Embers rose into the sky, sparkling and shimmering with light-like sparkling reflections on the ocean surface. The sparkling embers faded out of existence. The pyre of flames rising out of the ruins simmers and lowers while lighting back up brighter before the smell of smoke choked and suffocated, burning across the flesh and bones and before there was nothing.
BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP
The burning light of the phone screen showing a cartoon cat eating a pizza lit up as a slide function appeared on the screen to turn off the alarm. Sliding the clock across the screen, the alarm stopped going off. Rolling over and grabbing a pillow, I covered my face, screaming into the plush velvet of the pillow. Tossing the pillow aside, the ceiling is revealed through the peak of light outside. Posters and photos hung from the ceiling, all bright and happy, unlike the terror of the night that comes with dreams. Sitting up with aches and pains as if it were painful to exist, grasping out and grabbing the walking cane, I walked over to the mirror with pained steps.
In the reflection, an average-looking young woman looks to be in her mid to late teens. Shaggy brown hair cropped at the shoulder with bangs. Dull brown eyes looked back in the reflection with a pained frown. Burns coated one hand wrapped in a compressed bandage. Her left foot is lifted slightly to reduce the weight on it, and she is also coated in burns and scars on her foot. Tapping the cane, her eyes seemed empty as she tried to stand with another full weight on her scarred foot.
THUD
Once more, I looked at the ceiling. Soon, soft sobs surged, unable to be quelled. No one came to see if there were problems, and just like any other day, taking a step with a mangled foot is currently impossible to manage. Shallow, raspy breaths smoothed over the sobs as tears were wiped away. Sitting up, grasping to stand, the moment of emotional and physical weakness was obscured by a strength of will. Swallowing the rising weakness step after step, a change of clothes was put on me. Looking at the screen of my phone, I looked at the time. Its display causes a reluctant sigh to rise in my chest.
Opposing the reluctance of my foul mood, it seems as if the sky opposes how I feel emotionally and physically—the scorching sun rising radiantly overhead, only a few hours from high noon. The only dark and obscure thing ahead is the tower of black gold. Although rays of sunlight showed the shine of gold, they seemed to be swallowed in darkness, no matter the radiance from the glistening sun.
Although the tower seems close, no matter how much the drive, the tower never seems to get closer. Although not my goal for today, I will overcome my fear and get as close as possible to the tower someday. Thinking that, I spun my keys and walked into the small building to be greeted.
"Welcome. The doctor will be right with you."
I didn't bother looking at the hologram that greeted me. What's the point of responding to something that is only a pre-recorded video? Over five years, hoping to improve the populace's morale, the government approved and released technology that had already been invented but sanctioned away from the populace. The appearance of the towers caused outrage and the deaths of several million people within the span of their first appearance. Now, five years later, technology is more advanced, and evidence shows over two billion people died as a consequence of the towers materializing all over the earth.
The thoughts of the towers made my hands tremble. Although most don't want to admit it, the towers affected everyone. I closed my eyes; I tried to force my thoughts off track as words broke through my unwanted remembrance.
"Miss Anderson, Dr. William is ready for you in his office."
Walking inside the office, Dr. William stood there looking out the window to the parking lot, although he was most likely using an implanted device to prevent him from seeing what he didn't want to. One of the devices released is called Agnosia. It isn't far off from that diagnosis. People were in denial about the worst disaster that rippled across the world. The device was the only way many could adapt and accept the nightmare left in the wake of the towers. Dr. William is one of the few that decided to take one of the implants. Although he remembers the tower, the implant forcibly prevents him from genuinely recognizing the tower that is located outside. Not surprising. His grandchildren, wife, and two sons were caught in the disaster but didn't make it.
When he turned around, his robotic arm twisted slightly as he returned to the seat behind his desk. There was no sound from his arm to the point of, if not for the tinking of metal, and seeing that his hand wasn't of flesh, one wouldn't even know that his arm was not of flesh.
"Hello, Miss Anderson. How are you feeling this fine morning?"
He spoke gently, although a robotic sound rang behind the tones of him talking like using a speaker from the early 2000's.
"The usual."
"Still feel pain in your right side?"