Escape With My Heart (1/6)
Title: Escape with My Heart
Rating: Teen/Mature
Pairing: Maddy Shannon/Mark Reynolds
Spoilers: Bits and pieces throughout all of season one.
Warnings: sensitive issues, implied character death, bloody violence, large explosions, angst, and perhaps a bit of foul language. Things will be out of sequence, some people will definitely be out of character-at least for a while-events will either be different or missing, etc… This is my Epic AU. I will be taking quite a few liberties with the show and the changes are noticeable.
Note: Chapter title from So Cold (acoustic) by Breaking Benjamin.
Summary: Maddy Shannon only wanted her family to stay together. She went through with this because she thought it was their only chance to leave behind the desolate wasteland and enter a world that actually had a future. She never expected to be held captive by crazy people who live in the jungle or her guard to be quite so charming…
I | II |
Escape with My Heart
I. Show Me How It Ends
Nearby students laughed as the young woman was pushed into a wall, her shoulder impacting hard with the glossy bricks before she crumpled to the ground with a grimace. She sat on the ground, dazed for a moment as people passed her by; some glanced at her with amusement, some completely indifferent and only a rare few looked on with pity, but even they did nothing to help her.
Perhaps she should be used to this kind of treatment, after enduring it ever since she was younger. Each time still left her stunned at just how cruel people could be, and this was no different. She blinked in surprise as her bag was ripped from her slack hands, her tormentor opening to unceremoniously dump the contents out onto the floor of the hallway to be crushed by random onlookers.
"Freak," one spat hatefully, the slur followed rapidly by many others that she heard daily.
If she had the courage to actually speak out against them, she would inform them that they needed to read a dictionary and come up with better insults, despite the fact that these insults were still nonetheless effective against her. She would never let them know that though; she glared at them through the veil her dark hair created, trying not to flinch when someone mimicked a kick to scare her.
Bullies were something she ought to have been accustomed to, yes… but it still hurt every time this happened. It had begun when she was only a child; mainly just cruel names and taunts, though ever since the first day of high school, it all seemed to escalate more and more by the day. She could still recall the first day her tormentors had become more physical, leaving bruises on her skin that lasted for days, but sometimes words could hurt more than violence alone.
The hallway echoed with the shrill sound of the warning bell, and her bag was thrown to the floor with the rest of her things. Some people kicked it for good measure as they disbursed. Once the hall was finally clear, she moved quickly to begin gathering her belongings, her shoulder and chest both aching from the abuse.
The second bell rang, signaling the start of classes, and she knew she would be late once again, no matter how much she hurried. She decided to take her time to collect her things, because either way, she was going to be reprimanded for tardiness no matter what her excuse was. She sighed in resignation as she sorted through the broken disks containing her homework files, though thankfully her plexpad remained undamaged in the wreckage.
Homework she had back up files for, but a new datapad would have been expensive to replace and far more difficult to explain to her parents. They were unaware of just how bad school was for her, and the last thing they needed was to worry for her when there was her little sister to consider. Zoe was the one they needed to concentrate on. If anyone discovered the toddler, they would take her away because of the population laws.
Realistically, she knew she could confide in her brother and he would have helped her. He knew quite a bit of what went on during school hours. Josh tried as much as he could to defend her, and he protected her as much as he was able, but it was difficult to stop the bullying since their schedules were so different. She was a grade ahead of him after all, despite being younger. He had a lot to deal with on his own anyway, and the last thing she wanted was to be more of a burden to him.
Maddy Shannon would rather her family remain ignorant and endure it herself.
…
The first time Maddy realized there was something different about her was during the first grade. She had been so excited to begin a real school, to join her brother Josh and all of his friends even if he was older and would be in a separate class. She had enjoyed preschool very much, because learning was fascinating, and she was expecting to enjoy this just as much. She had always been curious by nature, and naturally school just seemed to be the perfect place for her to learn everything she wanted to know.
It had been a perfect day for the most part. Her teachers were all really nice, although they talked really slowly for some reason and were reciting things she had already learned. She figured they would move onto newer things once everyone was settled in. She had even met a girl who had pigtails just like her own, but Maddy was a bit shy and had never really been around many children her own age, so she kept her distance for now.
Maddy was happy to just observe everyone else; to get an idea of how she was supposed to behave in order to make friends. She wondered if children her age were always this loud and anxious or if it was just because it was the first day of school.
The teacher was a pretty lady with brown hair. She introduced herself as Mrs. Carlson, and had then write their names down on small plexipaper cards to be placed on the tables to signify that these were their own seats. She had felt very grown up, knowing that this chair was meant for her alone.
Maddy took her time, carefully scribing her name with neat writing like her mother taught her in cursive; it had pretty curls and curved, and her tongue poked out of the corner of her mouth as she tried to get it right. She took longer than the others at her table, and when she finished she realized why; their handwriting was different. It was scratchy and shaky and not at all meticulous like hers.
The girl with pigtails raised her hand when they were done, having seen the cursive writing, and she spoke loudly when the teacher called on her. "Mrs. Carlson, she's doing it wrong!" she huffed angrily, throwing a smug look at Maddy when the teacher came to look.
Maddy bit her lip uncertainly, wondering what she did wrong.
"Oh my," Mrs. Carlson said in surprise, and a large smile broke out on her face. "Well done, Maddy! You have very pretty handwriting," she praised, and Maddy felt the worry fade away as she beamed a smile back. "I must say, you are the first five year old I know who already knows cursive. Keep up the good work."
As Mrs. Carlson moved to the next table to help a boy who had been struggling, the girl with pigtails crossed her arms with a frown, glaring at Maddy for a moment before she turned away. Maddy was still unsure what she had done wrong, but she had a feeling that the girl, Cecilia from her name card, didn't like her very much.
The last hour of class was story time. Mrs. Carlson had chosen a book to read, and after beginning it herself, she began allowing the students to read a page at a time. It was a pretty simple book-Maddy had read it herself once or twice with her brother-but some of the children seemed to have trouble with it. She frowned as they stumbled over words, whispered the sentences, or even just stared at the pages uncertainly. A few of the others laughed as they struggled, but Maddy couldn't understand why anyone was laughing or why reading the book aloud was so difficult.
During her own turn, Maddy had read her page with enthusiasm. She refrained from making the silly faces and voices her brother did when he portrayed the pirates, but her voice got faster and faster as she read the exciting parts. She finished quicker than the others, and by the end, the teacher was smiling encouragingly while she told her to return to her seat.
"Show off," a boy who had been laughing sneered at her when she sat.
Maddy winced in confusion, sinking lower in her chair as the others at the table laughed in agreement. She held her hands in her lap, biting down on her bottom lip as she tried to figure out what she had done wrong, ignoring the glares being thrown her way by the others.
That night her parents had explained to her why the other children were mean to her. She had been upset, because she didn't mean to be smart, or to come off superior, she really didn't.
That was the first time she ever crawled into her brother's bed to cry.
…
It escalated year by year, the subtle teasing and cruel remarks eventually becoming more and more creative. Maddy grew increasingly shy and withdrawn during school hours, her fascination with the whole school environment slowly dwindling until she dreaded even stepping foot inside the crowded halls. She was still as enthusiastic as ever about learning, dedicating most of her free time to the library when other children played, although school itself had no appeal.
Maddy was well known to every single one of her classmates. She had no friends to speak of, and yet everyone knew all about the know it all who the teachers all adored and hated her for it. She was far from the animated girl she had once been, though she still participated during class; raising her hand and answering questions without needing to be prompted.
At home, Maddy was a bit quieter, but much more open. Her brother still read books with her almost every night, and he still made strange voices and acted out the scenes she read to him. Her father sometimes joined in to play the dashing hero on nights he stayed home with them, and her mother helped make costumes and props out of whatever was lying around the house, and continued to help her with her writing and other studies that interested her.
Friends were overrated compared to her family.
…
Maddy was only eleven when her sister was born. Her mother had to go spend some time with relatives in the country for the duration of the pregnancy, under the guise of taking a well-deserved vacation from her work at the hospital. If anyone knew her mother was pregnant, population control would have demanded the child to be terminated like some pest because of the laws that prevented families from having more than two children.
Grandpa and Grandma watched over her and Josh when her father eventually had to go and he arrived at the hidden safe house only weeks before the child was born. Her uncle had delivered the baby himself, another doctor in the family who was thankfully specialized for it. It was a girl; her parents named her Zoe Elisa Shannon. She was only five pounds and four ounces when she was born.
It was six whole months before Maddy or Josh got to meet their new sister. She had to be smuggled into the city, so she would not be discovered. Zoe was the most precious little thing Maddy had ever scene; she fell in love with her instantly. Her hair was just a small tuft of black, her face rounded and her arms and legs wrinkled. Two dark brown eyes glittered up with a sleepy curiosity.
"She looks… squishy," Josh muttered with a frown.
Maddy elbowed him in return. "She's perfect."
No one could ever know about Zoe. She would be taken away if anyone knew about her, and none of them ever wanted that to happen. Zoe had to be raised inside of their apartment, never knowing more than the faces of her family. She would have to sleep in the same bed as their parents, had to be kept completely isolated… Maddy and Josh had to swear to secrecy.
Maddy knew what happened to the children who were confiscated by the government. She was very astute for an eleven year old, and she probably knew more about the population laws than even her parents did. Unwanted children were not placed in homes or orphanages, not even with foster families… they were placed in concentration camps with thugs and thieves.
Rebreathers were considered a luxury item not to be afforded to the camps despite the necessity of them. There was no protection from the poisonous, miasmic smog that clouded the skies and polluted the air. Most of the younger children died from too much exposure, their lungs giving out before they were old enough to get away from those places.
Likewise there was no protection from the radiation from the sun, or even just the cold of the night. It was a death sentence, and it was senseless murder. In the minds of the politicians who sat in their high and mighty pedestals within the safety of a hyperbaric dome, where they could actually breathe filtered oxygen, they were doing what was right to control the population.
Unfortunately anyone who stood against them was either imprisoned as traitors or assassinated-either way, it meant less people to use up resources. Everyone knew about it; no one could do anything to stop it. She swore to herself that her sister would have a better fate than that, even if it killed her.
Maddy had only one wish… for a way to keep her family safe.
…
Maddy shared a class with her brother during middle school. She had somehow managed to test out of her own grade level, and was placed in several higher courses because she was completely unchallenged by the curriculum her peers were doing. She was a lot more comfortable with Josh by her side, and she slowly began opening up to some of his friends, but for the most part, she kept to herself.
Taunts still happened regularly. She was still teased and ridiculed for being smart, because even though Maddy had her brother and his friends looking out for her, there was only so much they could do. Her teachers were the worst though. No longer was she praised for her ability to absorb and apply information; she tried her hardest to please them, but it seemed as if each attempt only made then angrier with her for some reason.
Mr. Hale, her science teacher, was the only one who tolerated her. He graded her fairly, though he did mark her down for disturbances in his classroom. She knew it was unfair, because she was never the one who actually caused the disturbances. She just always somehow managed to end up with a pile of notes on her desk with various insults written on them, or someone would drop something cold and slimy down her shirt to make her jump and shriek because of it.
It was never her fault; she got punished for it anyway.
Josh was her rock. He never said anything when she approached his bed, unable to fall asleep on her own. He would just move over, pushing himself against the wall to give her some room to join him, and he would hold her all throughout the night. She felt safe with him.
Maddy didn't know what she would ever do without him.
…
Maddy rubbed absently at her chest as she tried to pay attention to her history teacher. Her chest ached a bit, though she easily dismissed it as lingering pains from being pushed into a locker this morning. She sighed heavily, sitting low in her chair as the instructor rambled on monotonously about the famine of 2125, frowning when someone threw a note on her desk.
As much as she wanted to just ignore it, she knew she would be in trouble should the teacher spot it. Being discreet and quiet, Maddy took it in her hand and peeked at it. It was another crude drawing, like the one she had found written on her own locker earlier this morning; this one was a stick figure with a noose around its neck.
Do yourself a favor, the choppy, awkward script said.
Maddy crumbled the note in her fist without a second thought. Her eyes burned as she stared straight ahead, not acknowledging the snickering around her from her classmates. Her heart pounded as she tried to control her breathing; she forgot all about the pain in her chest, sinking even lower into her seat as she bowed her head.
…
During the summer between eighth grade and her freshmen year of high school, Josh had developed an interest in music. He bought a guitar with practically his entire savings account and taught himself how to play. He was terrible at first, and Maddy tried to sit patiently through hours upon hours of screeching and odd chords, though he certainly began to improve as the summer progressed.
Josh had managed to gain some new friends during those few months as well who shared his new interest. They were all teaching themselves how to play their chosen instruments, and Josh began leaving the house daily to practice with them elsewhere.
It was a bit lonely without his constant presence.
Josh had just always been there; he was always there when she was upset or even just bored. He made everything better. She knew it was selfish of her, and unfair to him to want him to be with her all of the time, but this feeling of being left behind was not something she could make disappear. He wasn't trying to hurt her intentionally, so she tried not to let him know just how much it upset her to watch him leave every day.
Maddy instead tried to dedicate her days to helping her sister. Zoe had no friends of her own to spend the summer with either, considering she had never been allowed out of the house and no one knew about her save for a select few. So Maddy brought out all of the books she and Josh used to read together, and regaled the toddler with enthralling tales of pirates scouring the open seas or princesses locked away in towers to be saved by a handsome prince.
Zoe seemed to like the books as much as she did, and she was quite intelligent. It would be a long time before she could begin teaching the girl how to read properly, though she did teach Zoe the alphabet and some basic phonics for the time being. It felt nice to teach her sister, to be someone who she depended on just as much as Maddy depended on her.
It almost felt like she was needed.
…
Everything only just continued to get progressively worse during her junior year.
Josh had begun dating his longtime friend, Kara; she was one of the lead singers in his band, and she was a nice girl who seemed very carefree and confident. She had never participated in the bullying before, so Maddy was a bit at a loss of why she disliked her so much.
It could have been because she was distracting Josh. His every thought seemed to revolve around Kara now, and the other girl was steadily stealing away all of the time Maddy and her brother usually spent together, that wasn't already consumed by his music. He was distant, and every word out of his mouth was either about his new girlfriend or his band.
Maddy barely even saw him at school anymore as it was. She had tested out of another grade level, and no longer had what little protection her brother could spare to rely on. She was regularly shoved into lockers or walls, or tripped while she was walking. Her property was defaced daily, crude comments and notes discovered in her locker or her back, and people seemed to take a perverse pleasure in stealing her homework and ruining it.
The young woman had only one consolation in this entire desolate place, and his name was Logan Reed. He knew Josh through their band, and he was nice to her. He smiled at her when he saw her in the hallways often, and sometimes if he was nearby when it was happening, he would tell people to leave her alone or help her gather her belongings strewn down a hallway.
Logan was older than her, and he was very handsome. Maddy was only fifteen years old, and he was her first crush.
…
It was just a cough.
Maddy rubbed at her chest as she tried to study. Her mother was working late in the hospital, her father was passed out on the couch in dead exhaustion from his own day at work, Josh was either with Kara or his band somewhere, and Zoe was busy eating the meager meal that Maddy had prepared for her.
Another cough surged through her, and she felt a strange pain surge through her chest. Maddy figured she had just made herself sick with all of the crying she had been doing for the past few weeks. She was feeling more and more helpless every day, and with everyone else so distracted, she had been hiding in her own bed every night.
Abandoning her studies for a moment, she retrieved a bottle of pain medication from her mother's medical kit stored in the bathroom. She took a few pills with a sip of water, sighing as she realized she had managed to work her way through almost half of the bottle already. She had been taking these pills almost every night, after all.
Looking into the mirror, she noticed the bruises with a frown. She winched as she touched the tender skin, the deep tissue bruises obviously attributed to her bullying. She was being pushed roughly into walls and other solid objects hourly after all, and her shoulders and back were just as bruised. She hardly had a chance to heal before more bruises were added.
Maddy was sure they would go away eventually.
…
Maddy first saw the advertisement when she was looking through a science magazine on her plexpad. It took up three whole pages of the magazine, with bright flashing colors and bold lettering that caught her attention as it was meant to. She had seen the advertisements for Terra Nova before.
Each year, Hope Plaza offered a lottery that would sponsor the winner and their immediate family to go through the time fracture, as opposed to being recruited by the government. Terra Nova was the last hope that humanity had at survival; it was the last hope that the world had.
The time-space fracture was discovered here in Chicago, by some scientists who had been conducting subatomic experiments less than ten years ago. It had redefined science itself, and tuned reality into one real life science fiction novel about time travel and alternate realities. The portal led eighty-five million years into the past; to an alternate time stream in an amazingly pure world, free of the pollutions that damned this one.
Going to Terra Nova was the ultimate dream for anyone. There was not a person on this earth who did not crave to go there, and Maddy was no exception. So few people were ever actually chosen to go there-the population of Terra Nova had yet to even reach one thousand, and probably wouldn't be there until at least two more pilgrimages got sent through the portal.
Most everyone who went there had to be recruited. They were searching for scientists, doctors, farmers, military officers… people with practical skills that could help provide the building blocks to recreating civilization. The random lottery was the only chance the masses had at going there.
Maddy knew her parents applied to win the lottery every single time a new pilgrimage was announced. There had been nine to go through the time fracture so far, and the Tenth Pilgrimage was set to go through within the year. Lottery winners would be announced six months before that, so people had time to get their psychiatric evaluations and medical tests done.
This advertisement was different though, because it wasn't the lottery.
It was a contest.
SOLVE THIS EQUATION FOR THE TRIP OF A LIFETIME!
The Weaver Corporation is celebrating their success of winning the security contract for Hope Plaza by sponsoring a family for the ultimate, all-expense paid trip to Terra Nova. The winner and family will enjoy special accommodations in the colony as well as many other prizes. To apply, simply fill out the form below and submit your finished equation when you are done. Good luck to all applicants.
No purchase necessary. Legal residents of the 67 United States of the age majority in their jurisdiction of residence at the time of entry only. Ends 5/1/2149. To play and for Official Rules, including odds, and prize descriptions visit either the Hope Plaza or the Weaver Corporation official websites. Void where prohibited.
Maddy was intrigued by it.
Each issue of the magazine had little equations in them; some for contests with small prizes that most people couldn't afford and some were just little mind exercises for fun. Some of them were even designed to be unsolvable. She usually played around with these equations anyway, as a way to keep her mind occupied. It was calming on days she just felt the world was going to crumble around her.
A lot of the time, she was either correct or very close in her deductions, even with some of the more difficult puzzles. She was good with numbers, and theorems, and puzzles because other than that, she had nothing except for a lot of old books and a penchant for talking to much in ways that annoyed everyone around her.
This equation would definitely take her some time to figure out. She had never seen one as complex as this before, though she supposed it couldn't hurt to enter. She doubted she even stood a chance against the millions who too subscribed to this magazine. But she was of majority age, just eligible to enter such a contest, and she really did enjoy trying to solve these puzzles.
It was a nice dream, no matter how unlikely it was that her solutions would be the most accurate.
…
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