Stubborn Insurgence

 Her instructors and peers surveyed Chenda as she meandered down the cramped hallway. They were lined up against the colorless walls, jotting down notes. Their scrutinizing ogles piercing cold though her naked body. She tightened her arms around her body hoping they wouldn't catch a glimpse of her. The students behind her murmured, which quickly grew into chuckles and cat-calls. She dragged her nails against her ribs, finding comfort her mind being diverted by the pain. She squeezed her eyes shut as chuckles grew into a violent crescendo of laughter. She began to sob, angling her head down so her uncharacteristic oily, stringy hair could cover her shame.

        "Chenda!" she looked up to where the voice was emitting from down the hall. Astra darted up the her, taking her by the shoulders, shaking her, " Chenda wake up!"

        "Wha-" she spluttered as she was throttled into opening her eyes and staring into another's, startled. Their were her mother's, a golden brown. Her mother pulled back still gripping her shoulders. Astra was right beside her, eyes wide. Chenda looked back and forth between them. Her mother let go hesitantly, dashing out of the room, her touch lingering on her collarbones.

        "She said she would explain later," Astra elaborated. He patted her on the back and helped her stand up. Chenda groaned. Her head pounded with a dull ache. Her ribs stung. She must've actually scratched herself; her fingernails hand grown to a point where they could. They had sharp angles from where she had bitten them away.

        "Are you okay?" Astra questioned, "You were clawing yourself to death when we went to wake you up." His eyebrows were furrowed in worry. That was a drastic change from when they were tearing at each other's throats.

        She crossed her arms, "I'm fine. I just had a bad dream."

        Astra raised his eyebrows. It then occurred to her that he may have never read a book from the academy's human evolution section. Nobody had the courage to be curious. Did they even feel curious? Had Chenda's unfeelingness ever existed? She licked her lips. Her mouth tasted bitter from sleep. However, they had never been encouraged to be curious. Maybe she was an anomaly. Was curiosity something that had never faded? Were kids' curiosity snuffed out before they even reached adolescence? Were they brainwashed? All these questions masked the pain of the cuts on her ribs.

        "Dreams are a series of thoughts, visions, or feelings that happen during sleep. Scientists theorized that they may have been a way for humans to learn how to deal with certain scenarios. Like a simulation," Chenda explained, while boring her eyes into her shuffling feet. Astra nodded.

        Her mother busted into her room carrying two white sweaters in one arm, three backpacks on the other which was balancing a box atop her shoulder. She tossed them one of each, "Put them on."

        Chenda put her backpack on the ground. Her mother's eyes were wild with fervor, raccoon-like, like a feral cat thrusted back into captivity. Her hair was in a disheveled bun. She had discarded her lab gear for a leather jacket, combat boots, and a tank top. She looked younger without her goggles on: those were replaced by black wire-rimmed glasses.

        Astra hastily put on the gear, staring at her to signal her to do so as well. Her mother noticed from where she was packing the cans from the box into the extra backpack, and pulled herself up. She took the sweater from its place Chenda's arm, "Raise you arms, honey."

        Her mother helped her pull the sweater over her arms and to its resting place a little below her pelvis. She grabbed the backpack from the floor and placed it on her back.. That feeling of dread swam through her veins again, making her arms and legs feel like lead. She was overwhelmed by the need to cry, to be hugged. Apparently, her mother sensed her distress, because she enveloped Chenda in a soft hug, burying her face into the crook of her neck, "It's okay. You're going to be okay."

        Chenda recuperated the action, wrapping her arms around her mother's waist. She let go to soon, grabbing her backpack,  gesturing for the two teens to follow her. She ran down the stairs leading them down to the living room. Sitting on the couch was a black female, presumably Astra's mother. She had short, curly, black hair and prominent cheek bones giving her a aura of regality. Her lips were flushed red and had jade earrings adorning her ears. She wore the same gear as her mother, with the absence of a jacket. Her eyelashes were long and fine, irises like pure gold.  She stood with a grace that sent everyone into a frenzy of whether or not to bow down to her. She could rule a nation by just a gaze.

        "Mom?" Astra breathed, awed. The only thing that he had seemed to inherit from her was his complexion and eye color, even though the gold was dulled considerably.

        Chenda's mother throws a key to his, "Their in the back, Marquisha."

        Marquisha nodded and turned to Astra, " I'll explain later, Cody."

        Chenda's mind squealed to a stop. She had be calling Astra by his last name this whole time? She felt herself glow red with embarrassment. How could she'd never catch that? Instructors never called students by their first names unless they were being stern. It was a childish mistake. She crossed her arms and dragged her nails across the thick material of her sweater, begrudgingly. Nobody but her would see this as a move of self-hate. They would presume it was an itch or a move to warm herself- that she was fine, and not cultivating a parasite inside herself that threatened to bear its fangs at every provocation.

        Marquisha had been long gone by the time she snapped out of her thoughts. Her mother was shoving a tin into her pack, and Cody was raiding kitchen for food rations-presumably- when someone kicked in the door with an inhumanly force. If Chenda had not lunged up the steps of the glass staircase, she would be suffering from a very broken skull and death. Cody had been walking back from the kitchen with a whole jug of apple juice when it almost slammed into him, making him jump and cling onto his apple juice, darting for cover. Her mother cursed and began throwing out several cans of peaches and beans to fit the tin inside the pack. Their luck was a clean as a toilet since the zipper decided to pull a fast one and jam.

        The person dropped their bag of produce, spilling out a scarlet tomato," Feeling humans have been detected."  She knew the voice.

        Chenda lent against the wall trying to feel something, but all she felt was numb. How could her father be a Detector? If he was one of them who was her father? How could she be sure her mother was actually her mother?

        He scanned the room, a red beam of light falling on the ground and settling on her mother. She rolled out of the way pack in hand, as a taser thumped on the ground- It came from his shoulder. Arcs of electricity conducted on the carpet leaping off of the wool like a contortionist bend and fold themselves.

        She remembered the broom that her father stored in the closet across from her. She darted to the closet, flinging the door open so it covered her from his gaze. Detectors were triggered by sight.

        "What the-?" Cody exclaimed from where he was shielding his apple juice, huddled behind the blank counters.

        Chenda gripped the broom with both hands, bushy side facing toward the Detector.  She lunged forward smacking her father with the broom. Her father recoiled giving her the opportunity to pin him to the wall. Running on pure adrenaline she flipped the broom and burrowed the handle under his cheek bone. She pounded the end upwards, wedging it between the fake bone and his endoskeleton, snapping the metal. Her stomach knotted. She pulled the broom back before he had the chance to recover. She stabbed the handle into the eye socket and to the back of the skull, tugging it around to where she could find the weak point- the place where new chips could be inserted easily. His body had already been reduced to a rag-doll: So why was she still determined to destroy this thing?  Sparks flew as the handle met the "brain" of the Detector.

        On adrenaline after a life with none- she determined- the brain produced an overload of the hormone. The goal was no longer incapacitate the bot, but to just hit some s**t. She had been betrayed- lied to for her entire life. She was going to take back the money people owed her on step at a time.

        She yanked the handle out from the bot's socket. She looked back to her mother who was crouched on the carpet ready to lunge.  Cody was still gripping his apple juice, as he began to stand up.

        "A natural fighter I see. Always suspected it," she stared back at her mother who slung the backpack over her shoulder brushing off dust from her trousers. She graced a small, warm smile. Chenda dropped the broom- she had to take deep breaths to try to calm herself down, hands on her knees.It wan't the best way for her body to get the oxygen it  needed. The weight of her father's demise settled down on her shoulders, but she quickly shrugged it off. She meant nothing to him anyway.

        Cody strolled over to her. He lurched back slightly when she pulled herself up, "How in the world did you do that?"

        "Instinct," she gasped, her lungs struggling for air.

        Cody chuckled, " You're too smart for your own good."

        She took that into comment into account- Maybe even taking it too personally. She recalled one of her instructors stating, "You need to be critiqued constantly. If  you are not, you will fail. If you fail to change, you are doomed." Her mouth pulled itself into a disdainful frown at the quote. She didn't need to change, she was fine as she was. Change isn't always for the better, she told herself.

        A loud rumbling sound came from outside the door, making her mother pull herself up with a groan  and announce, "Our ride's here." She sauntered out the door, into the late night air, Chenda and Cody following her.  

        Her and Cody studied the two machines before them. The vehicles were shaped like an ant mixed with a bike. One of them had a small car extending from it, like a circular fist. Both were a color of a void- a black hole- tripping Chenda's eyes out. Marquisha sat atop the one with the car with her neck held high- an African princess being paraded through her kingdom. Even when wearing a full face helmet she could still sense that it was her, by her aura.  On the other bike sat a teenage boy no older than her and Cody. He had wavy shoulder length hair- a blonde. A dark layer of eyeliner surrounded his eyes and an even darker shade of lipstick on his mouth- blue from what she could perceive from the moonlight. He wasn't wearing any safety gear.

        " 'Yo! Deuce! I think it may be bumpy on the way back! Put your s**t on!" Her mother hollered. Her mother acted so young- carefree- it was hard to believe that she had ever been a reserved neuroscientist. What was she now?

        "Like that's going to happen anytime soon, Cheri!" the boy haughtily laughed back. She never heard her mother's name before, so she was jolted by the name as though she had gotten shocked by the taser.

        Deuce slipped off the bike to allow her mother to climb on, plopping down into Marquisha's side car.  She called for her and Cody to get on to one of the vehicles. Chenda walked forward, setting her foot onto the pegs of her mother's bike, pulling herself upwards. She set each leg on one side and slid her arms into place on her mother's waist. Her mother passed a bike helmet to her. She clipped it on, watching as Cody's wouldn't fit on his head and pinched the skin of his chin.

        Static erupted from the pocket of Marquisha's trousers where a box with an antenna rested. Chenda recalled that the instructors carried them as well, but never used them. A few clicks sounded and the boy and two women whipped their heads to stare at each other- widened eyes -raised eyebrows.

        "Hold on, Chenda," Her mother slammed the keys into the ignition. The bike jolted forward, causing her to panic, tightening her arms and burrowing her head into the crook of her neck. Cody's  mother followed behind closely.  They raced past sidewalks that Chenda had trudged to school on just this morning. It was too overwhelming- the change. She felt herself longing for normalcy.  She wanted to destroy this infernal hell she was placed into.

        "Whats going on!" She demanded. She needed to know what was happening, if not... drastic measures were going to be taken to get that knowledge out of others.

        Her mother made the bike accelerate faster. They had already passed the school by the looks of things and they were heading down a street Chenda had never seen before. Her mother turned sharply. Chenda yelped, feeling herself slipping off the side of the bike. They rightened and Chenda realized they were in the central hub. How could they have gotten here that quickly? Students weren't permitted to enter this area. It was at least a two miles from their apartment. Skyscrapers towered above them with blinking needles the top. A dome sat in the distance- the hospital. This was where they would work when they got older.

        "Marquisha, where do we turn!" her mother shouted.

        "Keep going straight!" she replied. Chenda glanced back to see Cody in shock- he stared at her blankly, body rigid and nails clawed into his mother's stomach. Deuce was turned around, raising a metal device, loading silver pellets into it. A sharp sound emitted from the device, and he recoiled when it bounced back into his shoulder. It then occurred to Chenda that what he was holding was a gun. She had only read about them from the stories in the library. The fact that he was shooting into the darkness behind them meant that their was something that they were running from something  -something dangerous.

        "You haven't answered my question!" Chenda yelled, still looking back at Deuce.

        "We'll talk about this later!" her mother snapped, as Marquisha told her to turn, and she swerved onto the next street.

        Chenda pulled her hands from their position on her hips shakily, spreading them out, "If you don't tell me what's going on now I will fall off this bike!"

        Her mother tore her eyes away from the street to Chenda, "THIS ISN'T THE TIME FOR THIS!" she turned back, concentrated on the street.

        "Tell me!" She warned, leaning back farther. Her stomach dropped. Pain suddenly erupted from her abdomen. She had been shot. If felt as though she had been set on fire. The heat from the barrel and the gunpowder used to fire it seemed to seep into every vein and artery keeping her from moving. The shock hit when she lowered her arms, staring at the blood that seeped onto the front of her sweater.

        She snapped forward, clinging onto her mother, mumbling, "Oh my god!" repeatedly until it rose into a distressed cry. She shook with the fear of bleeding out. There was so much blood. She pressed onto the wound trying to clot the blood faster, knowing it wouldn't work. They needed to get to a medic. This would be quick to repair if they had one on the spot. Where had the bullet even go when it exited? She began to sob into her mother's jacket.

         She was going to die. She raised her hand to look at the amount of blood that had flooded out from her abdomen. It was surely a death sentence, as her hand was a pungent, dripping red. She placed it back to her wound, with the knowledge that their was no sign of the blood stopping. She zoned out of reality slipping into the void, opening her eyes only when she heard Deuce's roar of agony as a bullet entered his shoulder, but continued to shoot behind them.

        She allowed her muscles to relax and body go limp as the void swallowed her into its unrelenting maw.

Author's Note

Review grammar, characters, dialogue, etc