S4, E4 | Limp be the Hand of the Bloody Print

> Saturday, 1st October 2039 <

“We could come down in a few weeks, but I’d have to wait until we’re closer to the end of the year before I could make any specific estimate” Andrew confesses, leaning against the kitchen counter as he runs his hands down the length of his wrinkled t-shirt, a smile coming over his face at the response he receives. “That sounds perfect, thank you very much” the man remarks, carrying his smile into the call’s conclusion before he whips his arm through the air, ending the brief conversation whilst his amused wife watches on.

“Was that the realtor?” Elaine inquires, sitting at the kitchen’s island with a glass of orange juice seated beside her cell phone, which her finger gradually runs across the screen of to swipe from one news article to the next. “She’s got twenty six different homes on the market across the five different neighbourhoods we were looking at” Andrew replies, slipping the earbuds from the slots at either side of his head before slipping them into the case built into the back of his phone’s case.

“That sounds like a lot of driving” Elaine replies, leaning forward in her seat with her right leg crossed over the left, reaching for the juice that she pauses to take a sip from, “I’m guessing that we’ll have to be in town for more than just a day to see them all?” Rounding the counter as he gently presses his hand into his wife’s side, Andrew leans in and plants a kiss on her cheek, his eyes looking toward the screen that she reads one headline after another from.

“It’ll be the home that we spend the rest of our lives in, my love” he responds, resting his head against the woman’s own as her finger swipes past one article after another, headlines that she has no interest in continuing to flash before her eyes and be discarded like an empty carton of milk.

“We once thought the same thing about this house not too long ago” Elaine replies, shrugging as she immediately finds a challenge in her own statement, “well, I did at least.” Amused, Andrew presses his lips to the top of the woman’s head once more and begins stepping away, parting his lips to reply before falling silent just as his wife does, their eyes finding the online tab that falls inches beneath the finger of the home’s matriarch.

Not speaking at first, both adults remain where they were left as Elaine lets her hand roll onto its back, taking the finger that had obstructed the image upon the screen along with it. With steady eyes that refuse to move, Andrew stares at the display with his body halfway turned toward the kitchen sink, one arm still extending toward the direction he’d intended to venture before an utter freeze had assumed control of his body.

Drawn to the allure of the sight on her phone, Elaine continues to stare for a moment before instinctively reaching for it, opening the article advertised to her and expanding the written column. “Close it” Andrew murmurs, watching the mother to his children look toward him for the first time since seeing the display, his posture correcting itself as he snaps out of the momentary trance he’d been placed into.

Without uttering a word in response, Elaine does as instructed, tapping the screen to close the website before flipping forward a few columns, sentencing the unfamiliar journal entry an author she didn’t get the chance to identify to vanish with the rest of the ones that she’d skimmed. Satisfied with the woman’s action, Andrew finds himself continuing to stir with his annoyance before looking toward the backyard, his tongue running against the top of his lower lip as he wanders off.

“Are you-?” his wife inquires, only to fall silent as his hand lifts into the air, showing her his palm in a gesture to not be questioned on the matter. “I need a minute” Andrew confesses, travelling across the kitchen and stepping through the patio door without warning, leaving the woman behind with the phone still laying on the countertop just inches away.

Quickly flipping back to the original article, Elaine saves the column for later view before turning off the device altogether, leaving her seat to follow her husband into the backyard. Unable to be heard, the couple continue to talk within the full view of the upstairs bathroom, where a curious set of eyes views them from the slots of the blinds that cover the window.

Unsure of what’s being said, Liv inspects the couple and the odd manner in which they interact, neither angry or outright upset, but still consoling each other as if they’d just fought or were within great sorrow. Shaking her head without any understanding for context, the young woman returns the brush to her teeth and finishes off caring for her smile, concluding the process that frees her to venture back to her bedroom across the hall.

In little more than a baggy t-shirt and a pair of very short, but loose-ended shorts, Liv rubs at her eyes and journeys toward her computer, opening the cover and setting her sights upon the homescreen. After a few clicks, the girl carries her cursor toward the browser and takes toward the search bar, intending to look up her school’s website before the suggestions tab that opens below catches her eye.

At the bottom of a dozen different searches, her sister’s name is presented in bold, purple text. One new search away from being completely scrubbed from her immediate history, Sophie’s name hides just above the legal speak printed near the bottom of the webpage and calls for the attention of her younger sister. Furrowing her brows, Liv stares at the name as if it had been calling for her, clicking its tongue against the roof of its non-existent mouth in a way that draws her in like she’s a moth to the open flame.

Intrigued nonetheless, she carries her hand back to the wireless mouse beside the computer and guides her cursor onto her older sibling’s name, clicking the left tab once before watching the browser open an assortment of new articles at what feels like the speed of light. Finding its way to her line of sight, Sophie’s image springs upon Liv like an oncoming car’s headlights draw near to a stoic deer, front and centre upon the display atop a fixture of bold, black lettering.

“Convicted murderer to hold first interview since arrest next month” the top article reads like a man shouting through coupled hands into a wind tunnel, finding their way to the recently-awoken girl with inquisitive eyes. Depicting an image of Sophie in an orange jumpsuit with tired eyes and blonde locks that she hasn’t had in years, the article remains Liv’s sole focus for as long as it takes a set of footsteps at the end of the hall to begin approaching from afar.

Instinctively closing the device’s top, Liv spins around in her computer chair to face the door, waiting for the footsteps to make their way toward her before watching the shadow of the figure that sets them down pass her quarters by, venturing onward to her parent’s room. Her shoulders tense and breath held, the nightwear-donning student waits a few seconds before releasing her suddenly-anxious demeanour, having been encapsulated by the sudden urge to erect a defence as if an armed assault were knocking at her door.

For a minute, the girl remains seated in silence before hearing the footsteps close in once more, passing by her room without interruption just as they had moments prior, their gradual continuation carrying the soul down the stairs and back into the kitchen, beyond Liv’s ear. Again turning in her seat, the young woman pulls her laptop’s cover open and stares into the bright display, finding her sister’s distraught face looking toward the camera that had snapped the picture, her tired expression being amongst the final sights she remembers of her sibling.

Staring intently at the face that appears as if it’s looking directly at her, Liv refuses to let the illustration slip from her mind as it burns itself into her memory just as it had all those years prior. No longer feeling the weight of her prior night’s slumber, but instead the intense recollection of her sibling’s face and the torment that- at the worst of her condition- she always remained privy to, the girl continues to sit with her empty thoughts, only zeroing in on her sibling’s phizog with a blank, emotionless stare.

= 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 =

> Thursday, 20th October 2039 <

“Ms. Cohen, you’re not dressed appropriately... again” Mr. Calhoun remarks, standing in the corner with an apple in his hand, watching the rebellious young lady pass by, having failed to notice his presence at first. “You told me to wear a shirt that didn’t display profanity or unpleasant imagery, Mr. Calhoun” Derby remarks with a smirk, laughing as she begins to stake her claim, “what’s wrong with my wardrobe this time?”

Dressed in a pair of unripped, black jeans accompanied by a pair of simple running shoes and a grey, long-sleeved shirt, it’s the black, graphic t-shirt sporting a Japanese cartoon character and eastern lettering that catches the much older gentleman’s eyes. “Can you read Japanese, Ms. Cohen?” the teacher inquires, lowering the apple from his face to his lap, where he stands with one arm wrapped around the wrist of the other, an amused expression carried over his visage as he offers the young woman an out.

“No, do you?” Derby retorts, watching the grin only deepen across the man’s face as he stands upright, pushing his back away from the concrete wall that it had leaned against. “I taught English in Osaka for six years. Part of the requirement to teach in Japan is that you’re proficient in speaking, writing, and reading the language” Calhoun rebuttals, removing his fingers from their grasp around his wrist before pointing down the length of the young woman’s person, “that shirt bears language that I prefer not to repeat aloud.”

Furrowing her brows, Derby looks toward her shirt and pulls it away from her body, inspecting the depiction without certainty. “I won’t write you up this time, but I don’t want to see you in another t-shirt that you can’t read yourself again” Calhoun remarks, turning his back toward the student as he walks away, speaking as he journeys toward his next class, “it’s almost as bad of an oversight as people who get tattoos in languages that they can’t, themselves, read.” 

Frowning, Derby sighs in defeat with less reluctance than if she’d gotten sentenced to yet another day’s worth of detention, accepting her commands before carrying on. “How’s it going, little one?” she eventually questions aloud, travelling far enough to pass Liv as they walk in different directions. “Hi-ya, armadillo” the youngest Carrion daughter replies, looking over her shoulders as their paths intersect with one another.

“Yesterday I was a penguin, and today... I’m an armadillo?” Derby queries, turning her back toward the direction that she heads in so as to address the girl that now does much the same, interacting for as long as their collective presence remains within the brief stretch of hallway. “The character on your shirt looks like an armadillo” Liv quips, pointing toward the strange animal-appearing human depicted on her friend’s shirt.

“He’s not an armadillo!” Derby proclaims with a smile, humoured by the comparison that she fails to see as clearly as it appears her pal has. “He still looks like one, armadillo!” Liv proclaims, offering her departing comments as the corner toward her next stretch of passageway consumes her, “see you in sixth period!”

Waving goodbye, Derby carries on with her journey whilst the well-mannered senior continues the walk she’d already been amidst, travelling for as far as the journey will take her before watching a pair of girls quietly exit a bathroom just some feet away. Paying Liv the crudest side-eye that they can present, Leila and Elva watch the girl carry past them and come to a stop, taking notice of the expression that they made no attempt to hide.

“What do you want?” Liv wonders aloud, stopping the stroll she’d taken in the direction of her next class to address those who’d gone out of their way to capture her attention with very little effort. “Nothing from you” Elva responds, taking the initiative to offer the comment a reply, standing just off to the side of her mostly-subdued friend, who carries on with her judgemental stare.

“Then what’s with the side-eye?” Liv inquires, letting the books that she holds against her right forearm hang by her side, swaying slowly by her hip as she waits for an answer. Looking toward Leila, the cold-demeanour student taps her friend on the shoulder and begins stepping back. Without replying, Elva leads the journey away from the girl they’d once used to bully, only to now find themselves stronger together, but incredibly weakened with the absence of their once-leader.

Rolling her eyes, Liv sports a grin that her adversaries don’t fail to notice, their care to address it, however, failing to present itself. “I’m sorry your friend is dead, but you’re gonna have to start learning how to talk for yourself now that she’s gone” the unphased, yet outnumbered student proclaims, poking fun at the girls just as they’d once done to her, feeling no shame as she does, “if you’re gonna look at me with those faces, at least have the balls to explain why.”

Finding no point in furthering an argument with an unpleasant host party, Liv turns back toward the journey she’d yet to complete and takes a few steps forward, surprised to find a voice call out for her after a few yards had been covered. “Your family is hiding something, aren’t they?” Leila calls out, prompting the lone Carrion child to attend the school to turn back, eyes placing themselves upon the girls that never passed up an opportunity to put her on the ground.

“What is that supposed to mean?” Liv inquires, remaining in her place roughly a dozen yards away, arms continuing to hang by each side as the young woman who’d addressed her steps forward, suddenly emboldened by her own remark. “Coleen’s mom and dad had problems, but Mr. Wolf would’ve never hurt either of them” Leila proclaims, setting her feet into the quicksand-like stance that she’s taken, driving herself further into the enrapturing pit with each word.

“Are you insinuating something?” the confronted teenager questions aloud, stepping forward to close the distance between herself and those who oppose her, only to come to a sudden stop when she sees them retreat in kind. Keeping her thoughts to herself at first, Leila continues to back away in lieu of the lack of a third party around them, the doors to classrooms on either side of the hallway that they occupy all remaining shut, unattended and empty just as the corridor they’re surrounded by.

Hesitant to put their feet too close to the metaphorical fire that they’re feeding with their comments, the two girls keep their distance and remain composed, though they hide their worry for the prospects that surround the discourse they openly take part in. “I just find it really odd that her whole family would be killed just a day after the person who put your sister’s movie together did” Leila replies, standing firm in her declaration with legs unsteady enough to sway beneath the push of a gentle breeze.

“I find it weird that the guy who was taking your dad to court just went missing a few weeks before that too” Elva adds on, watching the shift in their classmate’s expression take shape slowly, solidifying the longer that they speak. “Last time I heard, your sister was still in prison. Unless you snuck her out to take care of things, there must be someone else in your family with blood on their hands if all of this adds up” Leila concludes.

“If you’re trying to accuse me of being a serial killer, I think you’ll find it really difficult to argue that-” Liv begins to rejoin, having heard enough of the accusations for her own good, though she can’t finish her rebuttal before being corrected. “I’m not saying that you had anything to do with it... Though I wouldn’t be surprised if you did” Leila responds, prompting the girl across from them to fall silent, her eyelids narrowing closer together as she fails to see what the women opposite her are trying to allude to.

With a brief shake of her head, Liv displays her confusion in a way that provokes the girls into continuing, Leila’s momentary glance back toward the friend that stands behind her lending her a moment of courage. “We looked up you and your family online after what happened with Coleen. If one sister can kill people that she didn’t like, why should we think the other one wouldn’t?” the girl questions aloud, shrugging her shoulders as she forces herself to continue speaking.

“It’s pretty weird that your grandfather killed his wife and then shot himself in the woods... It seems kind of similar to what they’re saying Mr. Wolf did” Leila declares, further confusing the student that stands against them, throwing her for a loop that she doesn’t know what to make of. “We should stop” Elva whispers, prompting her friend to turn back and look her in the eyes, seeing the concern that the conversation has brought about, “we’ve already said more than we should have.”

“We’ll take care of it. She won’t get away with anything if she does something to us” Leila reassures, offering as subtle of a nod as she can muster before guiding her sights back toward the subject of her ire. “If you think my dad killed your friend and then went through all of this to frame her dad, you’ve gone insane” Liv responds, shaking her head with a smile as she brushes the notion away.

“Your family already made one murderer, there’s no reason that we have to believe there wouldn’t be more” Leila retorts, matching the declaration that her adversary makes with one of her own, ensuring that it holds equal weight, “it’d make more sense that your sister would just be one of those ‘the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree’ things people talk about.”

Shaking her head, Liv flusters herself in a way where she can’t help but chuckle and scoff at the notion presented, beginning to retreat toward the direction she’d meant to venture without anything more to say. “The two of you don’t know what you’re talking about” she mutters, turning her back toward the students before continuing on, hearing their distant footsteps carry themselves away at the anxious behest of the more reserved of the two.

Trying to complete her travels, Liv’s mind fails to find itself falling upon anything more noteworthy than the suggestion implied, her amused expression beginning to collapse in favour of trying to question the sense in what’s been proposed. Scowling out of sheer loss for words, the girl’s understanding makes itself notable absent as she tries to throw the thoughts of even entertaining the claims aside, wanting to place her mind toward the class she’s already late for.

|

> Friday, 21st October 2039 <

Violently shaking her hand through the air, Liv eases the tension within her fingers as she reaches for the mechanical pencil once more, resting the side of her hand against a page mostly-covered in scrawlings as a knock at the door catches her attention. “Yeah!?” she calls out, granting permission for the figure on the opposite end to enter whilst she stares at the page, finishing off the five words she has left to take down before completing her sentence.

“Your mom said you weren’t feeling well and just wanted to work, but we’re ordering pizza” Andrew remarks, only beginning to speak once his daughter’s chair begins to swivel toward his direction, “do you think you’re feeling good enough to eat a few slices?” With a slight lift in her eyelids, Liv looks to the man with great focus before letting her sights drift off to the corner of her room, an expression of unsureness taking shape.

“I don’t think so. I have a lot of homework left anyway, so I should probably just...” the girl replies, letting her response fade off as she bobs her head toward the direction of her desk, allowing the man to take the hint on his own. “Got it. Just let us know if you need anything” Andrew replies, taking the girl’s comments for what they’re worth before turning away, his hand wrapping around the shape of the doorknob as the girl’s voice resumes once more.

“Actually, I have a couple questions that I wanted to ask you. Do you mind?” Liv wonders aloud, prompting her father to turn back and face her, his visage filling up with enthusiasm. “Sure, fire away” Andrew assures, closing the door behind himself as he approaches the girl’s bed, taking a seat on the edge of it as he faces his oldest-recognised offspring, hands coupling together in his lap.

“I’m just doing this project for class and I need some input from you” the hard-at-work student begins, crossing one leg over the other as she settles her notebook atop the makeshift desk that it forms. “It’s a family tree that I’m supposed to inspect and find comparisons with” Liv reiterates, noticing the most-subtle shift in the expression that her father wears, “I’d use one of those websites, but I don’t think it would give me as much insight as you would.”

Puckering his lips as he stares at the ground, the father pulls in a deep breath and settles in, freeing his hands from the union they share with each other to pat the tops of his thighs. “I’m not sure how much my insight will benefit you, but I’m happy to give you what I can” Andrew responds, giving the young woman a nod of reassurance as he takes his hands and motions at her to come at him like she’s a boxer on the other side of the ring he’s taunting, “bring them on, Ms. Carrion.”

Pleased with the openness that she receives thus far, Liv looks toward her notebook and begins jotting down lines in random sections of the page, making it appear as if she were setting out a rather odd-looking tree whilst trying to not let in suspicion. “First off, who are my grandparents on either side of the family?” she wonders aloud, watching her father’s eyes drift to the side of the room as he thinks long and hard about the question.

“Daria’s... oop, sorry. Your mother... her parents were...” Andrew explains, only to find himself interrupted momentarily by the woman across from him. “I already know their names. I remember hearing about them when I was little” Liv clarifies, not wanting to go into the rabbit hole without watching the journey that comes along with the descent, “I was asking more about them as people.”

Nodding, Andrew lets his understanding settle in before leaning back on the bed, looking toward the ceiling as he remembers all that he can. “Daria’s mother was involved in finance and her father passed away when she was a teenager from a motorcycle incident” the man remarks, trying to think back as far as he can, “I never met her father, but her mother was incredibly decent. She was very smart, very organised, and thought highly of me from what she said.”

Nodding along, Liv lifts her notebook toward the ceiling to obstruct the man’s view of her pages, the swirling of her pencil on the paper marking down nothing of legible note. “She passed a few months after Daria did. She had been diagnosed with stomach cancer a little over a year before you were born...” Andrew comments, nodding along with the grim and upsetting recollection he forces himself to bear in the name of the greater good behind his daughter’s assignment, “...your mother’s passing probably didn’t help all that much.”

“What about your parents?” Liv inquires, swirling her pencil and its doodle-like graphite tip a few further times before looking up, finding her father’s blank stare and semi-remorseful expression looking back at her. Pressing his lips together, the man lets his eyes veer toward the side as he visibly struggles to say anything regardless of whether or not it holds value to the conversation.

“Your grandparents on my side were incredibly troubled people that- as cruel as it sounds- I’m deeply relieved never got the chance to meet you” Andrew responds, nodding to himself with the answer that he’d come up with, feeling proud of the pleasant way in which he’d managed to spin their existence.

“What do you mean by ‘troubled’?” Liv inquires, carrying a squint toward the man as she leans forward, pressing the hand in which her pencil resides against the base of her chin, propping her head as she looks to the man, “like they were mentally ill?”

“No. Well, they certainly may have been mentally ill. They were irresponsible with money and never actually cared to be parents. If you consider gambling to be a mental illness, then you could certainly say they were mentally unwell” Andrew assures, looking toward the ground with the shake of his head.

Struggling to find better words to use, the man looks toward his daughter’s lap whilst puckering his lips, trying his best to conjure up a way of putting his thoughts into something worth presenting. “They were selfish people that were willing to do whatever they had to for something to feed their addictions. There’s nothing they would’ve stopped at” Andrew concedes, thinking poorly of the way in which he refers to them whilst convincing himself that they’re more deserving of such terms than anyone else he knows.

“When you become a father, there’s supposed to be no limit to what you’d be willing to do for your children. They take your priority from the second they’re born... they’re your whole world” Andrew explains, looking his daughter in the eyes as she takes his comments to heart, reading into them for as deep as the claims are willing to go, unable to help herself from doing so, “my father’s entire world revolved around finding a way to squeeze as much money out of me as he could. The second he couldn’t do that anymore, I lost any value that I had to him.”

No longer averting his eyes, Andrew looks directly into the steady gaze that his daughter presents to him, letting free a sigh that releases enough tension for his shoulders to drop with great ease. Pulling her lips apart as she continues to stare forward, Liv pauses as she thinks quietly to herself, reformatting her inquiry before allowing it to leave her mouth, falling from the tip of her tongue like a body dropping itself from the ledge of a seaside cliff.

“How did they die?” she settles, keeping the question simple and brief as her father’s visage remains unchanged, his eyes holding steadily upon her own as the warmth that he musters the courage to continue presenting remains intact. Letting them fall, Andrew’s eyes take toward the young woman’s lap as the question is allowed to fester, his chin bobbing toward the notebook as the sceptical shield within his mind does the job it was meant to do.

“This is for class, right?” he wonders aloud, watching the young woman nod in agreement as his tongue presses against the inside of his bottom lip, grazing the top of his bottom set of teeth, “you seem to be very good at taking... notes.”

Looking back toward the page she’d accidentally left for anyone nearby to see out of grand intrigue, Liv realises that she’d slipped up in time to pull the notebook up once more, watching as her father leaves the bed and pats her on the shoulder. “Honey, Liv says she can handle a few pieces of pizza!” Andrew proclaims, essentially forcing his oldest daughter’s hand as he makes for the bedroom door, leaving the question unanswered as he exits without resistance, allowed to do so by the young woman that remains in her seat.

Without uttering a word, the man closes the room’s entrance and continues onward, returning to the rest of his family one level below whilst his daughter quietly sighs to herself, having gone without the opportunity to receive closure. Disappointedly discarding the notebook on the desk, Liv presses her back into the restraint of her chair and stares at the ceiling, disheartened at her failure and unsure of what to make of the doubts supplanted into her head, wanting to drown them out whilst also battling with the part that wants assurance of no wrongdoing.

== Generation Alpha ==