The walk home took fifteen minutes, but it seemed to pass in the blink of an eye, and too soon Genesis was standing in the driveway. Everything looked the same as when she left this morning. The manicured lawn was a deep green, the flowerbeds surrounding the patch of grass were full of colourful flowering plants, in perfect harmony with the large brick house.

She wondered why she had been so eager to get home? She supposed it was to get to the only place she felt safe now that she had the feeling of being dead, which rationally could not be true, yet when she pushed her open palm hard against her chest, she could not feel the faint thumping of her heart. There was no lift in her chest when she took a deep breath.

No! She could not be dead and still be here. Things like that just did not happen. For a moment she considered the notion of being a ghost, but quickly dismissed the idea. Brandon saw her and spoke to her. Then she remembered how tempting Brandon smelled, and the rush of desire she felt to eat his flesh, especially the need to get to the soft, spongy part of his brain.

No! No! No! Eating people was not who she was. She lifted her hand to touch her forehead and it was cold and hard to the touch, like marble. The slight fever she had this morning was gone and her skin felt different, weird.

“I’m dead...” she mumbled, and then quickly pushed her lips together. Saying the words out loud might make them true.

She glanced at the front door, took a deep breath out of habit and a step forwards.

When Genesis walked into the house, it was quiet. She walked down the long, carpeted hallway to her room and dumped her backpack on the floor, before she headed back down the hall in search of her mum.

Her mum was in her office, staring intently at the computer screen in front of her and letting her fingers tip-toe softly over the letters on the keyboard. She worked from home as a Content Editor for a local radio station and always insisted she did not want to be disturbed when she was working. Genesis and her dad had to pretend her mum was working away from home, worked business hours.

“Mum?” Her voice was soft and tentative.

“Yeah?” Her mum did not look away from the monitor.

Genesis swallowed hard. “I need your help.”

Her mum immediately looked in her direction, her mossy-green eyes filled with concern. “What’s wrong, Gen...” Her words froze on her pale pink lips. “No! Not yet,” she exclaimed, and pushed her black leather chair back quickly as she stood.

“What do you mean, not yet?” Genesis asked and walked closer to her mum.

Her mum made a wretched sound as she turned to the phone and mumbled, “I have to phone your dad.”

A feeling of apprehension filled Genesis from the bottom up. It started in the pit of her stomach, and the queasy feeling quickly rushed up her body until it got stuck in her throat. Her mum had never before regressed from being in control to having to phone her dad.

“Mum, please. What’s happening to me?”

The worried look in her eyes was quickly replaced with a look of fear as her mum pushed the numbers on the phone with quick precision, and at the same time, she pushed the black leather chair on its coasters so that it was between Genesis and her. She waited for a couple of seconds and then she said, “Peter. Come home.” She ended the call, pulled her hand through her light-brown hair and then looked back at Genesis. “I am so sorry, Gen.” As if she only then realised, she had pushed the chair between them, a look of sadness washed over her face. “Sorry,” she mumbled. “I guess, although I knew this day would come, I did not realise how afraid I was that it would come.”

“What would come?” Genesis asked with a frown between her eyebrows and a hint of fear in her voice.

“I think it would be better if we waited for your dad. He would be able to explain it a lot better than I could.” She gave Genesis a nervous look, unable to look her in the eyes. “Maybe you could go and get changed, or get something to eat… No, I guess you wouldn’t be hungry.” As if she was having second thoughts about mentioning eating and hunger, she asked as she took a little step away from Genesis, “Are you? Hungry, I mean.”

Genesis shook her head. Her mum was afraid of her. Genesis could feel fear rolling off her mum in big, suffocating waves. A sadness overwhelmed Genesis and she felt tears well up in her eyes. “I’ll be in my room,” she said as she turned and rushed down the hall.

When she reached her room, she pushed the door shut behind her before she took the few steps across the carpet to her bed. She fell onto the bed and cradled her head in her arms. Although she could feel tears burning her eyelids, they did not escape.

She sat up quickly and rushed over to the closet. Standing on her toes, she reached up to the top of the cupboard and pulled on the large canvas bag, while bringing her other hand up to shield her head from the debris of scarves, hats and multiple sheets of art coming down with the bag. She left everything else on the floor and carried the bag to her bed. She knew there was something seriously wrong with her, and her mum was terrified of being in the same room as her, so she had no choice—she had to leave.

Packing a few T-shirts, two pairs of jeans, tracksuit bottoms, a black hoodie, underwear, make-up and toiletries, she had no idea where she would go, but she could not stay after seeing the look of utter horror in her mum’s eyes.

The knock on the door startled her.

“Gen. Your mum and I need to speak with you.”

She listened to his footsteps receding down the hall, before she opened her door.

Walking into the family room, she saw her dad standing by the long couch in front of the picturesque window with a view of the lake and hilltops in the distance. Her mum sat at the end of it, holding onto his hand. Her eyes were red from crying and her back was so straight it looked as if she had swallowed a broomstick.

The look her dad gave her was filled with sorrow and regret.

“We’re so sorry, Gen,” her mum said with a sob.

“I’ll manage this, Josie,” her dad said, giving her hand a tight, reassuring squeeze before he turned his attention back to Genesis. “We should have told you sooner.”

Genesis looked from her mum to her dad without saying a word, waiting for them to explain what they should have told her sooner, why something was not supposed to happen yet. Did they even know she had died but was still walking around as if she was alive? Were they all talking about the same thing? What if it was something as mundane, although it would be a devastating revelation that she was adopted? If she was adopted, maybe she had not really died and maybe her real parents were aliens or something and feeling dead at sixteen was how she was supposed to feel.

CONTINUE READING