Reversed (1)

Milo
         Where I come from, they don't teach you your emotions until you're in high school. They teach you sadness first, because it is stronger, and even as a little sociopathic kid in grade school, there is a hint of the depression, wallowing almost nonexistent in the back of your head. They teach you sadness because it's easy, you can draw it up from somewhere in your mind and have it devour your entire body. Then, after having emos troll the school grounds for three weeks, they teach what a smile really means. This is harder, happiness doesn't even exist. You have to create it, you have to force yourself to grin, to laugh, and to be cheerful. Where I come from, our sadness is real, but our happiness is laced with cognitive thinking. After the two basics have been 'mastered' they vary off it, having sadness and happiness branch off in a million little lines, like when my group stole a human weapon and cracked the pavement with the bullets.  At the end of high school, adults act as close to neurotypicals as they possibly can.  Being taught you're emotions is always done right, because when you go to the real world and you already know how to act with emotion, the flash flood of being a human is less intimidating, and you can be normal.
         I wish I could have stayed in Rewind until I was in high school. I had to go to the real world when I was seven, and the emotional flood drowned me in an instant. I wish I could clear my mind completely like I used to, but now, my nerves are on end, my ears are listening to every vibration in the air. I wake up and I'm calm, but I hear my mother's voice and my mood instantly shifts, except the rest of my cerebrum can't catch up, so I'm feeling happy, sad, and angry all at once and I don't know exactly that I am.  My mother's voice is sugar coated today. I think it's my birthday today. There's another weird thing about the real world. You have birthdays, and everyone has biological parents. Not every birthday counts though. I think the milestones are really 1, 3, 7, 10, 13, 16, 18, 21 and so on. Nothing really happens when you're 2, or if you're 15. You're just waiting for the next red button to push.  Today, I think I am 10. My mom tells me we're going somewhere. I think birthdays are special, but I could still be nine. It's a nice number.
         I almost fall out of bed and land on all fours on the carpet. I get motion sick, and I have to keep telling myself that the ground isn't going anywhere. I can't say the same for stairs though. I walk to the closet and dump out all the shirts. Then I rummage through them trying to find something, but I come up with nothing, and I start to freak out. The kind of freaking out when you have to remember to breathe and your brain is locking itself down because something  very important is missing. My mom called it panicking, but I don't like that word. I can't call for my mom, or for my brother, though. Every day since I was seven and came here, I have to keep reminding myself that in the real  world, there are no group or individual numbers that are displayed on wristbands and armbands.  I'm still spooked from the stories of what happened to people who lose their numbers. I feel like I'm standing in my room for a very long time, but I can't convince myself that I don't need to wear one! I try to tell myself the world is still spinning very slowly and the moon is spinning very slowly. I think they sent me here because I could see the moon all the way from Rewind.
         I hear my mother's footsteps up the stairs as she heads to my room. She's going to open my bed room door and see me standing here with my eyes shut unable to breathe. I have to teach myself to breathe before she opens the door. She doesn't like it when I act strange.  My eyes are open but apparently I have a certain look on face because she makes a sound that's a sigh but a groan at the same time.
         "Milo," My mom picks up a small t-shirt from the mess I made. "wear this and come downstairs, ok sweets?" she leaves with the same soft footsteps she had coming up.
         I wrestle it over my head and run out, forgetting that I have to be very careful on stairs. I fall down a whole flight and bump my head a couple of times. I 'm dizzy, and I don't know where up is, and I start walking on all fours, backwards, down the next flight until my hands meet the cold tile and I have to get up on my feet before my hands are frozen solid.

Tristan
         My brother just woke up and fell down the stairs again. If I didn't know better, I'd say he got a green eye from falling down too much.  He even gets to ride the elevator at school because of the ridiculous amounts of stairs they have.
         I'm already at the table when Milo comes stumbling in, bumping his head again on the wall. I slouch, moving my face  closer the my cereal bowl and mutter an insult, which I know he hears.  He growls at me and runs out of the kitchen. On my part, it was a strategic move since I can't eat when there are other people around. It makes me think of the mush moving around in their mouths before sliding down a tight, slimy tube where it's lead to a pit of acid. The whole idea just disgusts me. I wish I could get a note removing me from science class.
         A few minutes later, my mother comes strolling in, making me spit out what I had in my mouth back into the bowl.  I keep forgetting to include the possibility of Milo being a tattle tale in my strategic move.  She scolds me about teasing my brother and how she doesn't have the time for it today. "Finish your breakfast , you're coming with me and your brother." She leaves again, so I can finish, not because she wants too. I could read in her face that she wants to cook up food for all of us and eat like a family, but when we did do that, I kept throwing up and staying hungry. My mom is a people person with real feelings. I have a lot to learn from her.