Alternate Realities: once upon a time

Trigger Warning: mentions of suicide

A/n: It kind of matches the prompt; I mean, it has a phrase that gets repeated a lot...Anyways, I hope you enjoy Part 3!!

Once upon a time, there was a miracle and magic. The bombs had stopped raining from the skies, artillery stopped firing, and Mother Nature was slowly tending its blood-soaked grounds. 

Hospitals were full with soldiers from both sides (sides quite undefined at this point) opposite beds from each other, sharing the same wounds, their squabbling minds at rest to keep pace with their bodies. Opinions were lost, pointless lives shed, and there was even talk of a truce after two years of misery, suffering, and Death. 

And in the Kantor Hospital two blocks down from the last standing skyscraper, a baby girl was brought into the broken world. 

They named her Kaira, after a distant relative who’d fought in the war. Nearly everything was related to the war these days, and the nurse nodded her approval, raising the squalling child to the dim, artificial light. Each superstition was followed step-by-step, the doctors checking Kaira’s health, all in order. 

With the number of people that had died, they needed some more beating hearts in the world, some life from all the dead. They all needed a happily-ever-after to go with their once-upon-a-time. 

The mother and father cooed at their newborn, happy for the first time in years. The truce, it would last. The world would glue itself back together. On that day, that one heartbeat made anything seem possible, even the end of wars, spoken in whitewashed hospitals. It echoed with soldiers’ groans and babies’ cries. 

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Little Kaira was raised in safehouses and learned how to tell missiles from each other by the whoosh, whoosh sounds. She played on her Ipad in underground bomb shelters established in the 2000s. The shelters were outdated; now, bombs could tunnel through the surface, penetrating underground. Her parents couldn’t afford the updated technology. 

She was a toddler--how much could she know? She wasn’t enlisted in school, taught instead the brutality of war, and how the loss of innocence could be a punch to the gut. Little Kaira was also outdated--outdated hope from the times of a truce. After all, only those who had luck and money survived; the rest were bait, sitting ducks. 

The parents cried every night, painful remembrances of the days they thought could morph to normal, without war. They’d brought a child into existence thinking they could raise her in a better world. 

Seven-year-old Kaira began to help, lifting stray metal pieces from above, collecting anything useful like a strewn can of tomato soup lying on an abandoned road, barefoot, and clothes hanging loosely from her frame. She could tell what her parents wanted--loved them with all of her heart. 

She learned not to complain when Ma said there was no food, or Pa ordered her to fix something, help someone, do something. She went days without a wash or a glimpse of the sunlight, but it was a better fate than the dead dreams in Kantor Hospital. All that was left of that place was a tarp shielding rubble. 

There was no remaining city in the world anymore. Nobody knew what people were fighting for anymore. Seven-year-old Kaira had her breakdowns when nobody looked her way and listened in the shadows when nobody noticed her. Listening was easy. Cracks were easy to spot in crumbling walls. 

“Raid!!” 

Kaira was about to turn eight in ten minutes. She’d wanted to stay up until midnight--eight was a big number, and today she’d get a bigger ration. But when the whoosh soared aboveground, Kaira shuffled out of bed past the clock mounted to her wall, her tiny voice easily audible throughout the small house. 

“Raid!” 

The whooshes were in a different language this time, but Kaira was okay with being carted from her room into the shelter underground, away from her clock. She loved that clock. She wanted a normal life aboveground. 

Kaira still didn’t thrash about, wailing like any child would do, collecting toys or anything that was hers. Because she listened to the whoosh and could tell her parents were scared this time. 

Ten minutes later, bombs, missiles, and other forms of weapons rained down on their house and tunneled below ground. 

Kaira was eight years old, but she screamed with the strength of a newborn. 

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Once upon a time, there was a broken girl who found friendship for the first time. 

When she saw the sun, she thought she was up and had slept through her midnight birthday anticipation. But her body ached, and it was like somebody had laid twenty pounds of weight on her small body. Then, Kaira remembered the raid and screamed again, because where were her parents? 

Somebody touched her, lifted her out from under the wreckage. They hadn’t made it to the shelter. 

“How are you alive, child?” 

Thwack. The thuds were bodies; Kaira knew. 

This time, she didn’t have her breakdown alone. The crowd of people, three adults, in particular, were there to carry her away from her life. The relievers. 

. . .

“I hate this world. I miss them. I want to die.” 

Kaira repeated the words over and over again to herself. She’d gotten her scars gauzed over, hair cut, and now, she was with the others. The other orphans, underground, in a proper shelter. She was ten years old today. 

Two years were gone, gone trying to hide from war, underground eternally. The war had been chugging for a while now. Whenever there was talk of the death of a leader from the tiny holographic news transmitters they kept inside, the children smiled. Maybe the war would end...no. A new leader wanted power. Blood spilled again. 

At least, at least Kaira had the others. Together, they chanted, adults all vacant of the tiny room to discuss “the future”. Adults, 3-4 of them, were the only ones willing to take care of the children. The rations were enough to go around, and the children helped too, just like she did at home. At home. 

“I hate this world. I miss them. I want to die.” 

It was a twisted, sick relief for them, a salve to soothe their inner wounds. The ones on the outside hurt enough, and if the adults came inside the room at the very moment, the adults would hug them close, talk about how grateful Kaira should be to still be alive. The war will end soon, and things will get better. 

Kaira thought the adults needed a hug too because they saw many dead kids, just like she had. She cried, they cried. Other kids were immune to tears but still cared. This, she realized, was her gift. 

Most days when they went above ground, if Kaira held a finger up to the air, she could tell if the wind was mourning. If she was comforting a new kid in the shelter, she felt their pain--a strong connection. Those kids had barely known Kaira, but she knew what their desires were, what they longed for. 

And when the older ones attempted...Kaira couldn’t leave the small section she had to herself in the underground shelter. The pain--the collective--was too much. 

She never told anyone about her “gifts”, though many people surely felt it when she was around. It made the children family, like on Kaira’s 10th birthday. She never had to mourn alone; never had to do anything alone. 

Even with her “gifts”, caretakers, and companion siblings, she was still a broken little girl stitched together, coming apart at the seams. 

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Kaira slept on a cool blanket spread across the concrete floor. Someone had probably found it above ground during daylight hours, or when they were in preparation for war 14 years ago. It caught her tears easily when it was one of those nights. 

Two kids pressed up beside her on either side. Aric, Lily, Mina, Celene. Best friends...best everything. Everyone had those nights, but it was easier to bond when they shared a common sorrow, burden, loss. War could do that, and Kaira constantly reminded herself of what she’d found, from that day with the clock until now. 

And wasn’t living worth it, with friendship? 

Whoosh. The missiles were like deadly comets, striking things, missing people harbored in safe shelters. Only nights, every night. Tonight, Kaira couldn’t sleep. She wanted to get outside, so she crept past sleeping children, adults, and fingered the hatch to above ground. Twisted it open. 

Kaira hadn’t been above to breathe fresh air in what felt like months. It was dangerous to go out at night, but she couldn’t breathe and it was so...so close. So close to temptation for something she wanted to have after twelve years of deprivation. Kaira wanted this for herself, tired of feigning ignorance of the sacrifices everyone needed to make, how her ability crushed her tiny soul. 

It wasn’t fair or humane to know what everyone wanted, their strife and desire, but not be able to provide it to them. So, she went above and inhaled the dusty but still open air. 

After what she’d been through, Kaira didn’t regret sitting on a rock, simply staring up at the skies, missiles streaking past. She wasn’t afraid of death. 

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Aric, Lily, Mina, Celene. Kaira often imagined all the fun they’d have together when they were older when the war was over. Tomorrow, Kaira contemplated bringing them up here too. Maybe they could breathe for the first time in a long time. Happiness. 

But that fantasy became a ghost when she heard a dull, sharp hissing sound coming from the woods opposite the hatch, leading to their shelter. Kaira crouched behind the rock, eyes scanning the woods. Whatever that thing was, it was on land! 

A machine, twenty times the size of Kaira chugged out into the small clearing, flaming tongues flanking its sides, metal, tin, holographic imaging, red scanners vibrating. Kaira contorted herself into a ball, pressing harder into the rock. 

Scanning for underground shelters. 

Kaira watched as the machine lumbered over the grassy surface, a red scanner wiping the surrounding areas until it stopped. The machine folded its scanner back into its body and sat very, very still for a moment. Kaira let out a small breath, pleading to the remains of the heavens for the machine to go away. 

And it did go away. By tunneling below ground to where all the other children were: the underground shelter. 

Exterminating shelter. Commencing Project GEO-b. Releasing acid

No, No! Kaira leaped out from her hiding place, running towards the machine because nothing mattered except this. The world was finally ending the way it began, with war. Her fault. No, this could not be happening. Not again. Not to the people; the only people who made her life worth living. 

Wildly, maniacally, she shrieked and thumped the sides of the machine, pushed, pulled, tried to yank it away. She bawled, poured out her heart to the machine, threw herself in front of it, begging it to stop. The machine didn’t listen. 

Missile comets streaked the skies. Somewhere, a bomb fell. No more. NO MORE! 

Kaira was 12 years old. 

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6 years later

Once upon a time, there was a girl with eyes of gray and a will of steel, who felt but was unfeeling. Once upon a time, there was a shattered girl who said “No more.” 

“Test run 356. Neurotransmitters are hooked up.”

The morning was the safest time to work her test runs. Project Alternate Realities had seen worse days-- the nights when jets dropped machines to kill, claim territory, and destroy whatever the city had rebuilt. 

Young Kaira had learned from her mistakes, replacing doodles on cardboard with science, technology, tactics, and a plan. In the beginning, she had a small, underground chamber where she started breaking apart the machines. 

She had learned what technology was on their insides, touched them, and felt each metal pieces’ desire, their wants, and where they fit. Kaira was using her gifts to create a world with no more war. 

“You are all blindfolded because I don’t want you to know who I am, but please, understand me. These test runs are for the benefit of humankind, a reality without constant war. Now, think as I instructed you to. Think of your paradise.” 

The people in the room--desperate ones--listened carefully. What do I want? Where do I want to go? Kaira attached a chip to each person sitting cross-legged in the old, musty warehouse. Years of experimenting with her extension of neurological understandings. 

For years, she’d been plotting, building, failing. Slowly, each person fazed into a coma, blue overtaking their eyes. 

“Come on, come on…” Kaira plugged in a few wires to a chipped outlet barely functional. They snaked around rusted pipes, frozen food packages, and old, empty water bottles, all the way to a portable computer she’d gotten from an abandoned building--office building. 

It took a while for Kaira to understand its operation since shelter living didn’t cover Computers 101, but the metal desired certain things in certain places. Always. 

“Imagine your paradise, and let your brains and my technology do the work.” 

Years of disparity, war, sickness, death, and fear could end with a test run 356. The work would still continue before Kaira’s plan could launch into action. She’d need buildings to house humanity, needed an effective way to spread the word, a gap between night raids and morning peace. 

Suddenly, the chips on the humans’ necks glowed, and all her worries flew out the window. A new, neurological reality, transporting humans in comas to their paradise. An alternate reality; it was possible. 

. . . 

Once upon a time, the Supervisor was born.