Genesis

Chapter 11

"Wait, hold up," I say. "You're telling me that you and dad were part of a rebellion?" My mother smiles a bit and nods her head. My jaw drops and I flounder around, trying to remember how to close it. 

"That's so cool," I say. She rolls her eyes at me. 

"Well, it's super dangerous too," I revise. "Lots of near death experiences." My mother laughs at my discomfort. It is a musical sound that triggers memories of my childhood. 

"You've had your share of near death experiences yourself!" she says, pulling me out of my memories. "Some of the things you do on that buzzbike of yours have almost given me a heart attack!"

"You've watched me buzzbike?" I ask. My mother smiles. 

"Of course," she says. "I wanted to reveal myself to you so many times, but I couldn't without your friends seeing me." I'm elated at this news. Buzzbiking is such a big part of my life, so the fact that my mother recognizes that is very reassuring. The two of us sit in a comfortable silence for a moment. 

"What happened after you joined up?" I say, my words slicing through the quiet. 

"I was given the job of finding out the One's weaknesses and the size of his forces because I worked so close to him. So, I was friendly to the One. I asked him about his job and family and I constantly remarked about how stupid I was to care about the people I was testing on, though it pained me to do so. The One seemed to warm up to me and I even had lunch with him on a few occasions. It was almost like we were friends."

"But, I started to get overconfident. I asked bolder questions about what his plans were and who he was promoting and such. I think that's when he started to get suspicious. In my confidence, I did not notice anything was different. So we went on as before where I pretended to be his friend. I told him many things about our family during this time to make our relationship seem more natural. The things I told him backfired on me in the end. When I didn't want to tell him something, he threatened to take you or your father for testing. Eventually, he must have gotten sick of me and he decided to throw me out of the dome to die," says my mother. 

After she says this, something flashes through her eyes for just a fraction of a second, but it is enough to make my next words catch in my throat. It is deep, unquenchable pain and all-consuming guilt. The kind that can rip your soul from your body and leave you an empty, bloodless shell. 

My mother could have received her inward suffering from the jobs she had to perform, but I feel like what I just saw runs deeper than that. She almost looked like she was guilty of murdering someone, someone that she held very close to her. Is there something she isn't telling me? 

"So, I came here to the forest and have been surviving since," my mother says, finishing her story and bringing me back to the world. 

"Why didn't you ever go back to the dome?" I ask tentatively. 

"I figure if the One saw me again he wouldn't waste time trying to cover up my death. Instead, he'd just shoot me," she says. 

I nod, although I'm still not completely sure what to think about the One. He's never done anything to harm me directly, so why should I immediately accept my mother's analysis? I'll have to make my own judgment, especially since I feel as if my mother is withholding some sort of information from me. 

I turn my gaze from my mother to look out of her small window. The sky is already starting to lighten, the sun casting its hues across the horizon. 

"It's just about time for sunrise," my mother says, voicing my thoughts. "We should get ready to go so you can enter the dome again."