Walking Without Notice
Hello, I'm Cassidy.
CASSIDY
To whomever is reading this-
My name is Cassidy. I am writing to you from a Dell computer, equipped with the Windows Vista program. At the moment, this mechanism is very outdated. It is the year 2089, and I am dead. You may not believe me, and I understand that. But this story needs to be out there as proof of what’s happening.
I do not claim that people can see me. I have been dead for eighty-one years and no one has talked to me since the day I died, on April 7th, 2008. I was seventeen, getting ready to attend a party. As I struggled to slip one of my high-heeled shoes on, I fell down my flight of stairs and died. I am sitting in the very same house that I died in, typing on the very same computer where I used to instant-message my friends. I was shallow then. Though I still view myself as seventeen years old, eighty-one years has matured me a great deal.
But the purpose of this memoir is not to entertain you with stories of my once-mediocre life, nor my seemingly meaningless existence now. The purpose of this memoir is to do one thing: inform you. People need to be informed, for the world has gone into a terrible state of disaster.
Three years ago, a new ‘disease’ was discovered by Dr. Nathaniel Gradian. His son, Mason Gradian, was the first ever to be born with the disease. Naturally, it was named The Gradian Effect, or GE. Children of GE have the ability to penetrate the confines of someone else’s brain. In other words, read their mind. There is only one way to tell if someone has GE, but it’s a dead giveaway. From the minute they are born, the GXE [GradianXEffectee] eyes change color rapid fire, ranging from black to yellow and every color in between. This symptom occurs until the GXE is two years old. From then on, their eyes will only change color like that when they are tapping into someone else’s mind. Unfortunately for the GG [Gradian Generation], the government sees this ability as a threat to society and national security. So as of a year ago, the government ordered genocide on all GXEs. Most of them were killed on the spot. The government didn’t have time or money to deal with interment camps.
The few of them that remain went into hiding, of course. But life isn’t easy for them; most of them live underground. The government has made it impossible for GXEs to function in normal society. Any public location you could possibly visit nowadays requires an eye scanner if you wish to step inside. GXEs produce a chemical at the optic nerve which projects itself onto the iris. So even if their eyes aren’t changing color at the moment of the scan, the lasers still detect it.
I guess you’re probably wondering why I care so much about GXEs and the state of our current [in my opinion] ‘crisis’. If you’re not a GXE, you don’t really have to worry. The problem is that these people are living, breathing creatures just like…well, just like you. I’m not living. But my point is that it’s useless to kill off these people. What the government is doing is wrong. GXEs aren’t a threat, they’re treasures. I believe that they were sent here for a higher purpose. And on top of it all, the current residence of the home I am occupying [the house that I died in] are housing a fugitive. Their daughter is a GXE. She is sixteen. And she’s about to sit on me.
To whomever is reading this-
My name is Cassidy. I am writing to you from a Dell computer, equipped with the Windows Vista program. At the moment, this mechanism is very outdated. It is the year 2089, and I am dead. You may not believe me, and I understand that. But this story needs to be out there as proof of what’s happening.
I do not claim that people can see me. I have been dead for eighty-one years and no one has talked to me since the day I died, on April 7th, 2008. I was seventeen, getting ready to attend a party. As I struggled to slip one of my high-heeled shoes on, I fell down my flight of stairs and died. I am sitting in the very same house that I died in, typing on the very same computer where I used to instant-message my friends. I was shallow then. Though I still view myself as seventeen years old, eighty-one years has matured me a great deal.
But the purpose of this memoir is not to entertain you with stories of my once-mediocre life, nor my seemingly meaningless existence now. The purpose of this memoir is to do one thing: inform you. People need to be informed, for the world has gone into a terrible state of disaster.
Three years ago, a new ‘disease’ was discovered by Dr. Nathaniel Gradian. His son, Mason Gradian, was the first ever to be born with the disease. Naturally, it was named The Gradian Effect, or GE. Children of GE have the ability to penetrate the confines of someone else’s brain. In other words, read their mind. There is only one way to tell if someone has GE, but it’s a dead giveaway. From the minute they are born, the GXE [GradianXEffectee] eyes change color rapid fire, ranging from black to yellow and every color in between. This symptom occurs until the GXE is two years old. From then on, their eyes will only change color like that when they are tapping into someone else’s mind. Unfortunately for the GG [Gradian Generation], the government sees this ability as a threat to society and national security. So as of a year ago, the government ordered genocide on all GXEs. Most of them were killed on the spot. The government didn’t have time or money to deal with interment camps.
The few of them that remain went into hiding, of course. But life isn’t easy for them; most of them live underground. The government has made it impossible for GXEs to function in normal society. Any public location you could possibly visit nowadays requires an eye scanner if you wish to step inside. GXEs produce a chemical at the optic nerve which projects itself onto the iris. So even if their eyes aren’t changing color at the moment of the scan, the lasers still detect it.
I guess you’re probably wondering why I care so much about GXEs and the state of our current [in my opinion] ‘crisis’. If you’re not a GXE, you don’t really have to worry. The problem is that these people are living, breathing creatures just like…well, just like you. I’m not living. But my point is that it’s useless to kill off these people. What the government is doing is wrong. GXEs aren’t a threat, they’re treasures. I believe that they were sent here for a higher purpose. And on top of it all, the current residence of the home I am occupying [the house that I died in] are housing a fugitive. Their daughter is a GXE. She is sixteen. And she’s about to sit on me.
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i would like to point out that the points of view will be going back and forth between cassidy and shaylyn [she'll be introduced in the next chapter]. is this good? yayy//nay?