My name is Raeven. My birthday is June 20th, 1992. I'm eighteen years old and have been travelling cross-country to find the sister I never knew. I have only recently arrived in New York. The city she was supposedly living in when our father last heard of her. But let's rewind a little.
I was raised in a good home with my mom, Cherese, in Seattle, Washington. She was a good parent as far as I could tell. I was too young to really have much of an opinion on it. All I knew was she loved me and only wished the best for me. As most parents do. She found herself in a relationship with a man named Harry when I turned 14, While they were never married he was always a father to me. I even started calling him that.
I remember it like it was yesterday. The bomb in Manhattan. I was in school when it happened, sitting in my math class when they suddenly announced what they were calling a terrorist attack in New York. Only five years after 9/11 everyone in my school was quick to blame Iraq. We were forced to stay in our classes until our parents came to pick us up, expecting some sort of outrage in the streets. Everyone had their conspiracy theories and what they thought happened. I just stayed out of it. I didn't know anyone there so I didn't really care. Not until much later.
At first I didn't really notice anything, thinking maybe the myths were true about eating your carrots. Then it became a gradual difference, finding that I was able to see sufficiently easier in the night compared to what I use to a few months ago. One day news hit that there were these people being called Evolved. It struck me as an odd word to use because it just so happened we were learning the basics about evolution at the time. Just…weird timing. It wasn't until they started making lists of the kind of people that fit this criteria when it started to scare me. No one knew I was able to see like this, having never mentioned it before to anyone. I always thought myself to be a freak and wanted to hide that part of me. So I stayed quiet about it, not wanting to face the consequences that could follow after. That's the last I had heard about it for a while until rumors started spreading about the gangs ripping apart the cities in search of these people. Even more reason to hide my ability, so I did my best to stay convincing that I was just your typical teenager. Which turned out to be easy enough when you shove your face in a book and focus on nothing but homework. I actually did quite well in my classes because of that fear. Surely that has to be ironic to some degree.
About a year ago my father got a letter in the mail at one point saying that his ex-wife had died for whatever reason. Something about how she fell and hit her head. It wasn't because of her that he was going but because of a daughter he had with her named Isis. I had heard about her a couple of times, but for some reason I never met her. I guess our parents were on bad terms or something, I'm not sure. He went with intentions of seeing her and finding out how she's doing. You know. Father/daughter stuff. I thought he was going to bring her home to stay with us, but I guess that isn't what was going to happen because he came back alone.
A few weeks later a group of people broke into our house. Naturally my parents ran downstairs to confront what they first thought was a burglury, only to find out this was something completely different. I remember watching the whole ordeal from a spot on the second floor by the stairs. Five men and a woman were standing in our living room, using flashlights to see. No doubt wanting to keep their identity secret. My night vision of course not being compromised by this. It seems they thought my mother had some sort of ability of her own she was hiding. I never found out what they accused her of, expecting her to come out on her own I guess. The longer it took her to answer "truthfully" the more they roughed her up. My father, of course, couldn't just stand there and watch her like this, retaliating and fighting back anyone who tried to hurt her. The struggle was so much of a mess I didn't see exactly what happened. All I remember was hearing a sudden CRACK and my father fell to the floor faster than I could blink. One of the men cursed in anger then turned to my mom. I didn't watch this part. I didn't want to.. There was suddenly a lot of whispering, a lot that I couldn't make out. But what I did hear was someone muttering about how his department will take care of the bodies. It wasn't until that moment when I saw a badge on one of the man's belt, and from right then and there I knew the police were involved. As quietly as I could I snuck out my bedroom window and worked my way into the garage from a side door, jamming both doors shut so they would have to work to find me. I put on the first pair of clothes I had grabbed from my room, jumped on my dad's motorcycle and took off as quickly as I could, terrified that they would find me and discover my own little secret.. I didn't really know where I was going to go, but the police were not an option after what I saw. I didn't have much left for me here and I had no idea where my other family members were, or even if they were alive. While in a panic I tried thinking of what the hell I was going to do, travelling the highway to try and calm my nerves. I then saw a sign that pointed to the next state. I'm still not sure why, but I followed it. I would figure something out.
It soon became clear that I needed to find a way to provide for myself. I wanted to avoid as much attention as I could, so I found a few jobs along the way that would pay under the table, staying in hotel rooms one week at a time and going by a fake name so no one would trace me. One of the jobs was working as an appretice for a locksmith. It paid decently and without questions, which was very convenient for me. But there's only so long you can go in a place without a legitimate name or any ID before people start asking questions, and as soon as any word came up I left and found a new destination to live, going by yet another name for every town. Things eventually started to get lonely. I found I was talking to myself to kill the time, and you know how that goes. It's not something you ever want to start doing. And so a thought hit me as I was working in a small diner in Kansas. A man came in and started talking to me about New York. I didn't exactly listen to his rambling, but it reminded me of Isis. I had never met her before, and I have no idea what she looks like. I imagine something like our father. But even still, she was family. The only family I knew where to start looking. And once my mind was made up there was no going back.
It took about another couple of months, having to stop and work for a bit so I could build up enough funds for food and gas. I kept my father's bike with me the whole time. It was the last piece of him I had and I was determined to make his memory last. It might also be the only thing that would convince Isis we're related.
This last while has been a difficult time in my life, but I think I've grown from it. And now that I find myself on the rim of New York City, things will either settle down a bit now that I have family, or they will become much more complicated. There's only one way to find out.
