The law of conservation of energy states energy cannot be created or destroyed. Similarly after the shift, structures and inventions were given to humanity but they had no way of paving their own way forward.
This and the endless days was a predicament Ivory never truly came to accept. She convinced herself she did but in doing so she fed herself a lie. The falsehood that this whole situation was temporary and there was a way back from this hell for humanity.
This lie dictated people had a chance to gain their bearings and rise against the changes in the world that they didn't consent to.
The idea of this in its entirety was foolish. It seemed humans were all wired the same way. Countless people around the world all likely thought the same things when the shift occurred.
Why has the world changed? Why can't I contribute to society like I had in the past? Will the world change back to how it was before?
Change and uncertainty sparked fear but control created strength in society. This is why the council existed to give humanity the strength they desperately needed against the world's future filled with uncertainty.
Ivory walked with her best friend leaving Sinners' street in the past. She stayed silent for a long time and didn't talk to her despite how desperately she wanted to.
She wanted to scream and tell her every detail about what happened but she couldn't. Minutes before the two started walking, Ivory lied about meeting with someone selling fake sun screen at a cheap price.
Ivory didn't like to lie but sometimes lying was how to keep people safe. Abigail was important to Ivory and she didn't want anything bad to happen to her.
Abigail accepted her answer and didn't poke into what she was doing any further. Ivory's cover up story was very plausible when looking at it from her point of view.
A barista who needed sun screen but lacked the funds to buy the official version of it sold by the government, decides to buy it off a dealer near Sinners' street.
Most people were aware of how cheap these sun screen bottles in this area were so it made sense to Abigail as to why Ivory would want her hands on it. In addition to the fact that in the past she had bought a few bottles of sun sceen in an area near Sinners' street.
Ivory told Abigail about what she did, receiving a scolding from her. This cover up story was almost perfect. It had evidence from the past to back it up and she had a motive to be there.
The endless day at this moment had a hint of a cool breeze as the two walked down a residential area approaching Ivory's house.
Abigail lets out a sigh, "Ivory... You know you can tell me if something's going on right? I can't help but feel like you're lying to me."
Ivory says with frustration, "Everything is going on."
She pauses and composes herself, "I'm sorry. I've been really tired lately and I guess I haven't been feeling like myself."
Abigail slings an arm over her shoulder despite Ivory's very muddy white coat, "I know. Don't worry about it. I know sun screen prices aren't getting any better. This must be a really stressful time for you considering how you were hospitalized recently for a sunburn."
Ivory felt sick at the memory of the hospital, "I'm completely fine now. No sunburns are on me anymore, I got it treated."
The lying started to make her stomach sick. How could some people be born natural liars?
Abigail lets go of her as they approach her door, "I'll see you at the coffee shop in an hour right? No more sneaking off to do... well whatever it was you were doing."
Abigail looks down at Ivory's muddy white coat and looks back at her with a questioning look on her face before turning to walk away.
Ivory gives a half smile, "Yeah don't worry, you'll see me. We've got a quota we need to reach."
Ivory reaches into her white coat's pocket for the keys to her house and twists it into the key slot to open the door. She closes the door quickly behind her as tears fall down her face.
She leans against the door letting out a shaky exhale, "Why? Why did this shit have to happen to me?"
Ivory sits down for a few moments hugging herself. What would happen to her if they found out she still had the sunburn?
She wipes her eyes as she feels a familiar coldness return to her finger tips. Ivory gets up and approaches a long circular silver mirror at the end of the room. She wipes it off with her hand hastily to see her reflection clearly. A pair of dark blue eyes greeted her, replacing her brown eyes.
In that second, she unzips her white coat slightly and analyzes her neck where the sunburn had appeared and started to glow. The red patterns on her neck were similar to basic lines combined with patterns that looked like a snow flake. She needed to be able to control this power or else they would take her away very soon.
Ivory fought the sensations in her hands that tried to be released but she couldn't hold back for long. Her hands trembled and shot out a gust of ice to freeze a nearby family picture frame. Ivory almost jumped to catch it analyzing the picture.
There was a tall man with short black hair and dark brown skin who was in the photo holding his seven year old daughter with a grin on her face as she was tossed in the air.
The memory of a person you could never go back to is something that gave Ivory a dull ache in her chest. The type of pain that eats at you when you think about it and when you don't, it tears through your chest leaving you with a radiating pain spreading throughout your body.
The readjustment period took place when Ivory was fourteen. Her father was a good man and didn't deserve to die in one of the worst ways possible for a human.
Ivory's father as well as half of the population on the planet were incinerated to ash when the new era began under supernatural circumstances.
Scientists around the world later theorized if this was a god trying to control the ongoing issue revolving around over population. The question was left unanswered similar to almost all questions revolving around the current state of the world.
Ivory closed her eyes and remembered the picture almost imagining her mother laughing in the back of the photo. Her long black hair was blowing in the wind and her light brown skin glowing in the sun.
This memory left a hole in her heart because of the contrast it created to reality. The three of them when her father passed had been buying some ice cream from a local ice cream vendor.
As her father reached to pay, he screamed as his feet and his arms started to burn filling the air with the aroma of burnt flesh.
Her mother held onto him desperately trying to get the flames off of him but in the blink of an eye, he burned to ash. She never was the same after that.
Ivory opened her eyes and stared at the family picture frame again this time as it remained undamaged. The picture inside of the frame was a generic picture of a family.
This picture frame had never held a picture of her and her family but in reality this whole time she had imagined it did. She was so desperately holding onto the past, that the young woman tried to manifest it to reality.
The picture frame in her mind represented the reality that Ivory wanted to preserve these memories in the real world and not just her head. These memories, as long as she lives, will not be forgotten. She couldn't create or destroy but she could preserve everything that she had left.