Juliette mopes more about how no one can touch her and her life sucks.

I only know now that the scientists are wrong.

The world is flat.

I know because I was tossed right off the edge and I’ve been trying to hold on for 17 years. I’ve been trying to climb back up for 17 years but it’s nearly impossible to beat gravity when no one is willing to give you a hand.

No, I’m pretty sure the world is still round.  Your metaphors did not change physics. 

So, this is getting sort of dicey.  Because I think Juliette really is mentally disturbed.  I’m just not sure how, and I’m not sure how much is intentional.  See, because “talks like an exceptionally bad case of the teenage mopes” doesn’t actually fit any disorders that I know of, but at the same time, there’s times I don’t know if she really believes this stuff, or if she’s just being lyrical in her own head.  So if it’s meant to be an ill person’s mind, then it’s very…clean, very Hollywood.  And that just confuses matters further.  Should I be mad because mental illness isn’t right, or because this isn’t even supposed to be that and is just robbing some emo kid’s tumblr?

So, here we go.  Assumption time.  I’m going to treat this like bad mental illness.  I’m going to act like it’s supposed to be a borderline case, one that could go either way and keep the reader guessing.

It’s still shit.  It’s shit because it’s meaningless.  There’s no context yet, no consequence, and honestly, nothing that could honestly be taken as insane.  If she claims that the world is flat, then she’s just made a melodramatic metaphor.  If she makes that claim and then argues with someone about how “no, really, it really is,” then that’s a break from reality.  We haven’t seen her interact with other people or the world enough to tell what’s really going on in her head, in terms of what she believes, not just how she talks.

If you’re going to try and pull this kind of shtick without significant character interaction, then it needs to be much more subtle.  Drop the metaphors and give us something straight, but slightly offkilter.  Something that makes us think “wait, what?” not “ugh, again?”  (Something that we’re reasonably sure is intentional; this shit is so close to every bad fanfiction I’ve ever read that I have no problem believing that an author would write it seriously.)

And if I’m wrong, we’ll deal with it then, because I just really don’t have anything else to go on right now.

The sun is an arrogant thing, always leaving the world behind when it tires of us.

The moon is a loyal companion.

It never leaves. It’s always there, watching, steadfast, knowing us in our light and dark moments, changing forever just as we do.

You know, except for during the day, when it “leaves” as well.

The weather is unreliable. Sometimes our winter days hit 92 degrees. Sometimes it snows for no reason at all.

No, I’m pretty sure snow still falls because it’s cold outside up in the clouds and stuff froze.  Cold up in the clouds doesn’t have to mean cold down on the ground, but the reason is still the same. 

Or, fuck it, if the weather’s that jacked up, maybe this is just hell.  Nothing we’ve learned so far has followed any semblance of science, and if the world is as fucked up as she says it is, they’re all dead anyway.  Maybe this is the afterlife for shitheads.

The natural elements were at war with one another because we abused our ecosystem. Abused our atmosphere. Abused our animals. Abused our fellow man.

Did you get the message yet?

Did you?

DID YOU?

Well, don’t worry, I’m sure we’ll have more hyperbole and metaphors to drive it home.

They talk a bit more, still saying nothing.  Adam fills us in on the fact that Reestablishment is a world-wide totalitarian government, not just a USA one, so at least that’s one trope averted.

“They’re destroying everything,” Adam says, and his voice is suddenly a solemn sound in the silence. “All the books, every artifact, every remnant of human history. They’re saying it’s the only way to fix things. They say we need to start fresh. They say we can’t make the same mistakes of previous generations.”

Wow, they’re really stupid then.

Earth is not stable.  She’s been changing forever.  She’s basically a teenager, always throwing out pimples and going through a growth spurt, except she’s probably never going to grow out of that.  So basically everything that’s happening, has already happened.

Science has this really handy thing they do where they study events and find out what the results are.

Since people haven’t been big on science for most of history, our books and art and artifacts are studied for clues so we can figure out what happened to the Earth way in the past, the ways the environment changes and reacts.

No more of that stuff means no more chances to use past examples, or hell, even the sequence of events that led to this mess, as part of finding the solution.

Great job, assholes.

We’re so good at masking our hunger until the knocks at the door cripple our dignity.

They starve us on purpose.

You just said that the environment is so fucked up that even people on the outside are starving.  Are you sure it’s not just that they don’t have anything to give you?

“Your eyes are so deep.” He tilts his head. “So calm. I want to know what you’re thinking.”

“You shouldn’t.”

You really, really shouldn’t.

Two weeks pass with nothing to report.  I wish the first two days had gone as painlessly.

Oh, yeah, and Juliette is obsessed with seeing a bird for some reason.  She keeps telling us that birds no longer fly but she keeps saying “maybe I’ll see one today.”

Before the ozone layer deteriorated, before the pollutants mutated the creatures into something horrible different.

…wow, you have a 1950s understanding of how pollution works, don’t you?

Quick, go jump in a lake of glowing green goo, maybe you’ll get super powers.

They talk more about the stupid shit the government is doing and it’s stupid.  Juliette takes that news particularly hard for some reason and needs a hug.  So Adam decides to give her one.

Two three four fifty thousand pieces of feeling stab me in the heart, melt into drops of warm honey that soothe the scars in my soul.

I had to read that, and now so do you.

There’s a blanket between them, though, so we don’t find out what happens when Juliette touches people.  She pulls away and reiterates her no-touching rule, but refuses to tell him why. 

“We’re practically the only two people who are alive in this place and you want to shut me out, too?”

YOU HAVE NO IDEA ABOUT ANYONE ELSE IN THERE BECAUSE YOU NEVER LEAVE YOUR CELL.

THEY’RE PROBABLY JUST AS ALIVE AS YOU ARE, WHY WOULD YOU THINK OTHERWISE?