The Broken Hearted...
Jazmine.
Jazmine!
Jaz, it’s time to wake up, sweetheart!
--Mom, just five more minutes, please!
Nope!
Shuffling the curtains she says, you know once you take your “five more minutes,” it’s harder for you to get up, so come on, baby. Besides, I don’t want you to be late for your first day, this is a really important day for you.
Still wiping the sleepy from her eyes, Jaz sits up in her bed and says to her mom, “You know I really don’t even want to do this. I just don’t know why we have to start these classes right away once we turn 16.”
Jaz, you know how this works, don’t look at this in a negative way, look at it as a coming of age right. How about that?
I just don’t know how it got to this point, I remember all those stories you would tell me about when you were my age back in the early 2000’s and y’all never had to do anything like this.
Oh sweetheart, reaching in for a hug, I know times are different, but learning these skills are vital to your survival in the real world… the new real world. Things are so much different from when I was your age, but these beings that have come to our planet aren’t like you and I.
Yes, they have feelings, yes they have families, but their brains are like machines, once the sun goes down, something terrible comes out of them. That’s why you have to take these classes, so that you’ll be able to defend yourself. You understand, don’t you?
Yeah, I understand, but didn’t they come to this planet to help us? Why are we trying to get rid of them now?
With obvious nervousness, her mom began to explain to her the history of these beings that were up for discussion.
Honey, years ago, around 2034, the United States discovered another life source on a different planet called Uniktion and after conversing with the Uniki’s, they were invited to come live on our planet. We gave them the experience of living on Earth for the exchange of taking away global warming. It sounded like a pretty decent trade to us, until about 2040.
What happened in 2040, ma?
Well in 2040 it was almost like a switch turned in their minds. The Uniki’s just started killing random humans, and then the next day, they woke up and didn’t remember what had happened the night before.
After a few more murders, we decided we had to do something in return, something to let them know that this is OUR planet and that we were afraid and tired of them killing us every night.
That’s when we decided that we were going to start a class that taught our youth how to defend themselves at night.
Patting Jaz on the head, so that is why it’s important for you to go to this class and learn how to defend yourself.
---
So, after Jaz had completed her course, she was sent out to perform her first task; exterminate the first Uniki she saw out that night. She was told to bring back the EmoShield on it’s neck in order to officially graduate from the program.
Jaz set out to find her a Uniki, but was shocked to discover what she found. The Uniki she found looked just like her, it looked like they were around the same age. There was no way she could kill this girl. So she made a deal with the Uniki…
“I was sent out here to kill you, but I can’t bring myself to do it, but I’ll get in trouble if I come home empty handed. How about I take your EmoShield and that will be that?”
The Uniki responded with a grateful heart saying, “thank you for your mercy because I definitely don’t want to die tonight. I’ll let you have my EmoShield and I’ll just go and get another one.”
Jaz left with the EmoShield, and thought that everything would be settled. Little did she know, the Uniki couldn’t get a replacement EmoShield in time and died from feeling all of the disparities of the world.
Author's Note:
The inspiration behind this post was the story of the Santal: The Killing of the Tiger. In this story, there is a tiger that had been killing travelers in the village, so someone was sent to kill this tiger, in order for traveler to safely get through the village. Once the person found the tiger they were supposed to kill, and had a brief conversation with the tiger, they decided to only cut off its claws, tips of its ears and the tip of its tongue as proof of death. After the person cut these items off, the tiger ended up dying the next day.
I chose to use that story as my base and then added a bit of a futuristic twist to the story I wrote, with some undertones of some popular movies we've more than likely all seen, such as iRobot. Hope you enjoy!
Hey! That was a great story! I was not expecting it at all. You really kept my attention throughout which I think is great. I love how you separated the dialogue by paragraph but it did get confusing at some points when the mom spoke for multiple paragraphs or when it was just narration. I would just suggest using quotations and I think they are called vocations, saying things such as "the mother said."
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