Of Monsters and Humanity: The Genesis

Chapter 10 - Terra

Sixty-one days before....

"So, all he said was 'black tie occasion'? He never specified which color tie he was wearing?" Flora Mae asked after I picked her up for gown shopping in preparation for Damian's last minute invitation to his family's event.

"Umm, duh," I said stupidly.

She looked at me.

"Black?" I said in a my-daddy-pays-for-everything voice.

Throwing her head back, she laughed. "Guys sometimes wear non-black ties to black tie occasions," she informed, digging through her backpack for something.

"I'm aware."

It was finally Friday and we had both just gotten off school. Unfortunately, I had absolutely no time during the rest of the week to shop. I continued to procrastinate every night, saying "I'll just go tomorrow after school" but ending up not going the next day after school. My schoolwork was sucking up all of my time but, thankfully, I enjoyed it. My loving science got me into going to the fancy dinner in the first place.

Half of me was excited to go. I mean, what girl doesn't want to dress up in an evening gown and socialize with rich people all night? Since that girl was me, and I had already agreed to going, I didn't have a choice to just dress up and skip the socializing part. I was especially dreading that: where I would have to talk to these filthy rich, extremely intelligent people. I mean, I was a senior in high school studying my first year of pre-medicine. I would have nothing to relate to them. Sure, I've done plenty of dissections on cadavers, but I didn't exactly want to admit to them that I had been sneaking around and violating university property.

"Here," she started. "Did he give you an invite?"

I rolled my eyes and sighed in exasperation. "Oh, geez. Yeah. It's in my purse," I informed and kept my eyes on the road. I wanted to make sure that I got a dress that day. I didn't want to run around all day Saturday in a full panic looking for something that would at least fit me before the gala.

After a moment of digging through my slightly beat-up, faux leather purse, she pulled out an elegantly off-white envelope with a broken wax seal. "Wow," she said in amazement. "It has one of the elaborate seals and everything."

"I didn't even know what to say when he gave it to me," I admitted. I'm pretty sure that I just looked up at him with wide eyes and internally prayed that I would be able to pull off a night of pretending to be richer than I would ever be. I just hoped that I wouldn't look like trash and that he wouldn't be embarrassed all night because I was with him. I felt like I was doing a disservice to the art of sealed invitations in proper envelopes by putting it inside one of my folders for class and hoping that it didn't drop out at any point in the day.

"Wow! They signed your name so beautifully!" she astonished as she turned the envelope over in her hand.

"I know," I mumbled, trying to forget that I had to learn table manners and how to stand up straight all over again.

"Miss Terra," she mused in a low, painfully fake British accent. "Ooh, so fancy. You're a 'Miss.'"

"I thought I would be a hit," I joked but she didn't seem to hear me.

"What is this seal?" she mumbled, running her finger around the design imprinted in the red wax.

"The Staff of Hermes," I murmured. "You know they're fancy because they used the original version of the caduceus."

"I don't know what you're talking about," she said and waved her hand in my direction but her eyes never shifted from the paper, "but this is so cool. I want an official letter."