Simulation

Chapter 1: Under the Radar

Out walks a woman with tan skin and wavy black hair pinned behind her head by an inordinate amount of bobby pins. Her dark red lipstick glistens as the spotlight casts an eerie glow on her deep brown eyes. Her black suit is slightly wrinkled as if she put it on in a hurry, and she keeps clenching and unclenching her hands like she's not quite sure what to do with them.

She picks up the remote and flicks on the projector to a picture of the Sparksfield Labs logo, a dark circle with a thin line through the center and the letters SL mirrored across it horizontally, the way you might see your reflection in a pond.

"My name is Tali Friedman." She says.

Aaaaaand then I tune out.

Full disclaimer: I'm not a bad student, there are just some things that I don't care about.

Like this.

When I grow up I want to be a writer. I want to create my own worlds when I'm dead sick of this one. I've always loved words and their hidden meanings, but none of the freshman "cultivating curiosity" talks ever have anything to do with that. They're about sandstorms and migration patterns, Euclid and genetic code, things I would normally find interesting, but the moment they cross my path in school they become brain-numbing.

Tali Friedman has such a soothing voice. I didn't know it was possible to hear a voice but not the words it spoke. If voices were landscapes, Tali's would be the ocean at night. Night... I think. I wish I could just lie down and sleep on the beach. I close my eyes and imagine the image. The sand, warm beneath me, the waves softly hitting the shore in an everlasting circle, lap, lap, lap...

And that my friends, is how I end up falling asleep in the middle of the Sparksfield Labs assembly.

One thing you should know about me is that I'm a particularly heavy sleeper. My mom used to joke that if the house burned down at night I'd sleep right through it, and to be honest, I probably would.

By the time the nearly two hours have passed and the assembly is over, I'm still sleeping like a baby in the third row. When everyone gets up from their seats and leaves, I'm still napping away.

I am finally aroused by the voices of two girls I don't recognize.

"Um... hey... Wake up..."

A soft hand brushes my shoulder and I open my eyes, jumping straight out of my chair. Or, well, I like to imagine I jumped straight out of my chair. In reality, it was more of a frantic flop resulting in a scraped knee and bruised tailbone.

Oh god oh god oh god I'm so stupid! I think. How could I have let myself fall asleep!?

I recognize the two girls in front of me as Claire Brenning and Samara, whose last name I don't know. Samara falls in with the people I have a relatively good opinion of, as she's sweet and almost annoyingly nice to everyone. I remember how every day in third grade she used to always bring two lunches in case anyone forgot theirs. Of course, within a month kids were "forgetting" their lunches all the time. Everyone else saw right through them, but poor, sweet Samara just kept bringing extra food every day for nearly a year, and up until now, this was my only memory of her.

Claire, however, is a whole different story. My internal warning system goes off and I glare at the ground. I don't know Claire very well, so I'm not exactly in a position to judge her general personality. However, lets just say that I really regret acting like enough of an idiot to draw her attention.

A few instances in which I've crossed paths with the infamous Claire Brenning:

Exhibit A: The great group project of seventh grade.

Now, not only did I have the great fortune of being in Claire's class for most of my middle school career, I was also placed in her table group for our early humans research presentation. I'll spare you the details of the project itself and instead just cut to the drama. Claire is a... strongly opinionated person to say the least. Unfortunately, when you pair that with an absolute distaste for any amount of effort, you get an overworked Ezri, fighting to keep up with every mind-change and vague critique thrown at her by a very unhelpful team.

Exhibit B: The unfortunate stilts incident of eighth grade.

To set the stage, our PE teacher was out on maternity leave, leaving a new sub with very little time to learn the ropes. The first few weeks with a new teacher are always pretty rough, but this guy really had no clue what he was doing. On this particular day, the sub was having more trouble than usual with attendance. After telling us very sternly not to misbehave, he left us to go find tech help at the main office.

I dont know exactly what he thought we were going to do, but the moment that door closed behind him, chaos erupted in the gym. It started out mild enough, but soon everyone was going haywire with the PE equipment. In our gymnasium, we had a tall pair of stilts that used to function as a reward for good behavior. Whenever our teacher brought them out, it was always the highlight of our days. At one point, I guess Claire decided she really wanted to use the stilts. Unfortunately, she neglected to fill everybody else in on her plan. Because nobody knew what she was doing, we had no time to get out of the way of the giant towering girl rampaging around on sharp metal rods. Surprise, surprise, she ended up nailing the boy behind her straight in the face.

Blood was everywhere, and so were we. Nobody knew quite what to do. The boy that got hit was kicking and screaming, but instead of apologizing or doing anything else that made sense, Claire just stood there, doing her level best to acquit herself of any blame. She actually went as far as to yell at the kid she hit for "getting in her way". I guess somebody had the bright idea to run and get help, because by the time our furious sub got back, Claire was still trying to justify the accident.

Now I know this all could have been said with a simple, Claire sucks, but I'd simply hate to be the starter of unfounded rumors.

When I finally get the courage to look up from the floor, both girls are staring at me. Samara of course looks sympathetic, while Claire glances back at her phone and giggles. After a quick peek I can see she has photos of me sprawled out on the chair, sleeping. Oh goody. Heat flushes the back of my neck as I imagine how many social media platforms my face is bestowing its grace upon right now.

"Are you okay Ezri?" Asks Samara, who of course looks genuinely concerned.

"I'm fine." I mutter and spin around to get my bag.

Buuuuut apparently a quick and semi-painless escape isn't happening, because Claire is ruffling through the pockets and has already grabbed the torn purple notebook from the bottom of my bag.

"Hey!" I gasp and reach for it.

Alright so I published this a while ago aaand it may or may not have been... long. I split the chapter into two pieces so there wouldn't be a twenty three page chapter and then a six page chapter lol. Anyway, thanks for reading!

~Andrea ❤️