S1, E4 | 345 Feet

} The following events take place through the months of April, May, and June, 2030, and the 18th of January, 2031 {

> 18th January, 2031 <

“It wasn’t easy for me, either” Sophie mutters, her shoulder just brushing against Caden’s as they pass each other, their eyes set on their original seats, “hearing what it was like for the two of you… For everyone else.” Looking away from the girl, Caden thinks of what to say, the proper words eluding him at every turn, prompting him to remain silent as he walks the rest of the way to his chair.

Pausing for a moment, Sophie stands where she last stepped, Caden already taking his seat whilst she remained in the middle of the room. “I hate this” Sophie says aloud, her words finding Caden’s ears just as he takes his seat, “I hate doing this.” Without reassurance to offer, Caden fumbles through his bag of phrases, finally settling on a question to the statement offered. “Why are we doing this, then?” Caden asks, Sophie’s eyes turning with her head, finding Caden with ease.

“Because it’s necessary” Sophie replies, shoulders limply shrugging, “I’m going to need to remember everything.” Closing his eyes so the girl can’t see him roll them, Caden begins to speak, quickly interrupted by the formerly imprisoned. “You might not-” Caden begins, his words that follow being destined to silence, allowing Sophie to refute him, “but I might.”

Folding his hands atop the clipboard, Caden plays with the cap to the pen in his hand, watching Sophie turn back to her chair, walking the rest of the way. Looking at the clipboard, Caden reads the next question in silence, repeating it in his head before stumbling off track. “Why did you tell me that?” Caden asks, calling the conversation back to Sophie’s stated feelings on the task as a whole.

“I’m pretty sure that’s not the next question” Sophie remarks, her eyes not having looked at the camera yet since changing seats, her conversation being one meant solely for the moment. “That doesn’t matter, answer it anyway” Caden replies, Andrew’s subtle calling of his name doing nothing to help the annoyed reflection in his tone. “I said it doesn’t matter, Mr. Carrion” Caden remarks, looking at the older man over his shoulder before turning back to the girl, “answer it.”

Biting into her bottom lip, Sophie lets the slight tension in the room dissipate before answering, partially using the silent moments to convince herself of the answer. “So you know you’re not alone in it” Sophie replies, the irony bringing a further silence of the room, the one where the same couldn’t be said for her.

= Generation Alpha is created by Zachary Serra, all rights to the series belong to Zachary Serra and the entity of Pacer1 Media from the start of Season 1 onwards =

> April 2030 <

“Good morning!” Morgan calls out, the sky behind her a pitch black, the stars still out in full force.”It’s the middle of the night” Sophie remarks, still curled into a ball in the back of the room, her mother approaching the restraints she’s locked to with a key in her hand. “It’s the end of the night, actually” Morgan replies cheerfully, placing the key in the metal configurations and pulling the long chain toward her.

“I decided you should be sleeping in your bed more” Morgan explains, pulling the chain through its loop until it can extend no further, at which point, she twists the key again and relocks the restraints. With a smile, Morgan turns toward her daughter and waves her hand around the width of the room, as if to inform her offspring that she now has full access to it all.

Confused, Sophie takes her mother’s gesture as genuine until proven otherwise, slowly pushing herself off the floor, leaning against the wall to get the blood flowing in her legs again. “The closest house isn’t for miles and miles” Morgan explains, taking her opportunity to get out of her daughter’s reach while she still can, stopping a few yards past the exit. “If you call for help, no one will hear you” Morgan explains, watching Sophie stagger toward her, “it also means you can come outside.”

Glancing back at the mechanism upon the wall she’s chained to, Sophie cautiously walks forward, quickly getting further than she’d been allowed before. Like a zombie from a movie, Sophie drags herself further forward, finally reaching the door, her hands placed upon each side of the frame as she glances back, finding a few feet of chain left to exploit.

Closing her eyes, Sophie breathes in the air before letting go of the frame, carrying herself out into the open air, her eyes staring into the sky as if it were the first time she’d ever seen it. Pulling her feet out of her shoes, Sophie runs her finger down the top of her socks and places her feet upon the dirt. A smile coming over her face, Sophie’s visage falls back upon her obnoxiously happy mother, that joy immediately beginning to fall.

Stepping as close to her mother as her chains can allow, Sophie comes within a few inches of her mothers mein, her voice fading in and out. “Why did you do this?” Sophie asks, looking at the woman with a cold stare, not an ounce of pleasant emotion shown, “why am I here?” Her eyes wandering down to her daughter’s chest, Morgan’s sights fall upon a necklace, her face brightening with a smile.

“Where’d you get the necklace?” Morgan asks, trying her best to redirect the conversation, something Sophie sees through easily. “I asked a pretty good question, why aren’t you answering it?” Sophie remarks, her mother’s hands rocking back and forth, not truly sure where to rest. “Because…” Morgan replies, the chipper tone in her voice doing it’s best to test Sophie’s patience, “...I don’t really have a good answer.”

“Okay, what’s the closest you can get to one?” Sophie asks, her voice rigid and tough the more it smoothes out, her stance presenting a woman resilient to anything other than answers. “I missed my daughter and made a bad choice” Morgan remarks, something resembling hope being brought back onto Sophie, provided with proof that her mother is aware of the wrongdoings.

Without much of a retort, Sophie remains silent for a second, inspecting her mother for a moment before squinting at her, another question popping into her head. “What’s wrong with you?” Sophie asks, Morgan’s expression immediately changed into one of a judgmental parent. “Sophie, don’t talk to me like-” Morgan begins, interrupted by her daughter, a clarification being made.

“No, I mean literally… There’s something mentally wrong with you” Sophie replies, looking back to the cell she’s been put into, “you’re one person sometimes, another person the next. Is it a medical thing?” Hanging her head, Morgan scratches at her arm, the smooth breeze pushing her hair back for her. “I’m a… I’m a high functioning psychopath” Morgan remarks, her daughter pulling her head back, confused, “it’s a clinical diagnosis, but it doesn’t make me crazy.”

Lips parted, Sophie looks at her mother in astonishment, the amount of questions running through her mind barely contained within her head. “How can you say that?” Sophie questions, her mother’s head tilting, “I’m your daughter and you have me locked in a cage like a dog- do you understand that?” Her head jolting in different directions, Morgan looks for a way to suggest otherwise, a gesture which Sophie doesn’t take kindly to.

“No, don’t explain it away like it’s nothing… I can see that’s what you’re trying to do” Sophie mutters, backing herself away from her mother, “that’s what it is… No if’s, and’s, or but’s about it.” Turning around, Sophie looks toward the ground, returning to her prison before tripping herself over her shoes. “Oh honey!” Morgan calls out, watching her daughter crash into the ground, rushing up to her.

“I’m fine!” Sophie shouts back, holding her hand out whilst dragging herself back inside with the other, fist clenched. Without another word, Sophie slams the door shut on herself despite her mothers pleas for a different result. “Don’t come back!” Sophie shouts, her ear pressed to the door itself, hands forcing it to remain shut. Disappointed, Morgan locks the bunker door shut and returns home, the smile on Sophie’s face behind the door wide and true.

Looking down to her balled fist, Sophie opens her fingers to look at the decent-sized stone clutched in her grasp, her ticket out of the horror show she resides in seemingly purchased.

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Sat beside her front windows, Morgan looks out at the bunker, just as she has for the last few hours, the divider propped up slightly in case she can hear her daughter’s voice cry out. Anxious, Morgan stands away from the view and walks for the front door, her eyes set on the bunker, the early morning just beginning to allow its sun over the horizon.

Unlatching the entrance, Morgan pulls the door open, beginning her visit with an apology. “Sophie, I’m sorry that we-” Morgan begins, the spot her daughter would usually occupy empty, just as the room is. “So- Sophie?” Morgan repeats, her tone soft, words stuttering as she begins to panic. “Sophie!?” Morgan shouts, turning her back to the bunker, the only evidence of her daughter’s presence being the broken chain left in the middle of the floor.

Running around her property with her daughter’s name being called for, echoing throughout the air, Morgan goes into a frenzy, the bunker door left wide open in case her daughter happens to wander back. Seeing this unfold from beneath her bed, an unchained Sophie, only restrained by the cuff on her ankle, waits until her mother disappears around the house before making her escape.

Her chance given, Sophie hurries out from under cover, racing through the open door and dashing through farmland. Having spent the last few hours pacing around her bunker, Sophie’s legs carry enough strength to lead her miles away, the only barrier in her way as of this point being the lack of cover she has available to her.

“Sophie!” Morgan shouts, finally having rounded the house to see her daughter’s figure tearing through the open field, nothing stopping her aside from her own stamina. With a smile on her face, Sophie dashes through the land, refusing to break her stride until she runs across help. In a split second, the soaring sensation of freedom is snatched away by a single pulse, the cuff around her ankle zapping her with enough electricity to take down a small bear.

Leg having gone as limp as the rest of her body, Sophie throws herself forward, unable to stop her momentum until she slams into the dirt, coming in and out of consciousness as the rock falls from her hand. Quickly fading, Sophie hears her mother’s calls near closer and closer, forcing her to make peace with being returned to imprisonment just before she loses consciousness.

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Slowly returning, Sophie feels a numbness course through her body, as if every limb she had was asleep. Pulling herself up, Sophie sits against the wall, a brand new chain now locked around her neck, Morgan replacing the covers of her bed with warm sheets. “Shock collar?” Sophie asks, already having accepted the answer before it had been confirmed.

“You scared me today, Sophie” Morgan explains, her back turned toward her daughter, still in the process of replacing Sophie’s sheets as she outlaws her actions. “You are not to leave this premises- it is forbidden” Morgan explains, still teetering on the edge of outright kidnapper and distressed parent in her own mind. “I don’t like having to do this to you, but you leave me no choice!” Morgan explains, finally looking over her shoulder at her helpless daughter, “case and point… Today.”

Frustrated, Morgan ruffles through the sheets, aggravatedly trying to fit them to the bed before giving up, tossing them on the floor and kicking them at her daughter. “I was going to bring you home!” Morgan shouts, her daughter curled into a ball against the back wall, “I was going to bring you inside and get you settled into your new room- but you fucked it all up!”

Holding back tears, Morgan places her hand against her face, trying to collect her breathing until her daughter speaks out. “It’s not mine” Sophie remarks, her mother’s face immediately darting toward her, lost for context, “the room” Sophie continues, “...it’s not mine.”

“What are you talking about? Of course it’s your room!” Morgan responds, mustering a smile amidst the tears, “I had it all decorated and ready for you!” Wrapping her arms around her knees, Sophie rests her head against the wall, eyes staring up at her mother, disgust written all over her own face. “It’s not my room, Morgan” Sophie replies, her mother’s speechless expression only accompanied by her daughter’s further defiance, “it never will be.”

Seething, Morgan reaches around her back and retrieves a pistol, its barrel aimed at her daughter, the situation immediately turning on its head. “We are a family goddamnit!” Morgan shouts, her fear-stricken daughter immediately putting her hands in the air, standing down, “whether you like it or not- this is your life now!”

“Okay, Mo-” Sophie remarks, stopping herself before being able to get her mother any further aggravated than she already is, “Okay mom… It’s my life now.” Her face flooded with tears, Morgan lets a smile break through her lips as she shakes her head, refusing to buy into what her daughter’s selling this time. “No, you don’t believe that yet” Morgan replies, backing away whilst leaving Sophie to make her own bed, “but you will soon enough.”

Returning the gun to her waistband, Morgan slams the bunker door shut, locking the hatches and leaving Sophie to her own. Slowly lowering her arms, Sophie returns them to her shins, pulling her legs close as she begins to hold back tears, the fear she holds beginning to truly set in, an uncertainty over what is to come feeling worse than death.

> May, 2030 <

Yanking the bunker door open, Morgan bathes a dark room in light, her daughter still curled up against the wall in the back of the room. “Let me go” Sophie mutters, those three words the only set the young girl is willing to speak, everything else falling along the lines of pointless as far as she’s concerned. Rolling her eyes, Morgan flicks the lights on and enters the room with a chocolate cake, a birthday candle in the form of the number one lit atop it.

“What’s this?” Sophie asks, her statements and questions asked swiftly, almost coming out as a whistle at times. “It’s a cake for you” Morgan explains, watching her daughter’s face only further scrunch in confusion, “to celebrate our anniversary!” Looking at her mother with a weirdly disassociated glare, Sophie asks for more context, which Morgan is happy to supply her with.

“We’ve been together for a year! I thought we should celebrate!” Morgan exclaims, her daughter’s eyes widening, face easing to the point of dread. “W- what?” Sophie remarks, her mother’s expression chilling her to the bone, the haunting manifestation of glee in another person’s sorrow forcing her stomach to twist in knots. “It’s been a year since you’ve been home!” Morgan answers, her voice carrying little weight, “the time’s flown by!”

“I… I’ve wh-” Sophie begins, looking toward the deepest corner of the room, unable to stare at her mother’s face without wishing for the release of death.

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Pushing the bunker door in, Morgan enters Sophie’s holding area, head turning toward the bed, where her daughter lays uncomfortably still on her side. “Sophie, honey… I need to tell you something” Morgan explains, the still perfectly-conditioned notebook resting by her daughter’s side, its cover traversed by the back-and-forth glide of Sophie’s index finger, “they’ve called off your search.”

Looking toward the wall beside her bed, Sophie lets a single tear fall down the side of her face, her finger pushing the notebook away before the tear can land on it. “Let me go” Sophie whispers, pulling her head away the moment her mother lays her hand against it. “Don’t touch me” Sophie says as she crawls aside, hearing her mother’s footsteps carry through the door and onto the sand-covered asphalt.

Turning onto her back, Sophie feels a tear slide down her face, the droplet landing on the unchanged sheets beside her head. Looking toward the ceiling with her eyes wide, Sophie hears her mother’s front door close in the distance, allowing a surge of tears to break their way to the surface. With a convulsive twitch, Sophie screams at the top of her lungs, a guttural moan presenting itself, carrying out the little remaining hope left with it.

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> 18th January, 2031 <

“She made trips in constantly, once every few hours” Sophie explains, struggling to understand where her mind was at the time, even with the benefit of hindsight, “it just felt like a daily thing at the time.” Folding his hands, Caden presses his lips to his knuckle, watching Sophie continue to traverse her mind, stowing away memories being unlocked at will.

“I didn’t know if she’d kill me or not, but the search getting called off took that off the table mostly” Sophie explains, looking toward Caden and her father, “I knew she’d want to ‘mend things’ before she got that desperate.” Looking back to the clipboard, Caden attempts to ask the next question, his words interrupted by a fleeting thought just popping into Sophie’s mind.

“I made it three hundred and forty-five feet” Sophie mutters, Caden and her father looking up at her, lost for meaning. “The charge zapped me when I crossed the 110-yard threshold, so I probably flew for another five yards before I stopped” Sophie explains, returning the conversation to her failed escape, “I ran for three hundred and forty-five feet of freedom.”

Without a second look at the clipboard, Caden asks the question next laid out on Sophie’s list. “When did your mother tell you about Huntington's diagnosis?” Caden wonders aloud, a question that urges Andrew to look up for the first time in a while.

> 3rd June, 2030 <

The metal squealing as she opens the bunker door, Morgan calls out her daughter’s name, finding her on the bed once again, a similar position to where she normally is. “I… I have some news” Morgan explains, flicking the lights on, earning an immediate response. “Turn them off” Sophie calls, her mother doing as requested, hoping to have a civil conversation.

“Let me go” Sophie asks, immediately resorting to her usual response, her mother’s failure to immediately refuse her demands prompting Sophie to break out of her sheltered haze. Without a word, Morgan drifts to the side of the room, gently dragging a chair from the small table beside Sophie’s bed and taking a seat upon it. “I don’t have long” Morgan mutters, her daughter turning over onto her opposite side, looking at her mother’s face, the emotion on it confusing her.

“I’ve been getting treatments for the last few years” Morgan explains, detailing her battle with Huntington’s, trying to clarify what she can understand, “I’m not myself, and I’m only getting worse.” Not feeling sorry, Sophie pushes herself up to a seat, wrapping her arms around her legs as she looks into Morgan’s face, the fear in her eyes coming off awkwardly.

“The courts wouldn’t let me have visitation, and I couldn’t let-” Morgan continues, stopping herself momentarily, Sophie looking on without much to react with, “-I didn’t wanna go without seeing you.” Shaking her head, Sophie takes the woman’s claims as an excuse, immediately challenging them. “Is that supposed to excuse everything you’ve done to me!? Everything you’ve been doing to me!?” Sophie asks, her mother only able to hang her head.

“It was supposed to explain why I needed to make it right” Morgan replies, looking at her daughter with teary eyes, forcing the young woman to a state of empathy. “I’m so sorry” Morgan blurts, dropping her head onto her daughter’s legs, Sophie’s refusal to brush her away coming from a place of conflicted feelings. “How long?” Sophie asks, the world of uncertainties she’s surrounded with only solved by asking questions.

“What?” Morgan remarks, Sophie repeating her question. “How long do you have?” Sophie replies, looking into her mother’s eyes, watching the tears fade away. “Less than a year… Maybe” Morgan remarks, her daughter pulling her face away, unable to look into the older woman’s eyes. “I just wanted to be around you… And I couldn’t… Ever” Morgan explains, looking at the side of her daughter’s face, “you can never be without your child as a mother without it killing you every day.”

Biting her lip, Sophie shakes her head in a refusal to give into her mother’s sad story, the good natured heart within preventing her from feeling a deep-rooted sadness. “I just wanted to spend the time I had left with you” Morgan explains, pulling her daughter’s face toward hers, the tears streaming down both of their faces, “I wanted to make you happy like your daddy made you happy.”

Lip quivering, Sophie looks down at her knees, her hands grasping at her shins while she musters up the courage to respond. “If you wanted to make me happy, you’d let me go” Sophie replies, the hope draining from her mother’s face, replaced with unaccompanied tears. Sobbing into her arm, Morgan lifts her head from her elbow and nods, reaching her hand into her pocket and removing a key.

Without a second thought, Morgan places the small, metal masterkey inside her daughter’s chain collar and lets the set of links clatter upon the ground, freeing the girl of her restraints. “I don’t have a key for the collar, but it’s been off for months now” Morgan explains, wiping away the tears and snot from her face, handing her daughter the accompanying button. “Go home” Morgan whimpers, dropping her head into the mattress, not wanting to see her daughter walk away.

> 18th January, 2031 <

“Why did you buy it?” Caden asks, Sophie’s eyes drifting back toward him, the question one that wasn’t listed. “I don’t know” Sophie remarks, no response good enough for why she accepted her mother’s reasoning. “I think you do” Caden replies, watching the girl’s eyelids part further, his inquiry continuing, “did you really believe her, or were you playing the long game?”

“Was I calling her bluff?” Sophie remarks, reiterating the boy’s question for him, forcing herself to do some introspection. “I’d like to say I knew what she was planning, but I don’t think I can” Sophie replies, running her hand over her smooth, collarless neck, “I’m pretty sure I fell for it. Hook, line and sinker.”

Leaning forward, Caden places his clipboard to the side, challenging her thought deeper whilst making it clear that he’s going off script. “In that moment, all you knew was one thing” Caden explains, watching Sophie’s nod assure him that she knows what he’s going to ask, “why did you turn back?” With a deep breath, Sophie puckers her lips, explaining the reason behind her choice, a single truth holding the responsibility for why she went back.

“She’s my mother.”

> 3rd June, 2030 <

Pulling herself off the bed, Sophie walks past her mother, glancing back just once before walking through the door, feeling the warm, mid-day air touch her skin. Bathed in light, Sophie looks toward the field she once failed to escape through, eyes filled with hope once more. Walking the direction she once failed to fully travel, Sophie is watched on by her mother, who stands in the bunker’s doorway, watching her young return home.

One foot in front of the other, Sophie continues to move forward, looking back only once to see her mother in the bunker, refusing to chase after her. In a moment of uncertainty, Sophie feels a rumbling in her gut, an instinct telling her to stop walking. Looking down to see a partially-legible divot in the dirt from where she tumbled months before, Sophie looks off in the distance, the strange feeling that her freedom isn’t as it appears coming over her, though, not making itself clear.

Turning around, Sophie looks toward her mother, something the woman hadn’t expected to see, only further puzzling the older woman when she finds her daughter’s figure returning. Head tucked down, Sophie continues to walk back, her hair blowing in the wind, face illuminated in the orange glow of the sunlight above. “If you’re not dead within a year, you turn yourself in for my kidnapping… No questions asked” Sophie explains, “-and you leave me everything in your will.”

Unable to hold back a smile, Morgan says three words before watching Sophie walk toward the front steps of the main home. “I already have” Morgan mutters, watching her daughter carry herself through the front door, a sensation of profound accomplishment coming over her. With a nod, Morgan closes the bunker and locks it shut, hurrying back to the home, finally having gotten the second chance at family she had so desperately craved.

== Generation Alpha ==