Radioactive - Book 1: Birth 🪼

Thirteen

R
I am worried about Matt. I don't know what happened but I feel like he's now an Empty. I knock on Matt's door and then open it. He isn't in here so I go to the bathroom, where I can hear crying.
"Matt?"
"GO AWAY!" he screams.
"Listen, I just want to make sure you're okay. You-"
The door suddenly opens and Matt glares at me. His eyes are different...
"I hate you, go away."
"But why? What have I done to you?"
"You made me like you!"
"Like me? What do you mean?"
"I had to have my uterus taken out! You're like a disease that just spreads!"
"Matthew, you can't catch Emptiness! It's a health issue that happens! I'm so sorry that this has happened but I didn't give it to you. Why do you hate me? What have I done to you to make you despise me so much?"
"Because you're everything that I never wanted to be. You're an Empty, no uterus, and you have no friends except an albino. I can't be a social outcast! I have friends! I saw what they did to Nalak, people dropping him left and right. I can't live that way. Yet, everything try not to be in regards to you, I become. I followed almost exactly in your footsteps! I hate you because everything I do ends up being just like you!"
It hurt that he hated me for something I couldn't help and something I had no control over. No one will ever know the hurt... Matt suddenly starts to cry and leans onto me.
"I'm so scared. I'm confused... Something else is wrong with me, R, and I don't know what it is..."
Well, this is a turn of events. I out my arm around him and rub his back as he sniffles.
"I know that it's degrading to not be able to get your swell but... I promise it gets better. Your emotions will be a little haywire but it'll be alright."
"No, it's something else. I feel like something else is wrong with me... I'm going to talk to Dad..."
He moves away from me and heads downstairs. No I'm even more worried about him but there was nothing I could do. He is pretty topsy-turvy from the hormone imbalance of getting his uterus taken out but still, he's scaring me.
I go back upstairs to my room.

******************

I open the door and start to head to my bed when I am trampled, my arms getting pinned to the floor.
"What the hell?!" I scream.
"Hello, my delectable friend." Nalak says in my ear.
"Nalak? I swear to god if you rape me-"
"What the- Ramey, you're disgusting." He says, getting off of me.
I sit up and turn to him when he pounces me again.
"Nalak."
"I just wanna get a good smell. I haven't had a taste in a long time."
I stare at him as he sits on top of me, his bright blue eyes seem to be glowing brighter than usual. He leans over me and sniffs my neck when I feel the tip of his tongue touch my cheek and I scream, throwing him off of me.
"COME ON, MAN! Get a hold of yourself! Don't you ever do that again!"
"My B; can't take a joke-"
"'What's black and white and red all over?' is a joke. You licking me is not!"
"You're right. That's a serious thing... especially to me." He says with a lick of his lips.
He suddenly gets on all fours and begins to crawl across the floor. I yell and get up, tripping and falling over the bed. Bad idea, since my bed was against the wall and I have nowhere else to go. Nalak jumps onto the bed and pins me against the wall.
"Give me a taste of your flesh, Rrrrrr." He purrs, rolling my name.
"Nalak, don't make me stab you with something." I growl.
"Do it." He whispers, putting his hand under my chin and around my neck. "I enjoy a challenge... Now, for now, hold still so that I may get a tiny taste. If you squirm, I will choke you."
"Well I don't really have a choice do I?" I snap.
He grins. "Not today." He says, leaning in.
I stay still, feeling violated and really awkward and really gay.
"You're straight, right?"
"I've told you multiple times that vaginas are my thing. Your blood makes me act the way I do. Sometimes it sings a beautiful melody that I cannot ignore... Now hold still, dammit, and stop trying to procrastinate me."
I sigh and he leans forward, licking the whole right side of my face.
"Mmm- Ugh!" he screams, flying backward off the bed, wiping his tongue with his hands.
"You taste disgusting!"
"Well my bad." I growl, massaging my neck.
"You put something on your face. I can't make it out, what is it?"
"The only thing I use is stuff to keep me from getting acne. It's a lavender base..."
"Don't use it again."
"I'm sorry, darling." I mock with a roll of my eyes.
I stop standing on my bed and move to the edge of the bed as Nalak sits down beside me, still wiping his tongue with his hands.
"That was a hunger turn off."
"Good, cuz that shit was weird."
"Sorry. I'm starting to really crave your flesh now. It was a sudden thing and I lost control. See, this is why I need to go to the Badlands. What if this had been your brother?"
"I dunno... speaking of brother, Matt is acting really strange."
"Isn't he always?"
"No, this is different... He seems confused about himself..."
"I'm sure."
"What do you mean?"
"I think there is a secret regarding your brother; and those twins: they don't exist."
"That's not true. We have pictures of them when they were born."
"I'm sure they are Photoshopped. R, there's no trace of the twins anywhere. It's a like and Matt is somehow a part of it, whether he knows it or not."
I blink at him as he watches me.
"What do you know of my family?"
"I don't have to know anything about them! I'm just staying that I have a nose that can smell a fart in a whirlwind so I can detect a lot of things. I went into the twin's room and do you know what I smelled?"
"Musk?"
"I found nothing. I smelled absolutely no trace of other people in there."
"Well of course you can't smell them, they've been-"
"Gone? No. They never existed, I'm telling you."
"Prove it then."
"Do you know what dust is?"
"Yeah, dead skin."
"And what kind of albino am I?"
"A... skin one?"
"I'm a flesh-albino. I can smell meat, skin, and flesh, and that also includes dead skin. Out of all the dust in their room, I only smelled your parents and you. No twins."
"Well they've been gone a long time-"
"No; so I have been told they were abroad. That being said, if they had gone abroad, then they would have lived in that room together until they were taken out of it. If they existed, the dust in that room should still smell of their remnants. But there is nothing in there. N-O-T-H-I-N-G! They didn't exist.."
I stare at him as he looks at me. His reasoning is sound but not at the same time.
"Well then why would my parents lie about it?"
"I dunno, why would they lie about your blood type? What's hard to think about if they lied about you then wouldn't they be able to lie about other things?"
"Then what does this have to do with Matt?"
"I asked your mom about the twins. It's their names that bother me."
"O... kay..."
"The twin's names are Mark and Odysseus. What's your brother's name?"
"Matt."
"His whole name."
"Matthew Achilles Tarpoon."
"Isn't it a little odd that his first and middle name are really, really related to the names of your so called 'twins'?"
"So. All of our middle names are gods and goddess of Greek mythology. Is that a crime? What are you trying to get at?"
"The question is why is his name so similar in both instances?"
"I think you're reading way too much into this. Matt is-"
"A chimaera."
I blink at Nalak as he stares at me.
"What?"
"Your brother is a chimaera. I was wondering ever since I got here why he din't have your mom's red hair and hazel eyes and why he smelled off somehow. And now that he came back from the hospital, his eyes are different. One is hazel and the other is pitch black. Ramey, Matt is a chimaera. He was supposed to be the twins."
"Matt was born before the mention of the twins."
"Or was he? Isn't it odd that-"
I hold my hand up for him to stop talking.
"Stop. Matt is Matt. There is nothing off about him."
Nalak sighs and runs his fingers through his whiting hair.
"Fine. Don't believe me."
"Well, Nalak, you have only known my family for a month or so and I've known them my whole life."
"Yeah well, you knew your body all your life too but you didn't know what kind of bloodtype you were. Besides, you guys can't smell like I can. My senses are off the wall and Matt isn't normal."
"Whatever then."
"I can't stay here anymore. It has nothing to do with your brother but with your family as a whole. The craving is getting worse and I can't put your family at risk. Look what I did to you?"
"Are you sure?"
"Yeah, we should go soon."
"I'll let my dad know."
"Yeah... I'm going to go play in the forest and get this craving subsided. Anyway, just think about what I told you, okay?"
I nod as he goes to the balcony and jumps off. Normally I would be freaked out but I know he'll be okay. I put my hands over my face and laid back on my bed. Everything he said made perfect sense but the secrecy and the lies and the twins... I get up and go to my computer to look at my pictures and find some of the old family photos. All of us got a first day picture when we were cuter and less talking. I pull up the only picture that we have of the twins at the hospital.
It doesn't look photo shopped... I pull up Matt's picture when I notice something about the hair. I look at it and then the twins' picture, whose hair looks just like Matt's. I guess Nalak was right in that. Matt was born of Mom and so he should have had her signature red hair and hazel eyes. But Matt and the twins both have strawberry blonde hair and instead of their eyes being hazel they were green. I stare at Matt's picture and notice that there is a small section of his eye that is dark. I always thought that was a camera flaw... but it's not.
What is going on?
Contact! Matt has contacts! I run downstairs to Matt's bathroom and rummage in his stuff, finding the contracts box. I open the box and find only eleven in there. Eleven was an odd number. Why not ten, for both eyes?"
"What are you doing in my bathroom?" I turn as Matt looks at me with speculation. "And what are you doing with my contacts?"
"Your eyes."
"Yeah, that's what contacts are for, dumb ass."
"No, I mean they're green now. Both of them."
"They've always been green... Did you smoke something else that's green?"
I turn the box over and scan the back when I see the color scheme: green.
"R, what's your deal?"
"Take out your contact."
"What?"
"Do it. Take it out." I demand.
"Is this an Empty initiation thing?" he says, although he is reaching to take out his contact. He finally gets it out and looks back up at me. "Happy?"
"Your eye... it's black..."
"It's always been black. Dad bought these contacts for me when I went to middle school because he said I needed them. I dunno why; I can see perfectly fine... what?"
Motherfucker. Motherfucker.
"Oh, Matt... no wonder you had to get your uterus taken out." I say softly.
"Wh-why? What's wrong?"
"You're the twins; you're Mark and Odysseus."
"I... don't..." he says, confused.
I put my hands on his shoulders and look into his eyes.
"Matt, you're a chimaera. You have two types of DNA inside of you."
I hear a glass break and look up to see Mom in the stairwell, looking at us with wide eyes full of fear.
"Mom."
"Oh, Ramey, what have you done?"