《Sonder》Chapter 4
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Alice logged out of the VR system not believing she had met and exchanged contact info with Brad. She lay in bed with her arm over her eyes and an afterglow of budding teenage romance. She replayed the concert in her head and drifted into a pleasant sleep.
When she awoke it was supper time. It was customary on Sunday evenings to do a mixed reality dinner with her parents. She went to the kitchen and 3d printed a favorite of hers, simple spaghetti and meatballs. She took the finished bowl of tepid, manufactured food and took it into the MR dining room. She flipped a switch on the wall and the augmented reality projector scanned the dimensions of the room with a red beam. After about a minute it started to live stream her parent’s dining room from Mars. She took a seat at her normal spot and waited for her parents to come.
“Hi baby,” her mother’s hologram appeared in the seat across from hers.
“Hi mom,” she replied.
“Your father...will be late again so go ahead and eat.”
The distance between them was deafening. She sighed and started to eat her meal. The pasta always came out al dente, but she preferred hers slightly overcooked and chewy. Her family had migrated from the Philippines to America for better job prospects. Her dad was an engineer and they were able to live a lower-middle class lifestyle for the first few years of moving. At the start of high school, however, her dad opted to be part of the Mars colonization engineering division as it paid a lot more and he could send money back home.
This changed their life tremendously. Her dad moved to Mars and with the money they were able to buy a better home in the suburbs and send Alice to a more affluent private school. Since it took a whole month to get to Mars her mom spent half the year on Earth with her daughter and half the year with her husband on Mars. For the first year it was exciting, but after the second year the trip between planets was so exhausting her Mom decided to stay on Mars, and ask her sister to check in on Alice weekly. Missed birthdays, parties, and parent-teacher meetings would wear Alice down. She hated Mars and everything it stood for. The pay was extremely well and her Dad sent a generous allowance, but Alice wondered if it was worth it. The house was lonely and felt hollow.
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“Have you thought about what major you want to study in college?” Alice’s mom asked.
“Not yet”
“You should study to become a nurse, my friend’s daughter makes a good amount of money.”
This wasn’t the first time Alice heard this recommendation. She knew that being a nurse was a good profession, but she wanted to work with people and not robots. Ever since primary healthcare was automated nurses, almost exclusively, worked remotely on machines and computers. Every now and then they’d have to go in to repair the health robots and machines. Nurse practitioners mainly assessed new robots and machines that could help further automate the healthcare process. It was a field that required heavy STEM and robotics knowledge.
“I know mom, I just haven’t decided yet.”
“If you become a nurse you can come live with us on Mars. You can even go to college here.”
She knew that too. It was what she wanted.Or maybe not? She knew she wanted family, but that meant giving up on her real dreams and desires for her career. She wanted to live here, on Earth, she wanted her family back here too. She also wanted to be a journalist and interview people, that major didn’t exist at college on Mars which exclusively had STEM majors only.
“I’ll think about it mom. My graduation is in a few months, can you and dad come?”
Her mom hesitated to answer and looked apologetic.
“Your dad is still very busy, and I don’t think I’ll be able to come back to Earth this year. I’m sorry baby. We’re both really proud of you,” her words fell flat.
Alice finished her meal. She was used to it: frustration and disappointment, but the spaghetti tasted particularly sour today. They finished the rest of the meal in silence. Alice got her backpack ready for school the next day and picked out clothes for tomorrow. She got a text from her dad.
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“Sorry I couldn’t make it to dinner love, wishing you a good night.”
Alice knew that they loved her, but 241 million miles makes it hard to receive it. She went to her nightstand and looked over her various makeup palettes and lipsticks. She looked over the rainbow display of colors and ironic names for her palettes. “Lonely Hearts Club” a palette filled with blues, “The Dark Side of the Moon” a palette with white, black, and gray shades, and “Sucker Punch” filled with intense purples. She looked into the mirror, quietly dabbed the tears from her reddened eyes, blew her nose, and decided she would wear black lipstick tomorrow.
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The OverGod
Warning: Tagged 18+ for sexual scenes, strong language, gore, and violenceThe Universe Particles or UPs, an unknown particle that appeared on Earth and infected all the living organisms, humans who got infected by this particle started to get sick and eventually they died. The leaders of that time employed thousands of scientists to search for the cure but to no avail. Five years later the cure still hadn’t been found but the number of deaths were increasing with each day, in these five years one billion of lives had been lost.Fearing the worst the Leaders of all countries came together and decided to build Twelve Stations underground where humans could seek shelter. Seven years later, two billions and half lives had been lost but all the stations were safely completed, but there was a problem…it couldn’t fit everyone… The leaders with this problem in hands could do nothing but choose the fittest and the best of the best in their field of work: farmers, doctors, researchers, soldiers, teachers, etc… ------------ ---------600 years later, humans are still underground…..In a white room a boy was tied on a metal chair...he never had a name, since he remembered everyone called him *Test Subject Number 7* at first he didn’t understand, but after some time he understood…He was just a Guinea Pig to these people.-----------x----------Note: English is not my native language, so bear with me please
8 54Lethal Virtue
Grand Vilstine, the big city that has fallen down into practically anarchistic ruins, 2 detectives attempt to make the city civilians to be in a stabler than the one they are by solving the most important case of their lives, how the city turned into chaos.But within this city, lies powerful men,men with the self-proclaimed powers given upon them by a cooperation with domination in plan and they will get in their way of finding the truth and revealing it to the world about this city. New Name since October 26 2020 is: Lethal Virtue
8 136Space Apes (AKA Spapes)
For as long as there has been faith, there have been the unfaithful. Persecuted for nothing but her doubts (and reading the wrong books) one girl has a chance to start a new life on a new planet. But wherever there are cities, there is the presence of the Novoastrian Church. Unable to even go to school without the watchful eye of the Inquest searching for non-believers, how long can an apostate maintain their sanity when surrounded by faith?
8 117Her Favorite Taste (W|W x Intersex)
She was her favorite sight, naked wrapped in white blankets and ready to be taken the way she knew her lover would. The candles were lit, her crystals in position as she crawled to the young woman with beaming purple irises that glowed in the dark. "Are you ready for eternity?" TRIGGER WARNING; 18+, mentions of witchcraft, magic, knife play, blood play, etc... just prepare yourselves.
8 155Hunters
[1885; England] Lecia Harper can hardly accept her fate: marriage. When her father seemingly pawns her off to a Duke, horror and abandonment are only half of what she feels. She had been able to dismiss nearly every suitor before, but now she's bound to one man for ever. Freedom was all she wanted, but what happens when she begins to realize that that is exactly what she got?
8 124S P D
It's not that I won't or refuse...I can't.(S)chizoid (P)ersonality (D)isorder- A condition in which people avoid social activities and interacting with others.Depersonalized Schizoid- Often described by the schizoid patient as a tuning out or a turning off. Affectless Schizoid- Lack passion, remain unresponsive in social situations, and are highly unlikely to show any affection to prospective significant others.
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