S3, E1 | My Sister's Monster

​Season 3 Premiere

“Urgh!” a teenage girl grunts, her sock-covered feet leaping off the hardwood floor as her hand stretches toward the ceiling, reaching for a piece of rope that hangs from a panel above. Failing on her first attempt, the girl continues to lunge for the heavens, falling short time and time again, though refusing to give up. In the meanwhile, the space that resides above sits within the darkness that it’s become accustomed to, visited less frequently over the years by those who live beneath it.

Finally, the attic’s stuffy and unlit quarters are bathed in the light from the hallway below, its entry pulled out for the first time in years. Visited by one of the youngest residents of the home, the sky parlour resides just as it had been left the last time it was travelled within, allowing the teenage girl to climb its ladder and wander throughout. Diving into one box after another, the young soul rummages through the variety of belongings that had been stuffed away, left to collect dust.

Without a word, the girl journeys through each cardboard container before finally catching the glimpse of a much smaller box in the farthest and cosiest corner of the room, its exterior painted in a pattern of black and white. Crawling over to the mostly-desolate space within the attic, the teenager pulls off the lid that had kept what’s inside contained and nods her head approvingly, pleased to find what she’d set out to look for.

“It’s been seven and a half years” the young woman speaks whilst sitting at a chair she’d rolled away from her desk, which occupies the back corner of her bedroom. Having climbed down from the sky parlour with the box under her arm, the teenager folds the ladder back to where it had slidden from and sends the attic’s door back toward the ceiling, walking off as if she’d never journeyed upward in the first place.

“After everything that happened, I would’ve thought my father had chosen to get rid of this thing” the teenager persists, staring forward with a blank expression on her face, her lips parted ever so slightly. Having eventually returned to her bedroom earlier in the day, the girl gently pulls the box away from her side and places it upon the foot of her bed, opening the shoebox’s lid to find a camera, a microphone and various tapes that had been stored alongside it.

“I don’t mean to sound judgemental. I know he just wanted to move on” the girl continues, able to barely make out her own tiny reflection in the lens that faces her, the microphone she’d mounted just above it having been cleaned off along the way. “I guess I’m still just sad about how he tried to move on” she continues, spilling the thoughts she’d stored within her mind no different than the camera had been in the attic, not only knowing they’re being recorded, but wanting them to be.

“I’m a junior now. That’s how long it’s been...” the girl carries on, her hands coupled in her lap as she nods, trying to feign a smile that fails to retain its place upon her visage, “...the same grade my big sister was in when all of it happened.”

Having originally stored the film equipment beneath her bed so she could go about her day as if it were any other, the teenager inevitably found herself sitting at the centre of her comfortable bedroom, looking into the same lens that’s recorded some of her family’s greatest pain. “I never asked him because I just figured he’d want to forget it existed, but I always had the hunch that he just hid this thing away and tried to move forward” she carries on, speaking freely, “I finally found it.”

Having struggled through the process of hooking up the machine to the stands that had been left tied together just beside the box it had been stored within, the teenager eventually found herself sliding a tape into the camera and sitting before it just as her sibling had. “And I’m really glad that I found it when I did” the girl continues to speak, looking into the lens as her distant face turns into one of concern and worry, “I don’t know how much longer I could’ve gone on if I hadn’t.”

With the push of a button, the teen girl had wandered across the room from the recording device and taken a gracious seat before its viewfinder, sitting with dignity in grace in lieu of the comfort that evades her. “I just wanted to say everything that I could while I had the chance” she confesses, biting her bottom lip after every sentence before staring toward the ground, unable to process one chain of words before she’d successfully done the same for the prior stretch.

“Please state your name, your date of birth and age, today’s date, and the generation you belong to” a voice she’s familiar with utters through the screen of her phone, pumped through the speakers that had been built into the display. Pressing the ‘pause’ button at the centre of the panel before clearing her throat, another intense glare held toward the floor as she clears her mind, repeating the chain of directions in her mind so as to gather a full recollection of them.

With a deep breath in through her nostrils, the girl’s eyelids close for a moment before inevitably pulling away, allowing her sight to take directly to the lens with a calm relief. “My name is Olivia Carrion-Kirkpatrick, but everyone that I know calls me ‘Liv’” the teenager introduces herself, nodding her head as she repeats the following lines of direction in her head, speaking as clearly as she can so the microphone has no difficulty in picking up her voice.

“I was born on the twenty-seventh of October, in the year twenty-twenty” she carries forward, trying to ease her expression so the strife that the remarks leave her with is less noticeable, “today is the fifteenth of November, in the year twenty thirty-eight.” With another pause, Olivia bobs her head repeatedly as her calmed breaths begin to hurry, turning to a frenzy for the moment that it takes the girl to reclaim her composure, recalling the directions as finishing as she’d desired.

“I’m a part of Generation Alpha” she concludes.

Beyond the door to her room, the hallways of her childhood home appear as dark as the attic she’d entered earlier was, a bedroom near one end of the hall occupied by two people, whilst one just a short ways from it is occupied by one other. “Seven years ago, my sister was arrested for really bad things” Liv continues to recollect, the knowledge that all other occupants of the home are asleep is enough to free her from the burden of being caught interacting with her sister’s machine.

“She killed people. She killed her mom and a man that had been investigating her” the girl continues speaking, bobbing her head again as she considers her various remarks before uttering them aloud, almost as if she were proof-reading a script on the fly. “She killed another girl too. It was a really nice person’s girlfriend” Olivia persists, engaging with the camera with a sombre expression, “she killed a police officer too. When she tried running away, the nice person went after her.”

Staring at the ground, the girl stays quiet for a moment as she thinks back to that night, unable to remember much more than what her surroundings looked like, incapable of recalling a clear picture. “The nice person died that night too... His name was Caden” Liv proceeds, the thumbs on her folded hands dancing around each other as she continues to speak, eventually slowing to a full stop the longer she speaks.

“Dad was really sad for a long time, and mom was helping him and me” the girl continues to speak, her eyes trailing upward and back toward the lens as she processes her speech. “They got married a few years ago and had a baby” Liv proceeds to speak, furrowing her eyebrows as she leans further back into her seat, taking slight comfort in the feeling of the cushion that her back presses into, “my baby brother Galen was born on the seventh of September, in the year twenty thirty-four.”

Bowing her head again, Liv collects her thoughts before speaking further, eyes glued to the rug at the centre of her room, feeling the fabrics of it between her toes and across her soles, that sensation also brings her some comfort. “I haven’t seen my sister Sophie since that night... The twenty second of May, twenty thirty-one” the girl continues, her sorrowful frown now caught by the camera across the room, “I remember her face and I remember her voice.”

Pressing her lips together, Liv lifts her chin to the camera and pulls in a deep breath of air as her eyes widen slightly, her visage becoming less saddened. “I was looking for this camera because I remember my mom and dad talking about how my sister Sophie used it” the girl confesses, a more hopeful look carried through the weight of her eyes, “I know why my sister Sophie used it and I know what she said on it. I’ve watched the video of it every day since the last time I saw her.”

Staring directly into the lens, Liv continues to bob her head as she repeats the lines that she wishes to speak within her head, keeping them contained during their trial run before letting loose when confident enough. “But I’m not using the camera because of what happened to her...” she admits, pausing for a moment as another bout of sorrow comes over her, reflected in the frown that appears on her face, “...I’m using the camera because of what’s happening to me.”

= 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 =

> Tuesday, 16th November 2038 <

“Found guilty on three out of the four counts, Sophie Amari was sentenced to forty years in prison in 2032” the voice of a man speaks through one earbud, reaching the ear of the young woman who’d been left scarred by the subject of his video. “Eligible for parole after fifteen years, Sophie will be able to leave prison- at the earliest- in 2047 at the age of thirty one years old.”

Concealing the earbud by resting the side of her head against her hand, Liv sits at the desk near the back of her classroom, staring at a piece of paper with red markings all over it. “Psst” a girl discreetly whispers, leaning to the left of her seat and hiding her face from the teacher. Ushered for, Liv slowly guides her face toward her classmate’s direction, waiting for the young woman to explain her gesture.

“What’s up?” the classmate wonders, jutting her chin toward her contemporary whilst trying to capture a look at the young woman’s paper, the first clear glance that she earns leaving her to pull in a deep breath through her teeth. “A seventy four? Geez” the nosy peer remarks, looking past her blonde-streaked brown hair to reclaim her own paper, showing its face to the woman beside her, “that’s a whole ten points better than me.”

“Ladies, you’re not supposed to be showing your tests around” Mrs. Danielson proclaims from the front of the room, just barely capturing a look at the paper held outward. “I just wanted to make sure we had identical tests, Mrs. Danielson!” the girl with a sixty four responds with a smile, a slight adjustment made to the sleeve of her tattered red t-shirt, the short cuff along her left arm purposefully styled to be held together only by a set of four bobby pins.

“You know there’d be no discrepancies in the tests, Derby” Mrs. Danielson replies, dismissing the claim as one of unsatisfying prestige, watching the miscreant’s hands present themselves in surrender. “The two of you girls need to study harder” the teacher persists, returning to her desk whilst gesturing to a blonde girl in the front of the room, her preppy smile accompanied by a pink sweater, a white blouse and a pink skirt, “you two should study harder like Coleen here.”

“With all due respect, Mrs. Danielson... I think I’d rather throw myself out of a window” Derby retorts, earning an eye roll from the teacher and a scoff from the positive student at the front of the room. “Out you go, Derby” the teacher sighs with a defeated breath, reclaiming her seat whilst the rebellious student steps out of her own, aware of the procedure as if it's already been run through countless times before.

“See you tomorrow, Mrs. Danielson” Derby responds, taking her textbook and the results of her test into her possession before leaving the room, waving goodbye to the teacher who meets her with the same gesture. “Alright, class... I want the rest of you turning to the sixty fifth page of your textbooks” Mrs. Danielson proclaims, watching her in-person class of seven students flip their pages in real time whilst the group of at-home students three times larger follow suit.

After thirty more minutes, the school’s bell rings with haste and leads its students into the next period, filling the halls with whatever students actually care to attend in-person. With a more brisk pace than her peers, Liv ventures through the door to Mrs. Danielson’s classroom and turns toward the direction of her locker, minding her own business and cradling the textbook against her chest with only the intention of preparing for her next class.

Slightly quicker than her contemporaries, Liv begins to turn a corner, eyes beginning to settle upon the row of lockers that hers resides within before falling to the floor, her leg swept out from beneath her mid-step. Amused with their actions, three girls- two blondes and a light-haired brunette- huddle within the entrance to the school’s bathroom and laugh at the sight of their classmate’s collision with the ground.

“Oh my god, she really never learns!” one of the girls proclaims in awe, not having anticipated such ease in sending the student into the tiled floor, though such a result is what found her. “Leila, how many times do I have to tell you... She falls for it over and over and over again!” Coleen proclaims, standing in the middle of the two girls with as much glee in the sight, “I swear, she never wises up to it! It’s been- like- two whole weeks and she never sees it coming!”

Shaking her wrist as it presents her with pain, Olivia uses her free hand to push herself off the ground, gradually returning to her feet whilst the three girls stand over her, continuing to revel in their actions. Providing no response, the insulted teenage girl reclaims the loose papers of her test and reaches for her textbook, only for both it and her hand to be kicked away by one of the girls.

“Crawl for it, retard” Coleen quips, standing over Olivia as she leans over, shaking off the hand that had been kicked before dragging herself along the ground and toward the textbook. Leaving no room between herself and the victim of her actions, the foremost girl- who the assaulted teen had been told to study more like- follows the knelt-over student toward the hardcover book and kicks it for a second time, sliding it further away from grasp.

“Are you gonna pick it up, stupid?” Coleen jokes, watching the special needs teenager brush off the girls’ actions and once more focus her attention upon recovering the book. “Come on, retard! Pick up your-!” the bullying blonde girl proclaims again, continuing to follow Olivia along the ground before feeling a pair of hands shove their weight against her chest, sending the preppy creatine flying to the ground.

“How’s that feel, you bubblegum twat!?” Derby shouts, watching Coleen topple backward as the weight of her push sends the bully crashing to the floor, something that both of the girls who’d also plotted the attack take displeasure in. “The fuck are you doing, Derby!?” the light-haired brunette exclaims, stepping ahead of her friend and drawing closer to the rebellious student, only to receive a shove of her own- this one sending her crashing into her other blonde friend.

“You’re all gonna leave Liv alone, or I’m gonna make sure all three of you are crawling for me!” Derby grunts, passing a glance toward the girl she sticks up for, watching the special needs teenager finally reclaim her textbook. “You’re gonna fucking regret this, you-!” Coleen calls out, interrupted by the loud voice of an approaching teacher, who takes notice of the forward stance the tattered shirt-wearing student wears as to only mean one thing.

“Coleen, Leila, Elva, Derby!” the man exclaims, watching Liv finally climb off the floor just a few paces away, the previously attacked student opting to keep her head down and continue her original intentions of returning to her locker. “Do we have a problem here, girls?” the man inquires, his attention-commanding voice prompting all four classmates to put an end to their squabble- at least for the time being.

“Yes, Mr. Calhoun!” Coleen exclaims, stretching her sweater outward just slightly to dust off whatever dirt had accumulated on it, “Derby just straight up pushed me onto the ground and threatened Leila and Elva!” With a smirk, Derby bows her head, licks her lip, and steps forward once more, laughing at the complainant student before throwing her weight forward again, shoving the preppy bully to the ground for a second- even harder- instance.

Stepping forward, Leila and Elva immediately attempt to reciprocate the attack upon their rebellious adversary, only to be thwarted by the frame of the interrupting teacher, who steps ahead of them and shoves Derby in the way which she’d entered from. “Go to the principal’s office now!” Calhoun barks, pointing his finger in the direction of her superior, watching the rebellious teen lift her hands in surrender and turn away, headed for the demanded destination.

Along her way, Derby looks at the back of Liv’s head, watching the girl carry on with exchanging one textbook in favour of another, nodding to herself with a smile as she carries along her way. Trying to dismiss the assault that she’d been the victim of, the embarrassed student carries on with her duties, pulling a pair of thin, soft-cover books and a notebook free from the thin storage compartment before closing it and walking back toward the teacher and her assailants, passing without a word.

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Scratching at an itch that rests over her right eyebrow with one hand whilst folding baby clothes with the other, the lonely inhabitant of an infant’s room suddenly catches the opening of the front door one level below. Redirecting herself to the room’s exit, the woman steps into the hallway and draws closer toward the home’s central staircase, glancing out at the main foyer as a quiet student kicks off her shoes and closes the house’s entrance.

“Welcome home, Liv” Elaine mutters in a sweet and compassionate voice from the top of the steps, watching the girl retrieve the knapsack she’d carefully placed on the ground in an effort of freeing her hands. “Thank you” Olivia quickly replies, speaking the same response that she’d trained herself to offer upon the greeting she’s paid, looking toward the bottom-most step as she draws closer to it.

“How was your day, sweetheart?” Elaine inquires, one hand pressing against the corner of the wall at one side of the staircase, watching her step daughter ascend one foot at a time. “Good” Olivia again hastily responds, another reply she’s trained herself to offer on command. With a subtle look toward the ground, the previously busy mother watches the older sister of her own son match the same floor of the home as she does before taking to her room without another word.

With the slightest expression of disappointment, Elaine sighs beneath her breath whilst watching the teenager wander away, closing the door to her room upon entry and burying herself into her schoolwork for the rest of the evening. Pressing her lips together, the mother turns her focus back toward the room she’d just stepped out of and carries on with her original efforts, the disappointment she carries minimal, but still present enough to acknowledge.

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“...But I’m not using the camera because of what happened to her...” Liv admits, pausing for a moment as another bout of sorrow comes over her, reflected in the frown that appears on her face, “...I’m using the camera because of what’s happening to me.” Pulling her eyes to the digital clock that sits atop a dresser in the corner of the room, the sleepless student finds herself looking into a four digit number far greater than the one she was meant to be asleep by.

“There’s a girl in my class named Coleen, and she has two friends- Leila and Elva” the tired, yet motivated teenager explains, looking firmly into the lens of the machine across from her. “They call me a retard and other names every day. They tease me and push me almost every day” Liv proceeds, taking a momentary glance toward a blank space along her wall, looking across it- from one side to the other- as if there were words she were pulling off of its rose-coloured painted surface.

“When they harass me, I just let them. They know that I’m not going to fight them back...” Liv proceeds, setting her sights back on the lens as her demeanour changes, “...because that’s what I want them to think.”

Patting the seat of her chair with the base of her hand, Liv leaves the camera’s view for a moment whilst walking off for the corner of her room, allowing the central shot to remain empty for a few seconds before returning. “After everything happened with Sophie, my stepmom- Ms. Kirkpatrick- convinced my dad and I to join her in going to therapy” the teenager persists, “they stopped once mom got pregnant with Galen, but that’s not why the therapy was important for me.”

Between her stretched-apart index finger and thumb, Olivia holds a white prescription bottle toward the camera, aware that it cannot accurately focus in on the black lettering upon its face. “The therapist referred me to a special therapist that deals with special needs children. While I was there, I was prescribed this drug. It’d just come out for prescription use, and it was covered by our insurance” the teenager continues, pulling the bottle closer to her, “it’s used to treat my autism.”

Eventually reaching toward the ground and placing the prescription bottle down, Liv refocuses her line of sight on the camera’s lens. “After I started taking it, everything felt a lot better than it’d used to. I was concentrating better, I was able to control myself and my urges more, and I- for the most part- don’t feel like I have autism anymore” the teenager continues, rubbing her palms together anxiously, “but, as far as my dad and stepmom are concerned, my improvements were minimal.”

Swallowing a load of spit that forms in her oddly dry mouth, Liv pulls her hands apart and presses them against her thighs, nervously rubbing them against the fabric of her pants. “They weren’t enough for me to be considered one of the twenty percent of ‘cured people’ that doctors think are mostly fixed for lack of a better word, but they were just enough to make sure I kept getting it prescribed to me.”

With a gentle swat at her own thighs, Liv pushes herself back into her seat as the anxiety of even explaining this on any form of recording persists. “I’m taking a risk on filming this, because no one can find out. I’ve kept the patterns that I used to do before going so much that- sometimes- I just keep going along with it when I don’t need to” the teenager explains, “take that moment I had a couple minutes ago where I looked at the wall and tried to read words from it.”

With a slight smile out of pleasure to no longer be dependent on actions like that to make sense of things, Olivia continues to spill her soul to the lens that watches on like a hawk. “I didn’t need to do that! But I did it because I just got so wrapped up in the pretend of it all that it just comes naturally” she proceeds, pulling in a deep breath before letting out a sigh, “anyway- back to the point. The reason that I need this drug is because it kinda feels like it slows down time for me.”

Waving her hand at the lens, the girl dismisses the idea that she gets her high off the dulled pace of life. “Don’t worry, I’m not an addict. The thing about time feeling like it’s slowed is because it gives me an extra few seconds to react to things” Liv carries on, shaking her head whilst looking off to the side, trying to ensure her words remain coherent and understood properly, “those things- while not limited to just this- include not going off on Coleen and the others.”

Coupling her hands together at the edge to the seat she occupies, Liv wraps her fingers around the lip of the chair and leans forward slightly whilst nibbling upon her bottom lip. “I have a friend- if you can even really call her a friend- named Derby. She’s this really anti-authority chick who has as big of a problem with Coleen and her friends as I do” the girl continues to confess, starting to reach the point she’s been concerned to draw toward, “Derby comes to my defence when I need it.”

Though a smile forms in the corner of the girl’s mouth, the student’s eyes trail toward the ground as she pauses for a moment, pulling in another heavy breath before uttering the words that sit at the tip of her tongue. “I guess- because of that- I’d call Derby a friend. And I’m glad that Derby’s there when I need her to be. I’m glad that- when someone needs to put Coleen in her place- it’s Derby doing the dirty work...” Liv concludes, staring sorrowfully, “...because I don’t trust myself.”

Though the momentary joy from seconds earlier has come and gone, the optimistic expression in the girl’s face accompanies the concerning explanation she offers, one that no pleasure is taken in. 

“The first time Coleen ever talked to me, she said that Sophie was a freak and I would’ve ended up like a psycho- just like her- if I wasn’t autistic” Liv proceeds, a brief squint held in her eye as she recalls the event, “I hadn’t gotten a new prescription in that week, and since the drug didn’t seem to be doing that much for me, dad didn’t see much of a hurry in getting the new one in.”

Clearing her throat, Liv sits with her thoughts for a moment before hanging her head, still displeased to be saying any of this, but she forces herself to follow through on it knowing that there’s an importance for what she says to be documented. “For that entire week, every time I heard her voice, it made me think of all kinds of ways that I could hurt her... All the ways that I could...” she continues, stuttering for just a moment as she shakes her head, “...that I could kill her.”

With her bottom lip quivering, the nail on Liv’s thumb begins dragging along the fake hardwood finish to the edge of her chair’s surface, clearly so incredibly anxious that the level of its effects can only escalate. “That week, there was one opportunity that I had to- well, you know- without being caught” the girl admits, still looking to the ground as her breathing gets slightly off-kilter, “she was ripping up a paper and throwing it in the toilet in one of the bathroom stalls... all alone.”

As if it had just happened yesterday, Liv closes her eyes and pictures the scene that still appears fresh in her mind, unwavering and inescapable. “I lost all control” she concedes, recalling the tears that Coleen had been crying in that moment and the anger that it had built within herself. Envisioning the way in which she’d taken her bully’s hair within her fingers and pulled her head back, the secretive teenage soul winces at the memory that she’s left to reimagine.

“I grabbed her by the hair and pulled her back. I punched her in the back of the head and pushed her against the wall that the toilet sat against” Liv confesses, clearly wanting to break down into tears as she forces herself to endure the anamnesis. “I watched her hit the wall and fall down. She kinda just kept limply toppling further down until she was slumped over on the left side of the seat” the girl persists, stopping at nothing to explain herself, “I didn’t know what else to do, so I ran.”

Propping her eyes apart once more, Liv wipes the tears that had formed on the lower lids whilst staring off into the distance, trying to reclaim her composure. “I never heard anything after that. Coleen missed the rest of the classes I had with her that day, then she missed the rest of the week, and then she just came back” the distraught and emotionally scarred girl recalls, “she came to class, sat down, talked to Leila and Elva like always, and that was it. No one found out I attacked her.”

Sniffling and again fighting to clear her throat, Liv continues to speak, aware that what’s been said now cannot be taken unless the tape it was recorded upon is destroyed- something she has no intention of doing. “Even though I did that, the only thing Coleen’s ever known me for is being the retard with the serial killer sister” the teenager confesses, shaking her head in further declination, “she never suspected a thing from me. Even before that day, Derby always did what I would want to.”

Recording every last second, the camera’s lens watches the subject of its filming look further into it and continue speaking. “The next week, I got my pills and those extra seconds they gave me kept those thoughts out of my head. Ever since then, I haven’t missed a single day. I’ve done everything in my power to make sure my dad- or my stepmom- have all the boxes checked to make sure I get them on time and when I’m supposed to.”

Letting out a deep exhale, Liv grinds her palms into her pants again as she faces the ground once more, her strands of hair falling over her face. “But the thing is that I still wish I could kill Coleen. The pills keep me from thinking about it all day and night or actually acting on it, but that wasn’t always the case” the girl admits, the cause of her growing worries becoming ever more present, “and if the effect that I get from these pills is slowly wearing off, it might just be...”

Falling silent once more, the girl anxiously sits with her thoughts as they reach the summit of their point, ascending to the highest peak that they have to offer with great fears of what comes about actually finding their way to the very top. “...It might just be a matter of time before I do something that there’s no coming back from.”

Her stare becoming cold and bleak, Liv refocuses upon the miniature and weirdly-shaped reflection of herself in the lens’ centre, allowing the weight on her chest to find its way to freedom. “I need to document this the way Sophie did. In a strange way, the things Sophie didn’t say in that documentary she filmed with Caden and dad provided some of her victims with clarity...” the girl concedes, coming to terms with the fears that she hides, “I want my victims to have that same chance.”

Quickly shaking her head and waving her hand at the camera, Liv attempts to clarify her statement, leaving little up for interpretation. “It’s not like I expect there to be or want there to be. I just know that I’m afraid of the thing that I’m afraid of, and if the worst case scenario happens, I want to leave something behind that at least tries to do some good. And that good starts with confessing that...” the girl concludes, wearing a look of shame on her face as she lets out a defeated sigh.

“...I think I’m becoming the same monster as my sister.”

== Generation Alpha ==