Heyyyy I'm back y'all. Here's the interlude, aka the thing I've been trying and failing to write for half a year! The interludes will be a) shorter and b) mixed content, such as newspaper clippings, text, and point of view passages from minor characters. Anyway, enjoy! :))
Wednesday, eight days to the Event
Correspondence between Murphy Chau and Elias Roberts
yo elias did the liberationists come b4 or after the justice war
eliaaaas
answer answer answer I need to answer the homework and the spider keeps giving different answers depending on which site I search up on it
even the goddamn bbc site is super vague
Hello Murphy. Our teacher mentioned it during the call - I am unsure whether you missed it or merely forgot, but the answer is that the Liberationists had been a small movement before the war, but only formed a true coalition and became a major political force after it. I hope that is helpful.
tysm that saved my ass
sorry bout the random text dude ik i did the same shit yesterday and ik were not exactly besties but thx
i should probs stop begging u for homework answers
It is not a problem, don't worry. I don't exactly have a problem with many people texting me. Honestly, the questioning is rather nice. I haven't talked to anyone but my brother and parents recently, and those were not enjoyable conversations. So ask away.
rlly? well im sure not complaining!
wait r u grounded too???
Is that really so surprising? My parents were very displeased, to put it mildly. Suspension from the running team, all of my books taken away, cannot leave the top floor, etc. I was rather upset about it at first, but in retrospect, they are right to do so. I accept my punishment.
uh
thats fucking harsh man
my mum grounded me and i have to help her fix bots but I can still can leave the house n shit just not go anywhere fun and i still have my stuff
and i broke ur nose (sry about that again btw) but the punishment isnt that bad
weird world
i kinda thought ur parents would be more chill than my mum
since ur all
you know
I am sorry - I don't quite understand what you imply by that. What do you mean?
super rich lol
Oh.
I apologise if that sounded insensitive. I wouldn't say that they are 'more chill', as you state. They are rather on the ambitious side, and I think my lack of a backbone is rather aggravating to them. It would have been better had my brother developed my anomaly - his character is more suited for the role that I am meant to play. I am not very good at being me.
I legit have no clue what Im meant to say to that
id ask if u wanna to talk about it but im shit at consoling ppl so maybe not
but seriously u cant be bad at being u
u r who u r - own it
hell im strongly in the freak category and thats perfectly fine w me
I suppose. But I would prefer to be anyone other than me. Other people are better.
oh come on
ANYONE?
even jack????
He has friends.
hes caused like 5 ppl to leave the school bcz bullying
he has shit grades
he probably does drugs or smthing
ur weird and but def better than him
You are wrong. I apologise for how abrupt that may sound, but you truly are.
lol nah im too awesome to b wrong
That makes very little sense, Murphy.
yeah ik
btw do u wanna be allies?
yea okay that was terrible timing but like
an alliance
against jack and his weird lil buddies. as in if they try to mess around with me or u or anything they'll get their lil faces smooshed. and we can like
avoid getting caught up in their shit again
Hang on. Didn't we fight two days ago? I used my anomaly on you in order to invade your privacy, due to my (I apologise again) cowardice. Why do you not hate me?
nah i dont hate u
ur rlly weird and kind of a loser but so am I (well weird at least) so I cant judge tbh. just learn the power of shampoo, showers n having a spine and were bros
i hate jack and co now bcz ik its them who set the whole thing up
u were just collateral damage
anyway join my alliance against those assholes
chaos!
vengeance!
badges!
Badges?
badges!
we have a 3d printer bcz of ppls stupid ass bots
its crappy n breaks down all the time but who gives a f
will u join the alliance and fight against their tyranny?
How much chaos?
a suitable amount???? u just go w the flow man
I cannot believe I am typing this but... yes. I accept. Alliance and all. It sounds, at the very least, somewhat interesting.
YES
WE ARE BROS NOW
CHAOS BROS
...
Chaos bros :)
Thursday, seven days to the Event
A BBC live update on the incident at the Hero Obelisk
Following the discovery of severed body parts, arranged into a grisly message at the site of the Hero Obelisk, a curfew lasting more than a week and an investigation into the perpetrators has been launched. Now, several days after the discovery itself, two more of the limbs have been identified.
As reported on Monday, the identity of three of the victims came to light: Edward Williams, a senior demolitions supervisor, Adrik Agarwal, a junior clerk for Invincible Inc, and Lucy Jenkins, a janitor at the fast-food chain BetterEats. Their families have refused to to comment for the BBC. Now, two more of the victims have been identified through the genetic database.
Emily Bell-Smith, a web developer for a freelance publishing company, and Robert Harrington, an eighteen-year-old boy attending Ashton Secondary School have been confirmed as being 'part of' the gruesome display.
There will be more at 7.
Friday, six days to the Event
Lizzie was awake when the noises began. As usual, she'd been reading up to the early morning on her tablet, elbows aching from propping herself up uncomfortably for hours, the glow of the device casting eerie shadows across her small face. It was a familiar routine to her, and one that made her feel so safe and comfortable that no number of motherly lectures could discourage her from it. And it was due to this habit that the girl, wrapped in her little cocoon of blankets, was still awake to hear the knocking.
It was a little knock, at first, so slight that she thought her over-sensitive hearing had misheard it. She was a Tier Three for her ears after all, though it was such a useless anomaly that she barely scraped by. But then came the slow, persistent thumping, and the rattling of their loose window-knob with it. Someone was pawing at the bathroom window from the outside, two stories up, trying to get in. The girl could not explain how she knew this, but she could feel it in her bones, the sensation of something hunting her, something that wanted in and would not stop until it stalked the halls of her home. Her heart quickened. She froze, hiding her head under the covers, and switched her tablet off, leaving her alone in the dark with only the sounds of her own breathing, and the slowly intensifying banging. It lulled for a minute or so, and just as Lizzie relaxed a little, it began again, accompanied this time by a rhythmic scraping, as if the thing outside had taken a knife or a screwdriver to the hinges. Her knuckles tightened on the case of her device as she listened, wondering what to do. First Robbie disappearing, then that horrific voicemail brought by Cora, that could not have been his because Robbie could not be dead, and now this: something clawing at her windows, trying to break into her house.
I should be brave, a loud voice in her head declared, I should run now and tell my mum, and she will wake up and call the police and then things will be okay, won't they? But her legs refused to move, her fingers refused to unwrap from the glass of her tablet. Her lips could not unclench, not to speak, not to scream for help. All she could do was lie there with the sounds of the hinges slowly loosening, listening to someone breaking into her home. Her lower lip trembled. The voicemail wormed its way into her mind again, insidious, twisting and twisting deeper into her head until she could barely breathe. What had Robbie said in the voicemail? He'd told them to leave, told them that trouble was coming, and fast. Told them to lie low and depart as soon as they got the message. But they hadn't done that! Robbie really was dead, and all the horrible things on TV that everyone at school was talking about were real, and some weird attack really was going to happen! And now someone was trying to break into their home, and - and -
Lizzie could feel herself beginning to hyperventilate. The world was her and the blanket and the banging outside, and awful images were flashing through her eyes. Images of her small, rosy hands joining the ones at the Hero Obelisk, images of her and her mother lying dead on the pavement outside their home like poor Mr Carpenter after his heart attack. Her mum had told her time and time again to just take deep breaths and breathe through her panic, but that never worked. Her anxiety crushed her lungs like soda cans, and all she could do was shiver under her blankets and try not to suffocate. Oh god. There was a screech of metal, a distant thump outside that even her anomalous ears struggled to pick up, and the muted sound of a voice. The intruder had dropped their tool! An immense feeling of relief swept her body. Surely, they would be forced to leave now, if their tool was gone?
Surely!
There was a sound of breaking glass.
Lizzie's heart skipped a beat.
And slowly, almost imperceptibly, she heard the sounds of legs dragging against the windowsill as someone clambered in, and her own, barely-hushed whimpering. Feet landed on the cold tiles of the bathroom. Feet padded near-silently across her bathroom on the opposite side of the corridor. Feet moved towards the bathroom door, hands reaching for the rusted doorknob whose screech she could recognise from a mile away. Why couldn't she breathe? Why couldn't her hands stop shaking? Why couldn't she move?
It was the sound of the bathroom door opening that did it for her.
In an instant, her limbs unfroze. And with speed and silence that she didn't know she possessed, the small girl crawled out of bed, grabbing at its base with trembling fingers. There was a hidden drawer in her bed that could slide open if you pulled it just right, its seam barely visible even in stark daylight. It was used for storing spare blankets and sheets, but Lizzie was short and slight and skinny, and she was desperate. With a furious tug, she yanked the drawer open, and threw herself into it, contorting herself into the fetal position with her knees up to her chin. The footsteps neared her room. She grabbed the top of the bed with one arm and pulled it towards her, sliding the drawer back into the frame with her inside. With a quiet thump, it closed, and she was plunged into darkness.
For a moment, the only thing she could hear was her own ragged panting, deafening and conspicuous to her panicked mind.
Her door creaked open.
Lizzie squeezed her eyes shut, held her breath, and for the first time in her short life, began to silently pray.
Saturday, five days to the Event
Diary entry of Cora Greenfield
This has been a really weird week. I'm gonna recap it from the beginning just because I can. I told Jennifer about the thing. Jennifer went nuts, kicked me out of her house, and then ignored my texts. As you do. I messed up big time, I know that, and I guess I did wrong to tell her or whatever, but I didn't think she'd despise my guts for it! But apparently she does. Because now she thinks I'm a disgusting, degenerate creep, or something along those lines. Ems, Skye, Alice also hate me now, so that's fun. They've blocked me on basically everything. I have no-one to call. They even blocked me on UTune! THAT'S A MUSIC APP!
Anyway.
On the same Monday, Jack bullied Elias Roberts into reading Murphy Chau's mind. I have no clue what stuff he found, but I bet it was pretty serious, because she went berserk and beat the living crap out of him. I would honestly pay to find out what he saw. Dude had a broken nose, but it all worked out in the end because Murphy accidentally clonked herself on the noggin with a brick. I guess that little idiot's anomaly isn't so fun now, is it? Point is, they basically missed the whole week because they were both suspended. Don't really feel bad for either of them generally, but Jack left some nasty surprises in both of their lockers, and Jennifer helped, so for once I do. They're both total freaks, but there has to be some basic human decency, right?
Only apparently not, because I've been eating alone this entire stupid week, because my 'friends' have been avoiding me like I have bubonic plague! The only person still associating with me is Fatimah, and even she seems to be reconsidering! And Jack chucked paper at my head. In maths class. How low have I fallen socially to be on HIS hitlist??? Did Jennifer tell literally everything that moves my secret? The saddest thing is, I can't even be mad at her. I still think she's the coolest person I know, and I still feel so stupidly, ridiculously happy whenever I see her smile and her big blue eyes. Why is my brain like this?
Also there's going to be a terrorist attack in London in about five days, so that's totally fun. I live in London. Lovely. There's police basically everywhere, and curfew keeps the streets completely silent after dark. It feels like a war is brewing somewhere, as if something is about to burst into flames and kill us all. My parents are in Singapore still, and they keep sending me worried texts to check that I'm still alive, so that's not exactly helping my paranoia. I hate my life right now. If I could swap bodies with some random farmer in the middle of Wiltshire growing tomatoes and rearing cattle, I would. He can have my impending doom via terrorists, social issue and dysfunctional classmates. I hate the countryside. I'm a city girl.
But right now, I would take anything other than whatever this is.
Saturday, four days to the Event
BBC London report
A woman has been found dead in her own house after an apparent break-in two days ago. Anna Harrington, 51, was discovered by the police after a concerned neighbour noticed the broken window of their house, and the woman was pronounced dead on the scene by the officers. Her young daughter, who can't be named due to her age, was taken into hospital to be treated for shock, but has not revealed any knowledge of the cause of death, nor of what had taken place that night. Medical experts suspect that some sort of incendiary device may have been used on the victim, but until a full autopsy is performed, the evidence remains inconclusive.
Police believe this is a homicide, and warn the community to stay vigilant. If anyone witnesses any suspicious activity in the local area, or possesses any knowledge relating to this crime, they are urged to come forward as soon as possible.
In other news, the weather...