Newborn Eyes

Beat Time

The first thing I want to do with Ty is go to the local amusement park and spend all day on the rides. We get up at the break of dawn to get in line early. I can see that Ty is trying to have fun but he still looks super upset, thinking about how I have to leave. If a ton of roller coasters can't get his mind off of it, I don't know what will. I guess we'll just have to try the other options.

The next day is spent at the park. We bring a picnic basket and a blanket and spend the day talking and eating food. At the moment we are lying side by side looking into each others eyes and talking. Ty hasn't looked like he's thought of me leaving once which makes me happy.  I almost think I'm in the clear when Ty says, "Wouldn't it be great if every day was like this? I mean think of it, we get up every morning near each other and spend the whole day together!"

"Except when we have to go to work," I add, "You know there is no perfect situation where we spend every minute together, besides you're talking like we're married."

"What if we were married?"

I sit up in shock and look down at Ty on the blanket. "You want us to get married, now? I mean I know when you gave me this promise ring that you said you wanted to someday but I didn't know you meant this soon!"

He sits up next me and grabs both of my hands in his. "I mean why not? We are in love and we've spent all of this time together. Plus we've been through so much, what else bad could happen?"

"Well for one, we're still looking for the man who had my brother capture you! Plus, he has the same power as me, he could control you if he really wanted to, even without the telepathy power. I just want you to be safe. Also, and I can't believe I even have to say this but, we're too young and we haven't spent that much time together!"

Ty opens his mouth to interrupt but I keep on rambling so he can't, "Normally people wait a couple of years before they get married. Don't get me wrong, I love you, but don't you think it's a little too soon? Marriage isn't going to prevent my family from saying I can't see you anymore. I'm sorry but that's just the way it is!"

Ty looks at me sadly and stands up on the blanket. "You know, I'm not really hungry anymore. I'm going back to headquarters for a while. See you back there," he says before walking away. 

"Ugh!" I groan before flopping back onto the picnic blanket. It's not my fault it's too soon. I don't want us to move too fast and getting married is definitely too fast! 

I start packing up the picnic basket and folding up the blanket. I walk back to headquarters slowly, trying to let Ty have enough time to find a place to hide from me for the next few hours. Once inside headquarters, I go down to the room with my death machine. I haven't been down here in a while since we programmed it to run by itself. Sometimes when a lot of people die in one day, I feel tired and I have to sit down because so much of my power is being used. That hasn't happened in a long time so I want to see what is going on. 

The machine looks perfectly fine on the outside except there is a little icon floating in front. It looks like an email inbox symbol so I poke it with my finger. About 50 pictures come up of people right on the edge of death. A word box pops up that reads, Malfunction Found: Machine does not know whether to kill or save these people. Please decide now. The box disappears and I am left looking at all of these people in pain. 

I click on the first person who is a woman who has just given birth. The kill or save options appear under the picture. Apparently the birth was not done properly and now I have to decide whether or not she lives or dies. According to Victor, I can't save everyone or else the Earth will overpopulate so for every person I allow to live, another must die. I decide that this woman deserves to live so I click on the save option. Some of the others are men in the army which I kill but a little voice nags at the back of my mind, telling me they have families. "Don't you think I know that," I yell aloud, hating that I have to decide the fate of these people. 

Apparently, Cain was standing at the top of the stairs when I was yelling at my head. He runs down the stairs to come to me. "Constance what's wrong?"

I start to cry and through my sobs I get out, "The machine malfunctioned and now I have to decide who to kill!"

He wraps his arm around me and turns me away from the machine stating, "I remember how you programed it before, you just head upstairs and I'll fix the problem."

With a tiny push from Cain, I walk up the stairs and into the library. Instead of leaving the library entirely I head up to the loft which contains more historical books. I sit down on a couch and open up a book entitled, "Fashion from the 21st century". The book is dusty and I blow most of it off, coughing in the process. Figures it wasn't opened for a while, the 21st century was about 200 years ago. I look at the pictures of all of the smiling teenagers and for once I feel envious of them. True, today we have so much more technology and back then powers weren't even a thing but their lives were a lot simpler. No one had to decide who was going to live and who would die. I create miracles but I also destroy hopes. 

About 20 minutes later Cain emerges from the machine room and walks out of the library. Once he's gone, I begin my experiment. I realize that I can decide who lives or dies but does that also apply to myself? The loft is pretty high up in the library so I climb up on the railing and breathe in, working up my courage. After my third breath, I jump off of the loft railing and fall toward the library floor, the carpet ready to swallow me.