Mass Effect: Earthborn

Chapter #03 After Heaven Comes Hell

Chapter #03

After Heaven Comes Hell

8.12 p.m., September 13th, 2169

Little Grace Orphanage, New York City.

One last moan escaped Rachel’s mouth before her orgasm stopped. “That… Was amazing!” she let me know. I laughed and smiled at her, kissing her again.

Rachel was my roommate at Little Grace Orphanage, the place where I had lived since my mother disappeared from the hospital where I was born. That night, she had only left a note that said: Her name is Katherine Shepard.

I looked up at the note for a second; I had hung it on the wall.

For a second I contemplated everything I knew, and everything I didn’t know, about my mother. Was her name Shepard too? Or did she just want me to have that name?

Then I turned back to reality, and to Rachel. She was lying next to me in my small bed, only with a wrinkled cover to hide her sweaty and naked beauty; her long chestnut hair fell perfectly down her shoulders and framed her heart shaped face. I could fall head first into her brown eyes and be lost for hours.

I had come to terms with my sexuality a long time ago: gender didn’t matter to me, as long as there was attraction. Rachel however learned that she was a lesbian when we had started dating. Our relationship hadn’t lasted though, so we remained friends. But occasionally, we missed the ‘company’ of others.

Whenever I that moment coincided with a day where I had gotten an adrenaline rush, we would fuck like bunnies.

I ran a finger along her tan skin. She was still shivering. I smiled again.

She finally caught her breath and turned towards me. “What got you in this mood?”

“You don’t wanna know.” Rachel knew I was with the 10th Street Reds, but she didn’t care, as long as she didn’t know what I did.

“Well, I met someone today” she said while smiling.

I lifted an eyebrow. “Weird way to celebrate…”

She started laughing. “Well, I don’t know if she likes me or if she is even… You know…”

“Gay?” I asked while smiling. I smiled as a reflex. I didn’t know how I felt about that since we were just friends. With benefits. “Well, why didn’t you tell me at school?”

“I would’ve, but you disappeared after your last period.”

I quickly deflected away from that comment. “So, who is she?”

We were interrupted by the bell that was ringing out in the hallway. When the old bell rang, it meant that there was either breakfast or dinner.

We both got out of my bed and stood up in the small room and got into some quick clothes.

“Don’t stop on my account” I said as we stepped out into the hallway where all the other children were walking towards the dining hall.

“Well, her name is Sabrina” she said as she blushed.

“Sabrina who?”

“Collins. Sabrina Collins.”

I remembered the name. “Black hair? Dark eyes?”

“With a cute little nose?” Rachel asked, suddenly very excited.

“Yup. I have late 20th century literature with her” I said and smiled at my roommate.

Most of the way towards the dining hall, and during the dinner, she either talked or asked me about Sabrina Collins, the dark haired girl with the cute nose who spent most of 20th century lit to make doodles on her datapad. I quickly decided that I was fine with Rachel having a crush, because her mood was contagious, so I couldn’t help but smile while we sat at the long metal tables in the dining hall, eating some kind of stew that smelled like overcooked cabbage.

My smile, however, disappeared from my face when Mrs. Kerch stood up at the rostrum. She came from money, yet she had chosen to be the matron of an orphanage; a political maneuver by her father. She had always wanted to love children, and when her father donated a large sum of money to the city, to build an orphanage, he got her to be in charge.

“Can I please have your attention, children?” she asked in her ridiculously sweet voice.

Almost no one listened the first time; it was only after she turned up the volume of the microphone, that everyone turned their heads towards her.

“Thank you. Now, I have some sad news children” she said with a dramatically said voice. “Because of a spike in the number of you that tested positive in last month’s drug test, I have been authorized to conduct random searches of your rooms.” There was an immediate booing from everyone there.

“I am sorry children! But you brought this on yourself!” she nearly yelled into the microphone to drown out the booing. She then walked back through the door she came in through.

Fuck! I thought to myself. If they ever searched me and Rachel’s room, they would look into my wardrobe, and they would find a large black bag that could be slung over my shoulder, and inside that bag, they would find an M-97 Viper sniper rifle and then I would be fucked, screwed, on the shitter, out on deep waters. I would be in hell.