Siren Awakened - C.R. Jane Page 0,66

my face. “I’m going to lose half my pay, and after paying rent, I’ll have nothing left to live off this month,” I told her as I gloomily stuck another disgusting vegetable fry into my mouth.

I looked outside the diner window to the blue sky that was growing heavier with clouds. There was supposed to be a storm rolling in tonight and the sky was certainly starting to look foreboding. Just as I had that thought the sound of thunder boomed from outside sending a shiver down my spine. My grandma had always warned me that thunder was an omen, but I’d never given much weight to such supernatural tales. Not when my life was work, earn enough to pay my rent, and save enough for a car.

I sighed again. I was never going to be ahead. I had dreams once upon a time for how my life was going to be. They certainly didn’t involve working at the Cinnamon Diner forever. I took the job twelve months ago as a quick fix until I found something that paid better. But this city rarely had opportunities and if they did, they filled up before anyone could think twice. A quick glance over my shoulder, and Greg was back at the till, shaking his head, counting the money again. Asshole. As if I’d steal the money. He probably took it and forgot.

I popped two more fries into my mouth and regretted it at once as my stomach riled up.

“Are we still up for tonight?” Cherry said, examining her long red nails nonchalantly that she obsessively wore as a tribute to her name.

My birthday. Right. It was easy to forget about things like that with how my life had been going lately. Or maybe it was how the world seemed to be going lately. Ever since they had taken over. Staring out at the sky again, I saw a jet fly by, a long electronic sign shooting out from behind it reminding us all about registration, as if we could forget.

February 3, 2017 was when the world fell apart. It was done quietly. Everyone went to sleep the night before and woke up to an entirely different world. The churches had declared that they were messengers sent from God to warn us to change before the last days, but I was pretty sure the invaders were the gods themselves.

They told us they had come from a planet called Vepar and that they wished for everything to continue as before...but everything was different. The first thing to change was the required Registration. For some reason, only the women of the world were forced to register every six months. The Vepar wanted to know our names, ages, relationship status, and pregnancy history. Every woman was put on a mandatory special form of birth control that we were told was much healthier than the options we had available to us before. I would never admit it, but there were no terrible side effects with their birth control, and it was no longer a burden to take it. It was the only thing that I could say they had made better for us.

The next change was a mandatory “clean living” mandate. All food that was processed, fried, or had any chemical in it besides healthy oils was removed as an option. No longer could I pick up a hamburger or a pizza anywhere. Instead, I could have lentils or cauliflower pasta, or something equally disgusting. Everyone was required to enter a gym for an hour a day and we were scanned as we arrived to keep track. The bastards of course didn’t make anything that was mandatory free so my already thinly stretched budget was now non-existent. I had been pulling double shifts at the diner for a year now, which in my opinion should have covered my hour of exercise, but I was barely surviving.

“Ella?” said Cherry impatiently, annoyed that I wasn’t paying attention to her.

“Sorry, just a little tired. Yeah, I’m still on for tonight. You only turn twenty-three once,” I told her, the thin thread of exhaustion evident in my voice. She pretended not to notice and stood abruptly. “I’ve got to hit the gym and then start getting ready,” she told me, kissing me on both cheeks like she was some kind of fancy European instead of a girl from Brooklyn. She then walked out the door without another word. As I stood, I realized she forgot to pay for her fries.