The Listener

Chapter 1

The day is unusually warm for this late into the autumn for the southern tip of New York, or The Empire’s State, as it had been dubbed. It felt like the universe was agreeing with my assessment.

My apartment is located in an expensive sky-rise building in the wealthy center of the city, once known as Midtown Manhattan. I ride the elevator to the top floor and a sigh of relief escapes me as I fit the key into the lock and push open my white painted door, happy to be home after the long day of meaningless identifications. I toss my keys onto the kitchen counter with a clatter and drop my black leather briefcase by the door. My heels are kicked off next to the immense pleasure of my aching feet and I pause to shove them beside the briefcase so they’re out of the way. The apartment is large and sparsely furnished, but bright and airy during the day, not that I would know. I’m rarely, if ever, home during the day. I frown as I flick on lights in the kitchen and living room. My job is a seven days a week deal.

A quick scavenge through the fridge reveals Tara’s recent visit to the apartment. My United Empire appointed handler takes it upon herself to stock my kitchen with premade food. She seems to be under the delusion that if it weren’t for her, I would have undergone some sort of psychotic break and decided that I should attempt cooking again, completely forgetting about my last near miss at burning down the building. Nevertheless, as I sift through my newly filled Tupperware containers, I’m grateful for Tara’s bizarre paranoia. I select the lasagna and heat it in the Tara-approved microwave, before I settle on the couch to watch the news for the night, scarfing down the lasagna like I haven’t seen food for weeks.

The news is the normal nightly affair of praising The United Empire’s success over the Renegades and that how each day their territory in the West diminishes. They don’t stand a chance against the might of The Empire.

But how I wish they did.

I wake with a start and open my eyes to find it’s still dark out. I scan the opaque blackness and can find nothing amiss.

Lying back down on the bed, I think back to my dream. It had started off the same as always. My mother’s voice flooded in, her shouts consuming my earliest memory.

“He left me with you! What am I supposed to do with you, huh? He knows I’m not cut out for kids!”

“Mommy, please!” I begged her, fighting tears that threatened to overwhelm me.

She stared down at me with her icy blue eyes, transfixed. “Please, what?” she was no longer shouting. I took that as a good sign.

“Please… please take care of me.” I struggled for the right words, my young mind desperately searching for the perfect vocabulary, the one that would make her look at me with something other than revulsion and annoyance. “Please love me. Please do what’s best for me.”

“Yes, Elaine.”

With that, my mother would turn and walk out the door. I would never see her again.

 But tonight the dream was abruptly changed, cutting off my mother’s retreat.

I wonder at the image of a girl and boy standing over me while I slept that had so suddenly appeared. I could swear I had never seen either of them before and yet they looked so clear in my mind’s eye. They had been close to my own age, around sixteen, and they showed distinct characteristics of being brother and sister, maybe even twins. They were both tall and thin with the exact same coloring marking their hair inky black, skin pale white with tan freckles dotting their noses, and eyes a luminous light green that I had never seen on another person. But the strangest part about my dream was that these two did not look menacing as they stood over my inert form. Rather, they looked… curious? Frustrated? Worried?