Vaneskera
December 15th, 2010, 10:19 PM
My friend Ellie and I worked on this together. The plot is mine, but the writing is a blend between both of us. Anyone have any critique?
Introduction
If nothing else, the whole system was wrong. If nothing, only robotics had advanced over the years. People had not. We were not smarter, no stronger, no better, no helpful. It was all very messed up in the end, but so was the whole system.
We were all like this. It was the end of it all.
But what can I say about anything? I am, after all, just another normal, regular, insignificant kid. In the end, I would just be as wrong as the system and all the people living in it.
You see, it hadn’t always been like this. Once, a long time ago, people had been...well, people. There were none of these edits and changes and...frankly, disgusting things done to everyone, even if we didn’t show it. We’re all as guilty as each other.
What else was there to say? We were all so wrong. In our desperation to find something new, different...to be like the pioneers of this world, oh-so long ago, we had destroyed everything we had made, without even realising it.
And there was nothing left for us to do about it. It was over.
Day One :: End Of Discussion
The world wasn’t always like this. My world wasn’t always like this. When my family moved from one country to another, we met a whole new world, so different, so horrible from our own.
In my old home, genetic engineering and robotics were strictly outlawed. Then we moved here. You see, there just wasn’t any market for anything else. It was genetics...or frankly, nothing. That’s why we moved.
Of course, some things for us were good. Here, there was no disease, except for those nasty and terrible biologically engineered diseases, but the cures were easy to get so nobody died, and the scars could be covered by proper melanin insertions. There was no Down Syndrome, Sickle-Cell Anemia, or Cystic Fibrosis left. These diseases could be detected during pregnancy and the proper medicine inserted by a doctor, and the baby would be born perfectly normal. That was the only thing good about all this wrongness.
My father, he was a banker. He worked in a bank. I know, it sucked for us, but still, there was food for us to eat that had come from my father working hard and nothing else. Not from lying, or stealing, or mutating other people beyond both physical and mental recognition. And then, the world for us...it exploded.
Father’s bank died. It became bankrupt. Ironic, I know. There were no jobs left in this snowy country I called my home. The education system was failing all of its students, and food was becoming more and more expensive as more and more people lost money. My mother said that the government simply had to let engineering and mutations into the country, but they refused to.
“It is against what the founders of our country would have wanted,” the President had even gone as far to say. “We shall stick it out until the end, and if you don’t want to...then feel free to leave.”
My father took this to heart. Within a week of the speech, we left the country. Within a week of that...well, I could no longer say that I was born in Switzerland. Switzerland was now part of the United States of Europe. Everything I had known - lost in a less than a month.
When I stepped out of the plane, the first thing I realized... The airport was so colorful. Smattered in color, by the wild and bird like people inside of it. The people here were stick thin with many bones protruding from them, their skin barely holding on to their body. They had strange faces, with large eyes and small mouths and almost nonexistent noses, simple side effects of genetic engineering, but it had been so long and you almost never saw a pure human anymore, they didn’t realize something was wrong with them. They thought something was wrong with my normal proportioned, somewhat plump and porcelain pale body. A girl with bright magenta skin and strange metals instead of finger nails on her hands stared. She couldn’t have been more than five years old.
The passport checker stared at us as we walked through security. His face was an ugly shade of dark red, with blue hair to contrast it out. All of his teeth were brown, but looked like they should be the brightest white with the condition they were in. I shuddered internally.
We left the room and towards baggage collection, where the few normal people that had been on the plane were bundled together, seemingly huddling for safety. Even though we stood out like a sore thumb, my dad insisted we stand with the mutated people.
“We’re no different on the inside,” he insisted as my little brother stared at these poor, poor people.
“I beg to differ,” I muttered. “Welcome to hell, Jacob.”
“Eve! Don’t you dare say that!” My mother squeaked, then sighed. “Why did we move here?”
“Mummy!” My little sister, Emilie, Jacob’s twin, squealed. “I want pea colored skin too!”
“Absolutely not!” My mother cried angrily, her face starting to turn a shade of red similar to the passport checker’s. “You are not changing yourself, you are completely perfect the way you are!”
“Oh, it’ll be good for them!” my father laughed. “They don’t know what they’ve been missing out on!”
“Richard,” my mother scowled owlishly. “Don’t you dare say that. Don’t give them stupid ideas.”
“Ugh, it’s all so ugly.” I groaned. “Did you see the girl with the gradient skin and the all black eyes? It was disgusting!”
“Eve!” My father scolded me angrily. “Just because your idea of beauty is different from hers doesn’t mean that she is wrong.”
Emilie looked happy, excited even. “Daddy, daddy, can I have my eyes turned purple? That would be so cool!”
“Yeah!” Jacob agreed. “I want to look like a turtle! Because you kno-ow, turtles are real awesome!”
My mother looked like she was about to throw up. “Look, kids...we’ll talk about this later.” This was probably because of all the angry stares we were getting about me criticizing how these people looked.
After somehow managing to get our luggage without Mother throwing up, we went through customs and into the airport itself. We hurried outside and found yet more mutants standing around, smoking, laughing, their thin bodies looking like they were going to snap any second now.They were somewhat curious of us, before laughing it off and going back to ignoring us. Here, people like us were a rarity, and usual prissy, fussy religious types. I held myself in with my arms and my lip trembled. It was all so horrible here... I wanted to cry. But I would be strong for Emilie and Jacob.
My father hailed a cab, and we clambered into it, Jacob and Emilie looking hyper. “This is so cool!” Jacob sang as the twins laughed and giggled among themselves.
Father looked cold, as if he had just sucked a lemon. Mother looked sad. I was holding back tears.
“We can go back home, right?” I asked Father.
“This is home. End of discussion.”
As we pulled up in the cab to the house, the first thing I noticed was how small it was. From the outside it looked like it was for made for one person only. I got out of the taxi and stared at the cramped house.
“It’s a lot bigger on the inside!” My Father said loudly, as if that was going to reassure us all greatly. He paid the taxi driver, pulled the luggage out of the boot and it drove away.
Introduction
If nothing else, the whole system was wrong. If nothing, only robotics had advanced over the years. People had not. We were not smarter, no stronger, no better, no helpful. It was all very messed up in the end, but so was the whole system.
We were all like this. It was the end of it all.
But what can I say about anything? I am, after all, just another normal, regular, insignificant kid. In the end, I would just be as wrong as the system and all the people living in it.
You see, it hadn’t always been like this. Once, a long time ago, people had been...well, people. There were none of these edits and changes and...frankly, disgusting things done to everyone, even if we didn’t show it. We’re all as guilty as each other.
What else was there to say? We were all so wrong. In our desperation to find something new, different...to be like the pioneers of this world, oh-so long ago, we had destroyed everything we had made, without even realising it.
And there was nothing left for us to do about it. It was over.
Day One :: End Of Discussion
The world wasn’t always like this. My world wasn’t always like this. When my family moved from one country to another, we met a whole new world, so different, so horrible from our own.
In my old home, genetic engineering and robotics were strictly outlawed. Then we moved here. You see, there just wasn’t any market for anything else. It was genetics...or frankly, nothing. That’s why we moved.
Of course, some things for us were good. Here, there was no disease, except for those nasty and terrible biologically engineered diseases, but the cures were easy to get so nobody died, and the scars could be covered by proper melanin insertions. There was no Down Syndrome, Sickle-Cell Anemia, or Cystic Fibrosis left. These diseases could be detected during pregnancy and the proper medicine inserted by a doctor, and the baby would be born perfectly normal. That was the only thing good about all this wrongness.
My father, he was a banker. He worked in a bank. I know, it sucked for us, but still, there was food for us to eat that had come from my father working hard and nothing else. Not from lying, or stealing, or mutating other people beyond both physical and mental recognition. And then, the world for us...it exploded.
Father’s bank died. It became bankrupt. Ironic, I know. There were no jobs left in this snowy country I called my home. The education system was failing all of its students, and food was becoming more and more expensive as more and more people lost money. My mother said that the government simply had to let engineering and mutations into the country, but they refused to.
“It is against what the founders of our country would have wanted,” the President had even gone as far to say. “We shall stick it out until the end, and if you don’t want to...then feel free to leave.”
My father took this to heart. Within a week of the speech, we left the country. Within a week of that...well, I could no longer say that I was born in Switzerland. Switzerland was now part of the United States of Europe. Everything I had known - lost in a less than a month.
When I stepped out of the plane, the first thing I realized... The airport was so colorful. Smattered in color, by the wild and bird like people inside of it. The people here were stick thin with many bones protruding from them, their skin barely holding on to their body. They had strange faces, with large eyes and small mouths and almost nonexistent noses, simple side effects of genetic engineering, but it had been so long and you almost never saw a pure human anymore, they didn’t realize something was wrong with them. They thought something was wrong with my normal proportioned, somewhat plump and porcelain pale body. A girl with bright magenta skin and strange metals instead of finger nails on her hands stared. She couldn’t have been more than five years old.
The passport checker stared at us as we walked through security. His face was an ugly shade of dark red, with blue hair to contrast it out. All of his teeth were brown, but looked like they should be the brightest white with the condition they were in. I shuddered internally.
We left the room and towards baggage collection, where the few normal people that had been on the plane were bundled together, seemingly huddling for safety. Even though we stood out like a sore thumb, my dad insisted we stand with the mutated people.
“We’re no different on the inside,” he insisted as my little brother stared at these poor, poor people.
“I beg to differ,” I muttered. “Welcome to hell, Jacob.”
“Eve! Don’t you dare say that!” My mother squeaked, then sighed. “Why did we move here?”
“Mummy!” My little sister, Emilie, Jacob’s twin, squealed. “I want pea colored skin too!”
“Absolutely not!” My mother cried angrily, her face starting to turn a shade of red similar to the passport checker’s. “You are not changing yourself, you are completely perfect the way you are!”
“Oh, it’ll be good for them!” my father laughed. “They don’t know what they’ve been missing out on!”
“Richard,” my mother scowled owlishly. “Don’t you dare say that. Don’t give them stupid ideas.”
“Ugh, it’s all so ugly.” I groaned. “Did you see the girl with the gradient skin and the all black eyes? It was disgusting!”
“Eve!” My father scolded me angrily. “Just because your idea of beauty is different from hers doesn’t mean that she is wrong.”
Emilie looked happy, excited even. “Daddy, daddy, can I have my eyes turned purple? That would be so cool!”
“Yeah!” Jacob agreed. “I want to look like a turtle! Because you kno-ow, turtles are real awesome!”
My mother looked like she was about to throw up. “Look, kids...we’ll talk about this later.” This was probably because of all the angry stares we were getting about me criticizing how these people looked.
After somehow managing to get our luggage without Mother throwing up, we went through customs and into the airport itself. We hurried outside and found yet more mutants standing around, smoking, laughing, their thin bodies looking like they were going to snap any second now.They were somewhat curious of us, before laughing it off and going back to ignoring us. Here, people like us were a rarity, and usual prissy, fussy religious types. I held myself in with my arms and my lip trembled. It was all so horrible here... I wanted to cry. But I would be strong for Emilie and Jacob.
My father hailed a cab, and we clambered into it, Jacob and Emilie looking hyper. “This is so cool!” Jacob sang as the twins laughed and giggled among themselves.
Father looked cold, as if he had just sucked a lemon. Mother looked sad. I was holding back tears.
“We can go back home, right?” I asked Father.
“This is home. End of discussion.”
As we pulled up in the cab to the house, the first thing I noticed was how small it was. From the outside it looked like it was for made for one person only. I got out of the taxi and stared at the cramped house.
“It’s a lot bigger on the inside!” My Father said loudly, as if that was going to reassure us all greatly. He paid the taxi driver, pulled the luggage out of the boot and it drove away.