Electric Love

Chapter 1

I run. I run so fast I am in danger of tripping, which will have me in the hospital for months if I do. I smile as I run, thinking back on our conversation. My foot suddenly stumbles over a rock and I grab onto a tree. I am falling fast and a sharp place on the tree splits my leather glove. I screech as I fall and I sling the hand with the split glove behind my back. I hit the ground with one hand, risking a broken wrist. I stand up and run my finger over the tear. If my skin had touched the ground, I would have been Grounded.

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In this post-apocalyptic world, everyone has a charge. We don't exactly know how, but one day everyone in the world became electric. The two charges a person can have are positive (a deprivation of electrons, the small ions that make a charge) or negative (an excess of electrons). If anyone, positive or negative, touches the ground, they will become Grounded. Becoming Grounded is a very painful process in which your electrons are transferred to or from yourself depending on your charge. Most people become unconscious when they are Grounded. The electrons are the source of power for us. If someone gets Grounded, they have to go to a hospital where they will be in and out of consciousness for a period of 3 to 4 months. If someone who is positive and someone who is negative touch each other, they become very weak but hardly ever lose consciousness. We are very careful about it. We wear leather gloves and clothes that expose hardly any skin. Our shoes have wooden soles. I used to joke that we were like the people from Holland. It's quite comfortable, though. There is soft material drawn over the wood and over the foot. It helps to not become Grounded just by walking. If there is a volunteer that has the same charge as a Grounding victim, they can touch the victim. The volunteer's electrons or lack of them will go into the victim. The volunteer and the victim will go into a state of weakness, but not as bad as being Grounded. The recovery time with a volunteer is about a month, but not a lot of people are willing to be a volunteer. Why would you put yourself down for a month willingly just so one clumsy person can not suffer the consequences of their actions?

My name is Reese. My charge is negative. I have never been a volunteer, but I have been Grounded. One time when I was three, I was chasing after my dog when I tripped over a tree root and my face hit the ground. It was pain so intense that I blacked out in about five seconds. The pain was like being repeatedly slapped and punched all over my body. It started at the point of contact but spread to my entire body in the blink of an eye. The pain was even in my dreams as I passed out. I don't remember much of that time, but my nanny told me later that I hardly stayed conscious for three months. They fed my electrolytic solutions (fluids that can carry a charge that help restore charges) in the hospital until I was strong enough to walk. I was extra careful since then, and I managed to never be Grounded again. How could I go without falling for 12 years after that, you might ask? Well, I wore extra protective clothing so even if I did fall, I wouldn't be Grounded. I have fallen a lot since then, but I catch myself with my hands, which are covered in protective leather. Back to the story!

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I think back to this morning. There was a stranger in school that no one knew about. Apparently he was a transfer from Canada.

"His brain probably froze up there and he's so quiet because he's thinking so hard to try to warm it up!" My friend Electra says. I know, obvious name,but her parents loved it, so who am I to judge?

"Don't be mean, Lecture, you don't even know the guy." I say, using her nickname, awarded her because of the times she would drone on and on about the importance of equality between positives and negatives and just because negatives have an excess doesn't mean the positives are lacking anything.

"Well, if he didn't want people judging him, he would at least make an effort to fit in!"

I scoff and roll my eyes. "Not everyone has as easy a time fitting in as you, Lecture. How do you he isn't making an effort? A conversation is between two or more people. What if he is making an effort, but people aren't making one back?"

She sighs. "You're always delving into other peoples psyches. Mind your own business!"

I make a 'Seriously?!' gesture behind her back. "You started it."

The day was pretty uneventful after that. I went to my classes, finding that Mystery Guy was in one of them, my "Learning about Charges" physics class. He didn't cast one look in my direction. Not that I was trying to catch his gaze or anything. Geez, get off my back! Anyway, it was after school when I was leaving when we had an encounter.

"Hey, what's your name?" I heard someone say from behind me. I spun around and found Mystery Guy behind me.

I smiled at him. "Reese, what's yours?"

"Nathan," he says. He tosses back a lock of blond hair from his face. "Don't we have that physics class together? What's the name of it? Charges in Motion or something?"

"Learning about Charges," I say.

"Oh, yea. That's such a weird name, don't you think? Naming a class after what you'll be doing in the class? Math would be 'Learning about Numbers' and Science would be 'Learning about Everything but Electricity' and PE would be 'Learning about How to Run and Jump without Grounding Yourself'. It's crazy!"

I smile as he realizes he's babbling and his cheeks redden.