The Shattered Genesis (Eternity) by T. Rudacille

that.”
                  “Typical rich kid, I see.”
                  “I didn't say I was proud of it. I just answered your question truthfully.”
                  “Is your relationship with your parents a good one?”              
                  An iciness must have come over my features because he immediately backed off of the subject.
                  “You don't have to tell me if you don't want to.”
                  I nodded before answering.
                  “It's better that way. Let me just say this: A part of me wants to leave them behind.”
                  He rea ched out suddenly and grasped my hand, startling me with the gesture.
                  “You have no choice but to leave them behind, sweetheart.”
              Some would have considered that a bombshell. But somehow, I already knew. My parents, I'm sure, knew of the impending crisis because of their jobs. My mother was a senator who was, if we are being honest, partially responsible for the predicament that the human race found themselves in. My father ran a news organization that was no doubt hushing it all up. Guessing was not neede d; I could denote easily that they had no place on the ship that would carry civilians away from the doomed earth.
                  “You don't seem surprised.” James gently prodded me to speak, to tell him in detail about the blustering war of sadness and fury inside of m e. Instead, I simply posed a question to him:
                  “Is it because they're responsible?”
                  “Yes. We all voted. Every last one of us who had the vision first voted on whether or not to allow your parents to come. But since they are involved in covering this up an d since they were of the many that were going to leave us all behind, we decided against it. Originally, they had all agreed that even you couldn't come. But I persuaded them.”
                  “Why?”
                  My blue eyes raised to meet his light brown ones. We gazed at each oth er for one long, curious moment and then he answered:
                  “I don't know.”
                  How anticlimactic. How insulting, too, that he had no idea why he had persuaded the others to save me. I would answer for him, just so the question would be closed for good and just be cause I was urged to say something to fill the space of silence. Words were brimming at my lips, urging me to say them before it was too late to regret. If I didn't speak, I would surely meet my end much earlier than expectation dictated...
                  “I guess you'r e a good enough person that you didn't like the idea of me being eaten by those things that are just outside the door.”
                  The words fell from my mouth before I could fully appreciate the magnitude of what I had said or the fact that I had known those creatu res had arrived at all. James looked away from me and then looked back, his own shock evident on his face.
                  “Alright. We have to go.” He picked up my bag and grasped my hand. “I'm going to get us out of this.”
                  “One more thing...” I told him before creeping out into the living room. I grabbed one of the two picture frames I had placed on the mantle over my fireplace; it was of me, my sisters and my brother from the Christmas before, standing on either side of Maura, my “nanny.” Anyone who didn't know us or our family tree would think that she was just a proud mother surrounded by her loving children. But as it turns out, that just was not the case.
                  The other picture was from a campaign event of my mother's. Someone with no knowledge of my shaky relat ionship with her had given the photo to me as a gift. I had