All Alexis ever wanted to be was normal. But when she's reunited with an old friend she didn't remember she's reminded of the ugly truth: The world isn't always a kind place.
Faced with struggle and conflict in the real world she withdraws into the new VRMMORPG, a game called Resistance in a world where players can move their virtual avatars the same way they move their real bodies.
In this Virtual World, Alexis becomes Faye; the cold blooded sniper who faces all her problems with her rifle.
Will Alexis be able to find the strength she needs to keep going in this virtual world, or will she be completely unable to keep going?
Prologue- Those 3 Years
Even now, after three long years, her words were still engraved in my memory.
‘I’m gonna be honest with you,’ she had said to me that day. ‘It won’t always be easy. And it won’t always be fun and games. But if this is truly what you want, if this is truly what you believe you need, then it’ll all be worth it. You’ll always have my love and support. You only get one chance at life, you have to live it your way.’
And that’s how the best 3 years of my life began.
---- Artemis Jones, 4 Days Later, Give or Take 8 Minutes ----
December 29, 2019, Exactly 11:37 AM.
I was sitting in the kitchen working on my Holiday Vacation homework, and let’s be honest here. These are clearly words that should never be associated with each other, under any circumstances. This has to qualify as some kind of child cruelty.
Also, and this is just to set the record straight, I was not humming along with the music my mom was playing while she prepared lunch. Whatever she says to the contrary is a lie.
Anyway, the house on the left of us was owned by Bertha. She was a kind old woman who tended to visit at least once a week, usually staying for lunch or dinner that day. They’d known each other for a lot longer than I’d been alive, with Bertha having babysat mom when she was younger.
We were a small neighborhood, so while everyone really knew everybody else and it wasn’t uncommon for us to have a guest over, there wasn’t any other kids my age nearby. Because of that, I’d spend my afternoons hanging out with my mom or in my room playing games or watching TV. Truly, I’m living my life to the fullest.
Back then I would, occasionally, spend a day with my dad; but he wasn’t around much since he was always traveling for work.
“Oh, yeah.” Bertha finally broke the comfortable silence that had settled over the kitchen with a thought stimulated by the delicious smell of cooking taco meat. “Do you know Helen? Lives a few houses down from me?”
Helen, who I’d probably say was just barely fifty, was a kind woman. As you can probably guess, she lives down the street. On a few rare occasions she’d actually babysit me, which is probably why this conversation piqued my interest. Although I did pretend to keep my attention on my math worksheet. (Sorry for using the M word)
“Did something happen to her?” Mom asked from over by the stove.
“Nothing bad,” Bertha responded. “But from what she’s told me, her grandkids moved in with her. Couple days ago, I think.”
Like most other grandparents, Helen did have a tendency to talk an awful lot about her grandkids. Because of that, I knew she had four grandkids; a pair of older twins, another one who was around their age, and then a younger one. That was all I knew then, though.
“I wonder what happened,” Mom let the thought trail off as she threw a thing of taco shells into the oven, before instructing me to go wash up and put everything away before lunch.
“What do you say we pay them a little visit later?” Mom asked when I came back downstairs a couple minutes later.
Looking back on it now though, I have to wonder how much my mom already knew beforehand. About their situation, about the grandkids themselves, and about how important that visit would end up being for me.
--- 1 Hours, 4 Minutes, and 32 Seconds Later ---
“Oh, Carol!” Helen answered the door with a smile on her face, in spite of us randomly showing up unannounced in the middle of the day. Helen had one of the personalities that meant she wouldn’t even think twice about that. “What brings you here?”
“Well I was just in the neighborhood,” I apologize for my mom’s awful attempt at a joke. I sincerely do. “And I figured I’d come by to say hi and see what’s up.”
“Come on in. It’s way too cold outside to just stand around on the porch. I’ll go get us all something hot to drink.”
Stepping through the door into her living room, I mentally sighed as Helen went off towards the kitchen.
It’s not that I didn’t like Helen, or that I didn’t want to be here or anything. It’s just that I had a game with a New Years event that I had barely started and it would be ending in a couple days.
Sitting on the couch was a little girl about my age who had been playing with an old handheld until just a moment ago. When she finally noticed us, she had what I can only describe as an internal meltdown as she straightened herself out.
The look in her eyes in that very moment was more like a cornered animal than a kid’s. She looked like she was ready to lash out at anyone who made any sudden movements, rather than someone who was just meeting new neighbors.
She had a slightly petite frame, her shoulders going so stiff and tense when she saw us that they looked more like a statue’s than any living being’s. Her entire body was shaking, just barely noticeable if you were looking for it.
When Mom walked over and crouched down, she slowly extended her hand out to the shy girl as a greeting. Although the motion wasn’t hostile, the girl still flinched like she expected to be hit for no reason. It wasn’t huge or overly dramatic, but it was enough to be undeniable that it had happened.
But Mom just waited there for a moment, the gentile smile on her face unmoved, with her hand outstretched. The girl finally, and hesitantly, reached out her own hand; small and delicate with immaculate pink nails.
Her pink sweater looked pretty much brand new, her delicate hands just barely peeking out from the sleeves as she fidgeted nervously with her skirt and hair. She wore a matching pink skirt, which I’d also guess had never worn before. Her tights-clad legs were locked tightly together as they trembled, her feet spread apart as it bounced repeatedly. It was all she could do not to run for the door right then and there.
Her hair, the color an oak tree’s bark, was long and frizzy. Even at just a passing glance, her hair was clearly well taken care of. Strange as it may sound, it reminded me of a child’s teddy bear. Maybe the color, maybe just the way someone had taken such good care of it, like someone had poured their heart in soul into its upkeep. Like it was the last thing they could cling to, all they had that they could cherish. A final lifeline to their sanity.
Her eyes shone like the gray waters of the sea as it churns in the moonlight during a storm. Somehow catching every single shade of blue, you could almost see the waves as they churned and crashed against the shore. Someone should name a color after this girl.
Although they seemed very off putting at first, as fierce as the stormy sea at a glance, somehow I was drawn to them the more I looked.
“I’m sorry,” Helen broke the awkward silence, successfully almost giving me a heart attack, as she re-entered the room with a tray of drinks. As I quickly turned away, my face completely flushed and probably a similar shade to a firetruck, I realized I’d been literally staring into the girl’s eyes for only-God-knows-how-long. Oopsy?
As Helen set the tray of drinks down on the coffee table, I couldn’t help but think about how similar and yet how very different Helen and the girl seemed.
There was clearly a family resemblance. I mean sure, they had the same frizzy hair and maybe even a similar warmness in their blue eyes if you looked long enough.
But there was a true family resemblance going beyond that.
They both appeared to have the same kindness and compassion at their core. The desire to protect and hold dear what they loved. The same fiery and passionate inside, that fire that couldn’t be extinguished. That would proudly blaze on, fueled by love and passion.
The ever present difference was in how they carried themselves.
Helen was carefree and cheerful. Her eyes shone with kindness and compassion. She was the kind of person a lost child would look for on the street for help. She radiated an aura of trust and love, like a parent or grandparent should.
The girl, on the other hand, had about ten lawyers of nervousness. Although her uncontrollable shaking had stopped when Helen walked back into the room, she still looked ready to run. She averted her eyes down to her hot cocoa whenever someone looked in her general direction, and had a general ‘deer caught in the headlights’ aura.
Although I’d originally pegged her as cold and harsh inside, maybe even fierce, when I truly looked at her and thought about it, I had to wonder. Was my initial assessment right, or my random gut feeling? What was she really like when she got comfortable around someone?
“Where are my manners? I should have done introductions before I left. This is my youngest granddaughter Alexis,” Helen went on as she took a seat on the couch next to Alexis. “We were just waiting for the twins to get back before we headed out. Alexis, this is Carol and Artemis Jones; they live down the street.”
Giving an awkward one handed motion that may have been a wave, Alexis went back to nervously playing with her skirt. She kept her eyes locked onto the mug of cocoa.
“Anything special planned?” Mom asked after a long sip of her coffee.
“We were gonna head down to the mall,” Helen responded. “With all the moving and unpacking done, I figured we could all use some fun in our lives. Always paperwork and legalese to be done, but you can’t forget to have some fun in our lives can we?”
“I hear that,” Mom laughed as she then went on to talk about anything and everything the way adults do.
--- About an hour of boring adult conversation later ---
Ever just get so caught up in ignoring a conversation, or anything else I suppose, that your brain just kind of stops working for awhile? Well that’s what I’d managed to do, at least until the door opening gave me my second near heart attack of the day.
In walked two people, both around maybe thirteen or fourteen. Through my amazing powers of deduction, I identified them as two of the kids from the pictures scattered around the house. Although I didn’t care enough to make out what they were saying, they seemed to be in the middle of a debate.
Max, and I knew his name because of my amazing powers of deduction and also because I read it off of his nametag, was waving his arms and hands around as he talked.
He was tall and thin, like he was healthy but not all that athletic. His hair was chestnut in color, slightly longer than most boys. It was more like he didn’t have time for a haircut than a fashion statement. His eyes were like puddles of melted chocolate, with the emotion inside of them just as hard to read at a glance as Alexis’. They seemed to contain some layer of tragedy and mystery behind the happy and carefree expression he used as a cover that probably drove his female (and maybe some male) classmates crazy.
He wore a plain white t-shirt that he had probably pulled directly from the dryer that morning, and dark jeans that almost seemed to hang off his body. After noticing there were guests in the house, he didn’t completely freeze like Alexis. Actually, his body language didn’t change much, if at all. He just kept one hand in his pocket and a black jacket tucked under his right arm despite the insanely cold temperature that came with the end of December here in Central New York.
His twin, whose name tag read Cindy, had already worked her way behind the coach with her arms wrapped around Alexis in a protective manner.
Although obviously fraternal twins, they looked awfully similar. Her hair, the same color as her brother’s, was cut in a pixie style, directly drawing attention to her eyes. The same chocolatey shade as her brother’s with the same hidden look of tragic backstory and pain behind a soft, loving and caring gaze.
She, unlike her brother, apparently had the common sense to wear her jacket. Black as midnight and slightly unzipped at the top, revealing her white blouse.
“Well, I do believe we’ve imposed ourselves on you enough,” Mom announced with a smile as she started to get up. The smile, although it seemed natural enough, felt more like a clue or a reminder than just a normal action.
“Don’t be ridiculous, you guys are welcome here anytime,” Helen said before a light bulb seemed to pop into existence over her head. Either she had a terrible poker face, or she’d set this up beforehand and was a terrible actress. “In fact, why don’t you two come with us?”
--- Alexis Johnson, A Year and a Half Later, The Start of Summer Vacation ---
“Do you believe in fate?” The voice came from over the television’s speakers, the game’s loading screen still ever present on the screen.
Since the room was completely silent a second ago, I’d forgotten that voice chat was enabled at all. As the game was still on a loading screen the only thing present was a username in each corner; Faye099 and TheShadowSlayer respectively.
The question caught me so off guard, probably because neither of us ever really showed the capability to hold a serious conversation, that I almost choked to death on the pile of peanut butter M&Ms I had thrown in my mouth a second ago.
“I believe in Fire Emblem Fates,” I finally managed not to choke to death on the delicious candy. “Does that count for anything?”
“Not really,” the voice laughed back as the character selection screen came up. “Just a random thought. Didn’t mean anything by it.”
Nothing important was said again until a few matches later, when the same voice spoke up at a time that didn’t involve me almost choking to death.
“Oh yeah, have you heard of Resistance or the Dreamscape?” The question was posed just as the character selection screen came up once again.
“Only just now when you said them,” I replied confused where that thought came from.
“I gotta run, but you should totally look into them.” The next sound to be heard the sound of the voice chat disconnecting me turning the game system off.
I have to admit I let my curiosity get the better of me next, grabbing my laptop off of the desk I kept it on.
Dreamscape- The technology dreams used to be made of, pun intended. The Dreamscape uses electromagnetic waves to not only shut down external senses to launch you into the world of the game you’ve selected; but also utilizes its ability to send false sensory data to your brain so you explore the game world as easily as if you were controlling your own body.
Resistance (also known as Resistance Online)- The most notable launch title for the Dreamscape, Resistance uses the newest in virtual reality technology. A First-Person Shooter VRMMORPG (Virtual Reality Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game) which emphasises Player Vs Player combat as you fight for supremacy and to reclaim the barren wastelands of Earth. (And, just as a personal aside, doesn’t emphasizing player vs player fighting contradict the goal of reclaiming a barren Earth?)
Want to test the near miracle technology, brought to you by technology genius inventor and developer Jennifer Chase, before it’s Christmas 2022 release date? Then make sure to test out the demo version, available during E3 2021.
The next thing I did was look up E3 2021, but I didn’t get very far.
“E3, huh?” The voice, due to the fact that I was sure I was alone a second ago, almost stopped my heart cold.
Of course, the other half of the room was usually occupied by my older sister. I wasn’t use to being alone, even in my room. But she was currently at a chess club meeting, and this voice was much younger than her anyway.
I didn’t have many friends, I’m not exactly a people person, so I saved a lot of time in figuring out who was next to me.
“When did you…” I started to ask, before she cut me off.
“A couple minutes ago,” Artemis answered, still looking at my laptop’s screen from over my shoulder. “Mom’s talking to you grandma about something or other. I got bored. You didn’t hear me come in?”
Before I could reply to that, I was called into the kitchen by Grandma’s voice. Trying to remember if I’d done anything that would get me yelled at, I made my way out to the kitchen.
“...n’t know,” Grandma was mid-sentence by the time I got to the kitchen. “I mean, I have a business trip this week so maybe it’d be better…”
I’d honestly forgotten all about Grandma’s business trip this week. Being responsible for raising three kids, Grandma had greatly reduced how often she traveled for work. However, sometimes it just couldn’t be avoided.
Usually that just resulted in me being stuck with Cindy and Max, so I didn’t see why it was important. Of course, I had no idea what was going on.
“Alexis,” Grandma called me over when she saw me, making me think I really was in trouble. Did my report card already come in the mail? “There’s something we need to discuss.”
Even at eight and a half years old, I’d already heard the phrase ‘Life/The Lord works in mysterious ways’ more times than I can count. (Because I’ve heard it a lot, not because I can’t count very high.) I guess, given the circumstances, I can understand why everyone said it to me so much.
But I didn’t expect, in any way, to be invited on a vacation to the very convention I had just typed into my search engine.
--- E3, 6 Days Later at Precisely 1:07 P… No sorry, Precisely 1:08 PM ---
‘Hindsight is 20/20.’ My grandma use to say it all the time. It always seemed weird too, especially since she seemed to know exactly what was going to happen before it did.
But I couldn’t help but say it over and over again in my head right now. I should have realized that everyone within a sixty mile radius would be waiting in line for a chance to try the demo.
I probably had a better chance of being struck dead by lightning in that line than I had of making it to the front of it.
And, just to paint you a picture of what the line looked like, it mostly consisted of three different groups.
You had the gun fanatics, who probably consisted of maybe sixty percent of the people present. They were the ones only interested in the realism the game bragged about. Most of them were older than thirty, and almost entirely male.
Then there were the gamers, the maybe forty percent of the group who were drawn in by the game itself. Some had probably never played a shooter game in their life, and were purely drawn in by the technology. The age range here was slightly more diverse, some of the younger ones being around eighteen, but most were still men.
Oh, the third group? That would be me and Artemis, the 8 year old girls. We fit right in.
“Aren’t you kind of young to be here?” A woman’s voice asked, not particularly hostile but rather surprised. “What do two cute little girls want from a world of guns, smoke, and oil?”
‘A new life. A second chance. A new reality. A place where no one knows me. A place where I can matter, and make a difference. A chance to feel irreplaceable to someone. A world where I can be anything.’ I wanted to say, although I didn’t get the chance.
“Oh, sorry,” The woman spoke up before I could answer. “I didn’t mean to be rude. My name is Jennifer Chase.”
Chapter 1- The Boy Next Door
--- Alexis, December 23rd, 2022. 7:53 AM ---
“Class,” our teacher’s voice somehow managed to break through the chaos and anarchy that is an elementary school classroom the day before Christmas vacation. “Before we begin, I’d like to announce our new transfer student, Gabriel Morris.”
The rest of the room started up in hushed whispers, and even I couldn’t help it.
“Who moves at this time of year?” I had asked the question quietly and rhetorically, only to get an answer back anyway.
“Seriously?”
Artemis had a point. I wasn’t going to admit that to her, but she did.
Anyway when I looked at the new kid the first thing I noticed, strangely enough, were his eyes. They were unlike anything I had ever seen before.
They shone like an emerald, in the same shade of green that breaks through the snow to remind you that spring is here. The same color that grows on the winter’s victims, bringing life back to what once was dead. The color of the forest as it stands tall after the hurricane. They were the color of life, and of hope. The kind that never wavered, and never gave in.
His hair was longer than most of the other boys in the class, and as dark as the midnight sky on a moonless night. It reminded me of freshly printed ink, dripping off of paper into every strand. The light even gave it a kind of indigo blue hue.
His skin was tanned, like he’d just moved here from Florida.
Everything about him seemed healthy, save for one thing. The wheelchair.
His entire lower body was sitting in one of those electric wheelchairs I had thought only existed on TV until today.
Something inside of me told me I should know him, but stayed silent on how.
According to the story being passed around at lunch, he was paralyzed from the waist down after a car accident about a year ago. He didn’t seem reluctant to talk about it, but he also didn’t give anymore details beyond that.
The whole thing seemed kind of fishy.
--- Artemis’ House, 3:49 PM ---
“Mommmm,” Artemis called out as we walked through her front door. “I’m home.”
“Hey girls,” A woman’s voice called back from the kitchen, the smell of homemade cookies drifting through the air. “Be right there.”
It wasn’t uncommon for Artemis’ mom, Carol, to watch me when no one else would be home; but that didn’t help to shake the feeling of how I felt like a burden every time.
Carol was a bit on the shorter side of scale, and not to be disrespectful or anything, but was actually a little on the overweight side too. Not dangerously or anything, and in spite of it she actually had a rather healthy glow to her.
Although Artemis’ hair was so white it almost seemed to glow silver in most lights, her mother’s hair had the same burnt out orange color as a sunset, almost glowing with warmth as it tumbled onto her shoulders like rusty water. Carol’s hair was cut rather short, reaching just past her shoulders when straightened. I could only guess that she kept it that way because she spent a lot of time cooking and baking in a hot kitchen.
Carol’s personality was always warm and loving, the mom of the group that always had everyone at their house. The one all the other kids always called mom.
“Hey Mom,” Artemis started out of what seemed to be nowhere as her mom entered the living room. “Have you met the new neighbors?”
“Wait wait wait, new neighbors?” I asked genuinely confused, causing Artemis to roll her eyes in an overly dramatic fashion before answering.
“Seriously, there’s been a moving truck outside for, like, a week. With real movers and everything. Don’t you ever walk outside?”
“I decline to answer.”
I didn’t even get around to asking what house had been for sale before there was a knock at the door.
“Hey,” a woman whom I had never seen before spoke up as Carol answered the door. “We just moved in next door, and I was hoping to get to know some of the people who live in the neighborhood.”
The line sounded rehearsed, like she’d said it a couple hundred times into a mirror before finally knocking on the door just now. It was a feeling I knew well.
“Why doesn’t anyone ever just bring a cake and say ‘I brought you this cake to see if you’re weird?’” I was only asking what I believed to be a fair question.
“What if they don’t like cake?”
“Then mission accomplished. They’re weird.”
Once again, Artemis rolled her eyes at me. I was starting to notice a pattern here.
“I’m Ellen Morris,” the woman at the door went on, oblivious to the conversation I was having with Artemis. “And this is my son Gabriel.”
“Isn’t that…” I started to ask before Artemis cut me off.
“Yep.”
No one broke the awkward silence until almost eight minutes after that, despite Carol and Ellen’s laughter starting to echo in from the kitchen. The only sound to be heard clearly was a tea kettle making that annoying whistling sound to signal it was done.
“So,” Gabriel finally spoke up first, the silence probably unusual and uncomfortable to him. “Artemis and Alex, right?”
“Alexis,” I corrected, although maybe a little too fast. I could barely hear myself over the sound of my heart trying to burst out of my chest. Did he know? No. He couldn’t.
“Any plans for vacation?” Gabriel just went on like everything was normal, causing an involuntary sigh of mass relief to escape my lips.
In actuality, I did. And that was rare for someone who went a week without noticing a moving truck a few houses down from theirs.
Monday, December 26th. The day Resistance Online’s public servers would finally go live.
The Dreamscape and the game card were actually supposed to go on sale that day as well, although a few people had already gotten it through whatever methods it is people use.
The bigger issue for most people was getting the copy of Resistance, and not because of the ninety-nine dollar price tag.
Since the game was the first of it’s kind, they were only selling about fifty-thousand copies at launch to see if the servers could handle it. If everything went as planned, it would be a couple weeks at most before it was sold again.
Both the price tag and the fact that it was so rare had basically had me giving up all hope until this morning. Then the strangest thing had happened.
There was a Dreamscape and a Resistance cartridge sitting on the kitchen table, a handwritten note in cursive that read ‘Merry Christmas and Happy Birthday’ sitting in front of them. No one I knew even wrote in cursive.
The fact that it had ‘just appeared’ today wasn’t an accident either. I was sure of that. The message was clear enough to me.
‘Don’t give up,’ the card may as well have read. ‘You can make it.’
And it was true that before I could neglect the world for days while there’s no school, I had an even bigger problem. I had to survive tomorrow first. I didn’t like those odds.
“Nothing in particular,” I finally answered. “How about you?”
“Not much,” Gabriel responded. “Just play a few games, spend some time with my mom.”
Just then there was a knock at the door followed shortly by it opening before anyone could actually respond.
“Sorry I’m late,” Cindy, my older sister, said as she entered. “I’m just here to grab Alexis. Gotta hurry or I won’t be able to make dinner before Grandma gets home.”
By this point Carol and Mrs. Morris had entered the room, although I didn’t pay any attention until Mrs. Morris spoke up.
“We should be on our way as well,” she said as she thanked Carol. “It was a pleasure to meet you.”
“What’s for dinner?” I asked Cindy as we were leaving.
“I was gonna order a pizza. We still need to start preparing whatever we can ahead of time for Christmas dinner. But someone’s still gotta be there when they deliver it. Hey so, was that family the one who bought Bertha’s old house?”
“Yeah, I think so.” Well at least that answered that question.
“Maybe we should bring them over a cake or something as a housewarming gift.”
“So what kind of pizza?” I asked hoping she’d forget what we were talking about before. I’d already used up my ability to be social for the rest of the year.
--- That same day, About 7:13 PM ish ---
I was in my room, pointlessly staring at the ceiling, when my computer made that annoying noise it always does to let me know I got a message.
Clicking on the online messenger notification that popped up, a new window opened from the game I had open a moment ago.
My DMs opened, showing a message from my online friend who went by ShadowSwordsman.
I had just finished typing a reply when another random notification popped up on my computer; a video chat request from my old friend Sophia’s username.
Sophia had moved away a couple weeks before I had come to live with my grandma, although we still talked online most days. Even so, it had been months since the last time we video chatted, leaving three thoughts to go through my head at roughly the same time.
‘What, why?’ ‘Ugh more social interaction.’ and, of course, ‘Is it too soon for an after dinner snack?’
“Heyyyy,” Sophia’s voice snapped me back to reality, calling from the other end of the video chat I didn’t know I had accepted yet.
“Hey… Why’d you just randomly call?” I finally managed to get past my initial state of shock and confusion.
I’m not sure why my usual ‘run away in a panic’ instinct didn’t kick in. It could have just been because I was only talking to her via video chat, or that even after all this time I still considered her my best friend. Or maybe it was purely the fact that we had still talked online all this time.
Sophia looked almost the same as she did all those years ago, albeit older. Even after three years, I could still picture her as if she were here in the room with me.
Her hair was dark as the sky on the night of a new moon. It was a sharp contrast to her skin, even paler than my own somehow. The combination made her appear all the more ghostly, all the more like a haunting presence. Her eyes were as dark as her hair, so black that it had taken me awhile when we were younger to finally find any the light in them.
When I had first met her, it wouldn’t have taken much to convince me she was a spirit who had frozen to death.
In spite of her being paler than me, she didn’t look nearly as delicate or frail. She was actually rather tall, lean and thin like a runner. She held herself with confidence, maybe even arrogance, standing tall with her arms crossed impatiently over her chest. She shifted her weight from foot to foot, but not in a nervous way like I tended to do. Rather in an impatient way, never really being a fan of waiting. Her eyes darted around the room, a mixture of taking in her surroundings and of her being distracted easily.
“Oh yeah,” Sophia finally started to answer my question. “Just a whim. Hey, that’s a cute unicorn.”
“Where’s Amy?” I couldn’t help but wonder where Sophia’s little sister was at the moment. Usually she took any chance she could to be with Sophia.
Their parents had divorced back when they moved away, with her and Amy moving in with an aunt I knew was less than kind to them. That is, when she even bothered to be around.
“She’s out like a light,” Sophia laughed. “I’d call it a sugar crash but we don’t have any sugar in the house.”
“Hey…” My voice trailed off for a second, the feeling I had met Gabriel before today getting the better of my judgement. “Do you remember another kid our age? His name was Gabriel…”
“Only vaguely,” Sophia’s answer took a moment, practically showing the gears turning as she thought. “Why?”
“No reason,” I decided I’d burn this bridge when I got to it. I wasn’t exactly the kind of person who liked to face conflict straight on, let alone seek it out before the need arose.
“Ok,” She didn’t seem to fully accept that answer as the truth, but she also didn’t directly challenge it either. Silence hung over the air for a moment before she spoke again. “Hey so have any fun plans for tomorrow?”
“Not exactly… It’s, uh, it’s visitation day…”
“Oh right… Sorry I forgot. That’s kind of a mood killer.”
The custody battle tends to go a lot smoother when your parents don’t care if you drop dead, only wanting to keep your successful older siblings. The court did finally grant full custody of all three of us to my Grandma, after all the other two were legally old enough to decide where they wanted to live, with one ugly condition.
Twice a year, once on Christmas Eve and once on Easter Sunday, we’d have to go over there to spend the day with them.
We never did quite make it a full day, always ending in a huge fight less than three hours from when we got there. Always because of me.
As I waited to fall asleep that night, listening to Cindy’s quiet snoring as I stared at the ceiling, I knew one thing for absolutely certain.
Tomorrow would be a long day, one way or another.
Chapter 2- Merry Christmas, I Couldn’t Care Less
--- Alexis, December 24rd, 2022. 9:07 AM ---
“Please, don’t leave me.”
The voice that spoke was hollow and frail. It was empty, the voice of someone who had lost everything, trying desperately to hold onto something they knew they could never have.
My entire field of vision was blindingly white. The fresh snow went on undisturbed as far as the eye could see, in every direction except one.
I knew there was a house behind me before I could even turned around. I had forever seared its image into my mind, and the feeling it gave me in the pit of my stomach was unmistakable. Only one place could made me feel this way.
The house looked like any other two story house from where I stood, painted in that same plain and basic beige color that countless other houses were.
If I were to get closer I’d start to notice the more less-than-pleasant details about the house, like the unfinished doors and windows that would let anything inside. Winter’s unforgiving breezes, spiders, and all the nasty insects were free to come and go as they pleased.
The house’s interior was forever tainted with the smell of cheap beer and cigarette smoke. The kind of smell that no amount of work could ever manage to scrub away.
Standing over me were the silhouettes of everyone I knew. They had their backs turned to me, all of them walking away in every direction. I called out again and again but none of my desperate sobs or pleas got any of them to turn around. No one so much as slowed down.
The air was haunted with the sound of sneakers making fresh prints in the snow. The ugly sound echoed and echoed, carried by winter’s harsh winds.
All the while, I could feel myself be pulled back closer and closer to that house. To the one place I’d swore to myself I would always do anything in my power not go back to.
I was powerless to stop myself from being dragged towards the house, unable to even stop any of the people from walking away without looking back. All I could do was cry and scream, like a toddler throwing a fit in the store. The snow started to come down harder and harder, burying me deeper as I drew closer to the house.
Just as the snow finished completely covering my head, my face soaked with tears and my throat raw from screaming, the sound of a thud brought me back to my senses.
It took me a minute and more than a couple deep breaths to finally calm down enough to realize what was going on.
I was in my room, laying on the floor just next to my bed. I was still wrapped in the three blankets I kept on my bed throughout winter, tangled up as if I’d spent all night thrashing around in my sleep.
I’d only just flung myself back onto my bed without removing myself from the blankets when I heard the footsteps indicating Cindy was reentering the room.
“Seriously?” Her voice, despite my best efforts, managed to reach me through all my layers of blankets. Soundproof they were not.
“Yes.”
“Don’t you think you’re being overdramatic?”
“No.”
“Come on, maybe it won’t be so bad this year.”
“And maybe the cows will freeze over tomorrow.”
“I’m not sure that’s how the saying goes.”
“I’ve heard it both ways.”
“Come on,” Cindy finally grew tired out of our game, literally dragging me out of bed as I kicked and screamed.
Now, as both a side note and a segway, why is it that when you’re in school two hours means six days but when you desperately don’t want to do something two hours means six minutes?
Regardless of the reason, the time to leave came a lot faster than I would have liked or asked for. Before I knew it, we were pulling into the driveway next to the same house that had haunted my dreams only a couple hours ago.
I suppose it was for the best that my eyes had completely locked onto the ground as I relished in the last thirty seconds of peace, discounting the internal meltdown, I’d get for the rest of the day. If I had looked up and seen that other car in the driveway, I probably would have run away from this house again.
It was Max who knocked on the door as I hid behind Cindy, suddenly becoming very self conscious of an outfit I would love to wear almost any other day of the year.
The dress itself wouldn’t have looked all that special to most girls. It had a simple red velvet (the fabric not the food) bodice, with a knee length plaid skirt colored red, green, and white. Under it I wore a pair of white tights because of the cold, and white patent faux leather shoes with a bow on the toe.
My hair was french braided over my shoulder in it’s usual style, a white ribbon tied into a bow tied at the bottom.
To most people, there would have been nothing special about the outfit. But to me, it meant everything, or at least it did until I was standing on this porch. It was exactly what I had wanted to wear for the first seven years of my life, even though I repeatedly had had it drilled into my head that it could never happen.
Today, especially here, I would rather be wearing almost anything else.
It felt like an eternity had passed before the door finally opened and when it did I hid behind Cindy even more, if such a thing was even possible.
The person who answered the door was probably the last person I would have ever expected to. It was then that I cursed myself for not seeing the extra car in the driveway.
The man at the door was tall and strong, the kind of person you’d instantly peg as someone who played sportsball all throughout their high school life and probably got a sports scholarship into college.
His hair was the same brown as the colors of the leaves with the first rain of fall. It was cut short in a military style. His eyes, which I can only describe as storm gray, were almost completely unreadable. They displayed strong emotion, but I didn’t know if it was good or bad.
“Greg?” I heard Grandma’s voice break the momentary silence as she addressed her son. “I thought you were still stationed in Europe.”
“So did I,” When he laughed, you could almost ignore his tough exterior and see a kind and caring person shine through. “I guess I can only call it a Christmas miracle. Max and Cindy, it’s great to see you guys again. It’s been too long.”
“Yeah,” Cindy replied.
“Alright then,” Greg announced, starting to crouch down like he was getting ready talk to a child. “You must be the niece I’ve heard so much about.”
For as much as I wanted to yell ‘No I’m not!’ and run away as fast as I possibly could, my legs and vocal cords betrayed me. I couldn’t do anything except extend my own hand to shake the one he had extended in my direction. It was surprisingly warm and soft, given its rough appearance.
“Well, we should probably head in,” Greg announced as he stood back up. “Unless, of course, you want those two to handle all the cooking. But trust me, you don’t want that.”
I was still mostly in a haze as I blindly followed Max and Cindy inside, towards the kitchen. I was then was both kind of relieved and also kind of disappointed that looks couldn’t actually kill.
“Cody’s not with you?” Grandma asked Greg as she walked into the kitchen, unphased by the cold, harsh glares from the people waiting in the kitchen.
“Still away at the school. Said he’d be down in a few days if he could make it.”
Cody was Uncle Greg’s only kid, and if I remembered correctly he would have just started college this year. Although I had only seen Cody a handful of times throughout my life, seeing as he had lived with his mom somewhere across the country, I was kind of glad he wasn’t here too. The last thing I needed was another person judging me right now.
I prepared myself then and there for what I knew was going to be a very long day.
--- Max ---
The room stayed silent for all of 6 seconds after Cindy and Alexis walked out, heading who knows where since Cindy can’t cook to save her life and Alexis was too young, among the more obvious reasons.
I actually had to wonder where they went. Although none of us took much of anything with us three years ago, by the first time we were legally forced to come back to see our parents, almost everything had vanished.
Wow. That actually sounds really bad when you phrase it like that. Actually, I doubt there’s a good way to say it.
“Good riddance,” Mom snapped me out of my thoughts once they were out of sight.
“Oh come on,” Uncle Greg sighed as he went back to cutting the vegetables. “It’s Christmas! The time of giving, miracles, and family.”
“It’d feel a whole lot more like a miracle if I didn’t have to see that thing.”
“I don’t like snow anymore than you do but if you hate it that much, just move to Florida or something.”
“You know very well that I wasn’t referring to snow! What that kid is does goes against the laws of nature and you know it!”
“Wow,” Greg sighed as he set the knife down. I’d imagine he didn’t want the temptation that came with holding it while having this discussion. “When we were younger I didn’t know anything, but now it seems that I now know everything. I don’t, however, understand it. Please humor me for a second. What tree exactly has ‘You must live your entire life defined only by what’s in your pants?’ naturally engraved in its bark as it grows? And more importantly, why would I listen to a tree anyway?”
“What…” Mom was too confused to reply for a second, probably already so drunk her mind couldn’t possibly keep up. “You know that’s not what I meant! It goes against God and the bible.”
“Does it?” Greg let the rhetorical question hang there for a second before he went on. “Please tell me exactly where in the bible it says anything of the sort.”
“I don’t exactly…” Dad had started before Greg cut him off.
“You know what the bible does say though? Galatians 2:28. ‘There is neither Greek nor Jew, slave nor free, male nor female. For you are all one, in Jesus Christ.’ So does the bible actually say anything to back up what you’re saying? Hint, the answer is a definite no.”
“That’s not how hints work,” Grandma’s voice made it obvious she was trying hard not to laugh as she listened to them argue.
“Who the hell cares what the bible says,” Mom cut back in, drunkenly smacking the table with a balled up fist hard enough to shake it.
“Wow,” Greg sounded astonished for a second, maybe because she managed to form a whole sentence without stuttering. “You sure are quick to throw away that evidence, which was also your only evidence, when it no longer supports your point. Ok so let’s listen to priests. If I went and asked my friendly neighborhood priest, he’d tell me it’s my God-given right to kick my seven-year old kid to the street because I hated the color shirt they had on right?”
“Well, of course not. It’s a shirt. What does that matter?”
“Great. So it’s officially not ok to kid your kid to the street because of anything they choose to wear, since it’s none of your business. For those of you wondering at home, that includes all manor of clothing.”
“Stop twisting my words!” Mom screamed, knocking over the innocent glass bowl that currently held the stuffing. “There’s a difference between a shirt’s color and a boy wearing dresses!”
“Why is there a difference? Because you want there to be one? I don’t see another reason. Besides, the point is moot anyway. Alexis doesn’t look like any boy I’ve ever met.”
“Well on his birth certificate,” Mom started with a smile that looked like it was ripped straight out of How The Grinch Stole Christmas.
“Yeah, well it also says three pounds and two ounces,” Grandma reminded her. “Things change.”
“Well since you have yet to make a single proper argument,” Greg broke the silence about a minute later. “I’d like to make my own. ‘If any of you is without sin, let him throw the first stone.’”
“Wrong,” Grandma corrected Greg. “John 8:7b is, ‘Let him who is among you without sin be the first to cast a stone at her.’”
“Is there any chance I’ve heard it both ways?”
“Maybe,” Grandma just shrugged off the question. “It’s all semantics anyway.”
“Then why did you correct…”
“What the hell does any of that have to do anything? I’m not the sinner!” Mom’s words were so slurred, either from being drunk or from rage, I could only barely make out what she had said. She swung her arms out, this time knocking over another bowl.
“Wow,” Greg just stared in wonder for a moment before speaking up again. “You really do miss the logic of everything, even after all these years. My God looks down a hell of a lot more on any parents who would throw their seven year old to the wolves rather than accept that there are other viewpoints in this world than theirs!”
It all happened so fast, I’m not sure who threw the first punch. But the next thing I knew Uncle Greg had knocked Dad who was now bleeding from his nose. Mom was standing next him screaming bloody murder.
“Wow,” Grandma said as she checked the clock on the microwave before we all started to leave. “Forty-five minutes? That’s gotta be a new record even for us. You should’ve came home three years ago.”
--- Alexis, 12:07 AM Christmas Day ---
This may come as a big surprise to you, but an old run-down house full of holes is about as soundproof as my three blankets.
Despite Cindy’s best efforts I heard everything that was said earlier very clearly.
I’m not sure if it was that exactly, but I couldn’t quite fall asleep that night.
My eyes stayed locked on the alarm clock, it’s crimson letting floating in the darkness. I watched as the numbers counted up again and again, marking every minute I couldn’t just fall asleep.
I finally gave in, trying to quietly slip out of my room to grab a bottle of water from the fridge. I had never noticed just how loud our floorboard actually creaked until today.
I had just finished shutting the fridge as quietly as I could, only to then immediately drop the water bottle as a voice spoke out of what seemed like nowhere.
“Shouldn’t you be asleep? What if Santa doesn’t come because you’re up?”
“I couldn’t sleep,” I said to Uncle Greg as I picked up the bottle of water I thankfully hadn’t opened yet. “And you’re welcome to wait up for whoever you want, just be prepared for a long wait.”
“Wait… Are you trying to tell me there’s no such thing as Santa?”
“Yes.”
“Wow… I’m not sure how to handle this news.”
“I’m sure you’ll bounce back,” I muttered.
“At least tell me the tooth fairy’s real.”
“Why would you want to believe in a magical creature who has nothing better to do than pay kids for their old teeth?”
“Point taken. I don’t know though, it’s nice to believe in the magic in the world.”
“There’s no magic in the world. Just cold and harsh science and fact.”
“Did you know that it’s possible to move objects using only light? Scientists all the way back in 2010 figured out how to move objects with nothing but light. Taking into account both that and the fact that there’s now a video game system that can project directly into your mind? Maybe there’s someone out there who can understand it all, but to me it sure seems like magic. And even understanding the science behind all of it would feel pretty magical.”
“Your point?”
“It’s all in the eye of the beholder. Magic, science, art, beauty… They’re all things people pretend to know, but no one can ever know what they truly are. It’s all about how you look at them to makes up what they are.”
“I still can’t see your point.”
“People will tell you that something’s a certain way, or that it doesn’t and can’t exist. Or that you can’t be or do something. ‘It’s just how the world works,’ they’ll tell you, claiming you need to face reality. But the iPhone didn’t exist until thirteen years. And have you ever seen one of the earliest iPhones? Those things were a mess. It’s always important to remember that about life. People fail to see the possibilities, and end their lives drowning in the false veil of ‘reality’ rather than embracing the potential and hope that exists in the world.”
“That’s really beautiful Socrates, but can I get back to bed now?”
For some reason, I fell asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow, drifting into a peaceful and dreamless sleep.