The Girl in The Shadow

June's eyes sit, staring at the holograms in front of her. Her back, pressing into the backrest of her chair as she shifts her eyes from her computer's projections, towards the ceiling above her.

Her attention swiftly moving out of the window where a small farm of tatties lay spread across a small portion of her “Yard”. After a moment her gaze lands itself onto her whiteboard

Written, her whiteboard reads “Find sustainable power source”. June begins to lay back in her chair, sighing with a lost breath. “I’ll be ok for a lil’ while longer but, I need to make that a top priority”

After several minutes of sitting with her arms crossing over, covering her eyes, June slumps her arms back down to her sides and looks back over at her computer’s hologram. Her eyes, finding their way to stare, yet again, at the message from Eddison, idly unanswered,

June sits for a moment, before glancing over her shoulder at a pile of blankets, bundled up beside her bed, indented, but empty. June quickly pulls herself up, out of the chair, and swipes the computer, turning it off. “Bloody hell, really June?” Her voice quivers slightly as she saunters outside.

“It’s been a couple of weeks since I finished the construction for Rovy, but I just haven’t felt like going out at all.” A magnanimous silence flutters all around June. “I mean, Bonnie, you believe me right? I’m not bloody worried bout that shrimp! So what if it’s been that long since I seen em’?” June's stomach turns more once she speaks the forbidden idea to life.

In frustration, June hurls the spade she was using on her garden, directly into the gravely soil nearby, grey dust kicking up around her. “DAMN IT!” She shouts as she slowly walks over to Mrs. Pod and slumps into her, letting the cold metal comfort her as she sits, worried, confused, scared, and upset.

June stays there, against Mrs. Pod for nearly 20 minutes, trying to calm her breathing, collecting and trying to calm her thoughts. Eventually, once her breathing calms and she begins to feel her stomach tightening less and less, she looks up, peeling her head from her flooded arms.

As June's blurred vision clears from being no longer pressed shut up against her forearms, she looks up and sees the figure of a young girl. A shadowed silhouette, staring at her, no distinctive features, only a figure of which sparks a sickening, uncanny familiarity into June's chest.

Within that exact second June sees the shadowy girl, June springs to her feet and sprints towards the tree line where the girl stands. June's mouth begins to form around the letter “P”, but through her sharp exhales of shaken and unsteady breath, no words find their way from her mouth, making her cries to the girl fall mute.

Once the seconds go by taking her to get over to where the girl was standing, through vigorously, exhausted blinks, her eyes blurred between the trees. June’s pounding heartbeat, drumming loud and erratic, makes keeping sight of the figure difficult.

To June, it feels like time completely freezes around her. Reaching a hand out to grab the girl and pull her into her arms, She looks up to see a shadow standing in front of her, and as time seems to resume, June blinks, opening her eyes to nothing but the tree the girl stood beside.

Her head spinning, June tries to take a breath in, realizing, she ran outside of the range of her dome, fully exposed to the non-breathable atmosphere. The air she tries to breathe into her lungs, feeling heavy in her lungs.

June turns towards her dome, realizing she had been breathing this air in while running into the woods. Her face turning a pale, breathless blue. As She begins to run, her feet stumble beneath her, her feet, catching a branch as she runs, pulling her down chest first onto the grey dirt.

Feeling herself slip away, her stomach turns with anger and frustration, twisting with winds of confusion and deep sadness. These emotions fuel the extra seconds, as she claws at the ground, pulling herself into the dome and fully passing out as she takes a desperate breath of breathable air.

Year 2209

New Scotland

“Oi, Junie, C’mere a sec”, A woman sits chopping carrots and celery stalks on a plastic cutting board. “Gotta ask ya sumthin’, think ya will be able to answer it for me”. From down the hallway of the musky home, a young June calls out. “What chya what, huh?”

“I said C’mere!” Her voice more demanding now. Reluctant footsteps begin walking down the hallway, wooden floorboards creaking as June walks into the kitchen. “Awright, what is it? What d’ya want?”

The woman gestures towards a bar stool next to the counter. “Go on, sit a second. Gotta ask ya sumthing.”. June's begrudging attitude bears obvious as she heaves herself onto the stool, taking a sharp breath in and sighing.

“I heard some bad news today Junie. Turns out Mrs. Anderson from down the road had her windows shot out with rocks earlier today, whole towns talking about it. Of course that's mainly because of Mrs. Anderson making sure the whole town knows, but that’s besides that point”.

A bead of sweat begins to form beneath June’s strawberry-orange hair. The woman glances at June to read her face momentarily before pushing the Carrots and Celery into a Boiling pot of water. “You wouldn’t happen to know nothing bout’ that now would ya?”

June, not yet mastered that art of deception tries to mask the guilt behind a wall of sass and deflection. “Huh?? I spose it makes sense. You are gettin’ pretty old these days”. The woman pauses for a moment, with an irritated and confused expression washing over her face.

“You Brat, what and bloody hell sense does that response make? What are ya saying June?”. A smirk creeps onto the Young June's face as she looks up at the ceiling, “I’m saying you're old, that must be why yer bum’s oot teh windae so often these days! I mean I’ve spent the whole day here and around the house here, and you think I’m the one who smashed that loud-mouthed broads windows out! A wee bit silly, no?”

“I am not goin’ Senile you little shit, Watch it or I’ll stuff ya in a trolley and throw ya into That obnoxious woman’s porch step so she stops pestering everyone about it. Besides, everyone knows you and yer sister are behind it! I’ll serve ya up to her so she’ll shut her can for a while.”

“How’d it be me or her? We never left the yard today, remember? I mean, don't get me wrong, she had it coming, but it wasn’t me sadly.” her facade slowly being given away by June's lack of a poker face. “You're so obvious damnit.”

The woman grabs a whole chicken and smashes her fist into the chicken, breaking its spine, causing the whole counter to shake. “Damnit June, why is it so hard not to cause trouble? I mean we took your slingshots the last time when you slung them berries into the Jamison boy's eyes, so how the hell did you get another?”.

A sliver of pride sparks on June's face as her past escapade is mentioned. She quickly tries to cover it up as she returns to her poor poker face of sass and false dumbfoundedness.

“I mean what are ye doing, making the damn things? I mean you shoot things from up in the damn trees like some freaking assassins. They’re too damn efficient for you to just throw 'em together for the two of ya!”

June's face slips up again as she lets the pride bleed through again. This time, the woman expected the change in demeanor and as she predicted, she caught June. “Ah Ha! I knew it, yer bloody proud of yerself aren’t ya?”

The woman walks over and starts looming over June, watching her facade fall apart as she’s caught red-handed with pride in her accomplishments. June looking away nervously, she decides the jig is up. “Awright awright, fine damnit, Ya caught me you old bawbag!”

The woman shoots an irritated expression as she straightens out her posture. “Damnit, stop callin’ me that!” As the woman walks around the counter, she semi-playfully smacks June upside the back of her head. June grabs the back of her head where she was smacked and yells out “Ow, damnit, why’d ya hit me”.

The woman slumps down into the chair beside June, and puts her hand on her head, patting her head gently. “Oh, Haud yer wheesht brat, I didn’t hit ya that hard” The woman moves her hand to June's shoulder, turning her in the direction to look her in the eyes.

“She really did deserve it, ain’t she?”, June reluctantly smiles, trying to stay tough, but fails as she is overcome with the urge to gloat. “Yea, she really did, Hahaha! We got her loud ass good!”

After a momentary celebration of victory, the woman gets back up and wanders back to the stove, saying from over her shoulder “Alright, I’ll finish food up here, why don’t you go lay down and relax for a bit. Make it look like you’ve been here all day so I have an easier time convincing your father that you two weren’t the ones behind all this.”.

June gets up and starts heading out of the hall to her room as she remarks “That steamin’ bastard ain’t my father. Not by blood and not at all.”. The woman continues breaking about the raw chicken while looking up towards June leaving, “He’s just as much your father as I am your mother ya know.”.

Before fully leaving the hall, June mutters “Whatever then. I said what I said, I still stand by it.”, eventually walking to her bedroom and closing the door behind her. As she looks around the cluttered room, she feels her bed call to her and flops onto it.

Her black cat, May, hops up onto the bed following June into her rest. “Hey May, how ya doing girl?”. As June pats May’s head, she closes her eyes. Seconds later may licks June's cheek.

Through her blurry, tired eyes, she sees May licking her cheek. As she closes her eyes fully, she opens them up a moment later, seeing four black and beady eyes, looking back at her. As She struggles to initially open her eyes, through exhausted eyes, June sees a familiar little furry crystal collecter. Her mouth opens, able to barely speak through extremely arid lips, “P-Peewee?”.