Chapter Text
I closed the book in my hands and set it down slowly on my lap, lifting my head to shoot a glare at the suspect of this crime.
"Seriously?"
"What? You were taking way too long!"
Her voice pitched up in a whine, those soft pink eyes of hers wide and watery in an attempt to garner some sort of sympathy from me.
Unfortunately for her, that stopped working on me when she was TWO.
"Zoe, I swear to the cosmos, if you interrupt me ONE. MORE. TIME, I'll cancel our hunting trip today!"
THAT got her attention. She sat bolt upright in her seat, her knees knocking into the bottom of her desk.
"You can't do that!" Her voice was shrill with panic. Our hunting trips were one of the only things I could hold over her head to get her to study.
"I can and will if you don't let me finish!"
The absolute NERVE of this girl. I'm trying to help you and THIS is how you repay me? I should just let her fail the test honestly.
Zoe sat back in her chair, arms folded and lips pulled down in a pout. Her hair flowed over her shoulders, pulled into a braid and shining a soft hue of violet in the dim light of my lava lamp. At the ripe age of eight, Zoe has MASTERED the art of puppy eyes. But as her older brother, I'd built up an iron-strong immunity to her manipulation tactics.
Case in point, she wasn't getting a LICK of sympathy from me.
"Look, I don't HAVE to help you with your homework, OK? So if you're gonna make it hard, I'll leave you to it." I narrowed my eyes at her, waiting.
"...No. M'sorry"
She mumbled the words, tucking her chin down against her chest. Her red shorts bunched up around her thighs as she crossed her feet in a lotus position on her bean bag. Her bubble gum-pink shirt bunched up under her crossed arms. The cut-off sleeves slid down, leaving her shoulders bare, allowing the swirling, purple design peek out of the fabric. Her Mark, one she'd been born with. Not unlike mine, the shiny blue outline of a scaly pattern, trailing down my left cheek, the side of my neck, and disappearing into my sky blue shirt. And another set peeking from the bottom of my silk trousers. One of the few things that differentiate between those of us born on this planet, and those from the Old World.
"Anyways, where was I? Oh yeah. Ahem-"
The two scientists came together and had a BEAUTIFUL baby boy. On the day of his birth, the stars seemed to twinkle BRIGHTER, the galaxy singing its praises to-
"Aster! Zoe! Get down 'ere you two!"
A loud, gruff voice suddenly booms through the house. Zoe and I look at each other, then with a sigh, I close the book. I shoot a look at Zoe and point at her, one eyebrow lifting into an arch.
"We'll finish this later", I mouth silently.
She sticks her tongue out at me, then hops off her seat and takes off, shoving past me as she ducks out of the bedroom.
"Last one there is a dying star!" Her voice gains an echo as she disappears past the threshold of the door.
"Why you little-!!"
I follow suit, darting out after her. I come out just in time to watch her slide down the railing and disappear from sight. I am NOT about to be last, so without a second thought, I leap off the balcony and plummet down the two stories of our house. I land on our pleasantly fluffed up couch and bounce off, landing in a crouch.
Right as I hit the ground, Zoe lunges off the railing and into a full on sprint.
"I'm gonna wiii~iiin!"
"Oh no you're not!"
I've been doing this since before this kid was BORN! No WAY am I losing now. This teacher shall NOT be surpassed by the student. Not today!
It's a mad scramble to get to the Medical Room, which is where the voice had come from. As we sprint past, our dog, Camilla, sticks her head out of her box-shaped bed and watches us run by.
Now, Camilla isn't your typical dog species. Her long, luscious white fur covered her lean frame and hung over her eyes. Well, where her eyes WOULD have been, if she HAD any. Thin, white vines writhed under the heavy white fur of her tail, almost, ALMOST blending in, but not quite. She's not like any dog you'd find on earth. And there's a reason for that.
After the Old Generation escaped the dying earth and came to our planet, the animals they'd brought with them had... changed.
Camilla is the direct descendant and only daughter of our parents' old family dog, whose name, apparently, was Corazon. Corazon had been a golden retriever, but Camilla was nothing like her. The particles in the very air that Corazon had breathed, that we all breathe now, had changed her, MUTATED her, in a way that would leave her better suited for the environment.
But I digress.
A WHOOSH of displaced air serves as my only warning before a pillow goes FLYING past my head at full speed. It slammed into the wall in front of me and slid down, nearly tripping me up as I turned another corner. A furious screech was the immediate snitch to the one guilty of throwing it.
Oh ho ho~! You think you can get me with a dirty trick like that? Tough luck sis, but I was the one THAT TAUGHT IT TO YOU!!
I grab Zoe's toy off the kitchen counter as I charge past, turning my body to launch it back at her. It spun, flipped, and flopped onto the ground, acting almost like a substitute for a banana peel the way it tripped her up.
HAHA! Take that! THAT'S how you do it!
I run as fast as I can, legs pumping, grabbing the frame of a door to swing myself into the hallway without losing momentum. Without a second to spare, I skid into the pale white room, a victorious smirk etched on my face as I turn to Zoe, who runs into the room two seconds too late.
I smirk, sticking my tongue out at her. She scowls at me, then turns and folds her arms with a huff.
"That's four seconds slower than yesterday you two. You're gonna have to up your game"
The voice came from a man, standing in the middle of the room with his arms crossed. His hair was cut short and in a fluffy halo of black that flitted around his head. His pale cream cardigan and blue jeans fitted closely to his lean frame. Not a wrinkle in sight, not even a strand of white on his crown of black hair, despite him being in his late 70s and pushing 80.
Pretty surprising, huh?
Turns out this planet had more advantages than just being a new home for us. The very air was chock full of a chemical that we call; Aether.
Aether, the very building block of the world we live in now. The reason the oceans and lakes here were a thick, milky white rather than the clear blue of the Old Earth we've heard about from our parents. The reason why the sky was the ever changing hues of purple, pink and blue in a perpetual twilight. The reason for all the changes in the animals pur parents brought along with them. As for the people, it seemed to EXTEND our lifespans. FIFTY-TWO years since the Oldies first got here, and yet not one of them have been lost to old age.
That's not to say we're IMMORTAL now, as the docs have proven that our bodies are still decaying with age. But the Aether has somehow managed to stretch our natural lifespans. We still don't know how long our life expectancy is now, but the oldest Oldie here is pushing 178, so that's something.
The science on the stuff isn't exactly complete, but there don't seem to be any adverse effects... now.
How do I know all that?
Well
My dad, Dr Keith Ormond himself, uses ME to prove that fact.
"Alright Zoe, we're done. Aster, you're up, kid!"
Whelp, looks like it's my turn now.
I made my way over to the metal table in the middle of the room, planting both hands and hopping up. Dad began the examination immediately. Fastening a tourniquet around my upper arm, He pulled out a syringe, turning my arm over as he felt around for a vein.
"You been feeling any pain anywhere lately?" He found a good vein and swabbed a cotton dipped in alcohol over the area, then sank the cold metal tip into my arm. It barely registered as a sting to me.
"Nah, I'm alright. No pain"
"Alright" He extracted a generous amount of blood into the glass syringe. It filled up quickly, gleaming red in the bright lights. "No dizziness either I hope?"
"Not even a bit"
Then came the physical exam. He had me take off my shirt, and he inspected my shirtless torso closely, searching for a rash or any other abnormalities. He pressed a finger against the scaled pattern of my Mark and traced it down from my jaw to my collarbone.
"And this Mark of yours. Has it been giving you any trouble?"
"Daaaad. You've asked me this a thousand times! I said it once and I'll say it again a MILLION times! No, nothing's wrong." I rolled my eyes, kicking my heels idly against the table.
Zoe, who had been spinning around in a chair in the corner of the room, looked back at us with a groan.
"This is taking too LOOOOO~OOONG! I wanna go on the hunting trip already! Everyone else is probably out there already!"
Her voice was high pitched, dragged out and whining, lips pulled in a pout that, paired with her wide, innocent eyes, could melt the hearts of any unsuspecting victim who didn't know her any better.
"Yeah you're right. We oughtta get moving kids."
What makes it worse is that Dad falls for it EVERY. SINGLE. TIME!
I sat up, brushing my wavy blue hair back over my shoulders.
"Hang on, what about her history homework? She isn't done yet and I thought it was important."
If looks could kill, the glare Zoe was shooting me now would have literally evaporated me ten times over. Dad looked back at me and let out a hum as he shrugged his arms out of the white coat.
"Oh give the poor kid a break. She'll finish it when we get home"
"YES!!"
Damn it Dad, you can't just give in like that!
How do you keep FALLING for this?!
You KNOW what she's like!
Sigh MOVING ON-
We got dressed for the occasion, pulling on our full body, frame fitting pitch black suits and fastening our filtering muzzles over our mouths and noses. The temperatures here in Nirvana can reach WAY beyond freezing at a shocking -458°F, and that was on a GOOD day. The Aether has evolved us to the point that we're naturally resistant to colder temperatures, and those of us born on this planet more so, but even then, we needed a little bit of help.
And thus, these heat generating, temperature regulating suits came to be. Funny how the very technology that doomed our old world is helping us survive in this one, eh? And as for our masks, the air here was unbreathable to us, but wearing a full "helmet" would obscure our sight, and in a place like this, we NEEDED that, so this was the best compromise. As well as boots that could properly grip the terrain.
Once we were properly dressed, we stepped out of our house and picked up our Jet Rays from the garage, and rode out. I gripped the handles of mine, twisting the throttle as we rode off, the vibrating energy particles in the spots where wheels would be allowed us to hover off the ground and move at speeds no earth-bound vehicle could ever reach.
My dad glanced back at us as we rode. "Pick up the pace you two. If we don't hurry, everyone else is going without us! And we don'twant that now do we?"
My sister and I shook our heads so hard our hair whipped our faces.
We travelled through the Colony at high speeds, houses whooshing past us in a blur as we left. The sun beat down on us, clouds drifting idly across the artificial sky of the protective bubble we'd put up around our home. A way to imitate the comfort of the Old Earth, our parents had told us.
"Eyes closed, kids! No peeking! Hold your breath, cus we're at the edge!"
I ducked my head and held my breath, lips pursed and eyes screwed tightly shut.
A shadow crawled over the side of my left eyelid, Zoe's Jet Ray, as she hovered closer to my side. I could already tell her eyes weren't closed.
Ya know that feeling you get when someone's looking at you?
Yeah
"Why do we have to-"
And thus, the poor girl was slimed out mid sentence.
R.I.P Zoe, from 2070 to 2078
No but seriously-
A slimy white substance was sprayed all over our bodies as we zoomed through a large, metal arch, the only exit from our encased Colony, quickly seeping into our skin.
A disinfectant that prevents us from getting harmed by the environment. A safety measure.
The sky glittered with hues of blue, purple, and violet, all twisting, undulating, pulsing across the sky. The plants were a whole different story. Leaves, bioluminescent and glowing brightly in the everlasting darkness of this planet. The vines reached for us as we passed, trying to pull us into the open, snapping maws of the plants. But we flew right over them.
I grinned as I watched Zoe splutter and cough, the disinfectant oozing from her muzzle in thick streams as she struggled. Her Jet Ray wobbled under her and I moved to stabilise her, laughing all the way.
"PFFT! Dad DID warn you" I moved away when she attempted to scratch me.
"Oh shut up! It wasn't so bad anyway" She pressed a button on the straps that would filter out the muck. "Deeeefinetly not as bad as the time I watched you-"
I slammed my foot into the side of her Jet Ray, causing her to let out a yelp as she scrambled to get it under control again.
"Hey! You-"
"I thought we agreed not to talk about this?"
"You mean about that time you ate-"
"Zoe Comet Ormond I WILL be burning that barbie doll of yours!"
"SO YOU DID TAKE IT! I KNEW IT!"
"ONLY BECAUSE YOU TOOK MY ROCKET FIRST!"
"I'M TELLING DAD!"
"JOKES ON YOU HE ALREADY KNOWS-"
"Alright you two, that's enough. Aster, you're meant to be the older brother here, set a damn example"
"But dad-"
"No buts. The only butt I wanna see is YOURS seated PROPERLY on your Jet Ray. Don't look at me like that, I HAVE EYES- and you, Zoe, I do NOT want to hear another word. I thought you wanted to leave a good impression on your group"
"They can't exactly see us dad"
"Oh yes they can. Eyes on the road kid"
I looked ahead. In the distance, there was a group of several people, loading weapons of all sorts into a large vehicle.
The Hunt was just about ready to begin.