S2, E6 | Clouds of Forfeited Life

> 10th May, 2031 <

Creaking as it’s slowly pulled open, the old wood of the guest bedroom’s door groans through the hallway as Elaine pokes her head through its small opening, peering into the empty corridor like a child hearing footsteps on Christmas morning. Patiently waiting for a few seconds, the woman steps beyond the doorway once she believes the coast to be clear, gently stepping toward the stairs with her shoes in hand, not wanting to disturb the peace on her way out.

So quiet that even her breathing is barely audible in a passageway shrouded in equal silence, the woman’s eyes set upon the front door as she descends the first step of many. Her palm gently gliding down the bannister, Elaine carefully places one foot in front of the other as her perspective falls lower, allowing her to spot the van she’d arrived in through the front door’s window.

With a passing glance toward the living room to the side, her head drifts back to the direction of the home’s exit before her eyes quickly trail off for a second look as her descent pauses. Her initial intent to leave without a peep falling aside, Elaine’s expression takes on a disheartened look as her eyes focus on the couch, its soft cushions occupied by one man with a cup of coffee in his hand, held against his chest as his blank stare resides upon the distant set of windows.

“You said it wouldn’t be long until you went to bed” Elaine recalls, stealing Andrew’s attention from the opposite wall. “I- I tried” the exhausted, yet untired man replies, his face pelted by the steam of his coffee as his guest ceases her efforts of silence, stepping down the remaining stairs to join her friend on the couch, “-but Sophie. Before I knew it, you’d been in bed for two hours while I’d just been sitting here with my head all jumbled.”

Though her attire from the prior day remains, a silky robe hangs off Elaine’s shoulders as she lowers herself onto the couch, sitting as close to her friend as possible without making it feel awkward. Opting to keep herself quiet, the woman’s chosen silence leaves Andrew retaining the floor. As opposed to filling the air with the same remarks he’d spent the prior night speaking, the man follows his guest’s lead and keeps himself subdued, enjoying her presence as much as she enjoys his.

Pressing her lips together, Elaine stares ahead at what her friend had been looking at, finding exactly what she’d been anticipating, just an empty window with a view equally as uninteresting as she’d conceived. The mood as low as their early-morning energy is in the same breath, her mind feels itself surrendering to the connection established between herself and the preoccupied man beside her, affording the courage for her to inch closer and gently take ownership over Andrew’s mug.

“Sophie snuck out sometime last night” the man proclaims, prompting his friendly acquaintance to pause her attempt at taking a sip of the hot brew by resting the rim against her bottom lip. “I went up to check on her around three and found her room empty and window open” Andrew confesses, slowly sinking into the soft cushion he sits against as the back of his head rests into the seat whilst he speaks, “I figured it was for the best. I didn’t know what to say or, well- I didn’t know what to say.”

With a frown, Elaine swallows her brief drink as her head hangs toward the ground, eyes narrowing as she looks to be an aid to the man’s strife. “You tell her that you're her father and that you love her” she answers after a few, brief seconds of consideration, “-that no matter what, you’ll always love her and that will never change.”

Wrought with a loss for understanding, Andrew’s face turns to look into his increasingly-comfortable companion’s eyes, “is that what you would say?” Her bottom lip pulling up as her top lip remains arched in a frown, Elaine shrugs her shoulders as her head sways from one side to the other, hair falling and pulling back over her shoulders. “I don’t know what I’d say-” the woman admits, presenting a half-smile to lighten the rather bleak exchange of words, “-but I’d hope it’s something like that.”

Letting a breath leave his lungs, Andrew nods his head as his eyes take back toward the window at the end of the room, his limp arms leaving his lap to retake the mug Elaine returns to him. Though the air becomes quiet and still once more, the uneasy sensation of tension lingers throughout their small pocket of the living room, like the gargantuan beast of an unspoken concern rests upon the tip of their respective tongues.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Elaine queries, watching the man’s eyelids subtly narrow as his mind wraps around the conversation ahead, the corners of his lips pushing outward as he joins the discourse. “He was just trying to grieve” Andrew finally responds, already knowing where the path of discussion leads, “he was angry at everyone and wanted someone to blame. I can’t say I haven’t felt the same thing.”

Pulling her eyes away from the man, Elaine’s distanced perspective is felt as if latched onto by a sixth sense, one that drives Andrew’s face to the left. “What did I say?” he wonders aloud, immediately picking up on her resilience and assuming it was of his own doing.

“It’s not what you said, it’s just-” Elaine begins to reply, quickly trying to correct the man before momentarily hushing, giving careful consideration to what she says next, “-to accuse her of-?” Pressing his eyelids together whilst emphatically shaking his head in refusal, Andrew cuts the woman off before her remark can be finished, almost laughing through the misplaced smile he reacts with.

“He wasn’t accusing her, he was lashing out at whoever was in eye-view” Andrew remedies, his defiant head shake slowly coming to a stop, “I don’t know what she did, but whatever it was cratered their friendship. I’m sure seeing her in the window in that moment of weakness just sent him over the edge.”

Physically waving off the notion, Andrew settles back into her seat as his hands calm, looking to the woman beside him who appears no more convinced than she had been before he’d begun talking. “What?” the man asks, his denying smile falling from the stage to the sanctuary of the curtains his lips act as, uncertain of the cause of her reaction.

Her steady breathing stopping as she holds her breath, Elaine turns herself slightly to one side before sitting atop her right leg, her body positioned to face Andrew completely. “That wasn’t lashing out” the woman replies confidently, an apologetic look carried behind her eyes as her assessment of Caden’s remarks remains unwavered.

With a shrug, Andrew considers the possibilities it could have been before his mind settles on one, interacting with it as if the suggestion were too outlandish to speak of without inconceivable doubt. “What else would it have been? He’s a kid who just found out his girlfriend died” the man responds, shaking his head before following up on his statement, “it’s not like he was accusing her of-”

Whilst his eyes sit widened, his mouth freezes mid-speech, lips parted as his tongue presses against the roof of his mouth, prepared to begin uttering the letter ‘k’. “I’m not saying he would be of sound mind, but that’d just be a low blow” Andrew quickly begins concluding, brushing past his prior statement as if it’d never been said, as if the long pause he’d undertaken had never existed, “Caden knows better than that. He wouldn’t take a road that low.”

Squinting for a few seconds, Elaine pulls her head back as she remains quiet, the lack of a reply something than a seemingly-rattled father takes interest in. “Are you saying he thinks she did something?” Andrew wonders, his curious expression slowly making way for a more worried visage, the look of obvious fright held within the small confines of his eyelids, “-do you think she did something?”

Looking away as a gust of air leaves her lungs, Elaine shakes her head as she conjures the best reply she can manage. “I don’t know, Andrew” the woman musters, trying to force a smile despite hiding a gentle pain, one caused by the visible distress she can see behind the man’s best-available facade, “I was just piecing together what he was saying and how he was saying it. It felt more genuine than someone just reaching for straws to make someone hurt the same way as them.”

Frightening eyes going away, Andrew’s tired facial muscles return to guide his eyes back to the exhausted state he’d been found in, his head nodding at the response. “Yeah, okay” he murmurs, flashing the woman a smile with the corner of his mouth as a knot binds within his core, his speech lacking a conviction it normally carries, “-no, I get it. It was harsh.”

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

> 11th May, 2031 <

Sitting on the side of a quiet, out-of-the-way road, a vehicle sits beneath the hot sun of a midsummer day, its engine running as its occupant sits idle behind the wheel. In silence, Caden leans into his seat as the sun covers his face, shining a light on the dark circles that surround his eyes, the bloodshot whites behind his eyelids staring at the puffy clouds just beneath the light blue sky, only pulling away at the sound of a ringing tone through his car’s speakers.

“Yeah?” Caden groans, wiping his nose whilst pulling his hand away from the minimalist screen just ahead of his centre console, slinking back into his seat as the woman on the other end responds. “Caden? Honey, where are you?” Rebecca curiously inquires, lacking any facade to keep her obvious worries hidden from recognition. “Not home” the woman’s son replies, paying little mind to the state of his mother’s voice now that greater troubles have fallen upon him.

“Caden, your father and I don’t want you out of the house right now” Rebecca responds after a few moments, though with no hope of breaking through his lackadaisical demeanour. Rather than replying, Caden remains silent, letting the dead air fill the call as his mother remains waiting, forced to call his name out to ensure the call had not failed.

“Are you just trying to get me to come home?” Caden answers, skipping the meaningless back-and-forth in favour of skipping to the question at hand. Though subdued, Rebecca’s sigh makes its way to her son’s ear, no words necessary to add for his answer to be delivered.

“I’ll come home when I’m ready to come home” Caden defiantly concludes, pressing his knuckle against the bright, red button on the slim screen ahead, ending the call before his mother can have the opportunity to respond, returning the car’s leather interior to its silent, lonely state of existence. Glancing away, the distraught, emotionally-lost teenager looks to the open field just to his side before momentarily passing a glance to the centre console once more.

In white letters, scrawled atop a crisp, black background, the endless contacts stored within Caden’s phone emerge, triggered by the phone call’s end moments prior. Near the top of the alphabetical list, a single line of information stands out, no associated number, address or other form of contact sitting beside the entered name unlike the ones that reside both above and below it, the short and simplistic nature it resides with letting it stand out from its contemporaries.

‘Avoid him’ the brief contact reads.

Flaring his nostrils, Caden pulls away from the comfortable seat and presses the concise tab and lets an even larger black screen pop up, the two words now the only thing on the screen. With a scowl on his face, the fixated young man pulls himself away from the allure of the well-known and purposefully-vague listing and steps out of the car, immediately hit by a wave of heat that he brushes off as he rounds the hood.

Parked a few metres away from the bumper of an expensive car, Caden crosses the metaphorical line between both vehicles and steps onto the open plot of land, its grass burned yellow by the hot, Missouri sun. Just through the nearby treeline sits a decrepit home, its windows shattered and wooden exterior openly rotting from the apparent years of disregard, sun-bleached and pale, dead in every way.

The momentary redirection of his eyes ceasing, Caden’s view steals itself from the mostly-hidden home as it leads to the figure just ahead, hands tucked into their pockets as they stand alone, exposed to the same harsh sun with nothing of use around, the same sea of dead lawn in every direction.

Whilst the muscles in his face tighten, Caden’s eyes remain locked on the patient soul ahead, seething the closer he gets as the figure appears larger with each forward step. As the ground crunches beneath his weight, the young man’s presence catches the ear of the person ahead, their body spinning around to look in his direction, not responding at first as the distance between them shortens.

“Make it quick” Caden warns, letting his arms hang by each side, not wanting to render himself defenceless in the vicinity of the company he joins. “I didn’t think you’d show” Sophie replies, her long, red hair tied back into a ponytail as she slides her hands out from the pockets of her denim jean shorts, letting them mirror her once-friend’s own, only this time with her palms presented.

“Yeah, I’m just as surprised as you are” Caden quickly responds with a stern voice, his shoulders shrugging as his celerity takes centre stage, “but I’m here now, so get on with it.”

Knowing him not to be in the mood for conversation- at the very least, conversation with her- Sophie’s approachable visage deepens, trying to display the least intimidating expression she can wield in her favour. “Are you doing alright?” the teen queries, holding back a slight embarrassment at being incapable of conjuring a better question than the one raised, only having to look into her greatly-troubled neighbour’s dark eyes to receive her answer.

His physical stature unmoved for a few, short moments, Caden’s head pulls back as his eyebrows lift, “that’s your question?” he replies, the surprise capturing him like a hand around an apple, its initial onset soon falling with as much energy as it would take to crush that same fruit. “I’m here, I look like I’ve been hit by a bus, and that-” he promptly pauses, stopping himself to take a breath as his eyelids shut, calming his words to as close to a lull as manageable, “-that’s your question?”

Staring at him with a stoic face, Sophie remains silent, her lips not moving a mere centimetre to suggest her willingness to even provide an answer. As fast as the attempted quelling to his tone had been taken into his voice, Caden’s collapse into outright rage happens with twice the fury. “That’s your fucking question!?” the distraught survivor of a world turned upside down screams, his face shaking as the veins in his forehead become visible, darkened eyes widening instantly.

“What else am I supposed to say!?” Sophie challenges the response, quick to admit her inability to predict the events still yet to unfold, though a provocation of Caden’s own soon takes the conversation within its grip. “How about what you should have opened with!?” the enraged, world-altered, tortured soul retorts, looking the woman in the eyes despite the great pain it brings to his core.

“And what’s that supposed to be!?” the source of his great strife inquires, waiting only a second before met with her answer. “That you killed my girlfriend! what the fuck else would it be?” Caden shouts, the barren, abandoned landscape allowing his voice to reach levels he’d usually be looked down upon for reaching, and to utter declarations his life could be endangered by as a consequence for making. 

Her lips parted, Sophie’s face takes on a portrayal of disbelief and shock, though the feigned offence does absolutely nothing to dissuade her psyche-mangled acquaintance. “Don’t give me that fucking look you bitch” Caden growls, shaking his head as his voice returns to a semi-reasonable pitch, his intense disdain presented in every syllable uttered, “you’re lucky I didn’t show up here just to put a knife to your throat myself. Just give me a fucking answer.”

As the seconds pass with her mouth still open, Sophie’s lower jaw returns to the company of her upper lip, mouth closing as she lets the question sit there, undisturbed by neither a refusal nor confirmation. “Don’t stand there like you’re taking the high road. Fucking hell, don’t even tell me you did it at all, I don’t care-” Caden relents, taking a step forward as his spirits lower, the slight tilt his head takes on showing his heartbreak through confrontational eyes, “-just tell me why.”

Though he chooses this moment to wear his heart on his sleeve, Caden’s glare into Sophie’s eyes shows him the refusal of his childhood friend-turned-despised individual. “I didn’t kill Izzy” the young woman answers, immediately earning a grimace from the young man across from her, pulling away as he turns back, disgustedly shaking his head as he slowly walks away from the girl.

“Unbelievable” Caden groans beneath his breath, his retreat stopping as he tilts his head toward the sky, his back still turned to the criminal behind him, her feet remaining in the place she’d been occupying prior to his arrival. Kissed by the sun, Caden’s head continues to shake as the air goes quiet, a near-silent wave of wind passing through the area as his mind tries to drown out the many thoughts that sit within it.

Left deservedly uncomfortable, Sophie remains silent, looking to the back of her greatest victim with no clue of how he’ll respond, the constant uncertainty forcing her hands to ball into fists. Letting out a sigh, Caden’s eyes stare into the light blue sky, not a cloud overhead to be found as he speaks clearly, his voice no louder than that considered an ‘indoor voice’.

“This world can be really-fucking-funny sometimes” he speaks aloud, remaining quiet for a few seconds before finally spinning around, reclaiming his calm voice as he does so. “How is it that I- someone that never looked at anyone the wrong way- can get all of this shit thrown at him?” he wonders aloud, looking Sophie in the eyes with a renewed sense of vitriol, “and you- someone evil enough to do what you’ve done- get to be America’s sweetheart?”

Whilst her teeth sink into her bottom lip as her eyes fall, Sophie’s pupils are guided back toward Caden as he continues to let questions surround the open space between them. “Even after all of that- why do you get all the money, all the fame, all the love, and all the ‘oh, I’m so sorry that happened to you’- and I can’t even get one-fucking-answer?”

For a few moments, Caden looks the girl in the eyes as his mind slowly makes itself at ease with the silence that proceeds, accepting that even asking as to the reasoning for a lack of answers will not itself produce one. With puckered lips, the young man turns around without another word and begins walking back to his car, a few metres passing before Sophie’s voice breaks through the noise-absent air.

“Something’s wrong with me” the girl replies, watching the legal accomplice to her crimes stop and spin around, a single tear slowly making its way out of her eye. Refusing to hold any bit- even the smallest amount- of remorse for the source of his personal devastation, Caden waits for her speech to resume, a cold visage worn on his face.

“I don’t feel anything sometimes. I don’t- I-” the bright-haired girl stutters, pained to speak, though forcing herself to do so, “-I don’t know what’s wrong with me.” His unapologetic lack of sympathy clear and visible, Caden turns the rest of the way to look Sophie head-on, waiting for her to finish before speaking up.

“I wasn’t like this before” Sophie pleads, unable to offer Caden the answers he’s looking for not out of choice, but out of circumstance, equally as lost for reason as he is. “It’s like I’ve got some dark cloud over me and I don’t know how to get rid of it” she persists, looking to the ground as she desperately reaches for any way to make sense of the scrambled puzzle her mind’s been left in the state of, “I keep thinking I know how to get rid of it, but everything just gets worse, and-”

Running out of words, Sophie’s cluttered mind tightens as if endlessly tied up in rope, its length reaching the point where pulling it any further only tightens its binds. “It just keeps getting worse every day” she finally concludes, looking back to Caden’s unchanged expression, not looking for sympathy, but rather for him to understand what she fails to, “I don’t really know how to live anymore. Everything I do is just focused on getting rid of it, and I don’t know how.”

The metaphorical shoe now switching onto the other set of feet, Sophie finds herself the one in the conversation left waiting for a response, the tension built through the lack of an immediate response only worsening the knot tied in her stomach. As nearly a minute passes without a reaction, Caden finally begins to step forward, returning to the place in the field he’d begun his participation from.

Without apologies or remorse, Caden’s blank expression only strengthens the effect of his dispassionate, almost-detached reply, the words he speaks coming with no emotion, nor glee or dolefulness.

“Then you should die” he finally responds with the most callous attitude, affirmed in his demeanour as he gives into Sophie’s desire to uncover a solution. “Say it directly or don’t, I don’t think I can care less. Your lies don’t convince me at all- I know you killed Izzy” Caden confesses, his voice still empty and ostensible via way of circumstance, “that doesn’t get rid of your cloud, it just makes a new one. One new cloud for every life snuffed out that should have been yours.”

Her hope in getting past this emotional scar in her life barely even intact up to this day, the final shred of Sophie’s reason to believe in a way out dies like a candle in the wind with Caden’s declaration.

“Eventually, it’ll be me. Or maybe it’ll be someone else” the emotionally-wounded, permanently-scarred young man remarks, never once falling back from the position he’d assumed, “-it could be your dad, your sister, that lady that brings her to school. It doesn’t matter, the point is- it’ll be someone else that gets hurt.”

Her mouth closed and eyes kept wide open, Sophie looks into Caden’s broken line of sight as his head turns to the ground, shaking as he begins to step back. “The point is, the only way to get rid of those clouds is to get rid of you” the young man responds, presenting his back to her as he resumes his departure, this time without any intention of turning back, finishing his thought as he makes for the car, “go jump off a bridge somewhere before anyone else has to die.”

Her chin slowly lowering as another bout of wind flows through the air, Sophie lets the next minute pass as the isolation takes hold of her. The final thing to interact with her, the engine in Caden’s car roars before its tires spin with purpose, carrying the vehicle and its occupant as far away from her and the field as it can manage as quickly as possible.

Finally wrapping her mind around the suggestion made, Sophie’s eyes retake toward the departing vehicle, watching it appear smaller as it travels away, leaving her behind just as it had months prior, an irony that does not go unnoticed by the secret-holding young woman.

|

> 11th May, 2031 <

Blending in with the few pedestrians he journeys the sidewalk alongside, Dennis peers through the cover of his cheap, plastic sunglasses at the yellow tape a short walk down the nearest street he passes, the large presence of police in the area practically acting as a beacon to him. Adjusting the position of his head, the investigator’s eyes look toward the signage of storefronts he passes and to the corners of buildings overlooking various alleyways, setting out in search of leverage.

Turning a few corners, Dennis’ casual stroll finally takes him toward the most accessible portion of the crime scene, an open road cut off by long lines of patrol cars and that familiar yellow tape. “Sir, I need you to steer clear of this area” an officer closeby proclaims, watching the presumed innocent civilian raise his hands in a show of good faith. “I’m just looking around for a shop my son told me about” Dennis remarks, taking a quick look around the area as the officer approaches.

“Would you happen to know where-?” the curious man begins to inquire, feigning a need for direction before capturing the sight of a small, black bulb just over the front door to a corner store, “-nevermind. I’ve found it, thanks.” Innocently stepping away from the crime scene’s vicinity, Dennis steps to the small mart and pulls the door open with purpose, not owning the smallest amount of conviction as he approaches the front counter.

Not speaking, the Mexican man operating the counter watches Dennis reach into his pocket to retrieve a chequebook, slapping it on the advertisement-covered bench in the same breath as he takes a pen to it. “Do me a favour and I’ll do you one, mister store-owner” the older man remarks, writing a ten-figured number in the amount box before tearing the small slip from its binds, presenting its face to the confused man, who waits for the catch.

“You don’t know my name, you’ve never interacted with me, and you’ve never seen me before” Dennis proclaims, laying out the ground rules to this very obvious deal, “you get me in contact with the company storing your security logs and I’ll leave you with this cheque right now and never look back, got it?”

Looking at the amount line, the clerk begins to read the written statement aloud before coming to an audible pause. “Twenty thousand dol-” the man murmurs beneath his breath, pulling his eyes away from the cheque before looking Dennis in the eyes, only taking a moment before reaching for the nearest sheet of paper. With a few motions of his hand, the clerk scrawls a number, address and email on the slip before handing it to the stranger across from him.

With a phone in his hand, Dennis quickly inputs the number written before waiting a few additional seconds to punch in the extension number. “Hello?” the man on the other end of the line responds, waiting for an answer as the investigator holds the phone’s speaker back toward the store owner. “Brian, it’s Eberardo” the clerk responds, “whatever the man asks for, give it to him please.”

Reclaiming control of the phone, the investigator removes the cheque from his possession, leaving it on the counter as he makes for the door, pushing it open with his hand as he begins to make his request on the way out. “I’m gonna need you to help me procure something, can you do that?” Dennis asks the man on the other line, returning to society by making the trip back the way he came, satisfied with what he’d come away with.

== Generation Alpha ==