BlueK Dynasty: The 1st Seven Days (2 page)

“
Is
that right
?” another reporter asked Connie.
  

She replied,
“
Yes
, Gill, the
many families that are stuck in the inner cities will hopefully be
given the chance to apply first
.
”
  

“
Well, we shall see
,” Gill continued.
“
This all may be a rumor started by the
Aquaritime group to boost its business and apartment
sales
.”
  

“
Gill, back to you inside the Seven News
studio
,” finished
Connie.
  

Kurma flicked off the TV
and looked at Santino.  
  

He said, “I guess we’re
not the only ones feeling the pressure.”
  

“
If the
ocean could talk, what do you think it would say?” asked
Kurma.
  

Santino thought for a
while. “It’s not the ocean that would have a problem. The stuff
that holds the land and sea up is what we really need to worry
about. The earth.”
  

Kurma chuckled and smiled
at him. She couldn’t imagine the earth’s core, let alone if it felt
anything.
  
  

Kurma  slowly walked
back to her bedroom, questioning the situation the whole time. Her
imagination wouldn’t let her think like that. Could the earth’s
core, the thing that made the earth go round and round, be
bothered?
  

2.

The earth went round and
upside down
  

Kurma watched as the clock
hands tick-tocked. Right on cue the school’s bell rang loudly,
signaling the end of the day. Kurma quickly sprang from her seat
and followed her classmates out the door into the hallway. As usual
she found Santino waiting for her in front of the school’s main
staircase.
  

Kurma walked through the
halls with him. “I missed you,” she said.
  

Santino looked down at her
and kissed the top of her head. “I missed you
too.”
  

Kurma noticed he seemed
quiet and distant. “Everything okay?”
  

“
Yeah. I
mean, I just want some alone time with you, and it seems like
you’ve been trying to avoid a certain situation.” He stopped and
turned to her.  They were a couple that did couple-like
things, minus the most important one that Santino could no longer
ignore. “Don’t get me wrong. I love you, but I’ve been patient
enough.”
  

Kurma stopped walking down
the stairs and faced him. She knew where this conversation was
headed. “All you care about is one thing, and once you get that
thing, you won’t want me anymore.”
  

“
Why do
you feel that way? I love you. What else do I have to do to show
you that?” asked Santino. “I stopped talking to all my other
friends. I dropped all my girls for you!”
  

“
When I
met you, you were the cocky, arrogant All-City champ with a wild
streak. Every time I think about it, I get scared that you’re going
to go back to your old ways and forget all about
me.”
  

Santino dropped his chin
to his chest. “I’m tired of this little game we’re playing. You are
too perfect. You want everything your way, exactly how you say it,
when, where, and how. I can’t do this anymore. There isn’t any
incentive at all. Everything doesn’t revolve around Kurma’s wants
and needs!”
  

Kurma stood still, with a
shocked expression on her face. “That’s all you care about,” she
argued back at him.
  

“
You
only care about yourself,” he said while staring her down. “It
seems like we’re saying the same things.”
  

“
Just in
a different way.”
  

They both stood against a
wall, pressed back by their peers.
  

“
This
isn’t going to work for me,” said Kurma, hoping to psych him
out.
  

Santino was hurt that she
wasn’t even trying to fight for their relationship. “You know, when
I met you, you had no friends, no life. You were a nobody. Remember
that. You can go right back to that life, for all I
care.”
 f 

Tears fell silently from
Kurma’s eyes as she watched Santino walk away. He was so tall she
could still see him as he left the school. She knew he was right.
When she’d met him in the eleventh grade she was friendless,
clueless about boys, and socially awkward, and had a bad case of
OCD. Kurma had hated that life, and Santino knew that. Now, she
wasn’t really afraid of losing him, but of him going back to who he
used to be. While she had been eating lunches in back of the
school, away from people, he had been in the cafeteria entertaining
an audience of admirers and friends with his latest escapades. She
would see him every day in gym, always so athletic, gorgeous, and
gifted. There was no way the old Kurma could have kept a guy like
that, so she knew the new Kurma would have to give in and let him
take her virginity. She could only hope she would do well enough to
impress Santino. Otherwise he might drop her back down the social
ladder where she began. That was her fear: of being irrelevant
again. Holding out on Santino was her trump card. Without it she
was too exposed.
  

“
Kurma.
Hey, Kurma,” a voice rang out. “Hey,
girl.”
  

She looked out into the
crowd and saw Eliza; her only friend in middle school—who had
dropped her as soon as the two girls had become freshmen in high
school, and Eliza had become popular. Ever since Santino had made
it official with Kurma the previous year, though, Eliza had
miraculously forgotten those three years of
absence.
  

“
Was
that Santino I just saw walking away?” Eliza
asked.
  

Kurma ignored her
question. “Let me ask you something. You’re a virgin,
right?”
  

Eliza looked embarrassed
but tried to cover it up. “Of course I’m not a virgin. Anthony and
I do it all the time.”
  

Kurma could read right
through her old frenemy’s lies. Anthony, who Kurma suspected was
gay, had graduated early and was upstate at school. Either Eliza
had an imaginary live in boyfriend with the same name, or she was
lying. So she wasn’t any help.
  

Kurma realized she would
have to fake it until she made it, and act as if she already knew
what she was doing. She would need to call Santino immediately to
get him back.
  

“
I’m
guessing you and Santino are going to take it all the way tonight,”
Eliza said. “Finally. You know the schools sluts have been pressed
for your man ever since you showed your sweet little face on the
social scene.”
  

“
Whatever. I’m not worried about anyone taking him,” Kurma
said.
  

“
Well,
little lady, you’d better show up and show out.” Eliza giggled
loudly. “I want all the details over the
weekend.”
  

Kurma planted a phony kiss
on her cheek and made her exit. She planned on calling Santino as
soon as she got home. How she would get the house to herself, she
had no idea.
  

*
  

“
So you
paid your brothers to take your mom out to dinner? Pretty smart.”
Santino smiled in Kurma’s face. “I know you want this as much as I
do.”
  

“
I just
want this to be right,” Kurma said nervously. “We’re doing this
because we care about each other.”
  

Santino reached over to
pull her on top of him. “I want to make us last, and I want to take
care of you.”
  

Kurma felt slightly
better. She had been feeling like a wreck; her nerves were fried,
and the anxiety had her stomach flipping out. For one, she was a
virgin; for two, she wasn’t on birth control; and three, she didn’t
know when her twin brothers and mother would come through the
door.
  

“
Come
on. Let’s get this over with,” she said.
  

Santino was surprised. At
first it seemed like Kurma had been holding out by making excuses
and stalling every which way. But now she was in a
rush.
  

“
You’re
taking the fun out of this,” he said. “Look, I lit candles, got
rose pedals. None of this is appealing to
you?”
  

Kurma tried to smile and
slow down her thoughts. He did seem to be trying to put forth an
effort. There were three lit candles in front of the vanity set,
and pink rose petals littered the entrance to the bedroom. He even
had his iPod playing her favorite song.
  

“
Okay,
let’s do it your way…the romantic way.” Kurma reluctantly let her
control go and put her trust in Santino. She had no idea what he
was going to do now that her V card was going to be swiped. Her
mother always told her to wait. The longer you wait, she said, the
longer they stay. Kurma closed her eyes as she felt Santino undo
her clothes.
  

He touched her skin softly
and maneuvered himself on top of her. Their kissing was deep; Kurma
had forgotten how she loved to kiss Santino. He made this feel so
right even though she knew she was doing it for the wrong
reason.
  

The love between them
generated a heat as the pressure mounted. Santino and Kurma were
making love…and unknowingly planting a seed. However, the earth
knew the seed would grow into a child who would grow into an adult,
and that adult would create more children to bear more children.
The earth’s core cracked at the exact moment Santino impregnated
Kurma.
 
The
earth was tired and crumbling in on itself. It needed an answer to
the source of the problems it was experiencing. The earth needed an
answer to the overpopulation.
  

*
  

Crack
,
 
crack
,
 
crumble
,
 
splash
,
 
crack
,
 
grind
, d
rip
,
 
crack
. The earth crumbled and softened in places as the pressure
from above ground continued to burden its inner iron core. It bent
and corroded as the outer core heated to catastrophic level. The
pressure shifted the earth’s outer areas as well, causing the
mantle to crack and crumble as the crust ground to dust, making it
unsuitable for living.  
  

For its own preservation,
the earth released chemicals and toxins into the atmosphere. The
toxins would transmute human DNA so a new species could be
created—one that would be at the top of the food chain and decrease
the human species by slowing, stopping, and reversing the rate of
its expansion, and the loss of land. Earth chose evolution to deal
with its demise. And it all began with Kurma and
Santino.
  

3.

Let the species say
Amen
  

The two lovers lay
shoulder to shoulder with the covers drawn over them. Looking up at
the ceiling, Santino was quietly pleased with himself. He wondered
if it would be too much to ask to go again, especially since they’d
forgotten to use protection. Kurma had gone quiet when Santino had
pointed this out to her.
  

“
Heat of
the moment,” he had said. “Don’t be mad, alright? I just got caught
up in everything.” He looked for her response. There was none.
“You’re quiet. Too quiet.” He began to feel awkward. He grabbed
Kurma’s face and asked, “You’re not mad at
me?”
  

In a rush Kurma pulled her
face from Santino’s hand and made a run for the bathroom. “I feel
sick,” she screamed.
  

Why was she acting weird?
Santino wondered, then tried to sit up, but immediately caught a
head rush. “Oh,” he said. Something was in the air—an odor, but he
had never smelled anything like it before. The more he tried to
breathe in, the tighter his throat became. White and blue dots
popped out before his eyes, and he felt even more lightheaded.
Gasping for breath he tried to call out to Kurma, but to no avail;
his smooth voice was gone, and only a rasp emanated from his
throat. His body tangled in the covers as he tried to signal his
brain to work. That smell, it was everywhere. He couldn’t
concentrate on anything else. The noise outside had disappeared,
the lights had dimmed, and time seemed to stand
still.