Exordium

By Nadia Benjelloun

Its circa 2040.

The world is borne of intercontinental recession. A paroxysm of new viruses has taken over all biological and digital systems, and technology has run off its course. It came down to every man for himself.

In a postapocalyptic setting, Avanzata, a country that seems to be making progressive recovery, is the home of Jason Dean, a seventeen-year-old boy who suspects that there is more to the story. From an intriguing newcomer to the disappearance of his father and the suspicious governmental activities in his school, little does he know that as he tries to piece together the links to all the strange occurrences in his hometown, his actions will trigger an event that will influence all of humanitypossibly for the worst.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: May 23, 2017
• ISBN: 9781524681326

Nadia Benjelloun

Born and raised in Tangier, Morocco, Nadia Benjelloun currently attends high school at the American School of Tangier. She loves to read and write, and wrote since she was seven years old. Nadia has had her first piece of individual piece of writing published when she was ten years old. Ever since, she was motivated to continue writing, and published several other short stories and poems and adopted poetry composition when she was fifteen. Along with her debut book, Receptive Sentiments, she has a fictional novel under progress, set to be completed in the summer of 2015.

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© 2017 Nadia Benjelloun. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 05/22/2017

ISBN: 978-1-5246-8131-9 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5246-8132-6 (e)

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Contents

Jason

Angelina

About the Author

Dr. Sullivan paced back and forth in the empty office. She wasn’t sure if it was such a good idea to go ahead and launch this project. Sure, they have had many tests, and statistics pointed out that there was a ninety nine point nine percent chance that it was going to be successful, but what about the point one percent? That one percent that can ruin everything. That one default will able to trigger a hundred percent’s worth of terrible predicaments. She looked down at her desk. It looked like a typical office any worker would have, though it was not common to have such a simple and practical bureau these days. At least not like the rest of the scientists in the building. Each had a desk installed with a super-computer, up-to-date equipment, and a private room with a mini-lab for quick experiments. But that’s just how Dr. Sullivan liked things. Simple. No complications, no intricate details. The less there is, the less chance of something going wrong. Just like her desk, and most of the work that she deals with. She glances up at the camera in the corner of the room, and remembers that she has no choice. With a sigh, she picks up the confidential folder, and opens it to the page of the contract. But she could not bring herself to signing her name. Her insides churned uncomfortably, as if trying to warn her of some grave danger. But how could that be so? Especially since she was part of the team who proposed the idea in the first place. It’s him, her conscience objected. He could’ve easily twisted the plan. With a second sigh, Dr. Sullivan pulls out her chair, sits on it, pushes her medium-length, jet-black hair behind her shoulder, and pushes up her glasses from the bridge before re-reading the guidelines of the contract. Just to make sure, she thinks to herself.

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Darkness… there was darkness everywhere. Then her eyes were visible again. Her caramel brown eyes seemed to have illuminated the space that surrounded Jason. Then slowly, her entire face seemed to reveal itself. Lastly, her body was shown. Her arms were stretched out forwards, reaching towards Jason. She appeared to be falling, in no particular direction, but clearly away from him. The beauty in her face was disrupted by her sad eyes. It ached Jason to see her that way, and she was close to tears. He had a sudden urge to help her. He wanted to reach out, and hold onto her, and reassure her. But where were his hands? He was consciously aware of himself, but could not see his own body. He felt the tangible source of it, so he reached out from where he guessed his arms would be. She clawed at the air and started to yell his name. Jassooon! Even in despair, it sounded beautiful. But filled with despair, nevertheless. And so Jason used all of his might to try and catch her. It seemed to be fruitless, she was moving further away. Irritated, he continued to try, until finally, his arms seemed to have grown out nowhere. He still couldn’t see the rest of his body, but he couldn’t care less, he reached out as far as he could, and attempted to yell out her name. Her name? But what was her name? How could he not know it? He’s known her for most of his life. Suddenly he spotted parts of his arms slowly disappear as if a giant invisible eraser was erasing them. No! Come on, I know it, it’s at the tip of my tongue… it starts with an ‘A’….A…AAA…But it was already too late. Time seemed to have speeded up and she was shot down into the abyss. NO!!! This time Jason yells aloud, and wakes himself up. In a hunched sitting position, he lies on his bed in a cold sweat, heavily breathing. He looks down at his hands, and then, with frustration, thrusts the blanket right off the bed with one hand. He looks back at his palms, and then covers his face with them. I’m so so sorry Angelica. He holds back the lump in his throat and after a couple of minutes finally stands up and goes to the bathroom to take a shower.

Half an hour later, he walks down the stairs and into the kitchen. The smell of pancakes wafted in the air, and when Mrs. Dean heard her son’s footsteps, turned around and gave him a reassuring smile. He returned it with a meek one.

Is something the matter, honey?

Nah…it’s just…

Was it the dreams again? I heard you yell, you know.

More like nightmares, he thought.

Slightly scrunching his eyebrows, he pulls out his chair, sits on it and stares at the table’s surface.

I see… she says quietly and turns back to the stove. But then she says more cheerfully and loudly, But you can’t keep on frowning like that Jason, or you’ll get wrinkles at an earlier age. She turns back to face him and hands him his share of pancakes. And you don’t want to look like me now, do you?

A small smile slips out of his lips and then he looks up at his mom. She was well into her forties, and already had some grey hairstreaks growing in on the sides of her brunette head. A curvy and slightly plump woman, yet she was sturdy and versatile. And Jason admired her for that. It had only been six months, yet it would seem as though things had returned to normal. Even now, without his father, she seemed so well put, and optimistic. And she had a far greater responsibility. It almost made Jason’s problem seem miniscule. He then grinned and said,

"Mom, you’re beautiful…on the outside and inside." She laughs softly and then responds,

Now hurry up and finish your breakfast, or you’ll be late for school. It’s the first day.

Jason looks back at his plate, where the pancake still was awaiting him. That’s right, he thought. The first day since the Great AP. He grabbed his knife and fork and started to nibble on his food while he wondered what life would be like from now on.

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JASON

I walked up towards the school gate and looked up at the school’s motto that was inscribed on the archway. Ibimus est solo modo priorem partem it read. Now I may not know any Latin, but as some teachers have told me, it literally said, Only in this way it will go forward, meaning to say, Forwards is the only direction we’ll go. Well… we’ll see. I walk in, expecting to see some great new changes, but what I ended up seeing, surprised me. Of course, like any other year, as the new school year began, kids were showing up with new outfits, hairstyles, trends, and talk of new aims. Left and right, students were walking with their friends, recalling what they’ve done over the break. But they were acting completely normal! They acted like they just came back from vacation. How is it no one is acting all anxiously? Then the more I thought about it, I decided that maybe the more we acted normal, there more we can forget what happened. In which case, it might not been such a bad idea to come back to school after all. I see a group of freshman girls passing by, clinging onto each other, giggling, glancing at me, and I think I might have even heard one of them whisper my name. Hm, I might even forget her… at this point; I can only hope to keep her off my mind as long as I can.

As I walked through the hallway of the main building, I spotted SJ, one of my closest friends. He was at the far end of the hallway, waving his arm sideways, wearing a red and white letterman jacket. Being the loud guy that he was, before he was anywhere near me, he shouts out,

Hey, man! Long time no see! How’ve you been?

I gave him a fist bump, and we shook hands. But then he held tightly onto my hand, and pulled me in for a side hug. I missed you, man. I hear a couple of chuckles, and see that the same group of girls I saw earlier were in the corner watching us.

Geez, could you be any louder? He then let go, and turned to see what I was looking at.

Nah, girls like it when you’re open. I just roll my eyes and walk away. Before he follows me, he watches me for a moment, then does a little skip, catches up and then says,

Ahh, I almost forgot. Me and my malofrapin’ head. Man, how are coping?

I’m trying to forget the whole situation, so if you please…

Right, right… But you have to admit, the brunette looked cute I laughed a little, and responded,

Well I can see you haven’t changed much, and yeah… I guess she was.

Ha! Hah, so what have you been up to in these past few months since the incident? We then each tried to summarize what we’ve each done, and while I spoke, I left out the part about the constant dreams.

Fifteen minutes later, we were in homeroom, and our new teacher walked in. She was middle sized, and looked to be in her thirties. She wore a white collared shirt with a black blazer, and a matching knee-length skirt, along with black pumps. Her black hair was neatly tied in a bun. It was only the first day, and she already seemed to have a weary look on her face. Of course, I have never seen her before, though there seemed to be something quite particular about her. I look at SJ on the left and could see he too was looking her over, but I knew he was coming to his own conclusions. She took a deep breath, and began to speak,

Good morning class, I’ll be your English teacher for this year. My name is Mrs. Keenley, and I hope to have a… progressive year with you. We all knew what she meant. All that we could hope for now, was that things progressed normally, and that our school year wouldn’t be interrupted and cut short with another disaster.

The head of school has instructed us to show you an introductory video for each one of your homeroom classes for the next three days, so if you please, just be patient for a few more minutes… she opened the drawers on her desk looking for the remote. I looked at some of my classmates, noticing that some of them were nodding their heads as if they knew what she was referring too, while the rest looked just as puzzled as me. I have attended Paceville Triplex for fourteen years, and knew that there never was an introductory video on the first day of school. When she found the remote, she clicked on a button, closing the curtains, and darkening the room, and then clicked on a second button, having a screen flash on the board. The classroom glowed in light blue, and headmaster Jenkins’s face was visible on our whiteboard. He then finally spoke about what we all were avoiding to talk about up until now.

"Good morning, students of Paceville High. As you all know, our lovable world has befallen a global recession between the years 2035 and 2036, followed with the first stage of the great apocalypse in the following and current year. Due to the drastic climate changes brought upon by the 2030’s, it was predicted that there would be a succession of intense natural disasters hit the countries of the world progressively, one by one, starting by the year of 2040. Unfortunately, our meteorologists failed to augur that the first of minor earthquakes would start as early as 2037, and in the United Kingdom of Avanzata, Paceville being the first of the cities. Since we have recently been going through a financial crisis, the federal government could not provide basic equipment, technologies or any assistance for each family unit to make it through the disasters. Furthermore, we were also experiencing a technological apocalypse, as a new form and unidentifiable virus has infected our computer systems, corporate devices, and the most basic machines. The rest of the world seemed to be experiencing the same thing, and what was worse was that it seemed that the same virus mutated at very high rates and morphed into one that could also affect biological systems. It was only a matter of time before an epidemic spread among humans, and biologists lacked the technology to work on a vaccine. Soon enough, satellite connections were shut down, and that was the end we heard from fellow nations. It was basically every man for himself. By then we were in the start of the year 2037. It was an unfortunate and terrifying period, referred to as the Great ’37 Apocalypse. Luckily, it did not last very long, as we have a small group of scientists to thank for; a group of brilliant minds were privately working on a machine that provided regenerative energy, prior to the virus pandemic, and showed to be successively used as an input of any version of energy for any kind of contrivance. Thanks to them, who are now working for Yurosu’s Science and Technology Incorporation right here in Paceville, some of the systems could be restored temporarily, and so, for the last six months, we have seen some social, technological, and economical revival in the city. Naturally, there was also calmer feedback from civilians. I share my condolences for those of you have lost friends or relatives during the disasters, and we can only hope for the best in the future. However, I am pleased to say that Paceville’s Highschool of Avanzata is now re-open, and back on track. Our sister schools, Paceville Elementary and Middle School are also re-open. The curriculum has been modified as to prepare students more on global emergencies such as the ones we have recently experienced, and hope not to again, for a long time. Here at Paceville High, our mission is to equip our students with the wisdom to become well-rounded, global citizens.We are here to shape our students and faculty into people that lead their communities with a heart and mind that inspires receptivity, compassion, and nobility. You should also acknowledge and praise Mr. Shinshi Yurosu, a great benefactor of the school, and delegate of Avanzata. He is the owner of many companies worldwide, including the one previously mentioned that is making it a priority to dedicate its research for the recovery of the community, and the world from the apocalypse, and to work on international safety guidelines, for the preventions of similar transitions."

Some students started to clap as the video came to a close. An image of a middle-aged Japanese man flashed on the screen, and though I may have imagined it, I saw Mrs. Keenley mouth a curse, and stare daggers at his picture. I looked around, but no one else seemed to notice.

Alright, alright, she said, quickly picking up the remote, and turning off the projection. And now, a moment of silence for those who have passed. A deep silence followed, until only the ticking of the clock could be heard. Agitated, I look at my watch, and then stare out the window. Some others start tapping their feet, and others still, fumble around in their seats. Finally, the silence was broken when Mrs. Keenley spoke.

Very well then. I will now do the roll call, go over the syllabus, and we may begin our first lesson.

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Nothing could have sounded more relieving than the sound of the bell. Our next class, chemistry, followed a similar procedure. The teacher, a man this time, who also seemed relatively young, did the roll call and went over the syllabus and class expectations. He then gave a very basic introductory lesson about the course subject. It was very boring, as he was simply going over basic definitions of the different branches of chemistry, and explaining what an element and chemical bond was, as if we hadn’t already known this stuff. When he spoke, he spoke very slowly as if we were all children who were learning the English language for the first time. I was surprised to see that some students actually bothered with questions. So the