~~~Generation X - Chapter I~~~

I watched the cars on the road, gleaming in the afternoon sun. No wind, just heat. I strolled by the forest, its dark pathways guarded by trees and bushes. Crickets chirped in the heat, rising in a tidal wave of noise. I drummed my fingers on a tree trunk, disturbing ants crawling through the bark.
He still hadn’t shown.
For days I had waited, watching for him to come walking down the road, iPod in hand and rocking out to decade old songs. Nope. Maybe he was still scared of me, cared what he had seen me do. Or scared of everyone else. I had trusted him and he chooses now of all times to betray me? Not a wise choice in my records.
I walked to an old bus stop, waiting for anyone to show. I checked my battered old watch, an hour past today’s meet time. Wonderful. Its boiling out, and he makes me wait for him. The fact was, I need him, so he knows I would wait. This was the third day he hadn’t come, I was beginning to get worried, now im just pissed off.
Another hour passed.

There were footsteps on the pavement above the roar of cars driving past. I sat bolt-upright. There he was, his chains clicking against is belt, music blaring from the earphones around his neck. He handed me a slushy, his silent way of apologizing.
‘Where did you get this?’ I asked. Not complaining, for it felt good sliding down my throat, the ice taking the burn of heat away. He shrugged, sitting beside me under the shade of the tree. He had a hat on -a wool hat- his brown hair bursting out from underneath. It didn’t bother him, even the hottest days of summer he wore it.
‘The compound? Or...ah,’ I forgot what I was saying, he had shoved a spoonful of slushy onto my tongue.
‘Compound’

A sudden gust of wind hit the pavement, moving dust everywhere. ‘Nate, why did you decide to come?’ I asked, munching on my cherry slush. His ocean blue eyes flash around and behind us into the forest.
‘I trust you.’
Great. I had been thinking he had ratted on me, now I feel horrible. ‘Where did Michelle get off to?’ I hate asking tough questions of Nathan, but since these few weeks, they had to be answered.
‘Gone.’ he brutally mushes his slushy with his spoon, like trying to murder it. I pay no attention to the dust invading my drink, but only one word.
Gone?
‘As in...’ I gulp, blinking faster then normal. Nathan stirs and stirs the spoon, making the plastic squeak.

‘Taken, Marissa. That’s the only reason I came.’ he looks at me. ‘For your help.’
It was a slap and he knew it. I nod, accepting without fully knowing why. Little Michelle, alone in the wastes.
Bloody hell.
‘Nathan, you know I can only get you in. I will do nothing else.’ I vow, more to myself. He turns away, into one of the trails.
‘We take which one?’ he asks, getting up. He doesn’t seem to understand what I am saying. ‘Marissa?’ he asks, and taps me on the shoulder.
‘Nate, we take the main road. Go in through the entrance. We cant get in by a ledge.’
‘You can’t?’
‘No, you can’t.’ I laugh, patting his back. I lead him through the bushes, onto the other side or the road. Afternoon traffic is racing through the streets, making it difficult to get past. His music drowns out all the noise of the crickets, just the buzz of heat.
Michelle alone somewhere with those beasts, it made my head spin. How they take her when she never leaves Nathan’s side? They are always together, he protects her like his little sister. How could the compound let them get in and take Michelle?
Wait...the compound wouldn’t let anyone in without any identification. They have security measures so complex I couldn’t even force entry. I turned around to face a very startled Nathan, who stopped to eye me cautiously. He stepped back a few feet.
‘Where was Michelle when she was taken?’

He just looked at me like I was crazy. ‘Sleeping.’ he whispered. He didn’t elaborate so I pushed harder, stepping closer as he stepped back.
‘Where, Nate? Not in the compound.’
‘A-t,’ he bit it off nervously, swallowing hard. ‘Rachel’s.’
I felt like exploding, pouncing on him and not letting up until he cried mercy. He must have seen it in my eyes, for he started to raise his hands and go around me towards the gate behind me. ‘Marissa, I know you told us to stay in the compound. And I did not want to listen. But we were only there a few days.’
‘Yeah, that’s all it takes for them to find you. I warned you Nathan! And now we have both lost something.’ I turned away, but not before Nathan cut at me some more.
‘You haven’t lost anything! You’ve never cared for Michelle, Marissa! You only saw her as someone you could use, a pawn to your advantage.’

I walked away, and I think he was more scared of my silence. I opened the gate with my key-card. It beeped and the green light flashed while the gate lock clicked. I pulled on it, swinging the heavy brass open. Nate followed far behind me, just making it before the gate slammed closed and locked us in. I had lived in the same house my whole life, an old Victorian villa with old fashioned turrets and capped roofs. Latices lay everywhere, vines crawling up the walls and through grates on the windows. I pulled my house key from my bra, unlocking the front door manually. It creaked open, into a huge library. Nathan had never been in my house before, so his eyes bulged. Stacks of books laid on the floor in heaps, lining the walls on shelves and on the kitchen table. I close a few of them, most of them about the human anatomy. Some were myth books, Greek mythology or some other text that had caught my eye. I walked into the kitchen, past my bedroom. I lived on the first floor, the second I left alone, my parents things collecting dust. I offered Nathan water, but he only traveled the first floor, looking at titles of huge dictionaries in different languages and open books under waxy candles.

‘Have you read them all?’ he asks, flipping some pages of daemon stories of Australian myth. ‘Wow. How many languages do you know?’ he strode over to a pile of heavy bibliographies of famous scientists.
‘Um..ten or something, not including English. My parents spoke Italian and French.’ I add, downing some milk from the fridge. He came into the kitchen light, the sun from the screen door throwing his face out of proportion.
‘You have quite a collection.’
‘Have you seen my room?’
With that, I led him down a narrow hallway to the back of the house, into the only room except the small bathroom on the right. All over my bed, open books lay, sprawled over every available surface. All about anatomy of some sort. Plants, animals, every living thing. Books on every animal and its habits, mating seasons, fun facts. Nathan gasped, went right to looking through them. I closed some books, put them away on the empty shelves lining the room. I swept over a particular book, collected dust over years of non use.

‘Pablo Pardo.’ I read to myself, the title on the book. One of my fathers old books. A myth of a great supreme evil haunting the streets of Italy. A ghost story.
‘What’s that?’ Nathan closed a book behind me, reading the title.
‘A story my father read to me.’
‘That doesn’t look like a children’s story Marissa.’ he eyed me, then went back to looking through my bedroom. He sat down on my bed, moving aside books which then fell to the floor.
‘Careful!’ I chastised him, picking up fallen books.
‘Its not like there aren’t any on the floor.’ he laughed, smiling.
‘Its jot for children.’ I answer, going back to the book. ‘It’s a fantasy. One of his favorites. My mother gave it to him long ago, bought it from Italy before they moved here. Before I was born.’ I blinked many times. I took a steadying breath, closing my eyes. ‘The first language I was taught was Italian. I learned all my words from it.’
I cant believe I haven’t read it since my parents had died so long ago. I put it on the shelf for later use. For memories. When I look to Nathan, he quickly looks away.
‘So, are you an expert on human anatomy yet?’ he held up a huge encyclopedia of the human body and all its functions.
‘A bit.’ I shrugged, walking back to he kitchen. ‘What are we going to do to get Michelle back?’

‘Your going to get her?’
I turned on him, staring him down. ‘No, Im not stepping foot in there again. Only my home, or the compound.’
‘But Michelle-’
‘Will be fine with you going to fetch her.’ I swore in Spanish then walked out the door, lighting a cigarette. He followed, swiping it from my hand and throwing it to the ground. He raised his eyebrows at the look I had given him. ‘Its bad for you.’
‘It doesn’t affect me.’
‘Of course not.’ he whispers, walking around the pathways of the huge garden. ‘Nothing affects you.’
I felt my face fall. I let my eyes droop. I hadn’t slept in so long. And that was my last smoke. Damn. I sighed, sitting on a vine covered bench outside the open screen door. The sunlight warmed my face, making the flowers bloom in the garden. Nathan fingered a locket around his wrist, wrapped three times. It tolled, like a small bell on a string.
‘Michelle is strong. Remember what she said?’ I got up from the bench and met him where the two paths cross. ‘Everything happens for a reason.’
He didn’t look at me, but walked away. ‘I don’t like reason.’

For hours, Nathan sat in a mood at the kitchen table, one hand supporting his head, the other flipping through books. I sat tapping my fingers, feeling the weight on my shoulder...again. I had already saved him and Michelle, when all this confusion started. I had certain qualities that separated me from everyone else. From the human race. Hence all the books on humans.
‘Marissa!’ Nathan called, urgently. I appeared in the kitchen, leaning on the door frame.
‘Mm?’
He motioned for me to come over and read the book. Why he couldn’t read it to me was puzzling. Then I saw it wasn’t English but Welsh. ‘Do you know Welsh?’ he asks, tapping his fingers on the sentence he wanted.
‘Yup.’ I took a look at this sentence that was so important. "‘The human race is full of mysteries. But what lies beyond knowledge is no more then questions.’" I read out loud. ‘What caught your eye on it?’ I ran my finger down the page, reading on.
‘Michelle yelled it at me.’
‘She yells?’ I question, biting my fingernails. Nervous habit I swore to kick...tomorrow. ‘She usually talks calmly and in rhyme,’ I took a seat beside him, waiting for a reply. ‘Why was she yelling? Piss her off again?’ I joke, but to no avail.
‘No, it was the only way I could understand her when they had knocked me out and dragging her off.’ he sniffed, flipping through the book several times, not reading any of it.

‘She yelled it in Welsh?’
‘Guess so. That is what she said.’ he shrugged, closing the book for another one. I grabbed his wrist, remembering something she had once said to me while in captivity. I whispered it out loud. Nathan’s eyes bulged, turning slowly to me.
‘What did you just say?’ he shook my arm roughly before I shoved him off, standing.
‘Michelle said it to me. But when she did, it was in Welsh. "Sometimes you have to stop thinking so much and go where your heart takes you."’ I started to pace the room. ‘Something’s wrong here. Nothing makes sense anymore!’ I punched the table, sending books falling from the table. It rocked on its uneven legs, Nate caught the books.