Emily Yusupova

Earth

Gripping the bow heavily, Luna released the arrow in an instant. Following the arrow with her eyes she already knew where it would land, she never missed. The blindfolded man who now had an arrow in his heart fell to the grassy ground in what seemed a split second.

“What a waste of arrows,” she sighed in disgust as she stepped over the body along with the pool of blood that was coming from him. “I think that’s all of them,” Ashton said coming from behind one of the trees. “You go right, and I’ll go left. Make sure they’re no others around here.”

Luna nodded, going about her way past various trees and bushes. This forest was never-ending, and she had to cover her eyes with her hand to block out the sun. Killing more of those atrocious empaths were the only thing keeping her going. Hearing a sudden crack from nearby caused her to stop dead in her tracks, bow and arrow already in hand. In an instant she found herself surrounded by empaths, all wearing the same black colored blindfolds they usually do. Luna quickly released an arrow to the one in front of her. She’d rather go down swinging even if it meant she’d have to suffer a slower and painful death. As soon as she did, she felt something hard hitting her head from behind, causing everything to go black.

“Good morning,” a soft-spoken voice said, and Luna found herself lying on a bed in a small square room. Getting up quickly she reached for her back pocket where she always kept a spare knife.

“Looking for this,” the voice spoke out again, and in their hand lied the small knife, “You won’t be needing this.” Luna looked up from the hand at the blind folded empath sitting on a chair in front of her.

“Is this where you torture information out of me?” Luna asked. She wasn’t afraid, they were taught to kill these creatures from childhood and would die doing so. It was their honor as all these empaths looked to expand their lands and people, posing a threat to everyone who wasn’t one of them. The empath remained still for a moment before putting the knife into their pocket.

“We’re not brutal individuals like you, killing us for sport,” the empath remarked while taking off the hood they all wear along with the blindfold. The empath’s long auburn hair fell out of the hood and their famous emerald, green eyes were now staring back at Luna.

“I’m Rose,” the empath said, still sitting right in front of Luna.

“What relevance does that have to me?” Luna spat out. “Either kill me now or torture me. Do what you empaths know best.”

“And what is that?” Rose raised a brow, a little humored.

“Killing, what else?” Luna proclaimed.

“Isn’t that ironic when you’re doing the same thing? How is your killing different from mine?”

“You’re an abomination, you guys shouldn’t even exist. A freak accident that happened from a bomb,” Luna replied. “It’s our duty to keep you from polluting of what remains of this world.”

Rose burst out into a laughter before replying. “A little righteous, aren’t we? We’re people, just like you.”

“Don’t lump us in the same catego-,” Luna began to say before Rose cut her off.

“We’re keeping you alive. If the roles were switched, you would have killed us off already.”

“And why are you keeping me alive then?” Luna asked as the door to the room opened where a blindfolded empath stood. Rose looked to the door before putting on her blindfold again.

“To make everyone one and the same,” was all Rose said before hitting Luna in the head again.

“I’ll leave her where we usually leave these brutes,” the empath named Lake said as he took Luna over his shoulder and out the room again. Rose released a breath she didn’t even know she was holding. Brutes. Empaths. Two distinct groups that would soon be forced to be the same. Would it all end then? Rose left the room and headed underground to where the bomb was being built. They had called it Earth, for reasons Rose wasn’t exactly sure of. To her this Earth would symbolize a new beginning, possibly even unity. One where everyone could embrace their empathy instead of hiding behind blindfolds. Rose had come to hate these blindfolds, she wanted to feel everything around her, the pleasure and pain. Instead, from a young age she and the other Empaths had to cover their eyes to keep them from seeing…from feeling.

“This is so exciting,” Ivy said as she and Rose were taking their seats. “I can’t wait to see all those brutes’ reactions as they realize they are now one of us. Maybe they’ll kill each other in self-hatred.” Rose smiled at her friend even though she didn’t agree. She didn’t care about killing the non-empaths, she didn’t care about expanding their lands. All she wanted was to see this all come to an end in her lifetime as they were promised it would.

They watched as the airplane with the bomb took off to the Northern part of the forest where the nonempaths resided. A loud BOOM was all they heard a couple minutes later, and they started cheering, drinking, and watching in amusement as the night sky turned into a mixture of reddish and yellow hues. A new beginning, Rose thought to herself, a small smile forming on her lips.

The nonempaths had been trying to get rid of them since they had been created, seeing all empaths as a threat to humans as they could use their power to feel against them. When Luna woke up, she found herself lying on the forest ground. Rubbing her head, she could feel the heat

from the anger building up inside of her as she remembered her encounter with the Empaths. That was when she heard a loud BOOM nearby and watched as a bright light encompassed the entire forest grounds. She tried to run away from it but to no avail, the light took over the entire forest in what seemed like a split second. When she opened her eyes again, she sensed something was different, not just in the forest but with herself. She raised her hands to her head to try to steady herself, she thought that maybe she was hit too hard on her head. Eventually she got up and made her way to where her people’s base was.

“Those bastards did something to us,” Ashton said as Luna watched all her people rubbing their heads, their eyes.

“Why does everyone have those ugly green eyes now?” Luna asked bewildered. The Empaths had a genetic mutation from the bomb that was thrown at them hundred years ago, the bomb that made them Empaths in the first place. Luna thanked the heavens everyday that her people weren’t touched by the bomb, that they were miles away from it. But now, Luna could see her people with the same eyes, the ones she had always hated.

“I told you they did something,” Ashton grabbed her shoulders and at once the rage, the confusion Ashton felt was transferred over into Luna. She felt her heart race quicker, her face getting redder from his anger… no now it was her anger. She removed his hands away from her.

“Don’t touch me,” Luna whispered. She felt disgusting, feeling everything like that. That was when they all heard people, the Empaths roaring, running towards them. The Empaths started

clashing with them, throwing their spears and arrows into them. Luna watched as some of her people fell to the ground, wailing, crying. This was an ambush, all part of their plan. She knew what she had to do, even though she didn’t know her own limitations. She grabbed a bow and arrow that was lying on a table nearby.

“You can’t,” Ashton proclaimed, watching as she started strapping herself with weapons. “You don’t know how this will affect you.”

“You want to just stand here and let them have their way with you?” Luna ran into one of the two story houses and set herself up by a window where she could shoot her targets. If she could now feel her kills it would be smarter to stay away from the grounds where she didn’t know how long she would be paralyzed for. She drew an arrow from her quill and put it into her bow as she locked the blindfolded target within her sight. She could feel the arrow piercing her own heart as it did with her targets. She slumped into the ground, clutching her chest as she coughed. She closed her eyes as she tried to steady her breath. Immobilized, feeling would now be her weakness. But the Empaths were able to kill without being paralyzed with pain so there had to be a loophole. Maybe that was the blindfold’s purpose Luna thought. In that case she would need to cover her eyes, even though she wasn’t trained to shoot without her sight like the Empaths. She looked for something she could make do with. She settled on a scarf and wrapped it around her eyes. Picking up her bow, her hands started to shake a little from the uneasiness.

“I told you we would be one of the same,” A voice spoke as the door suddenly opened and Luna recognized it as Rose’s. “We’ll never be the same,” Luna felt something cold and sharp pressing against her head leading her to release a ragged breath. She knew what was going to happen next and she was ready for it.

***

Critical Reflection

When thinking about creating my own original creative work I thought back to Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower and her use of empathy. One specific part that inspired me to write this piece was when Lauren mentioned that if everyone had hyperempathy then no one would do horrible things like murder. This part really stood out to me because it reminded me of the increase in violence we have in our society today, like gun violence. Even if it would be ideal if we all lived in a utopian type of world where there was no such thing as murder, rape, racism, etc. it would never become a reality. This way of thinking influenced my work as I wanted to create a dystopian type of world where we have two groups of people, one who have the power of empathy, and the other who don’t. I wanted to signify that even if we were all one and the same, there would never be peace as things like human nature come into play.

I focused on Simon Evnine’s article, “‘But Is It Science Fiction?’: Science Fiction and a Theory of Genre” as a guide to understand the various theories of genre as well as the numerous debates in what makes a literary work science fiction. Evnine analyzes Darko Suvin’s views on science fiction and how they correlate to the theory of conceptual space within genre. It states, “Science fiction is located in the upper right cell, the intersection of cognitive and estranged” (4). Creating the feeling of cognitive estrangement in a science fiction piece brought my attention to how I could divert my own readers into a world where new insights and assumptions could be made. I thought this idea of cognitive estrangement was interesting as it takes a new reality and plays with the concept of conceptual space which encompasses various dimensions and universes all while forcing readers to dissect it and contrast from our own reality. Additionally, in a discussion between Le Guin and Atwood, the two debated between what makes a work a fantasy or science fiction as genre could be defined differently for every individual. It states, “… ‘they

agreed that the key distinction between fantasy and science fiction was one of possibility: fantasy could never happen, while science fiction could” (20). Seeing how there are numerous literary works that include fantastical aspects within the science fiction genre, I was a little uncertain on the distinction and how I could separate the two within my own work. This is how I ended up focusing on a bomb that could alter genes into making people Empaths which focused more on the aspect of advanced technology we usually see in the science fiction genre which could possibly happen.

Seeing as Octavia Butler influenced my work, I used another article that focused on Butler’s written works and their contributions to science fiction. Stephanie Smith’s scholarly journal, “Octavia Butler: A Retrospective” highlights Butler’s various achievements in the science fiction genre, and how she used her literary works to address gender and class struggles, racism, as well as many other predominant political issues. It states, “Good SF/F engages the political realities of its time through the remove of fiction, an aesthetic that flies in the face of the still-popular argument among writers and writing programs that poetry and politics should not mingle” (387). Focusing in on this line, I found myself to be inspired to include political struggles in my piece even if they may be subtly hinted at. Even if it goes against the conventional, I thought that spreading awareness as Butler did is of great importance and creates a sort of powerful effect. I also found myself taken aback that some writers believe that writing and politics shouldn’t mix when their words could be used as means to create changes in the system or in the world. It also states, “A teacher can have her students reading a story engaging enough to keep even inexperienced readers involved until the ending and so lead them to Butler’s explorations of the uneasy politics of slavery, science, the uses of fiction, the questions

of power and gender, and of course “race” (392). This was another line that I found influential as it captured how successful Butler’s works are in spreading awareness and acknowledging issues in our society while keeping the reader interested and captivated. I thought Smith explained this very well as this was my own personal experience while reading Butler’s Parable of the Sower, which addressed all these issues while creating a realistic world that could be our future at some point. Seeing how this is a difficult task to complete I became motivated to also create something that is interesting yet insightful to the issues we have in our own reality.

One writing liberty I took was creating a short story in third person point of view. I did this to create some distance between the characters and the readers so they would instead be able to digest the story in its entirety instead of feeling connected to one of the characters emotions or motives. I wanted to avoid the reader choosing sides and instead allow for a broader perspective that would leave the reader with new insights and assumptions. This goal correlated with my other decision of creating this story from the perspectives of two different characters on two different sides of this war. My goal with this piece was to show the perspectives of two sides in a war and how propaganda, brainwashing, ignorance, etc. are all harmfully incorporated into wars. Showing the two sides invites the idea that there are no right or wrong side in wars because each side believes that they are the correct ones. It’s not the people who are in the wrong but the government and those in power who manipulate their people. My choice of using empathy as a conflict came from the desensitization, we see in our world today. The Empaths have the power to feel everything but instead limit themselves and ultimately their capabilities. It's supposed to be ironic that they have this power but fail to use it, similarly to our world where we ignore not even political issues but human right ones.

Works Cited

Evnine, Simon J. “‘But Is It Science Fiction?’: Science Fiction and a Theory of Genre.” Midwest

Studies In Philosophy, vol. 39, no. 1, Sept. 2015, pp. 1–28., https://doi.org/10.1111/misp.12037.

Smith, Stephanie A. “Octavia Butler: A Retrospective.” Feminist Studies, vol. 33, no. 2, 1 July 2007, pp. 385–393., http://queens.ezproxy.cuny.edu/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/scholarly-journals/octavia-butler-retrospective/docview/233178514/se-2. Accessed 12 May 2022.