Of Monsters and Humanity: The Genesis

Chapter 34 - Terra

Thirty-five days before....

I woke up, sweat laced through my hair that sat sewn to my face.

Holy shit, it was another nightmare.

I sat up in bed and took deep breaths. It was just a dream. All just a dream.

Swallowing the lump in my throat, I kept trying to get the feeling of Xander being shot on top of me out of my head. He saved my life, there was no denying it. The amount of medicine in one of those machine guns used to sedate him could kill any human.

I didn't even know how he was able to move after losing so much blood. I thought that he died right on top of me, I thought I was trying to save the body of a dead man. But I wasn't, as I learned later. I sat in the lobby of the mansion until they told me that they could feel a pulse. I instructed one of the doctors to make sure that Xander had supervision at all times. Even though I knew I was speaking completely out of line to someone much higher up on Project X than myself, I wanted to make sure that as soon as I left the facility, he would be in good hands.

I hadn't gotten any calls recently from Dr. Balcom or Damian regarding Xander or Project X, so that must be a good sign.

But the fact that I got absolutely no calls or texts from Damian lately (in regards to work or not) bothered me. After the night that I told him that it wouldn't be a good idea to be with me, he called me a few times and texted me once, asking me to call him. After I ditched him in class, he's been nearly invisible. In class, he avoids my eye contact and rushes out of the room as soon as the bell rings. Needless to say, we hadn't practiced cadaver dissections for a long, long time.

Part of me wished I kept quiet when he told me that he was falling for me, but I dismissed that part of me as the one that got me into that trouble in the first place. She was selfish, and she wanted me to continue to be selfish and take him away from another girl more stable than myself. I manifested a girl in my head: cute, funny, tan, and is nice to everyone she meets. She would ask Damian out to a sports bar and they would bond and someday marry, having kids who enjoy sports and medicine like Damian. I liked that idea more than the one of myself being with him as he screamed from the chains and baggage he would have to deal with everyday.

Yeah, maybe I would stay away forever.

I glanced over at the clock and was taken aback. "It's only nine-o'clock?" I wondered aloud, rubbing my eyes and squinting to make sure that what I was reading was correct.

And it was.

I shrugged out of bed, too restless to actually rest, and wandered to my grandparents' room. They would probably be getting ready for bed soon. Usually, they would already be asleep, but I came home from school and fell asleep without dinner, so they stayed up until they probably accepted the fact that I was too tired to eat. I would disagree and call it crashing from insomnia, but hey, same thing I suppose.

I tiptoed down the hallway and peeked through the crack of their bedroom door. I held my breath and ducked down like I did when I was a child, watching through the little slit in between the door and the door frame like I was a spy or something.

"Dear, a trip to Florida is much too expensive!" I heard my grandmother fret as she playfully smacked him in the chest with a white pamphlet before walking to the other side of the bed.

"Oh, come on, Azila," my grandfather continued. "You've been dying to go down there for years and years now. We should go now before we get too old!"

My breath slowed. I didn't like thinking about my grandparents getting old. I could see it and neither of them could do too demanding of tasks around the house anymore, but they were all I had left. I couldn't imagine them not in my life.