Declaration of War
Current mood:  accomplished

After four long, tedious, boring years I have finally done it. High school was finally over. I have graduated. 

I stared at myself in the floor length mirror in my oversized bedroom, a stupid grin plastered on my face. My emerald green eyes bright in excitement as I stood staring at my reflection. My red academic robe with the golden tassels hanging around my neck, with an extra one more elegant than the standard boring one to represent my title of Valedictorian. I graduated with honors. At the top of my class. My diploma was clutched in my left hand as I stared at my reflection in disbelief. 

For so many years, I never thought I could do this. High School had always been a smoke screen. A way to seem normal, act normal, sure I was great at school. That was a given. But, I always thought I would die before I got to this point. And, there were times where that almost happened. Times where I may have wished I would have died.

My green eyes veered away from the reflection in the mirror to the small picture sitting on the table next to me. It was a picture of Connor, Sam, Alex, and me posing after a Cheerleading competition. Connor looked so proud. His chestnut eyes were shining with pride, and that smile, a smile that could spread warmth through anyone's cold and broken soul. The same smile that had mended my soul over and over and over again for years. Until-my heart clenched at the thought and I clutched the picture to my chest fighting against the angry tears that threatened to spill over. 

He was dead. And I will never see his smile again. Never feel the warmth of his hug, so powerful it was able to hold me together during the worst of times. So warm it didn’t matter where we were, the cold never touched me. This man was gone from the world, forever. And, it was because of me. 

“Hey slow poke!” Sam’s high pitched voice shouted from my doorway. 

This pulled me out of my grief as I looked up into the mirror, seeing Sam behind me leaning on the door frame, a suddenly sullen expression on her beautiful face. I wiped the tears from my eyes. 

“Oh. I see,” Sam said with a sigh. 

She walked over to me, motioning to the picture I was holding, “Yeah. I wish they were here too. Alex would have been over the moon with your Valedictorian speech you made, even if it was cheesy,” I frowned at her for the cheesy comment, she tried to give me a smile but it didn’t quite reach her eyes, “And Connor, well, he would have been prouder than any biological parent in the crowd. I can tell you that,” her voice was soft, and tender but she held her own deep sorrow and pain that went beyond what words can convey. 

“Yeah, I know,” I replied, my voice sounded quiet like hers and I set the picture back down, “I-I never thought I would make it here. You know, I never thought I would graduate,” 

“Well what did you think was going to happen?” Sam asked, her voice raising a few octaves as she stepped back, going to rummage through my closet. 

“That, you know, that I would-” 

“Die?” she said it more as a question as she turned back to me from inside my walk-in closet, a purple tank top in one hand and jean shorts in the other, “cut the crap Adore! You really think you’re just gonna go and die on us? Like hell!” 

She, with force fueled by sudden rage, threw the tank top and shorts my way. I let myself grin as I grabbed the outfit out of mid air, a small laugh escaping. She then proceeded to pick up a pair of purple vans and threw them my way as well. I decided to dodge those instead of trying to grab them. 

“Jeez! Violence!” I yelled as the shoes went skittering across the marble. 

“You wanna talk about violence? Adore! You gotta stop with all this ‘I’m gonna die’ nonsense,” Sam shouted, a rolled up ball of socks batted me in the forehead, “Yeah, your life is screwed up. It’s hella screwed up! So is mine. Not as screwed up as yours, but, ugh, nevermind! My point is, don’t stop living just because your life sucks. Live to make it better dammit!” 

I was silent as my friend scolded me, an eyebrow was raised in question to her rage. In usual Sam fashion, she composed herself quickly, straightening out her blue tank top and fluffing up her blonde curls before tying it back into a ponytail. 

“Anyways, we’re all getting ready to go to the airport. I know, an overnight flight sucks. At least we get to fly it in style on a private jet with real food. I’m excited. It’s going to be a whole flippen month in Hawaii with my parents for the first two weeks and we get to celebrate graduating high school. And next year, we get to do the same for Andrew, if he graduates,” she added the last statement in a murmur, “Look, life is looking up. Now we can worry about getting into a good college and getting our lives started. It’s going to be fine,” 

I grimaced at the idea of a flight. Especially a long one. Nausea rolled in my stomach. 

“And we have barf bags for you,” Sam added on, I flipped her off, “Get dressed and come down, okay?” 

“Okay, mom,” I teased, setting the outfit on the bed and taking the robe off as Sam tried to kick me in the shin. 

I dodged to Sam’s disdain but she left the room and left me in peace. 

A few minutes later I was out of the graduation attire and into the tank top, shorts, and vans that Sam had thrown at me a moment before. I made my way into the kitchen where Uncle Hiyashi was packing away a few of his favorite cooking tools he couldn’t leave home without. There was a bowl of strawberries out on the granite island and I gratefully helped myself to them. 

“Can’t you hold off for the damned airplane? We’ll have way better food there!” Uncle Hiyashi complained, trying to swat my hand away with a spatula he was holding. 

I swatted back at him, “That’s not fair! You know I can’t eat on airplanes, they make me sick!” 

“Excuses excuses,” he retorted as I grabbed the glass of water I had gotten for myself earlier. 

I raised my eyebrows and was just about to respond when the world suddenly felt off. Everything seemed to suddenly slow down, and something felt horrible wrong. Like the balance of the entire world was going to come crashing down. It was the same feeling I felt whenever something huge happened and we learned about it on the news later. It was a soul crushing feeling, full of despair and helplessness. Knowing that I was going to be a bystander unable to do anything but watch in horror. 

Time seemed to slow down and it was hard to concentrate on what was being said when an intense electrical pain suddenly shot up from an unknown source in my body. I gasped in pain, and was forced to drop the glass. The glass shattered into a million shards on the floor as I grabbed for the island, grabbing the back of my neck as I screamed, my nails digging into my flesh trying to stop the pain from increasing. 

Somewhere, somehow, I registered screaming in the living room. Uncle Hiyashi had dropped what he was doing to grab me so I wouldn’t fall, and then there was Sam. Her high pitched scream cut through the pain. 

“Adore!” 

Something was horribly wrong. 

I pushed off of the island, pushing through Hiyashi stumbling out of the kitchen. I fell against a wall as I made it into the foyer, Andrew and Devin were screaming. Their brown eyes filled with tears as they grabbed at their necks, hair, skin, anything to try and stop the agony that was radiating from our necks into our skulls making it feel like our heads were going to explode. Our skin felt like it was on fire and a thousand needles pounded into us from every direction. 

Devin didn’t last long before the pain was too much. I saw it in his eyes the moment he caved to the pain, the desperation and pleading and then like a light switch, he collapsed to the floor, unconscious. Andrew, on the other hand, blood was dripping from small cuts on his skin where his nails had dug in. And the youngest of us, Melody, it was hard to look at. She was in just as much pain as the rest of us. Tears streaming down her puffy cheeks, Sam was holding her down the best she could so Melody couldn’t hurt herself like Andrew was. Sam was hysterical too, begging this to stop without voicing it, pleading for it to end as she held Melody as she squirmed and thrashed. 

I pushed off the wall. It was obvious. The chips in our necks, the ones placed there by the MRO have been activated. If it would kill us, well, I didn’t know their full intentions. I pushed off the wall towards Andrew, grabbing his arms, fighting against him as he tried to push me off. 

“Fight it! You have to fight the pain!” I pleaded, it was hard to think, hard to concentrate, but I had to. I was the only one who could. 

“We-we have to,” I continued, my green eyes searching for a tablet. 

This tablet was connected to the satellite that Devin had access to. The one that could jam the signal of the chips. If I could just get to that tablet-

I spotted it on a coffee table the moment the T.V. flashed to life and the pain suddenly stopped. There was a moment of silence as I stood there, grasping Andrew’s wrists with enough force to stop blood from flowing to his hands. We were both breathing hard as our attention turned to the T.V. I shakily let go of Andrew’s wrists, my eyes red with tears. Melody was unconscious and Sam picked her up as we all turned our attention to the T.V. 

I slowly made my way over to the tablet on the coffee table as a man appeared on the screen. He was older, graying hair peppered throughout the brown, small wrinkles formed on his forehead, and around his mouth. He wore a long white medical lab coat but the most disturbing features were his green eyes, staring out of the screen. Almost an exact replica of mine, but there was a darkness to his eyes. A dullness that made it seem like he had sold his soul and he was just a corpse, a puppet on strings.  

The background wasn’t distinguishable, but I assumed they wanted it that way. My hands shook as I picked up the tablet from the coffee table opening it up. I had to check the status of the jamming signal over the chips, and because Devin was unconscious, I had to be the one to figure it out. 

“Now that I have everyone’s attention,” the man on the screen announced, his voice deep and demanding. It sounded like he was used to speaking to a crowd, demanding attention and even loyalty, “My name is Doctor Banks. I am going to be the one to usher in a new era for humanity. An era of prosperity. A world where sickness and pain has no hold on humanity. A world where the weak are not welcomed, and only perfection is permitted.”

It was hard to pull my gaze away from the screen and to the tablet. The tablet was playing the same live recording as the T.V. I let out a low growl and pressed every button I could think of to get out of this screen. Nothing worked. 

“This is just the beginning. And like with every change, this change will come with pain, and resistance. Our job is to crush that resistance. Force the new era to be born despite the old ways trying to stop it. But, like a butterfly must break out of its cocoon to fly, so will we. And out of the blood, and death, and ash, will come the superior era.” he nodded his head to someone off screen and a small screen blinked to life in the top right corner of the screen. It was a digital globe. And all over the globe, there were tiny red dots blinking. 

“Some of you may be in denial. However, we already have our forces spread out all over the world. Each one of these dots represent one or more of our people who are ready to fight for our cause-” 

“Oh shut up!” Andrew yelled, turning to me, “Adore! We gotta get him to shut up! This is bullsh*t!” 

“Andrew!” I snapped, still fighting with the tablet to get to the home screen, “Finally,” I finally somehow worked my way past the video to the homescreen of the tablet. 

“Resistance is futile. To fight, is to die. However, I’ll encourage it. The more who die fighting a useless fight, the easier it will be to assure our victory.” 

I finally got into the program that got me access to the satellite, but dammit. Devin had security codes blocking me. I bit back a scream of rage. I had to get that jamming signal going. I had to stop this, get those damned dots off the screen. Keep our identities and locations a secret. I started punching random security codes into the tablet as the Doctor Banks continued on his rant. 

“If anyone does fight, anyone that thinks they are strong enough to fight us, we will respond with… appropriate force,” 

Finally, the background cleared up and there was a young boy, a few years younger than me, held in shackles, his baby blue eyes bloodshot as he stared into the camera, pleading for someone to save him. His blond hair was coated with blood, he had a busted lip, and he was shaking in fear. He sat in his own filth as the Doctor held up a remote to the boy. His eyes widened in terror. 

I knew this boy. He was a victim of the MRO. He was innocent. He was freed when he was small, and he didn’t even have many modifications to make him seem any more than just a normal human. My eyes widened and my breath caught in my throat.

“No, no! No! He’s innocent! Leave him alone!” I screamed, turning to the tablet frantically punching in more codes. Finally, one worked. 

“Oh my god. He has nothing to do with this!” Andrew screamed as the boy on the T.V. screamed as well. 

“Stop! Stop this!” I yelled, Sam screamed behind me and I looked up. 

I wished I didn’t. 

The boy was reeling on the floor in agony, blood streamed down his eyes, nose, mouth and he sobbed, and cried begging for mercy. 

I couldn’t breathe. 

Tears streamed down my cheeks, like I could feel the pain he was enduring as I punched through the tablet. I had to stop this! I had to get to the satellite, jam the signal, I had to- It was too late. 

“No,” Andrew muttered, his knees giving out on him and he fell to the floor, tears streaming down his cheeks. 

I raised my gaze as soon as I clicked the button to jam the signal but it was far too late. Baby blue eyes stared into the camera, devoid of life. That once happy little boy I once knew, the one who loved his little sister who wanted to be the best example for her so that she could be proud of her big brother, was dead. 

I stared at the screen in shock. My body felt numb, foreign. My arms suddenly weighed as much as a ton of bricks, and yet, I was floating above my body. They had killed him. In cold blood. I dropped the tablet, and my knees buckled under my weight as I fell to the floor alongside Andrew. Somewhere behind me, Sam was sobbing, and Uncle Hiyashi was muttering a prayer.

“As of today, this June 1, 2017, The Master Race Organization, declares war on the world,”