S3, E2 | When Forced to Go it Alone

> Wednesday, 17th November 2038 <

“Your total is twenty dollars and sixty three cents” a polite woman remarks with a smile as she looks away from the cash register she stands before, her eyes finding their way to the plastic card that’s extended toward her. Without saying a word, the man who’d only bought a pair of pruning shears and a few packets of seeds sets his newly-purchased items into the fabric bag he’d brought with him into the store.

“Just confirm your purchase on the keypad in front of you, add a tip if you’d like to, and you’ll be on your way, sir” the cashier gleefully remarks, trying to offer more than the distant and impersonal attitude she’s used to receiving from her coworkers. With a sigh, the patron confirms the price that’s shown to him, adds a two dollar tip and looks back to the much younger woman, passing her a friendly nod and smile as he departs for the store’s exit.

Setting off for his car, a bearded, short-haired Andrew pops the trunk open and reaches into the bag that he’d exited the shop with, quickly tossing the various packets of seeds into an organiser as if they were playing cards. “Get away from-!” a woman’s voice exclaims from the opposite side of the parking lot, her struggle prompting the father of two to turn toward her direction, finding a man in a black hoodie attempting to snatch something from the backseat of the woman’s car.

With his eyebrows narrowing, Andrew watches the struggle persist for a moment before noticing the woman’s frame colliding with the ground at the front half of the vehicle, though the man’s adamant efforts continue with the object he seems intent on taking for himself. Stepping forward, the bearded father of two reaches into his fabric bag whilst venturing across the asphalt lot, his progression going unnoticed by the apparent criminal.

Stepping just past the minivan’s still-open trunk, Andrew watches the dazed mother try to climb off the ground whilst he takes the hooded figure by the neck, acting on instinct whilst still unsure of what he’s intervening in. Quickly thrusting the criminal’s head against the car, the bearded flower shop owner tightens his arm’s grasp on the man’s neck, squeezing down and restricting any air flow as he pulls the daylight thief away from the car itself.

Kicking and grunting, the hooded stranger tries to free himself from the grasp of the Carrion patriarch, though no amount of his effort can prevent the rubber soles of his running shoes from being dragged across the sandy asphalt. Still barely making it to her feet, the woman does a quick check on the items that she’d initially sought out to defend from being taken before slamming the rolling door shut and hastily making her way into the driver’s seat.

Though he can speak, the criminal refuses to try and reason with his assailant, instead opting to continue the struggle that remains fruitless. As if he were having no trouble whatsoever, Andrew continues to casually stare onward as the woman slams her own door shut, turning the van into the reverse and stepping on the gas.

At a safe enough distance, the father- who’d only set out to buy a few seeds and a gardening tool to replace one he’d misplaced- watches the van turn in its retreat, affording him a momentary glance through the car’s rear window. With his eyes widening slightly, Andrew peers past his reflection in the glass to find a young, blonde girl’s face looking back at him, an expression of confusion as to what had almost just happened to her held toward the face of her saviour.

As quickly as it had pulled out, the minivan shifts its gears into drive and burns its rubber tires whilst skidding along the ground, desperately carried in the way of the lot’s exit by the lucky mother. Having never assumed a thing about the altercation prior to now, Andrew’s mind shifts its gears upon realising that what he’d thought was likely a theft had been more akin to an abduction, triggering a vengeful part of his mind that drives him to tighten his grasp on the criminal’s neck further.

Irate, the parent all-too-familiar with such an instance looks away from the minivan and at the person responsible for its hasty retreat. With wide eyes, the face of a black man that stares angrily into Andrew’s own visage provokes the small business owner into reigniting the flames of old demons.

Tossing what he’d originally carried in his free hand to the ground, Andrew balls his fingers into a fist and lays waste to the attempted kidnapper’s face, striking him directly in the nose before finally relinquishing his throat. With a thud, the unnamed criminal collapses to the ground and holds his nose for a brief moment, the following actions he takes being out of a place of self-preservation.

Shielding his features, the assailant watches Andrew kneel atop him, one hand taking the collar of his shirt whilst the other rains one blow after another into his face. Just the same as what the cashier who’d rung him up minutes earlier had become common with, the father wears a cold and distant stare as he pummels upon the defenceless citizen, who refuses to fight back against someone whom he gives up nearly seventy pounds and a six inches to.

Not satisfied with his attack, Andrew’s instincts take his hand toward the piece of metal he catches the sun’s reflection off of from the corner of his eye, his fingers finding their way around its handle before the sound of hurry emerges from his opposite side. “Stop! Get off of him!” the same friendly cashier exclaims as she hurries through the storefront’s exits, a second woman and another man calling out similar orders as they follow their younger colleague’s lead.

With a momentary glance toward the employees, Andrew takes notice of their arrival before staring at his opposite side, more interest carried with what he finds there. Resting in his hand and ready for use, the pruning shears aim their tip toward the neck of the handled criminal, prepared to lay in an even worse attack than the one that the store owner had threatened to perform with his own bare hands.

Hurriedly tossing the shears back toward his vehicle as if to dispose of them, Andrew releases his grasp of the collar to the man’s hood and climbs off of him. “Go ahead and hold this guy over until the emergency units show up” the father of two sighs, dismissively waving at the vile piece of human scum whilst collecting his bearings.

“Are you alright, sir!?” the same young cashier wonders aloud as the father steps away, returning to his car only to take notice of the claim itself, the inquiry prompting the man to turn back with confusion. “No! This psycho just attacked me!” the same bloody-faced criminal exclaims as the cashier kneels by his side, the reinforcements she’d brought along holding their hands out in a show of peace toward whom they appear to believe is in the wrong.

“Sir, we’ve already called the civilian police! Don’t go anywhere!” the fat, white man in a blue shirt pleads, his warnings not ushered in the direction of the would-be abductor, but instead at the father who’d come to his victim’s aid. Confused and at a loss, Andrew stares back at the large man whilst processing the plea that was ushered, finding it odd without realising why at first.

“Hold on, you...” Andrew stutters, watching the larger man draw closer with a peaceful demeanour, the equally-overweight woman who he’d run out alongside hiding behind him. “...You think I’m the bad guy here!?” the father questions aloud, standing only a few inches away from the hood of his own car, “this scumbag just tried to snatch a woman’s child in broad-fucking-daylight, and you think I’m the bad guy here!?”

Drawing closer, the large shop worker continues to display an oddly peaceful demeanour toward the supposed assailant, one that doesn’t convince the bearded father of much. As if unthreatened and slightly amused, Andrew steps forward with his eyebrows furrowed and slaps the obese employee across the face with enough force to knock him over, already having been enraged by the action he’d put a stop to, and now driven mad even further by the manner in which he’s being treated.

Holding an intense scowl, Andrew refocuses his eyes on the pair of younger people off to his left, the face of the would-be kidnapper wearing a smirk as if pleased to see such a display of aggression. Sickened to his core, the father shakes his head dismissively and reaches toward the ground, reclaiming his gardening tool before stepping back into the front seat of his car, paying no mind to the chaos that he intends to leave behind as he drives off.

= 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 =

Crossing her arms over the hardcover textbooks that she cradles against her chest, Liv ventures halfway down the corridor that leads to her locker, her eyes focusing on the corner that she’s turned to face the same result time after time again. Having begun to count her steps according to the pattern of the tiled floor that she walks upon, the girl masquerading as a special needs student steadies her breathing, keeping her visage bound for the ground as she nears the hallway’s end.

Though she knows what awaits her, the only effort Liv takes is to prepare for the landing that she’s set to endure, tightening her grasp of the books that she carries whilst keeping track of where her feet step. Trying to ease her expression so as not to show her assailants any glimpse of a brace, the teenager glues her eyes to the floor and begins rounding the corner, elbows ready to throw her materials away in the name of preventing her from falling on them.

For a brief second or two, alarm bells ring in the teenager’s head as they’d been trained to, signalling for the cue that her adversaries never miss the opportunity to leap upon. Upon the third second, Liv’s feet remain firmly pressed upon the floor and offered an open lane to her locker, the journey unimpeded by any expected-unexpected attack.

With surprise, the girl’s face allows a look of surprise to prevail as she turns around, looking away from the ground and toward the bathroom her bullies had been known to frequent, the space they’d grown used to occupying now sitting silent. “I’m glad to see you’re smartening up” a girl’s voice calls out from the direction of Liv’s locker, prompting her to turn with awe in the direction she’d initially set out to head in.

“I’m still not really sure how your autism works, but I always found it odd that you just kept falling for their trap” Derby remarks, the sight of her face bringing an immediate internal relief upon the bullied teenager. Standing in place, Liv stares in her friend’s direction before remembering to nod along in place to herself, repeating her acquaintance’s proclamation internally before speaking, remaining standing where she’d stopped.

“I expected them to push me” Liv answers simply and honestly, finally breaking free from her halt and progressing the rest of the way to her locker. “If you expect them to attack you, then why don’t you not let them attack you?” Derby inquires, her back pressing against the exterior of the storage unit that sits besides her special needs friends’ own.

Pressing her thumb against the door’s scanner, Liv watches her locker’s door gently pop open, allowing her to pull it free the rest of the way and stare forward as she bobs her head again. “I can’t fight them” the innocent student replies after a brief moment, following through on exchanging one set of textbooks in favour of another. “Sure, it’d probably be a bad idea to try and fight all three of them at once” Derby responds, shrugging off the supposed difficulty, “haven’t you ever wanted to?”

Going quiet for yet another moment as she collects the books she’s in need of, Liv repeats the question once in her head before attempting to answer, only for her lips to part without offering anything of value at first. Instead of speaking from the set of replies she’d trained herself to default to, the bullied girl stares into the dark confines of her locker as if they were reflective of the emotions that she conceals within herself, giving true consideration to the inquiry she’s paid.

“Fighting them would end bad” Liv replies simply, snapping out of her momentary haze as she follows through with her initial train of thought. Closing the metal door, the masquerading teenager turns around and stares toward the end of the corridor she’d anticipated walking down, prepared to journey ahead until her friend’s voice speaks further, holding her back from doing so.

“Hey, Liv... Hold up” Derby remarks, reaching out to take her pal by the arm and keep her from walking off, the bullied teenager turning back to face her. As an audience no less captivated than what she’s desired to be, Liv waits for her friend to follow through the bout of silence that is presented to her, unsure of how to fill it with anything more than the awkward hush that someone without the sense of make of it would.

“I won’t go into detail, but I left something of mine in this warehouse downtown and I can’t just simply go over and get it back” Derby explains, trying to conceal whatever information her friend will allow her to go without offering, “since you’re one of the only people in this school that I’m pretty sure I can trust, I was hoping you’d meet me there tonight and just hang out in one spot for a couple of minutes while I go get it?”

Without uttering a word, Liv stares into the face of her friend and parts her lips to speak, again feigning the process of considering what’s been asked of her before replying. “Okay” the girl replies, watching the slight pull back of Derby’s head present the young woman’s surprise at the ease in which she’d received her answer before continuing with her departure, walking off for her next class without so much as a peep from her disorderly peer.

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Entering the large foyer to her home as she steps through the front door, Coleen looks around the spacious interior she walks into whilst slowly letting her knapsack slide from over her right shoulder. “I’m home!” the teen girl calls out, her voice carried throughout the building’s interior in the form of an echo, intended for any set of ears willing to offer a reply. For a few seconds, all that meets the blonde bully is the silence of an empty household, as unresponsive as it is unwelcoming.

Pressing her lips together and forming a frown, Coleen lets her head hang as she kicks off her shoes and walks along tiled floors for the kitchen that awaits her just a few dozen feet ahead. With her knapsack in hand, the clever rapscallion steps around a pair of corners with her eyes following the lines that stretch along the floor. “You were supposed to be home an hour ago” a woman in a pink tracksuit speaks aloud, having waited until the teenage girl had entered to talk.

Stopping in her tracks, Coleen stares ahead with a look of surprise whilst the woman who’d halted her with the sound of a voice continues to pack leaves of kale into a blender. “I had to drop L’ and E’ off at home first” the teenage girl replies, resuming her approach to the table off to the kitchen’s side, some books having already been left aside from the prior night.

“What did I tell you about letting me know you were going to be late, Coleen?” the woman questions aloud, still yet to remove her focus from the beverage she’s preparing, let alone to look the girl in the eyes. “I sent you a text before I got in the car” Coleen responds, reassuring the older woman of her efforts with a slightly defensive tone, “I don’t know what more you want from me.”

“I’d like you to be home when I want you home” the woman in the offensively pink attire responds, slamming her fist against the top of the compact blender and filling the air with the sound of mechanical crumbling. For a few seconds, the noise is all that either girl can hear, neither of their voices capable of breaching the atrocity of sound, and therefore neither make the attempt.

After a few moments, the older woman’s hand wraps around the base of the cup-like shell she’d poured ingredients into, releasing it from the lock the machine had placed it in and allowing a sense of comfort to come over the air once more. “I have somewhere very important to be tonight, and I expect you to be here when I tell you to be” she commands, making her thoughts clear to the younger woman.

“Alright, mom. I’m sorry” Coleen responds, carrying the tone of someone who’d heard the complaints many times prior to such an extent that they’ve become resoundingly clear, almost as guaranteed as death and taxes. “‘I’m sorry’ is not good enough” the girl’s mother replies, unscrewing the cap to her blender’s shell before dumping a load of green liquid into a plastic, takeaway coffee cup.

“I already told you that I texted you, I don’t know what more you want from me!” Coleen retorts, her displeased tone catching the ear of her mother with ease, allowing the daughter to watch her parent spin around and face her for the first time since she’d returned home. “I want you to do what I tell you to do, have I not made that clear?” the pink tracksuit-wearing matriarch replies, leaning her back against the countertop she’d prepared her drink atop.

“So you want me to just tell them to fuck off and find their own ways home!?” Coleen wonders aloud, growing more dissatisfied with what’s being told to her. “Your friends are not my children. Whatever they do is not my problem or my business” the woman’s mother replies, the plastic cup she holds baring the name of ‘Susana’ across its white, sticky note receipt, “when I tell you to be home at a specific time, I want you home at that time. No exceptions.”

“That’s ridiculous” the teenager rebukes, setting her knapsack along the kitchen’s tabletop whilst continuing the conversation from her end. “Excuse me?” Susana questions aloud, taken aback by the defiance displayed through the reaction in her child’s reply. “Why would you not want me to help my friends get home!?” Coleen challenges, curious to the rationale that- at the very least- doesn’t make moral sense to her.

“Because it keeps you from obeying my orders” Susana responds, drawing a further ire from her daughter that becomes more apparent in the younger woman’s visage. “That makes no sense! Your orders are supposed to be more important than helping my friends get home safe!?” Coleen questions aloud, scoffing at the notion that she’s refused the chance to further elaborate upon, watching her mother’s finger lift to keep her from speaking a word further.

“I don’t care how those dirty little sluts get home. Your responsibility is not being their chauffeur, it’s doing what I tell you to do” Susana responds, placing her lips around the paper straw that protrudes from the lid of her smoothie. Squinting at the words in which her mother had used, Coleen looks into the woman’s face with disgust before crossing her arms, easing the offended expression that she wears whilst growing more inherently confrontational.

“You know, maybe if you told dad that last part a few more times, he would’ve actually stayed instead of fucking off to some broad a lot easier to deal with” Coleen fights back verbally, watching the bite that she takes in her mother’s direction provide a spark that the divorcee immediately acts on. Angered, Susana steps forward and swings her hand through the air, slapping her daughter across the face before shoving her back, pushing her into the open seat she’d yet to take.

“You watch your fucking mouth with me, you little brat!” the older woman exclaims, watching her daughter tumble back whilst holding an outstretched finger toward her. Having offered as much of a warning as she’s willing to give, the smoothie-holding mother aggravatedly turns away from her offspring and makes for the same exit Coleen had used to enter, disappearing as quickly as the younger woman had entered.

With one arm instinctively reaching for an edge of the kitchen’s table for support, the teenager watches her parent step away from the now-empty room with a scowl, her nostrils flaring and eyebrows furrowing whilst she seethes quietly.

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Watching cars drive themselves along the street she stands beside as day has turned to night, a young woman in a fleece jacket rubs her hands together to keep warm, staring down each side of the road that she waits on. “Goddamn, Liv... Where the hell are you?” Derby whispers to herself, forced to cross her arms to keep warmth as her breath clouds the air in front of herself, forced to hold out hope that the girl she’d asked for the company of will soon arrive.

Growing impatient the longer that she’s forced to endure the cold on her lonesome, Derby begins contemplating her options at hand, already at the scene she needs to be in, though without the support she requires to make the journey one she can take confidence in. “Fuck it” the rebellious teenager proclaims, rubbing her palms against the denim of her jeans in an effort to gain some momentary warmth in them, immediately eying the fence that she must scale.

Within minutes, Derby finds herself having gone from standing out in the cold and waiting for reinforcements to entering an oddly warm warehouse without support to fall back on. Trying to keep her footsteps unheard and her presence unnoticed, the troublemaker stays low to the ground as she closes in on a more well-lit area of the abandoned building with only one goal in mind, that motivating destination proving to be the centre of her attention.

Nearing the end of a spacious corridor that leads to the seemingly populated warehouse’s main floor, Derby begins peering around the left-most corner with hopes of catching a glimpse at who surrounds the central barrel fire she expects to find, knowing well enough to stay away from their view. Extending an arm out toward the right-most wall, the trespassing teenager struggles to find anyone where she anticipates them residing, hoping that the further she walks, the better her view will become.

In an instant, the cautious hush the young woman keeps herself to is thrown out the window as a shove against her back takes her to the floor, immediately rendering her cover blown. Slamming against the asphalt ground, Derby’s palms press against the rough terrain as she tries to collect her bearings, taking immediate notice of a pair of shoes that stand on either of her sides.

“I should really stop giving you more credit than you’re due” Coleen remarks, joining the pair of shoes in surrounding the woman that invades their gathering spot with a phone in her hand, “you always prove that you’re just the same, stupid girl that you’ve always been.”

“Give it back” Derby grunts, pushing herself off the ground whilst staring at the blonde girl across from her, eying the cell phone that resides within her dominant hand. Instead of following through with the girl’s request, Coleen turns her back to the rebellious teenager whilst Leila and Elva strike at their adversary’s back, driving her to the ground before kicking her in the sides and the head.

Outmatched and overpowered, Derby’s only option is to shield her vital areas whilst her enemies take out their aggressions upon her, following the order of their apparent shot-caller, who walks in the opposite direction of the beatdown. “Thank god for face I.D” Coleen mutters beneath her breath, walking toward the open fire that she’d initially joined her friends alongside whilst the attack persists behind her.

With a few swipes of her fingers, the teenage bully wipes a lengthy video that had been captured on the mobile device from its system, deleting it with a few easy taps of the screen. “Bring her over here!” Coleen calls out, prompting her friends to hold off on the beating that they deliver to the girl who’d attempted to do them wrong, instead commanding that they take her by the arms and drag her to the place in which the phone’s camera had been pointed toward.

Struggling against the efforts of her aggressors, Derby tries to rip herself free from the reach of the girls who retain their control over the situation at hand, forcing their teenage foe across the rough terrain and toward the open flames. Still refusing to cooperate, the recalcitrant, unwelcome visitor feels the screen of her phone shatter against her forehead as Coleen takes her shot at the woman, breaking the device just as she’d set out to.

Kneeling on the ground as Derby grimaces in pain, the blonde bully takes her adversary by the chin and forces their eyes together, refusing to speak until the wounded teenager’s attention is devoted to her. “I’ve got too much shit going on in my life to deal with an asshole like you trying to bust me for drinking a little bit of booze, alright?” Coleen questions, making her stance clear beyond misinterpretation, “the next time you try to pull some shit like this, I won’t tell them to stop.”

Without anything more to say, the bully gestures for her friends to relinquish the rebel from their grasp before discarding the broken phone in the open firepit, allowing the flames to take care of what the strike she’d taken at its owner had failed to finish. “Come on, C’- let’s get out of here” Elva remarks, nudging her friend on the arm whilst retreating, the first to attempt a departure from the scene that her friends follow suit with, hurrying away from the abandoned lot.

Within a few seconds, the warehouse is emptied of any presence aside from that of the teenager at its centre, groaning in pain at the attack she’d been forced to endure. “Fuck” Derby grunts, holding her abdomen and sides whilst rolling onto her back, staring at the building’s gap-filled ceiling as she tries to collect herself, letting the events she’d just become the victim of settle whilst her failure becomes difficult to ignore, the flames that rise a few feet away eating at her phone.

== Generation Alpha ==