The Inadequate Experiments: 1. White Noise [Rough Draft]

Part 1; Insanity - 3. Denial

As I raced into the house after school that afternoon, the door slammed behind me; a rare occurrence - Mum had set up the house so the doors couldn't slam, but - depending on how pissed off a person was - they still had the ability to slam sometimes, when you slipped past Hana's notice. Hana was the Home and Nutrition Assistant - she was, in simple terms, a computerised program that controlled the house, and when the twins were younger, they started calling her Hana rather than 'the HANA system' and the name kind of just stuck.

I had slipped past Hana's notice, until the door slammed. Then the house was in uproar.

"Seraphina Elizabeth Grey, if I catch you slamming doors again, you'll regret the day I gave birth to you!" Mum yelled from her bedroom, the door still closed off, just as it had been that morning when I had left for school.

The twins, Shaunee and Stacy, squealed - a high pitched wailing noise that I was convinced only young children could make. Thomas jumped in his seat by the television in the living room, the newspaper he had been reading rattled noisily, even though it was a Projection. The twins' dogs - who had been sleeping peacefully by the air conditioner - jumped awake, and were suddenly barking at everything with a heartbeat.

"A bad day at school, Madame Sera?" Hana asked me.

"You could say that." I muttered under my breath as I made my way to the kitchen, ready to begin searching for some sort of chocolaty food that would take my mind off things.

"Would it happen to have something to do with those twelve zeroes on your Watch, Madame Sera?" Hana pressed.

I cursed under my breath. Now every person in the house had their attention trained on me. "No, no, I..." I sighed and let out a noise somewhere between a groan and a growl when I realised there was no way I could say something nice about Oliver that didn't include him agreeing to visit the Scientists with me.

The twins had abandoned their place on the living room floor where they had been calming don their Maltese/Shih Tzu puppies and ran over to me, their faces lit with uncontrollable excitement. Thomas let the top half of his projected newspaper fold over backwards, and stared at me expectantly through his rectangle reading glasses. I knew what he was trying to say to me instantly; Even if you're not happy, at least pretend to be for the twins.

Then again, he could have also been telling me to pretend to be happy for my own safety. Even though I wasn't in any way his daughter, and I was the reason his Soul Mate was dying, he still cared for me as if I was blood. I appreciated that a lot; it meant I still had a place to stay when we eventually lost my mother. I hoped for her sake, that day would come soon. Seeing her suffer and knowing it was because of me broke my heart every day.

"Who is it?" Shaunee asked, her blue eyes looking almost as If they were about to pop out of her skull.

"What's he like?" Stacy asked, her expression mirroring her twin's.

"Is he nice?" Shaunee pressed.

"Is he hot?" Stacy smirked.

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you." I told them simply, discovering a bar of chocolate in the fridge, which I proceeded to share with the twins, knowing they would force me to stay there until I told them everything.

"Tell us about him." Shaunee said with a warm smile on her face.

I thought back to the beginning of the day, and everyone's reaction when Audrey shrieked the word Inequit. I couldn't bare for my sisters to look at me that way, so I racked my brain for the things about Oliver that were somewhat positive. "He's nice and kind," I started, "and he likes the same books as me..."