Generation Infinosil

Chapter Eight

Chapter Eight - Shane

2050

The stroll home from school that afternoon was a troubling one. It was full of a severe desperation to discover why I felt so attached to the girl.

I had to refer to her as that, "the girl," because at the time I was unaware of her real name.

"That is going to change though, tomorrow when I have English first thing in the morning, I am going to learn her name, I am going to learn a bit about her," I convinced myself, "I'm going to find out who she is."

I found it almost funny that I knew so little about someone who had sent dozens of questions loose in my mind. It was like she had burst open a wasp nest in my brain and set a swarm of the insects free. The questions stung, like wasps do, when I couldn't answer them. It was frustrating but at the same time, I saw it as a challenge. I didn't wake up that Wednesday morning with an already negative attitude towards the day ahead. Instead, I felt that the day ahead had purpose; for the first time in, well I didn't know how long, I had an aim and a desire to achieve it.

I hadn't had any kind of motivation to get up in the mornings for so long but that morning was different. I leaped out of bed and rushed out of my room, eager to get to school early so that I could plan how to approach her. I passed my Mum on the way down the stairs and kissed her on the cheek whilst wishing her a good morning. You could tell she was astonished by the fact that she didn't have to wake me up, but what surprised her even more was the amount of energy I had.

I think that smile on her face was the first real smile that I had seen since the accident. Sure, there were plenty of smiles when I arrived home from hospital but none of them were authentic; they were just attempts to lighten the mood.

I say "home" but that wasn't the case really. It wasn't realistic to call it home, not when I hadn't the faintest clue where I was.

If I'm honest with you, my parents could have been psychos that were only claiming to be my parents so that they could kidnap me and do god-knows-what with me and I wouldn't have known.

The house they brought me to seemed more like a hotel than the home I supposedly spent my childhood in.

I didn't recognise anything I should have known like the back of my hand.

I should have known that the room with the blue walls and football posters was my bedroom; I should have known that instantly.

I should have known that this man and woman were the couple that brought me up. They shouldn't have seemed like strangers to me.

But they did, just like the girl did.