Humans; we destroy everything we touch. All we do is fight and kill each other. We've already killed the Earth, but no one wants to admit it. My dad would always tell me it's kill or be killed but that's bullshit. No one has to kill anything. We decide to do it, why? For money of course. We're ignorant, mostly about the things going on around us. For almost a hundred years there's been a war outside this dome. We pretend everything's fine when in reality we've turned Earth into a hell hole. You may be wondering why we haven't left this planet. Well, we did, but it didn't go so well. Wherever we went, we would either end up dying, go insane or be attacked by aliens. There's no place like home, am I right? The only proper weapons we have to fight off aliens are here on Earth. But who knows how long that'll last.
I wasn't always this way—pessimistic about everything. I could've continued living my life, carefree as always. But then they took him away from me. Thirty-five days, twelve hours, and thirteen minutes he's been gone. No one wanted to help me, so I took matters into my own hands. But we're getting too ahead of ourselves. Let's start off from the beginning.
2 months earlier
I placed down my stylus and looked over my test on the screen before me. I scrolled up to reread my answers and deemed them good enough. Either I knew it or I didn't; I studied 20 minutes before class started. My eyebrow raised as I looked it over and I knew then that I would get, at best, a D. Oh well. I pressed submit at the very bottom right corner of the screen.
Mr. Anderson got up from his desk and announced, "Alright, time's up. Put your styluses down and submit your tests."
Everyone groaned and I assumed they were all equally as stumped as I was. Chemistry wasn't my strongest subject in school but I enjoyed learning it, even though my lack of motivation to study was definitely a problem. The three dings that signaled lunchtime rang and everyone got up from their desks, walking out of the classroom.
Before I could walk out myself, Mr. Anderson called out to me, "Ms. Villanue, a word?"
I turned around. "Yes?"
"Your marks have been pretty low lately, is everything alright?"
"Yeah, I just have a hard time with chemistry, that's all."
"Well if you want to become a scientist, you have to bring them up immediately. This is no time to goof around, especially at your age."
"Thanks, Mr. Anderson, I'll keep that in mind." I smiled and twirled around, walking out the door. Making my way down the hall I found Luna waiting for me.
Her face brightened when she saw me. She walked to me and asked, "How do you think you did on the test?"
"I dunno. It was alright, so I think I did alright. At best, maybe a C." I lied because I didn't want Luna to worry about me again. She had this tendency to be such an over-thinker sometimes. We then began walking towards the dining hall together.
Luna sighed. "Ugh, I completely bombed it. And I studied all night but when I was reading the questions, my brain froze. I hate when that happens."
I couldn't help but laugh. "That seems to be happening to you a lot lately. Why don't you get like a tutor or something? Or go into the after school program?"
We entered the dining hall and lined up with the others waiting for their turn to grab lunch. As we waited Luna turned to me and said, "Well duh, I can't have a tutor because I have lab research sometimes after school, so it wouldn't be worth it. I'd be there for like a few minutes at most." The line grew shorter and it was finally our turn. There was a conveyor belt with food running down on it. I looked at my options and chose the chicken salad and Luna, yet again, got the spinach wrap. We ended up sitting near the far-middle end of the dining hall near a giant window overlooking the city.
Illumination City: a marvelous site with too many people than it can maintain. Quite overpopulated if you asked me. I looked at Luna and continued our conversation.
"How about learning how to study yourself?" I scoffed.
"Yeah thanks, I didn't think of that," she remarked sarcastically.
"Look if you really need help, why don't you ask a teacher or something? There's a lot of things you can do."
"Oh ho, look who's talkin'! What about you? Don't you need help? I heard Mr. Anderson called you over to talk about your grades."
"Eh, I don't really care. I'm just living my best life, ya know?"
"Oh Murphy, how I wish I had your carefree attitude."
I dug my fork into my salad and responded, "Trust me, you don't."
We chatted for what seemed about a few minutes when a certain someone caught my eye. Looking up from my plate, on the other side of the dining hall, Atlas appeared. He was talking to some girl. She was definitely flirting with him; twirling her hair in her finger and smiling and laughing at almost everything he said. I rolled my eyes and Luna had noticed I wasn't paying attention to her. "Hello? Earth to Murphy? What are you looking at?"
I turned to her. "Huh? Did you say something?"
"I know what you were looking at, or more like who you were looking at." She proceeded to move her eyebrows up and down while smiling mischievously.
"Shut up," I said as I playfully nudged at her. "You're dumb, I wasn't looking at him."
"I didn't say who it is, but now I definitely know who it is." She held her head up high and then winked at me. I frowned.
Atlas then approached our table and sat down with us. "What's up, guys?" He smiled.
Luna started, "Hey Atlas, Murphy wanted to tell you something. Go on Murphy, say it."
I furrowed my eyebrows at her. She always teased me around Atlas because she knew I really liked him. I've known Atlas almost my entire life. He was my childhood friend and we've never been apart. Luna would always tell me that Atlas reminded her of a Greek god, but I didn't get what she meant. To me, Atlas was just Atlas. I wouldn't deny it though, he was quite good looking. I just didn't worship him like some of the freaks here did. It was shallow. And I would admit that I had more than a crush on Atlas for a while. Never had really done anything about it, and never really would. Don't look at me like that, obviously, there was a reason why. He deserved someone so much better.
I literally had nothing going for me. I was an average student, at best, and I didn't know what I was doing with my life. I knew I was barely seventeen but by this time we were already supposed to know what we wanted to be. Society had become really shitty that way. You either had two options, one: become a scientist or two: become a doctor. Well, those were the only two jobs that would get you anywhere in life. Like what the hell is that. Why don't we have options anymore?! It's stupid. Anyways, I'm rambling.
I looked at Atlas as he waited for me to say something. "Uh." I looked around. "Luna has the shits." He laughed, revealing the single dimple on his left cheek.
Luna got up and cried, "No I don't!" She then got close to my ear and whispered, "That was supposed to be a secret dude." I scoffed.
"Good one Murph, but a little too much info. Hope you feel better soon Luna," he grinned. Luna crossed her arms and angrily sighed.
"I just thought you should know in case she suddenly gets up and leaves." I shrugged and chuckled.
Luna angrily sat down and complained, "You guys suck."
"Lighten up Luna," I said winking at her, knowing I had won this little game.
"By the way Atlas," Luna spoke with a mouth full of food, "what did you think of the chem test?"
Atlas placed his arm on the table and rested his chin on his hand, "It was easy."
"Of course it was," she whispered to herself. For Atlas, almost any subject was easy. He's beautiful and smart, add this to the list of clichés. Luna looked happily at Atlas. "I have a brilliant idea!"
"That's slightly terrifying," I remarked, making Atlas laugh again.
She rolled her eyes. "Atlas could you do us a favor? Murphy and I completely bombed the test, so do you think you could tutor us sometime?"
I choked on my salad.
"Are you alright?" I looked up to find Atlas' face very close to mine. I jumped back and nodded, immediately turning to face Luna and her obnoxiously devious smile.
"Of course I can tutor you guys. I'd love to." Atlas smiled and looked at me. The beating of my heart became louder and I began to wonder if anyone else could hear it. I then quickly looked down at my lap, hoping my heart would stop beating so fast.
"Just let me know, we can do it before school or during lunch, but not after cause I have soccer practice."
"Perfect!" Luna said smiling at me.
"Yes. Awesome," I said, keeping a fake smile on my face. Then suddenly from across the dining hall, a boy called out to Atlas and motioned him to go over there.
"Ah, I'll be right back guys."
When he was gone I angrily faced Luna. "Dude?! Why the hell did you say that?! Now he's gonna think I'm an idiot."
"Murphy," she said, placing her hand on my shoulder, "he already knows that," she cackled.
I lightly pushed her and she smiled. "I'm kidding, no he's not. You guys have known each other for how long? And you still haven't made a move. You two clearly like each other."
"No he doesn't, why would he like someone as pathetic as me. He's perfect and I'm well--"
"MURPHY'S LAAAAW!"
I was interrupted by the worst person on planet Earth. The voice sent shivers down my spine and I knew my misfortunes were about to begin.
It was Jordan, who was accompanied by his group of so-called friends, or as I liked to call them, assholes. Ever since he discovered Murphy's Law and what it meant, he referred to me as such. It was stupidly simple.
He came up from behind me and almost yelled in my ear, "Well if it ain't the dumb bitch from down the street!" I closed my eyes.
Jordan had hated me from the day we met, back in ninth grade. Yeah, I guess you could call him my bully. He was a punk-ass bitch but hell no was I ever gonna say that to him. Pretty much the only thing I could do was endure it.
"Fuck. Off. Jordan," Luna angrily retorted.
"The fuck did you just say?" He growled.
The last thing I wanted was to get her involved, she'd only get hurt. So I quickly got up from where I was and speed-walked away from the table towards the exit, making him focus on me. But this was clearly a bad idea. I could hear him running up from behind me and I knew something bad was about to happen.
"Come back here, whore!" He tripped me and I fell hard onto the ground. Jordan walked around to face me now and all I could do was look up at him in pain. There was a burst of laughter from the whole dining hall.
I was used to this. My life was nothing but a joke. A lot of bad things happened to me and who knew why. Yeah, you could say that "oh well a lot of bad things happen to a lot of people," but not like what I went through. It was like I was cursed. So many terrible things have happened in my life, it's helped me learn to become numb. I always thought that it was meant to be this way and there was nothing I could do about it. There were only two people in this world that made me happy: my friends. But sometimes I worry that I may have ended up being their bad luck charm. I'm pretty sure I was. I was the embodiment of bad luck, or at least, that's what my dad would tell me.
My name is Murphy.
And anything that can go wrong, will.
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