Unearthly Battles

Prologue

Many things in society have been lost to time. There are languages we no longer speak and inventions we no longer use. And yet new technology is being created every moment. So much of it, in fact, that we've begun to decay. There is no communication. There are no interactions. The bliss of holding the internet in the palm of our hand has encompassed every part of us. And so we enter this story with more knowledge of the dying society than the majority of citizens. How can you possibly know how bad the world is if the fiction that fills your screen always looks amazing?

Boston - Back Stories

Her black hair flew out behind her as she sprinted down the seemingly endless stairs of the brick building. She could still hear the screams of her little sister, her own sobs, and his sick laughter. Every part of her body ached with guilt and self-hate. How could she ever let it happen? How could she sit there, weak, and watch? Why hadn't she gotten up? Hit him? Tried to do anything at all? She was a fucking coward and she knew it. She didn't deserve the chance that her sister had just given her. Because now she was running from her problems in the same way she always did, but this time she wouldn't be going back.

-

His hand reached out for a few more shirts to stuff into his backpack. The necessities were in there already. His entire life's savings. His phone and charger even though he was doubtful that anybody would be trying to find him. He may have been popular but not one of his "friends" had ever really cared much about him. His mother had cared, his father once too, but that was years ago. That was a time that kept getting harder and harder to remember. His steps were soft as he made it past the drunk man that lay sprawled out on the couch, a nearly empty bottle of tequila balancing in his limp arms. The air outside the house was much cleaner as it wasn't polluted with the fumes of alcohol and cigarette smoke, or the odor of a body that hadn't been properly showered in weeks. All of that was behind him now.

-

"What the fuck did you just say?" And yes, she knew she had made a terrible mistake. Why couldn't she just be the body she was born into? Why did she have to have the gnawing feeling that it wasn't right? And why on earth had she dared to mention it to her parents?

"I-I'm uh I'm not meant to be a boy. I'm not. I can't explain it, but I'm a girl. I'm transgender. I-I've been researching it, it's when you're born into the wro-"

"But you are a boy. I gave birth to you! I had a son! I didn't have a daughter."

"No, Mum, really. It's a real thing, it happens a lot actually. I may have been born with the parts of a boy but-"

"No! There are no buts and that's fucking final! I will not have a freak with identity issues living under my roof. Act like the young man you are or get the hell out of my house! I'm tired of the feminine act and the flower crowns. If you can't accept that you're a boy then that isn't my fucking problem." 

The household was deadly silent for a moment.

A small whimpered apology for being a failure made its way around the room, but she knew the right thing to do. She grabbed a few vital items and left her childhood home without a glance back at her parents.

-

"What am I meant to do with a fucking child, Mark? I'm still in high school, we're both still in high school! I can't raise a little girl."

"We haven't considered all our optio-"

"I'm not getting an abortion. Some people can do that, but I just, I can't."

"That isn't what I was suggesting."

"What, you mean adoption?"

"I was thinking an orphanage, there's one in the city. We could bring her there..."

-

Tears poured down the faces of the two siblings. Their home, their childhood, their parents, all gone. And it was all taken by a fire. A fire that shouldn't have had anything to do with them, one that should have been immediately put out when it started a couple floors below their apartment. Their parents had date night and were just climbing the stairs when the inferno began to swallow the hallway. But date night was supposed to be the day before, only being postponed because one of the twins had fallen ill.

"Hello my dears. I'm terribly sorry to hear of your parents. I'm from social services, my name is Nancy. Would you mind coming with me?"

-

The mansion seemed more empty than usual. Maybe he had already figured out, but it wasn't something he would admit to himself so easily. He still had hope that his parents cared for him. And it was the same hope that caused him to search each room, pretending that his mother would be drinking a cup of tea in one of the sitting rooms. Or his father was finishing a business report in his bedroom, or perhaps his office? But no, they weren't. They were gone. A sadly unsurprising event given that they hardly had time to raise him anyways. He couldn't take being in the house a moment longer. His legs carried him right out the door and into town, not planning to ever return.

-

"There's seven of them, sir. The strongest we've ever seen of their age group. Do you think they'll be the ones to finally work? Will they be able to win?"

"Yes. I have a feeling, a peculiar feeling. Different than ever before. Subject One looks most promising, don't you think? She isn't the oldest, maybe not the most stable of them, but I think it'll be her."