"Préyhen, it's time to get up." My mother called from the bottom of the stairs. I'd been awake for two hours by then but had enjoyed the tender warmth of the colorful blanket; it reminded me of good times spent with my father.
He'd taken me on a scavenging expedition a few years ago, during which, I picked up the comforter. We'd hiked to the abandoned infrastructure of what had been a small city before the Catrion war. It was fun because my father and I spent the day picking through relics of a time and people long gone. Most things of value such as electronics and jewelry had already been taken from the stores, probably by looters during the war, but we were able to find other useful trinkets. He'd found a horde of climbing equipment and a yellow composite axe. I'd grabbed the blanket, which had vibrant images of cartoon animals on it, and a bunch of cooking tools for my mother. The best part came when we were walking back though. I had gotten tired of carrying the heavy luggage and my feet were aching from the day's adventure, so my dad called a ride all the way from space to take us home.
Not wanting my mother to barge upstairs and lecture me about some behavior which could ultimately ruin my life, I rolled out of bed. Apparently I wasn't as awake as I had thought because if it hadn't been for my tail grabbing the corner of the bedframe, I would've tackled the worn carpet.
Finally, I crept downstairs in dungaree pants and a matching jacket. Discovering my mother had already left, I wished I'd stayed in bed those extra minutes. As tempting as it was to sneak back upstairs, I didn't so I could spend some time catching up with my dad.
Being on vacation from his job aboard the E.S. Next Dimension, he was going to spend the day making repairs around the house. He'd come home expecting to relax on the couch, but instead, his loving wife had a list of things for him to do. He lucked out in that accomplishing it all would only take most of his time off.
After I'd bagged me a lunch, ate breakfast, and listened to a few of my father's yarns, I scurried out the door to school. My mother would have to accept her husband was the reason I was late to class.
Like everyone else in the village, my mother had a role to fill. Since our village was rather small in the scheme of things, my mother was one of only three teachers in the entire community. She usually taught all the older students but she doesn't have a problem teaching kids.
There weren't really any grade or age distinctions, since the village was too small for that many students. Basically, the younger a student was, the closer to the front they sat. Some students, like myself, didn't have many peers our age, so we learned with the age groups above and below us.
The student body of my mom's class was pretty diverse for only twenty-seven members. It ranged from the age of thirteen to early adulthood and included both genders. What really mixed things up though were where approximately half the students came from.
One of the tragic realities of the Catrion War was how depleted the human population became. Not following the conventional style of warfare, when the Catrions started the conflict, they did it in a big way. The total population of humanity after the war including Earth, Mars, the Moon, and seventy-six space stations, was roughly one fourth of what it had been before the war. Half of what was left was on Mars, where the Catrion War barely touched, while the other half was spread so thin as a species, humanity ran the risk of going extinct.
Thus, when humans finally won the war, desperate measures had to be taken. The solution was to ask for female volunteers to accept either sperm from a stranger, or an already fertilized egg. Also, all humans were asked to donate gametes, to help other places survive. The children produced by these necessary procedures were called the Children of Spilt Blood.
The Children of Spilt Blood were most prevalent everywhere the Catrion war had been most destructive. That included all of Earth, the Moon, and most of the space stations. Many of these places had reestablished settlements, not unlike my own village, and because so many Children of Spilt Blood lived in these places, raising them became a group effort.
That was part of the reason my mom became a teacher, so she could help raise the children better. My mom adored young people and it showed.
I was only a few minutes (plus a few more) late to class. Thankfully, my mother was too busy teaching the youngest pupils to lecture me. I could only hope she'd forget later on when she wasn't busy.
After some snooping, I learned my age group was reading chapter twelve of the digital textbook in preparation of an essay worth as much as a test grade. That in mind, I made myself look busy, but feared not, because chapter twelve was about how the Catrions fought the war. I could've been wrong in my assumption, having only read the first sentence, but even if I was, I couldn't have been that far off. I figured since it was about the Catrions, I'd be fine with my parents being decorated war veterans and all. I never considered everyone else's parents had been alive during the Catrion War too.
Instead of researching for the massive assignment, I scribbled a note to my friends. Both friends on either side of me received a similar note to better my chances of starting a conversation.
The first went to Victor Weylin, the tall blond boy with cute eyes. A Child of Spilt Blood, like his siblings, he was one of the oldest students in the class. Though only fifteen, he was admired by all his younger peers and was their role model. Despite the pressure, he managed to pull it off; his kind yet reserved personality helped. Among his friends, he was a little more outgoing, but seemed most relaxed around me. That might've been because we were so close in age, but I'd never bothered to ask.
On my right, Oken Nelli Dabahov received the other scrap of paper. Her friends called her Nellya, as a variation of her middle name. Among those not considered her friends, there was a lot of speculation about her though.
For starters, no one was quite sure whether or not she was a Child of Spilt Blood. Her father, the farmer Mr. Dabahov, said she wasn't and that her mother died in childbirth. Curious immature youngsters however begged to differ. The qualifications for one to be a Child of Spilt Blood were that at least one parent needed to be a victim of the Catrion war, and somehow their genetic information stored to pass on later. Some believed Nellya was one because losing a mother during childbirth was exceptionally rare, too rare in fact. But that was just the snow on the mountain top. Questions arose about Nellya's first name and why she was named what she was. Both Nelli and Dabahov were Russian names, but a name as unique as Oken, made little sense.
A handful of clever teenagers, Alaric among their number, found a solution. Upon researching the Catrion War, a young Martian woman was found with the same name. Oken, the one from the war, was a prominent figure for her people when the Catrions tried to expand to the red planet. She started out in a simple martial arts class, which records proved Mr. Dabahov had also been a part of, and eventually became the figurehead of the resistance. Even before she earned her fame, she'd taken part in the Battle for Red Columbia, and other major conflicts. Her recognition began though at the Battle for Santa's Domain, where she led only a few hundred soldiers in one of the most daring and important raids against the Catrions ever to be performed. Later, she enlisted in the remnants of Earth's military, to serve as an officer aboard the E.S. Next Dimension. Coincidentally, so did a younger Mr. Dabahov. Oken's career spiraled upwards; she eventually landed a powerful position as the Chief Commander of the Next Dimension's Ground Forces, which made her Mr. Dabahov's commanding officer. She died during the Second Battle of Britain due to a wound which left her body disfigured. It's known Mr. Dabahov was nearby when she died; he told a story once about the terrifying battle. Before Oken's funeral, there was a period of about a day when her body was left alone, and it was during that time the mysteries began unfolding.
The theory was that Mr. Dabahov snuck into the morgue, and desecrated her corpse. Rumor had it, he stole at least one of her eggs, and then, military service records indicated he was AWOL for a year immediately following the Second Battle of Britain. It had taken a lot of wild theories for the nosy conspirators to track down the next clue, but eventually they succeeded. One of the leading genetic research institutes on Mars, had recently patented a method of exogenesis that replaced damaged wombs with artificial ones. If what was said about Nellya was true, Mr. Dabahov paid a visit to this facility, where he slipped them a sufficient amount of cash off the records for them to fuse his sperm with one of Oken's eggs, and then impregnate him with it. Of course, he had to have this fake mother installed inside him, and then to prevent social complications from arising, he had to carry and give birth to his child in the hands of the company who put the implant in. When he returned to service, he had with him, an infantile daughter.
There were certainly a lot of questions brought about by the facts presented, but I didn't believe the man who grew watermelons a mile behind my house had been so disturbed, he conceived and created one of my best friends.
Unfortunately for me, I received a reply from both neighbors at the same time; all good bad students know that if one note is received at a time, they're safe, but two is practically a death wish. I lucked out though, because a furtive glance at my mother's face revealed she hadn't witnessed the breach of classroom etiquette.
Expert ninja fingers opened Victor's response first. Opening the message took practiced precision so that my mother's acute ears didn't notice the ruffling paper.
"What took you so long to get to class? You're normally the first one here so you can help your mom with whatever she needs." Victor's scratchy handwriting forced me to scan the two sentences twice before I could derive a meaning from them.
"I was talking with my dad." I jotted down, and inconspicuously passed.
Next came the note from Nellya. Just as I'd done with Victor's I unfolded the sheet of paper and peered at the writing. Nellya's handwriting looked angry and rushed; she was one of the few people I knew who could express emotion through the way her 't's were slashed.
"Leave me alone! This is interesting stuff!" Though her harsh command disappointed me, I accepted it. Nellya had a good heart, but she was slightly obsessed with beings she'd never even seen. Most of her free time was spent studying all the available texts on the Catrion war or interviewing those who'd seen the odd extra-terrestrials. Thankfully I still had boredom relief coming from my left.
"Do you want to hang out after school?" Victor asked. I glanced at him with my peripheral vision. His eyebrows were raised and he wore a questioning look, yet like myself, he hadn't lifted his head from the reading.
"Sure," I wrote down in my blue ink. "Where? Lake Wannapeg?"
"If you want to, but we could walk around the woods too if you liked." Something was troubling him. Lake Wannapeg was his favorite place to go, yet if he was bothered and wanted to talk, he'd invite me into the woods. There were fewer people around to listen in on his woes, and more privacy.
"I'd like that, do you want to eat lunch there too?" For our age group, class dismissed at noon, which was normally when most people went home for lunch. By asking him if he wanted to eat lunch in the woods, he could get what was bugging him off his chest that much sooner.
No sooner had I slid the paper back to Victor, than a paper ball crashed into my work, knocking a pencil off the desk. Its obnoxious clattering to the floor forced my mom to jerk her head up and scowl in my general direction. After mouthing an apology and retrieving my pencil with my tail, I glared in the direction the projectile had come from.
Alaric was grinning his normal "I'm a conceited little prat and proud of it." smile. He pantomimed for me a command to open the paper. Apart from many rude drawings of me/my tail, and a dozen or so insults, there was a sentence he'd circled.
"I know how to find the Catrions."
"Tell me." I broke so many rules of student-hood, I felt like a little kid again. My response came not only with a violent head turn, but exaggerated lip movements, and a hushed whisper. I paid the price for it.
"Préyhen!" Snapped the voice that made me cringe. "Were you just talking?!"
I inched around to face my mother as she poured out her wrath. "Yes, but I have a good reason." I spoke at around three words per minute, or at least I think it was that fast.
"What's your excuse?" My mother crossed her arms; a bead of sweat trickled down my forehead.
"Excuse? Me? I'm above such petty representations of realities separate than this one. Give me some credit."
"I'll give you until the count of two."
"You see-"
"One,"
"Alaric, he's such a sweet little boy! He was helping me with my math homework, and I didn't get this one problem, and I wanted him to explain!"
"Two." My heart sank.
"Really? That's a fascinating reality in an existence separate than this one." My mother scolded. "I didn't give any math homework last Friday."
"No!" I threw out my hands; I was relieved there hadn't been any math homework since I hadn't bothered doing it if there had been. "Honestly mother, you think I'm that lazy? No, I was referring to this night's homework!" One eyebrow raised on my mother's face. "I've, uh, already finished taking notes on the chapter and think I can produce a satisfactory essay, so I moved on!" I had a feeling it was a mother's hope that her only daughter would try to excel in academics that saved me. She wouldn't have bought my story if something hadn't suggested she believe it, and maybe, just maybe, it was her desire for me to be smart.
"That's a fascinating recollection of events, but it needs support." At first I'd expected to have to walk down the lonely isle and show her and a class of hopefuls that I lied, but the tide changed. "Alaric, come here. Bring me your notes and all homework you've attempted thus far." I wouldn't have minded getting yelled at in exchange for seeing that pale expression again.
He stood up, snatching the loose sheets of paper from underneath the bent arm of his sleeping neighbor. He wasn't bringing his own work, probably because he hadn't done any, but rather borrowed the work of his brilliant peer. She wouldn't mind, she was too quiet to care really. Aside from her staggering intellect, little was known about her except she was the oldest child of Jade Cateye, the village's librarian.
Thanks to Alaric being a kleptomaniac, I got off easy. My mother saw the papers had far too much information on them, and a suitable amount of math on another. That was enough for her to find me innocent, and for Alaric to let out a sigh of relief as he walked back to the long table at the back of the class he sat at. On the way, he sent me so many glowering looks, I thought for a split second he might've liked me beforehand.
School ran from eight in the morning to noon, but it took approximately nine and a half hours for noon to arrive. That was an exaggeration of course; the actual time was probably closer to thirteen or fourteen hours. The point was though, that it came, and when it did, the class scurried to the door, without understanding the concept of one person going through the door at a time. As always, they tried to exit twenty-seven at once. Naturally, there were one or two minor traffic jams.
Victor and I walked in the in a direction perpendicular to the one traveled by most of the other adolescents. Many of them were sprinting towards the homes just next to the center of town, but Victor and I took our time going to the woods. As we walked, he seemed to let his distress seep from his pores, and out of concern, I asked him about it.
"I'm listening, but you're not talking."
The corners of his mouth lifted a hair. "It's just that I don't think my mom can handle all the stress of the others." By the others, I assumed he meant his siblings.
"It must be hard for you, being the oldest."
"You have no idea." He put his hands in his pockets. “She’s trying but she has so much to put up with.”
“She seems to be doing okay, and she knows she can ask your aunt and my mom for help.” Comforting a friend was difficult when the entire problem was hazy; his mom’s overworked state of being couldn’t be the whole issue.
“Thanks, you know, for trying. I still don’t know what to do, but I feel better knowing I can talk to you.” He stopped walking near the edge of the woods, took my hands in his, and looked deep into my eyes. The next thing I knew, his arms had flown up mine, and tied themselves behind my back. I felt somewhat odd, but still managed to hug him back. What was embarrassing though was the way he had to untangle his leg from me when it was over; my tail had joined my left leg to his right by wrapping around our two legs more than half a dozen times.
A fuzzy brown rabbit with gorgeous black eyes and a fluffy white tail scampered past. Victor and I watched the animal until a gunshot shattered our peace. A dark pine cone exploded six inches from the rabbit’s tiny front legs.
Victor was instantly livid; it didn’t help it was his oldest younger brother responsible for the destroyed seed pod. “You idiot! Where’d you get that thing?!”
“I bought it!” The boy cried clutching the rifle to his chest. It looked like one of the lever action rifles from the end of the Catrion War. The massive drum magazine capable of holding more than 200 rounds near the end of the barrel gave it away.
“You bought it?! With what?! You’ve owed me more than 300 credits for almost a year!” Victor was a surprisingly good angry person. One wouldn’t have thought so, but he was.
“I was going to pay you back!” He pleaded. As I stared at him, the resemblance of his cheekbones to Victor’s was apparent; they shared the same mother. His name was Harold.
“You were going to kill that rabbit with money you owed me!”
By then, the almost-fourteen-year-old was unable to defend himself.
“Give me that stupid gun and I won’t tell mom what happened.” Victor walked forward with his hands open and arms outstretched. The younger brother threw a hateful look, placed the gun in Victor’s extended hand, and ran home, tears welling in his eyes.
“What did you do that for?” I asked out of curiosity, not in defending the boy. “He would’ve paid you back eventually.”
“It wasn’t about the money.” Victor sighed. “I just can’t stand the thought of killing anything, and he’d shoot everything that wouldn’t get him arrested.”
“Are you going to give it back?”
“Not unless you think I should. I’m not going to sell it back to whoever he bought it from if that’s what you’re wondering.” Victor slung the long forty-two inch rifle over his shoulder. “I’ll keep it in my room, and maybe let him shoot cans once in a while.”
I nodded my approval. I was glad to have my best friend be so protective of life, especially after almost seeing a bunny rabbit killed.
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