Lawrence ‘Laurie’ Earnest Deatherage, Type A Novus, Eighteen

1998 After Novus

Liliport, Capitol of Victoria

The rules of survival for novus weren’t very complicated and we were taught them very early.

In exchange for significantly magnified strength, speed, intelligence and senses, we had to mate with a sapien for life and avoid sunlight at all times. There were other downsides to being a novus, like difficulty regulating emotions as well as poor impulse control, but the ones that meant life and death all related to sunlight and the struggle to find a compatible mate.

For some novus, they could stay single and fine well into their twenties, some even in their early thirties before they started to feel themselves mentally deteriorate - those that had impeccable self control could live well beyond what others in their type might allow others.

For those such as myself that process started far earlier, and death by self mutilation was guaranteed by twenty five years old, though most were dead by twenty.

I was eighteen, and I knew I would be one of those in my class that would be dead by twenty.

I didn’t have the personality to be able to fight it off for another six years, let alone a life time.

I would be lucky if I made it to twenty.

In other places, like Europe and some parts of Asia, they practiced a sort of self control that was taught the second you were born. It was brutal, and unkind, and it made novus that were type A that could see thirty, but were so detached from others and themselves, that it took a further thirty or forty years before some of them were able to be human again.

I was born in North America, in the wonderful clan Deatherage, in the greatest country in the world – Victoria. Our novus were highly civilized, humanized. We felt, and we loved, and until we died, whenever that was, we tried to be the best soul we could be.

Unfortunately, that also made us…

It made me…

Well.

More likely to die young.

At this point, the only thing in between me and sitting on the roof naked to meet the sun was my family, but the utter despair and great, swallowing anxiety that came in powerful waves was becoming harder to wait out, and soon I knew that I would be able to fight them off at all.

This time...had been close.

Very, very close.

The medical protocol that I had been using for four years now was to take an emergency medication when I started to feel myself slipping, but was becoming increasingly apparent I wasn’t able to recognize the signs anymore, which is how I found myself walking in nothing but my jeans downtown with about ten minutes until sunrise.

Luckily, one of my brother’s sister in laws were driving around in their cruiser when they saw me.

Next time, I might not be so fortunate.

I spent two weeks in a recovery clinic before I was able to drag myself out of that dark place, and now I was close to being back to normal.

It wouldn’t last long, but for now, I was feeling good, and so I was being discharged.

I smiled politely to the nurse as she sat with me and my Dad while we filled out paperwork, the three of us laughing about the most recent antics of of Matriarch and her twin sister, both in their forties and a constant source of drama for us to be amused by. This time, the pair were squabbling over the latest of the Matriarch’s grandsons birth, specifically his name, which had been their father’s and something they both agreed not to use if either had sons since they both wanted to use it.

Our matriarch said that her grandson wasn’t her son, so her daughter was free to use it.

Her sister argued that was a cheep excuse and now the family announced they wouldn’t be doing a joined Easter service together, which was…

Pretty normal for the family that ran our entire clan. Luckily, my family was no where near dramatic. Nothing bad had ever happened to us, really – Roy mating very young and becoming a father very young was shocking, but I wouldn’t say it was bad.

Though admittedly, we were coming into more...stressful times due to my own destabilization.

When we finished the paperwork, I thanked the nurse for helping me before my Dad reached back and held onto the back of my neck in a comforting hold, walking with me behind the nurse as she led us through the several checkpoints in the facility designed to keep other patients and workers safe from patients that were severely deteriorated.

It was a strange thing, having an episode. They called it many things in other clans – blackouts, destabilizing periods, wahoo or yoohoo or something like. In our clan, the Deatherage, we usually just called it a ‘bad day’.

You didn’t remember it, not the worst of it anyway. You could feel it coming on, recognize that something was off – maybe you were suddenly upset, or happy, or angry, or colors became brighter and sounds more sharp. You’d recognize that whatever you were feeling was off, but you just couldn’t stop it, so you kept going and going until you were…

Gone.

It was different for everyone.

Most novus though tended to feel one emotion more intensely than others – males tended to get more aggressive while females got depressive.

In my case, I usually felt detached from myself, and then I’d feel oddly guilty over things that made no sense. I’d think about things that happened years ago that I had no reason for being guilty about, like the time I knocked over my mom’s favorite glass animal. Logically I knew she wasn’t angry about it – not then, and not now – but when I was having a bad day, my mind would just bring things like that forward and I would be consumed by guilt, and it would just…

Take over everything.

When I felt myself becoming increasingly guilty over nonsensical things (I hadn’t opened that door for that pregnant woman down the street this morning, I hadn’t let that man in a hurry go ahead of me in line yesterday), I’d take my emergency medication, and then usually I would be able to wait it out. Other times, ‘waiting it out’ wasn’t so much being patient as it was pacing around, shaking, cleaning to keep my mind off of things until the medicine took effect.

But usually, I saw it coming on and I did what my doctor and therapist instructed me to do. I took my medicine. I tried to keep myself busy.

This time was different.

I didn’t remember stripping down, I didn’t remember scratching down to the bone on my back and the side of the ribs. I didn’t remember Mabel’s sister coaxing me into her patrol cruiser, or her throwing her arms around me and bodily dragging me into her vehicle.

I didn’t remember coming to the wellness facility, or...any of that.

The last thing I remember was stopping by the baby store to get my newly born niece Joy, who came out as a beautiful surprise sapien, a new set of baby bottles for sapien babies. There had been a toddler on the same aisle as me and she threw the soft ball she had been holding to the floor at my feet...she stared at it for a long moment, and I bent down to pick it up for her, and she threw a tantrum, like I had broken it.

And that was it. Just...guilt. And then nothing.

Absolutely nothing.

The next thing I remember was waking up, strapped down with my Dad sitting next to me with a strained smile, talking to the doctors as they cleaned the self inflicted wounds on my ribs.

The pill I was to take in emergency I was now made to take twice a day, every day.

Which was sign that it was the beginning of the very end. I wouldn’t be one of the lucky ones that could limp into their mid thirties because I had the self control and discipline to detach from everything.

I’d be lucky to make it to twenty.

And if I didn’t, if my body and mind gave up?

I wouldn’t finish school.

There would be no children to celebrate holidays with or do school drop offs for.

I would never get to see Roy’s children grow up, or see my little sisters married, or be there for my parents when they were old and needed my help like I had needed theirs.

Unless I found a mate very, very shortly, everything I had ever wanted for myself would be impossible.

I’d either be dead or I’d be locked away in a clinic is such misery that I would wish for death, and I didn’t know which was worse.

But my Dad and I didn’t talk about that as we drove home.

We kept it light, talking about Joy, who I was told was pretty much just a new limb for Roy, who kept her on him at all times. Roy was my only sapien sibling, all my younger sisters Type A novus like myself, all Roy’s other children Type A novus as well.

It wasn’t unheard of to have a very strong genetic disposition to Type A novus, but it was unusual to have a family that wasn’t directly related to a matriarch with one. I imagined that it wouldn’t be long before one of us married into a matriarch’s family. My brother was the only one of us so far that had married, but he had married into a family that was first generation civilized. His bride, Mabel, was born in the Wilds – the uncivilized tribes north of the civilized world of North America, but her parents sent her and her several sisters to Trinity to try and find mates.

Mabel had met my brother when he was on a school field trip to Greater Lakes and she tracked him all the way down here.

They mated, had Little Lawrence when they were about thirteen and...had a couple more kids since.

It was actually quite ironic, that the one sibling in our family that didn’t need to mate early to survive...went and mated extremely early.

Roy, Mabel and all their children all lived in Liliport where Mabel and her sisters all worked as peacekeepers were they took turns as the FAN, and I had a distinct feeling that Roy’s children would marry into a matriarch’s clan rather than any of my sisters. All of Roy’s children were all pretty hot blooded and seemed to take after Mabel with her highly superior tracking skills, so it was very likely that they would marry well, since novus ‘bloodhounds’ like Mabel and her children were highly sought after in any clan.

I just hoped I was around in the future to see what became of my nieces and nephew.

And my sisters to, were who so sweet and kind, and deserved good mates.

Right now though, my focus was entirely on getting back on track and finding a mate for myself.

When you were in my position, you didn’t get time to rest and recover after a bad day (which turned into a bad two weeks for me). You went to the clinic, got evened out, stitched up, spent a day or two under the watchful eyes of your next of kin, and then you resumed the struggle to find a mate.

As civilized novus, you couldn’t just go out, hunt down a compatible sapien, and drag them off to mate with them. You had to court them. You had to do the paperwork. You had to ensure both your clans agreed to allow you to mate.

But first, you had to find a sapien that was compatible.

And just like in the uncivilized world, it was mostly entirely up to luck that they happened to cross your paths.