” she said and carefully maneuvered Kal onto his back. Max moved so they wouldn’t be in the way of her examination. “Max, when did his fever start?”

Max shrugged, watching her hands move expertly over Kal. “I don’t know, he’s been miserable all day and I didn’t know what to do.” They kept a hand in Kal’s hair, stroking, comforting, even though Kal seemed to be sleeping. The contact was comforting for Max and they didn’t want to be apart from their son. “This is Emily’s job, I’m no good when he’s sick.”

“It’s okay Max,” Quinn said, she had pulled an external thermometer from her bag and ran it across Kal’s forehead. “His fever is high, but I think the medicine is kicking in. We’ll just keep an eye on him tonight and make sure he gets plenty of fluids.”

Okay, so an interesting line of conversation came up in my creative writing class last week and its still kinda bothering me. How do you guys feel when an author kills a character in the prologue of the book? (Not like a flash forward of a character but a character that is only meant for that one purpose.)

The opening of my WIP has a character who basically overdoses on a drug that produces happiness. To me it was a really cool way to introduce the concept of this society where people can’t feel emotions My professor made a comment though that was basically “you can’t get away with this unless you’re Stephen King”. 

So in writing my WIP I am doing some research on the difference between emotions and feelings. These are two words that we use interchangeably but there is actually a difference between the two. 

So an emotion is essentially a chemical reaction that creates a physical reaction to a stimulus. These are encoded in our genes and vary slightly in individuals. Emotions proceed feelings. 

Feelings are our mental associations and reactions to emotions. These are completely individual. They are the meaning that we put behind an emotion and are determined by our past experiences. 

So a few weeks ago I got to sit down with an incredible author who was visiting my school. His name is Carlos Hernandez and he just had a book come out last week through the “Rick Riordan Presents” series it’s called Sal and Gabi Break the Universe, it’s a middle grade read but it has two Hispanic main characters and the premise is absolutely amazing. Definitely check him out! 

Anyway, he introduced my creative writing class to this thing called the novum, which is essentially the thing in a science fiction novel that turns peoples viewpoints on their heads (ex. the alien race that came to visit, the new power source that was discovered, the scientific breakthrough that happened). So I developed my novum a little. 

In my WIP, the novum is a scientific breakthrough that was developed by a man who was looking for a way to help his incredibly depressed daughter, Gemma. He created emotional micro inhibitors that left her with the inability to feel consistent emotions. Due to his failure, he commits suicide and leaves Gemma with nothing but his research. 

All of this happens concurrently with a spread of apathy across the world as people sink deeper and deeper into the online world and lose touch with meaningful face to face communication. 

Perfect right? People are sinking deeper into the Internet to escape emotions and then Gemma develops a more stable drug to rid people of said pesky emotions. 

Taglist: @quilloftheclouds @mouwwie @fanastyfinder

  Kal gasped, eyes squeezed closed, clutching at the ropes holding his wrists, ineffectually kicking at the air with numb legs. His body ached with exhaustion. Gemma smiled watching him struggle. “Open your eyes sweet boy,” she said, adjusting the video camera to capture every minute of Kal’s struggle. “Come on now, we wouldn’t want to miss that desperate look on your face, would we?”

  The ropes dropped again, Kal’s scream echoing around the room, wincing at the sudden jerking halt while Gemma laughed. And then a cold, menacing voice slipped out from behind her.

  “Something amusing.” her creations voice was familiar in her ears. Her pause was only momentary, she turned slowly, letting her smile drift back to her lips. “Well, well, if it isn’t my little creation. Welcome back home my love.”

  “This is not my home.” Julian said, his voice staying low and cold.

  “Jules,” Kal’s voice was low and ragged from screaming. Julian’s eyes flicked over to him, softening for a fraction of a second before turning back to Gemma.

  “Come to say goodbye to your target?” she asked, her voice sweet and teasing in its child-like tone. The ropes dropped again, Kal’s scream was strangled with shock and laced with pain. There was a dull crack when the ropes caught this time and Kal’s eyes rolled back, a gasp leaving his lips. “Ooh, sounds like a dislocated shoulder.” she sounded too pleased, delight in the little cry that left Kal’s lips. Julian took an unconscious step towards Kal, watching the pain contort on his face. “I do so love the way Empathetics scream. It’s just no fun to torture someone who can’t process the pain.” Julian’s eyes cut to her, blind fury flaring up behind his eyes.

  “Let him down.” Julian’s voice was low as a growl.

  Gemma smirked. “As you wish,” the ropes slackened and dropped Kal the last few feet to the floor, he cried out in shock and pain, his body thudding dully as it hit the ground. All Julian could hear was a quiet moan before Kal’s body went still.

  In this empty pointless world, all Kalum had ever wanted was a family to call his own. He stared around his small apartment. Julian was laughing with Carter in the kitchen while they cooked. Maggie was sitting at the island bar, her chin resting on her delicate hand, an adoring smile on her face. Riley sat on the floor with small metallic figures spread out in front of him, he mimicked voices for them as he moved them around his imaginary scene. Kal had to wonder if this was what family felt like.

  “Kal,” Jules said, from his tone it sounded like he’d been calling for him a few times.

  “Yeah?” Kal said shaking himself out of the warmth filling him at the sight of his friends.

  Julian gave him a knowing smile and gestured him over. “Help me with this.”

  Kal pushed up from the couch and made his way over. Jules handed him a basket and told him to get the biscuits off the tray. He filled the basket with the steaming biscuits and set them on the counter. When Carter and Julian had finished they all gathered around. Kal didn’t have a proper dining table, he’d never needed one before but now he thought maybe he would get one to have for moments just like these.  

  Maggie scooped Riley up and brought the reluctant child over to the food. He whined only a little until he saw the basket of biscuits. Kal wasn’t sure, but he thought Riley ate about five of them on his own over the course of their meal. There was soft chatter, avoiding the harder subjects that none of them wanted to think about here in this quiet space. Julian laughed at a joke Carter told and the sound of it filled Kal up. He loved Julian’s laugh.

  Kal also wished he had a camera. He had never needed one before, he had no interest in the social media fads and he’d never had a need for documenting moments of his love. But if he could have frozen this moment he would have. It felt like something straight out of a movie.

  Kal shuddered when Julian wrapped an arm around his waist but he accepted it, relaxing back into Julian’s hold. Julian’s hair tickled his cheek and he whispered a quiet ‘I love you’ in his ear. Kal’s eyes filled with warmth, burning a little and he didn’t know why until a tear trickled down his cheek. “Oh,” he said quietly.

  “Kal you okay?” Julian asked when a little sob shook Kal’s shoulders.

  “Yeah, yeah,” he stepped out of Julian’s hold and walked away from the happy scene. He’d never been so overwhelmed by the happiness that he’d cried before. He probably looked insane. He walked into his bathroom and pushed the door partially closed behind him. The tears rolled quietly down his cheeks and he let the feeling wash over him.

  “Kal,” Julian had followed him. Julian would always follow him.

  Kal waved a hand at him. “I’m fine, don’t worry.”

  “Too late, what’s wrong?” Julian asked, pushing open the bathroom door. Kal looked at him, noting the little line that always appeared between Jules’ eyes when he was worried.

  Kal have him a smile that he hoped was reassuring. “Nothing’s wrong Jules, I’m just… I don’t know. I’m so happy right now that it made me cry.”

  Julian stepped close and pulled Kal against him. Kal allowed it and he rested his head against Julian’s chest, listening to his heart beat steadily. “You sure that’s all.”

  Kal nodded and coaxed Julian in for a kiss. It was a slow, lazy thing and it made little butterflies dance in his chest. “I love you too.” he said against Julian’s lips, feeling his breath brush across his skin.