evo

Fired

"But Felix I swear I won't miss another shift-"

"That's what ya said the last three times Halley"

"I was caught in the sandstorm, honestly I couldn't do anythi-"

"You live on Invio girl! We all have to deal with the sand on this godforsaken continent. Don't use it as an excuse for missin' work."

I leaned back in the ripped brown leather recliner in my bosses dingy office space, defeated.  I looked across at Felix, he was a thin man in his late forties probably. His stance was the opposite of mine, hunched forward onto his desk. As he wiped sweat from his brow with an old rag, I wondered how I would get out of it this time..

Admittedly, I wasn't a very good nurse. Where I live on the outskirts of town there's only a very small hospital, and needing a job a few years ago my best friend Phoenix got me hired to work alongside him - which I'm extremely thankful for, however nursing isn't my forte. At all. All I do as a nurse out in the outskirts really is patch up peoples skin wounds or refer them to the doctor - yes that's right, one doctor who was also the surgeon. The thing with Felix is that he doesn't really care about qualifications as long as you turn up and get shit done. Learning can be done on the job. 

"Look Halley, I like you, I do girl, but I can't just let ya off when you miss ya shifts. It's not fair on the other nurses." he said finally "I'm letting you go."

I look out the cracked window, out at the barren desert wasteland. Nothing to see, nowhere to go for thousands of miles. I had lost my job, and without some income I couldn't go back home without feeling guilty. I had no idea what to do.

"You better get goin' girl, there's another storm comin'" said Felix standing up and helping me out the chair, the leather was hot and sticking to my thighs. In the distance I could see the orange cloud approaching. We had been getting more and more sandstorms recently. 

As I left the office I was met by Phoenix in the waiting room, he was sitting by the door, nervously running his hand through his highlighter blonde locks. People often mistook Phee and I for siblings, as we shared the same freckled tan skin and light golden blonde hair, bleached from the hot sun. He and I had been friends ever since I remember, his family hadn't officially adopted me, papers didn't mean much here in the outskirts, but they took me in when my parents died from the white plague when I was eight. The white plague is one of the deadly diseases released by the Torva "bio-terrorists" about 20 years ago, nicknamed that after how it leaves the victims eyes with only the whites before they quickly die. I had lived with him and is family ever since.

"Hal! what happened?" he said getting up quickly and coming over to walk with me towards the door.

"I got fired Phee. What did you expect?" I said glumly.

"I expected you to get out of it, like you always do Halley!"

"Yeah well I guess Felix decided to grow a pair" I remarked and Phee glanced around us to make sure he wasn't In earshot. I couldn't really care less at this point. As we walked out the door we were hit with a wave of heat, one that we had gotten used to as we had grown up here. I was wearing one of my mothers old pair of whitewashed dungarees that I had ripped the legs off near the top of my thigh, and the sand that was whipping around us stung my bare legs. "Another sandstorm" I said the Phoenix who was pulling his goggles onto his face making him look goofy with the fringe of his floppy hair stuck underneath. 

"We better get going then" Phee said as we jogged over to his beat up old speeder. It was so old it was probably one of the first batch of distributed hover vehicles, however Phee loved it to bits. Rust and all. When we were in and the speeder spluttered to life we began the journey home. He could tell I was upset from my quietness, and left me alone to my thoughts until we were pulling up outside his house.

"So what are you gonna do now Hal?" he asked, placing his hand on mine comfortingly. 

"Attempt to accept that I'm stuck on this deserted wasteland for the rest of my life, until I catch one of the diseases and slowly die an agonizing death." I replied in monotone. Staring out into the sandstorm that was buffering the little speeder.

He sighed "I think you should count yourself lucky. You could be freezing to death on Frigore, or living in a warzone on Bellum for that matter! At least you're safe here on Invio with me for the moment." I turned and looked into his kind blue eyes. Much like the ocean I have heard stories about but have never seen. I understood what he was telling me. He was right, as sensible and caring Phoenix always was, however where he had always felt at home here on Invio, where he had a good group of friends and a bright future in medicine, I had always felt out of place, feeling like I was meant for more than doing odd jobs on Invio. I felt like deep down, I had a purpose, but It wasn't here. 

Later that night ~~~

I glance at the clock on my wooden bedside table, it read 11.02pm. Earlier Phee's mother Greta was very understanding about my job loss, which she didn't need to be, I know as well as all the other siblings that we need to bring in half our income to pay for the families food and the houses power. However like her son she remained positive and even offered to talk to her manager at the sewing factory about letting me on. I told her that would be wonderful, however I knew that if I spent my days attempting to sew it would go even worse than pretending to care about the people that came into the hospital with a headache did. Phee was the more caring one, not me.

I rolled over to my other side, trying desperately to find sleep. The house was old, only just holding together, especially recently in these big sandstorms. The bed creaked under my weight, the covers were worn thin and the sheets were holey - but it was comforting.

What are you going to do Halley? die here on Invio like your parents?  I thought. How can I get away from this place?

I closed my eyes, hoping sleep would come and I could forget about my life for a while. But it never did.

A/N

Hi guys! it's been a very long time since I've written a story on here and I wanted to try something different - so here's evo! my very first sci-fi teen fantasy story! I'm so excited to start writing this and developing all the characters as I have some big ideas coming!! I hope you all enjoyed the chapter :-) thank you SO much for reading! 

p.s I think Gabriella Wilde (pictured) would be great to play Halley, although she obviously wouldn't look as beautiful on Invio as Gabriella does in the pic! ;-)