January 28th

Teresa was 10 minutes late. On her way, her thoughts kept going back and forth, and truthfully she wanted to just turn around and go home. It wasn’t all too clear to her how she had even managed to get that far. Lying around awake all night, not being able to make sense of anything that happened at the bar or after, might have had to do with it, though.

The small thought in the back of her head, the thought whispering “You’ll regret it if you don’t go,” that old stubbornness of hers, made her press on, albeit reluctantly. Should the Future not be right there waiting for her at the meeting point, she’d just call it a day and go home.

Of course, unfortunately, the Future was right there.

She sat in front of the dry plaza fountain — dry as it was switched off during winter. She attentively gazed into the distance, making occasional swings with her head, until she saw Teresa, at which point she rose up and walked towards her.

Teresa tried saying “Hello,” but since she hadn’t talked at all that day, the word got stuck in her throat. The Future acted like nothing happened, and didn’t greet either. Instead, she took Teresa’s hand and placed a note into her palm.

Thank you so much for coming!

Sis laid awake in her bed the entire night, anxious you might flake on her. Really!

You don’t have to do much, she’s pretty autonomous. Although, make sure to keep her away from large quantities of honey. Anyway, just walk with her, and if you have any questions, ask away! I’m counting on you.

— W

“Is she always so… uh…”

Teresa didn’t know how to describe it, and the Future ignored her anyway. There wasn’t much time to dwell on it, though, since right after Teresa folded the note and put it into her pocket, her companion started walking ahead. And as she realized Teresa wasn’t following, she turned around and waited until she caught up.

And thus, they became travelling companions.

Of course, our little Teresa had no idea whatsoever what kind of impact her decisions in these past 24 hours would have on her remaining time. Cynically speaking, you might say that this whole ordeal drastically shortened her life-span, in a way. Well, who knows what would have happened otherwise, I don’t mean to speculate. I try to not think in these terms anyway, because I am more of a realist; and realistically speaking, her choices at least gave some meaning to the rest of her pathetic life.

For a while, they walked through street after street, and although Teresa knew the city pretty well, she soon lost herself in her surroundings and thoughts, getting distracted by every rainbow-coloured puddle at the side of the road as she felt the pungent city air fill her lungs. It was as it always had been; she was truly powerless.

Suddenly, she was hit by the realization that they had almost reached Atlas University. She pulled her graphite blue long beanie further down her face. She loved it even though all her black, curly hair pressing out from underneath it made it hard to see. In a way, she felt like it would also make her harder to recognize, so it calmed her down.

On the other hand, what if the Future was actually leading her to her university? There was no question; if that happened, Teresa would have to make a run for it. No way she was risking being seen by some of her acquaintances there. As she thought about it, she even tried to hide behind the Future; a futile attempt, considering that girl was a few centimetres smaller than her.

At that moment, the Future stopped walking, causing Teresa to bump right into her by accident. The sharp sound of small bells rang through the air. Next, she saw a woman walking her large Dobermann turn into the street. The jingles came from that dog’s collar.

“What’s the hold-up?” Teresa asked, looking at her companion, only then seeing her dead-pale face. The Future grabbed around Teresa’s wrist with her thin fingers. It was a very weak grip, but it turned the knuckles of her hand completely white.

“Are you afraid of dogs?”

A while passed with the Future just standing there and Teresa trying to comfort her by placing a hand on her shoulder.

Eventually, they continued, and Teresa made a sigh of relief when they walked around the campus. Then they turned into the large premise of one of the city’s high schools.

It was completely filled with people; most of them students. But it appeared that also their families were here, as amongst the crowd were people of all ages. In addition, there were food stands and information boards. Apparently, this was the birth-anniversary of the scientist the school was named after.

The Future started walking around the festivities with seemingly no destination. At this point, Teresa’s legs had started hurting, so after they had made the third round, she found herself a bench a bit away from the crowd, in front of a school building in a position overlooking the yard. A teenage boy was sitting on it, and when Teresa approached, he glanced over her body for a split second, then he moved to the side of the bench so she could sit on it, too. Afterwards, he stared back into the crowd.

His brown hair reached over his shoulder. His gaze was empty, and his eyes were quite close to each other. He sat there hunched and void of any body tension, just lazing around with his hands in his pockets, looking bored.

After sitting down, she started peeking into the crowd to find the Future scouting around aimlessly. What was she trying to accomplish here? It wasn’t until about five minutes later that Teresa, in utter disbelief, watched the Future steal a small journal from the bag of a girl who was busy cheering for the high school band.

“What a boring festival, right?”

Teresa slowly turned towards the boy next to her after his words had broken her focus.

“Is that why you are sitting here? Because you are bored?” she asked.

“It’s not like I have anything else to do. Or ever had…”

What kind of jab was that? “My condolences,” Teresa murmured absent-mindedly.

“Yeah, thanks. Although that won’t do me much…”

“Damn, I lost her,” she whispered more to herself than to the boy, but he picked up on it either way.

“Sorry. I must have interrupted you when you were busy.”

Teresa shook her head and said dismissively: “Oh. I’m just looking for someone. No need to be sorry. Now she’s disappeared in the crowd either way.”

“Are you a private detective or something?” he asked, but as he saw Teresa’s head slowly turn towards him, he flinched back a bit.

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“Sorry, why were we talking again?”

“Ah, sorry, I get it. I’ll just shut up. … Like everyone wants me to…” he muttered.

This boy was starting to irritate Teresa. She decided to ignore him and turned her head back to scout the area. The Future wouldn’t just leave her here, would she? Of course not. Right? Teresa let out a voiceless sigh. For some reason, the boy next to her did the same.

A few moments passed, then he said: “I take it you didn’t find that person?”

“Indeed, I did not.”

“Well, being alone is better anyway. More comfortable. Less stressful.”

“If you truly meant that, you wouldn’t be talking to me,” Teresa stated off-handedly. “Why are you, anyway? Ah, boredom you said, right?”

“You want to hear the truth?”

“Sure, fire away,” Teresa said, but she didn’t really seem to care for the answer, as she was still looking for the Future.

“You look terrible. I thought I could cheer you up.”

That sentence felt like an explosion. Teresa was stunned for a second, as she tried to recontextualise the conversation.

The boy was right, of course. She had dark rings under her red eyes, her unwashed clothes had stains on them, she had dry, wrinkly, freckled skin and an apathetic gaze, with a tense body posture and frayed lips.

A bunch of daytime firework rockets hissed into the air in the middle of the yard, leaving colourful clouds of smoke when they exploded.

“I appreciate the sentiment, but there is no cheering me up. Don’t take it personally, but you are kind of doing the opposite right now.”

The boy looked as if he had just been slapped in the face. He pulled his hand from his pocket to pull out a piece of chewing gum, unwrapped it and put it into his mouth. “Sorry, I will take a walk,” he mumbled and entered the school building behind them.

Completely undismayed, Teresa looked back into the crowd, having lost track of the Future. She tried unsuccessfully to find her amongst all the people, but eventually just slid down the backrest of the bench. “Damn, I’ll never find her again,” she murmured.

“How greatly perturbing,” echoed a cold, clear voice right beside Teresa. She turned her head and saw a small girl — maybe eleven years old — who had stealthily sat down next to her, right where the boy had been sitting up until a minute ago. And it was not just any child — more so, it looked like this one came right out of the morgue. She had ash pale, blue tinted parched skin; so thin that countless green capillaries shimmered through it.

“Who are you?” asked Teresa.

“I came because of the Future,” she said. Her black rings below her eyes captured Teresa’s gaze. “I need to monitor her performance.”

“Oh yeah, I’m here for that, too,” Teresa said nonchalantly.

The girl slowly clenched a first. “You are here for no such thing,” she whispered threateningly. “You are here merely to still your own warped sense of curiosity. Do not conflate that with my cause.”

Teresa pulled up an eyebrow, but didn’t react to her tone.. At this point, Teresa was happy just accepting all of this weirdness as-is. “Well, anyway, we’ve lost her. I have no idea where she is.”

“She accessed the structure behind us and is currently harvesting lachrymal fluid from the adolescent you made cry.”

“I made what?”

Teresa wanted to get up and watch the event with her own eyes, but even before she could move a muscle, the small girl again raised her voice.

“Stay. They do not require the presence of a being such as yourself. Your purpose is to remain here to satisfy my inquiries.”

Then, Teresa saw the other teenager enter the building; the one the Future had stolen the journal from. “What on earth is going on in there?”

“That male and that female constitute an emotional relation commonly referred to as a friendship. She has many such contracts with similar individuals, and he has not. After a reassembly of their educational proximity set, he dares not approach her, as she is in constant surrounding of other such friends. In search of the item the Future procured from her, she enters that building, and finds the person you just hurt, and consoles him.” She took a small moment and looked as if she was trying to remember something. Then she added: “After that, he tells her how… lost he felt since their reassembly and they renegotiate the terms of their connection.”

While Teresa secretly moped about not seeing any of that with her own eyes, the girl started watching a few kids in the yard who, instead of handing out information flyers about the school’s naming scientist, started throwing them at each other like snowballs.

“I do wonder,” she eventually said. “About these kinds of creatures.”

Pulling her eyebrows together, Teresa said: “Do you mean… children?”

“… More precisely… Their associated ancestors who instill them with knowledge of this reality’s predominant features and common social paradigms.”

“Ah. Yeah, we call them parents.”

Teresa thought of her dad, whom she hadn’t heard of in years, and her mother, who she had never known. “Do you not have parents?” she asked into the blue, because she didn’t know what else to speak about to that girl.

“I do have a mother,” the girl said.

“Well, that’s nice.”

“She’s a monster.”

“Oh my god, I’m sorry to hear. Must be hard to not be able to trust your mother at such a young age.”

The girl slowly turned her head back to Teresa. Her expression had a hint of disgust mixed into it, as if she was looking at an insect turned inside-out.

“She is attempting to put an end to me.” Her voice seemed calmer now, as if she had long since accepted that fact. “Her aim is to set boundaries to my powers. She wants to confine me. And I defy her.”

“Well, to be fair, setting boundaries for your child is kind of a normal thing to do, isn’t it. It’s to protect them.”

“My well-being is of no concern to her whatsoever. I am, for lack of better words, a captive in her avian cage. Her making to exhibit. Pray it will not stay that way.”

“Wait. You just said she wants to confine you, but now you say she already did? Which is it?”

“Causality is of no import here. I do have a question for you though, Teresa.”

Teresa recoiled a bit, hearing her name so unexpectedly, and with such disdain.

“Presuppose you were in possession of your own offspring. You, though, knew, that come opportunity, said offspring would be turned as a weapon against you. What would be your resulting course of action?”

Teresa frowned. So was that why her mother wanted to confine her? This girl was a bit transparent. Teresa decided that she needed to tread lightly with her response. “This is a bit of a specific question, isn’t it? I think, if you want my advice, you should give me more context.”

“Advice?” she snapped in irritation. “No, my inquiry serves to judge your character.”

Teresa sighed. “I don’t know what I’d do in such a situation. Sounds really complicated, I’d think about it if it ever happened.”

The girl looked into the crowd. “I would care for the child, attempt to love it, be by its side and teach it to live unconstrained. And if, come day, it truly were to be used as a weapon against me, it would do so on its own free will, based on its own decisions.”

“Well, that sounds reasonable enough,” mumbled Teresa who expected worse from that horrifying girl. “Like what a good mother would do.”

“My own mother, however…” the girl continued, but stopped without ending the sentence.

“I mean, fine, I get it, but what does any of that have to do with me?”

“I came to understand you shall be the Future’s acquaintance. It is in my interest to grasp how this occurred, and the nature of your ambitions.” She pulled her legs in front of her chest and looked at Teresa with a tilted head, resting it on her knees. “In other words: What is the purpose of that entity identified as Teresa R. M. S. Hargrove?”

Shivers came down over Teresa’s spine as that girl’s hostility was now plain as day.

“Purpose? I don’t even have a purpose. I just — As you said, it’s just curiosity. To be honest, acquaintance? There is no way I’m gonna spend all that much ti—”

The girl rose up and positioned herself to stand right in front of Teresa. Then, she stretched out her hand, making Teresa recoil a bit just by instinct, but the girl continued approaching her undisturbed. Finally, her cold fingers touched Teresa’s forehead, and continued across her skin to finally subdue beneath her beanie, which she then slid off her head. She started stroking her curly hair with a surprisingly soft but unsettling graze.

“You are such a pitiable creature,” the child murmured. “Why would she… Oh, back then, you—”

A short pause, then she mumbled something inaudible. Teresa kept as still as possible. “And you resemble her. I understand. You are a hazard.”

She pulled away her hand and walked a few steps back. “I shall excise you,” she whispered, and took a look around. She went through the door in the building behind them. When the door fell shut, she disappeared in a flash of light.