The End of Us

By Julius St. Clair

Akira, Isaiah, Thomas, Rebecca, Mariana, Sarah, and David.

 

These are the names of seven individuals who were taken from their worlds and thrust into ours. Endowed with incredible supernatural abilities and only having each other, they are our last hope against a powerful and ruthless enemy.

 

As they travel on their epic journey, they will discover friendship, romance and family. But they will also face betrayal, suffering, and death. And in the end, a new era will be created, born from their struggle, and forged from their tears.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Julius St. Clair
• Release date: Apr 5, 2022
• ISBN: 9798201710354

Book preview

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​The End of Us

By

Julius St. Clair

Copyright © 2022 by Julius St. Clair

All rights reserved. This story or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

​Table of Contents:

Chapter 1 – Pariah

Chapter 2 – Awakening

Chapter 3 – Past Times

Chapter 4 – A New Life Begins

Chapter 5 – The Diary

Chapter 6 – The Power Within

Chapter 7 – Visions of the Past

Chapter 8 – Suspicions

Chapter 9 – Prelude to Destruction

Chapter 10 – Saying Goodbye

Chapter 11 – Fading Memories

Chapter 12 – Eye of the Storm

Chapter 13 – The Chosen

Chapter 14 – Fulfilling the Destiny

Epilogue

CHAPTER 1:  PARIAH

The great thing about death is that you only have to experience it once... and after that, you’re at total peace. At least, that’s what I’ve been told.

I’ve discovered that I’ve been told lies.

I shouldn’t be surprised. After all, it’s not like I was unfamiliar with the concept. Deception and false information permeated the atmosphere of my town like it was the very oxygen we breathed. And because of this reason...since I woke up, and saw what the town really was, I became an outcast in my utopian society. The town named Medina.

A place that contained no history, no records, no knowledge of its founders, or even its origin. What it did boast proudly were the walls that kept us hidden from the outside world. Colossal steel pillars that towered over us like inanimate guardians, crushing any chance of escape. Those same fortifications extended over our heads, becoming our shelter and sky, ensuring we didn’t glimpse anything uncontrollable, especially nature.

This partition entrapped us in the town all our lives, but no one minded. No one wondered why we were forbidden to see other societies. 

I can see why no one questioned things. Questions, after all, spark from curiosity, and there was nothing to be curious about. Nothing stood out, ever. The trees, flowers, and wildlife (if one can call it that), all looked indistinguishable in my eyes, displaying the dull color I later found out was called maroon - a disgusting red with a hint of puke brown.

The buildings were as dull as the foliage; all of them lavished with a rusty gray, kissing each other’s sides on the same twenty-mile foundation. One prison cell, one window on the front left side of each house, and a door of average height boasting the same color of the walls. These were our homes.

And what’s funny is that it wasn’t uncommon for someone to wander into a house that wasn’t theirs. I made this mistake a few times myself, for there weren’t any numbers to distinguish the buildings. The furniture was just as plain on the inside so when you entered a dwelling, no alarms went off in your mind. Your only clue to the fact you may be in a strange place was the family living there. After about twenty minutes, you realize the man sitting on the couch was not your father, or the woman looking out the window couldn’t be your mother.

Not that recognition made any difference. The family would take care of you for the night as if you were their own child, all the way until morning when you left for school. The children were no more identifiable than the furniture. And when school ended the next day, you would begin the process all over again, hoping you’d be able to find your actual house that week.

You may ask, how could anyone mistake who their parents were?

Well, because men and women looked identical, you could only tell them apart by the names they were assigned. We all wore the exact same clothes, and we all talked about the things the man over the intercom system told us to. Any unregulated conversation was forbidden. Not that anyone cared. No one questioned the law, and no one ever broke it. For example, at any given moment, the intercom may announce food as the topic of the hour. At that time, you had to talk about how wonderful the soup you had for breakfast was. The only relief from this droll monotony was at home where you were able to talk freely, but even then, the parents were there to steer the conversation toward irrelevant topics, such as how the house looks grayer than usual on that particular day.

There was a time when I hoped for change.

Hope. Who am I kidding? There was no such thing in the town of Medina. The medication took care of that. A small pill called Adelphine. This medication ensured everyone did their assigned jobs happily, and that was the way it was. I never questioned the contents. After all, it had been injected in me since birth. Children incapable of swallowing the pills were given inoculations until they were deemed old enough to graduate to pill popping. After a year, it became as essential to an individual as eating and drinking.

What if someone chooses to not take the drugs? Well, first of all, like I said before, we’ve been given them since birth so it was natural for us, but the other reason we did it was because every ten minutes, an announcement was given on the intercom to remind us to take our pills, compiling on top of our already inebriated state. No one knew who gave the announcement, but the mysterious man’s words were law. Whenever we heard the decree, we’d pop another pill in our mouth without a second thought.

I never did find out who the person on the loudspeaker was. To this day I have my guesses, but I’m not surprised the truth never came to light. If this guy managed to stay in the shadows for years without discovery, he wasn’t about to let some ambitious teenager crack the mystery.

Now, if I had been medicated all my life, and following orders like a good little boy, you may be wondering how I know all this. Let me tell you, I didn’t at first. I went through my life the exact same way every other person in Medina did. I attended school, and I did the same job that everyone in my community had, and that, was to be a gardener.

I was in charge of taking care of the rose bushes from the Chamber of Travel entrance to the eighth house down. That was my occupation, and that was to be my job until I died, working every day from two in the afternoon to seven in the evening, only an hour after school. And every day had been the same routine since I was sixteen.

That was, until the day I fell on my side.

I don’t remember exactly why I fell. Maybe it was fate, or maybe I’m just trying to make excuses for being clumsy. But in any case, I fell hard, after somehow stumbling over my own feet. Now normally, when a person would fall down, or get hurt in any way, that individual would be taken from their bedroom while they slept that night and brought to some mysterious location. When the town woke up in the morning, that person would wake up in their bed and have complete amnesia of their little episode. I’ve seen it happen myself because my own mother fell down in the kitchen once and the next day when I had asked her about it, she didn’t remember a thing, like I had made it all up.

When I fell that day, I should’ve been taken away in the night. But I wasn’t. I was sure someone had to have seen it happen. But, I had just taken my next dose of adelphine, and it did take away the pain instantly. And I did get back up and kept on watering the roses in my carefree state like nothing had happened. Perhaps whoever was watching had been distracted the moment of my fall. Maybe to the observing eye, it looked like I hadn’t been in any pain and they decided to forego protocol.

But I had been in pain.

It was only a brief moment of course, but the stinging sensation that shot up my right side took residence in my mind. A millisecond of discomfort, changing me forever.

I still watered the roses, smiling the entire time, but in my subconscious, I was still dwelling on it, that foreign feeling resting on my ribs, birthing some new awareness within me.

Emotions, were one of the many things suppressed by adelphine, for without emotions, we were no more alive than the roses I watered every day. We were living in the sense we breathed. We ate, we drank and slept, but we were unable to express ourselves in speech, art, or even body language. We just swayed with the wind when it blew. We were fed when it was time for us to be hungry. We were given time to sleep when our labor was done for the day. But it was all habitual. We were doing what we were told to do. Nothing more. We had no real free will of our own. No purpose. No path.

So it was hard to say for sure when I completely stopped taking the adelphine, but I remember as time slowly passed by, I became more aware of my surroundings like a newborn baby. It was like being blind, and slowly being able to see, hazy at first, but without warning, objects that you’ve known all your life gained new definition. I was suddenly able to look up at the steel walls around the town’s perimeter and think big, or feel the grass beneath my feet and think soft. 

I realized slowly that I had the time I fell on my side to thank. The memory of pain that had started out smaller than a passing thought, grew in my mind like a tumor. It increased in size, sluggishly consuming my every thought. And whenever adelphine tried in vain to take that thought away, it was fought off by my will.

I still watered the flowers with the same mindless smirk I always had, but I, me, the real me, myself...I was not happy. When I finally came to that conclusion, it was as if my consciousness had triumphantly crossed the finish line into individuality...and I snapped. Reality came to the door of my brain and pulverized it with a sledgehammer. I had no choice but to let it in.

That’s when I was finally awake.

Without question, I knew who I was. I was Akira, and it was not just a name. I had known that name since I was a small child. No, this name now had meaning. I suddenly realized what, my job was. I...was a gardener...no...wait...why was I a gardener?

The dam broke, and questions roared into my mind. It was almost too much to handle...

And it was then, standing there amongst the rose bushes, probably being the first person to be free from the adelphine, that I realized the roses were fake. The bushes were fake. It was all fake. I threw my watering can in disgust. And when I looked down, I saw that there wasn’t even water in the can to begin with. There had never been water in it, and there never would be. I stared at the can for a long time, hypnotized by this epiphany that my job, my purpose in Medina, all along...was meaningless.

I picked up my water can after what felt like an eternity. I knew that it would take a lot of time to clear my thoughts, so until I figured out what my next course of action was, I wasn’t going to do anything else, but water the roses...

I WASN’T TAKEN AWAY and that’s what surprised me the most. Maybe they were just watching me, seeing what I would do. I didn’t care. From that day on, the only rebelling I did against society was in my mind, and maybe that was the best way. I had no clue of what I could do, or if I could actually accomplish anything. But as months went by (at least I think it was months), and I saw that no one was coming for me, I decided to take a chance. To see if I could be one step closer to leaving Medina or freeing others. My first action...talk to my parents.

I walked up to my dad cautiously, who was sitting idly at the kitchen table with my mother. I leaned down and sat in my chair, the same way I always sat, with a shuffle sideways to the left until I was parallel with the chair, and then a slow but controlled stoop down, a quick adjust, and then a scoot forward to the soup in front of me. However, instead of automatically eating the soup in front of me, (soup with various nutrients and vitamins was always the meal) I rebelliously turned to face my father. He didn’t notice me at first. Unaware of my presence, he continued slurping his soup from the teaspoon in his hand, moving gracefully and rhythmically as if he was conducting an orchestra. It wasn’t until I touched his arm that he looked at me. Well, more like through me.

What is it, Akira? he said flatly, before sipping another teaspoon full of soup.

Dad, what do you know about Medina? I asked as robotic as I could, unsure of what the answer would be, if anything. It was an odd question to ask.

We are perfect, Akira.

I can’t count how many times I passed by a dazed adult muttering those chilling words, We are perfect. Those all too familiar words that I’m sure I myself had muttered at one time.

It was the biggest thing that really bothered me about the town. While no one knew what perfection was in the sense they could give you a clear-cut definition, I had the feeling that Medina wasn’t it. Something was missing that I couldn’t quite place. Maybe I had just gotten sick of the ecstatic looks on the townspeople’s faces. Everyone was so ridiculously happy.

I waited a few minutes.

Dad?

What is it, Akira? he asked, in the same tone.

What do you know about Medina? I repeated, only half expecting an answer this time.

I do not understand, Akira, he said before he slurped the last of his soup. It was an odd answer to give. No one ever said they didn’t understand something, giving the impression that they actually thought...maybe I was getting through to him. He wiped his mouth with his napkin delicately, and looked at me with an overly happy grin. I guess the soup had been good.

Why are we here? I asked.

You are here, Akira.

I guess I wasn’t making any progress. That...had definitely been a Medina answer. So I sat there for awhile, trying to think of a way I could make him understand what I was trying to say. He was beginning to annoy me and I knew that I would need a bottomless pit of patience to get a straight answer. When I couldn’t come up with another question, I just sighed and began eating my soup.

You are going to meet your partner tomorrow, Akira, my mom stated matter-of-factly as she sat down with her own bowl of the frothy liquid. I tried not to wince.

When you turned eighteen, you were a perfect adult. And at that time you would be kicked out of your parents’ house, given a baby boy or girl, a partner to raise the baby with, and evidently you would stay with that partner until your child turned eighteen. When that happened, your child would be given a baby, a partner etc. Then! And only then, would you be able to leave the town. Well, actually it was more like banished. People that you’ve never seen in your entire life, but look just like you do, would come and take you away to a place called the Chamber of Travel. No one knew what happened when you were taken there. Only that it was a place outside the steel walls. No one missed the people that left Medina. Everyone was too drugged up to notice.

Who’s my partner? I sighed, actually curious.

Ashley, she answered. I almost threw up. Ashley was a gardener of course, like me, but the adelphine seemed to affect her more than any other person in Medina. She was too happy, and I don’t mean happy like she has a positive attitude. I mean happy as in she repeated the lines, I love my job. We are perfect, endlessly and she did nothing but swallow more adelphine than she should have. Then there was her smile. That horrifying smile. Her teeth and gums were so wide, it was as if two cranes had hooked themselves on each side of her jaw and stretched it to its limits. To look at that thing every day would be too much to handle.

Oh, I muttered, unsure of how to express my disgust without causing alarm.

You are going to get your child tomorrow, Akira, my mom added.

I tried to change the subject.

Is the soup good, mom?

She popped an adelphine pill in her mouth and sighed with pleasure. I had completely ignored the loudspeaker announcing that it was time for another dose.

What is it, Akira? my mom asked, not really concerned about what I was thinking. I pretended to pop in an adelphine pill. I didn’t respond.

You are going to get your child tomorrow, Akira, my mom said again.

I heard you, Mom.

What?

I HEARD YOU, MOM, I raised my voice for her to hear me better.

What?

Mom, I heard you, I mumbled, giving up.

Try what, Akira? What?

I ate my soup and didn’t say another word.  I just sat there and ate it until the loudspeaker said lunchtime was over. It was then time to head back to school. To learn about the finer things in life like how to raise your children, how to perform your job correctly, what you can’t do in Medina...never, what you could. There weren’t any subjects like history or science, or English because it promoted awareness. Math was approved so we could learn how to get from A to B, or if your job happened to require counting, but it was still on an elementary level.

Since I was no longer under the influence of adelphine, I was able to see just how horrible school really was. Basically, the teacher would stand up front, and talk in the same tone of voice as my parents, saying the same words over and over: Adelphine is good, do your job, take care of your children. It wasn’t long until I began to block the teacher out altogether, for the good of my sanity.

Instead of listening, I would daydream, wondering when I would be taken away, when our leaders would finally figure out that I was off the adelphine. I wasn’t too worried about it. By this point, I was almost hoping I’d be taken away from the monotony. At least then there would be some excitement.

I let out a disruptive groan of disapproval as I thought of how long school was. The teacher stopped for a moment, rotated her head toward me quickly as if she had the head of a pigeon, and then just as sudden, turned back to the rest of the class and continued to stammer on about adelphine in all its glory.

I nearly knocked a girl over when break was announced and we were allowed to go outside. She didn’t utter a word in protest. Not that I cared. I clumsily ran out onto the plain in desperation and purposely crumbled on the grass, sighing in relief as I closed my eyes to take my ritualistic nap. 

Akira? Someone inquired behind me. I grunted noisily, knowing that whoever it was wouldn’t understand that I was annoyed, but I did it anyway. This small act of defiance gave me some minor comfort.

Yes, I answered flatly, keeping my eyes closed.

I know you don’t take the adelphine.

I opened my eyes slowly and stared upward at this kid giving me a goofy grin. I recognized him from my classroom. His name was Thomas. Another gardener.

I stood up fast and faced him, keeping myself as calm as possible.

What are you talking about? I replied in a monotone voice.

The kid’s lips stretched into a half-circle, transforming his face slightly as his forehead and cheeks rose a quarter of an inch from their current position. His eyebrows danced in unison with his cheeks as savage unclear sounds escaped from his mouth, his body shaking up and down as if he had taken too much adelphine. I took a step back in more disgust than fear. I didn’t know it then, but I later discovered that he had been laughing.

If you were on adelphine, you wouldn’t talk like that, he pointed out accusingly.

What is it, Thomas? I said, trying to sound like my father. Thomas leaned toward my ear and whispered.

I don’t take the adelphine either, he said proudly. We can talk at the next break time.

Thomas abruptly began to leave, but I ran behind him and tapped him on the shoulder like a child asking for permission to speak to his parents. I motioned for him to get out of ear shot of some our other classmates.

I want to talk now, I demanded.

W-what? We c-c-can’t talk now, Thomas stuttered in surprise. We need to go to class. Tomorrow we should-

No...Now. I’m tired of rules, and class, and teachers, and parents, and Medina.

Don’t talk so loud, Akira! Someone will hear you!

Now who’s loud?

Akira, we’ll get in trouble.

So?

Thomas bit his lip nervously and looked around in a panic as if everyone had just heard our entire conversation. Maybe they did.

I don’t know, Thomas said, worried.

Who are you? Are you the person on the loudspeaker? How long have you been off the adelphine?

Um...uhhhh...a really long time?

How long? I demanded again. I was starving for answers.

A year?...I don’t know.

WHAT!? I screamed, jumping back in shock. Thomas waved his hands in the air, trying to signal that I needed to calm down.

Shhhhhh. Quiet. I knew this was a bad idea. You have to be quiet. If you have questions, you have to wait. I’m not the loudspeaker guy, okay? I’m Thomas. That’s it.

Did you find out anything about Medina?

I said you have to wait for more questions.

I want them now.

No, you can’t have them.

Did you find out anything about Medina?

No, he said meekly.

How is that possible? Did you even try?

No.

Okay, I spat in disgust. I was still unaware of how childish we spoke back then.

"Did you try?" he retorted back.

I’m the one asking the questions...did you think about trying?

No...don’t think so, Thomas replied in defiance. What could I do?

I had a strange impulse to do something right then, but I didn’t understand it at the time... I had wanted to slap him.

Why didn’t you try?

I was alone. I didn’t want to try.

You’re not alone now, Thomas. C’mon, I said as I started walking away, motioning for him to follow me.

What? What are you...? Where are you going?

The Chamber of Travel, I answered back as if it was a common hang out spot. It was the one place I had thought of going to since my freedom, but I was too scared to go alone. With Thomas with me, I had more courage than ever now, even if it was a trap and Thomas could be a spy. I didn’t care. I had been waiting long enough, and if we were being watched, we probably wouldn’t be given a second chance together.

Thomas hurried to catch up to me.

Why there? Thomas inquired.

I thought about how I could leave Medina and the only way in and out is the Chamber of Travel. I want to get out of here.

I - I don’t want to go, he half-whined.

If we don’t go, we’ll never get out.

I don’t want to go, Akira, he completely whined this time. I talked to you because I wanted a friend, not because I wanted to leave. I’m too scared to know what’s out there.

I don’t want to live here anymore, Thomas. There’s nothing here for us. Why do you? Everyone is filled with adelphine. I’m not staying.

I spoke as if I had planned to go to the Chamber of Travel that very night. As if I had planned to go alone, but secretly, I was pleading for Thomas to follow. If he remained behind,