“First… I need to put Delilah in her cage.” Eve said that, then entered a creepy dark hallway and disappeared. The room had some dim old-fashioned floor lamps, that were well, dark-bronze sticks and even had beige lampshades. The soundproofing was pretty damn good, because I couldn’t hear her thumping footsteps after she disappeared.

By the way, I didn’t stay in the living room just because I was too lazy to write about the layout of the rest of her house. I just felt super awkward and being the weirdo that I am, I didn’t even sit down on the leather couch or recliner. Even though they looked clean, I didn’t know much about Eve yet and for all I knew, she might have some weird and dangerous contagious diseases. Also it’s a habit from many years as a hardcore OCD master.

As I paced around anxiously, I was also carefully examining every fucking thing in the god damn room. It’s just what I do. I noticed how unnaturally clean everything was, but I could also smell disinfectant in the air. So it was pretty obvious that she might have only cleaned up the living room in order to leave a good impression on me. After all, she was the one who came to visit me, then invited me over. Eve left me there and it felt like she was gone for at least twenty minutes.

When she finally came back, well, I couldn’t help but complain: “Maybe you have some kinda weird and twisted concept of beauty? From what I can tell, you’re pretty damn good looking. Unless you’re not Eve-56 and this is just some elaborate trap?”

She must have spent that time changing her clothes, because the hooded trench coat was gone, along with the gloves, socks, skinny jeans and sunglasses. No, she wasn’t naked. But she was wearing a brown frilly skirt that almost reached her knees, a ‘small’ black t-shirt that clung tightly to her extremely skinny chest and stomach, and those same slippers from earlier.

By the way, since she’s like seven feet tall, her small clothes were more like extra large for someone like me. Still, although she didn’t seem ‘weak’, she didn’t seem to have any obvious muscles. Maybe similar to a person who has a high metabolism or only does cardio. As far as breasts go, hers looked small and perky, but realistically almost the size of my fucking head.

Speaking of head… Heads… Anyway, she’s bald. Even her eyebrows were clearly painted on. She didn’t even have eyelashes. Ultimately though, she was one of those overpowered ‘beautiful people’, who could basically pull off any look and still be attractive. Something about the bone structure? She had plump pink lips, dark-brown irises, light-brown skin and impossibly straight, white teeth. Her nose was wide and almost ‘flat’, but that could also be an optical illusion.

She stood on the other side of the room and just stared at me for a few minutes without saying anything. There was something a little off-putting about how unnaturally calm and still she was? Almost like she was a robot, but at the same time, it was more like she was intentionally heavily suppressing her emotions.

Eventually she let out a long breath with her eyes closed and sat down on the middle of the couch. Even sitting down, she was practically still at eye-level with my short ass. By that I mean my face.

“My name is Eve. I am the fifty-sixth Experiment of the Adam and Eve Project.” She stared at me and took another deep breath, “There aren’t many of us left, but we mostly call each other by our nicknames. Mine is… Chameleon.”

I smirked, unable to stop myself from asking: “Because you’re so slow? Guess Sloth was already taken?”

She didn’t smile or even blink at my snarky remark. Simply breathed out, then took a deep breath and said: “Before my generation, they had already ‘perfected’ humanity in the mundane sense. They made normal human clones. For my generation, they decided that normal wouldn’t be enough.”

After another long pause, she closed her eyes and continued: “Each of us was designed to be superhuman… Their experiments mostly failed. Even when they succeeded, it was only something the next generation would benefit… Or suffer from.”

“I kinda figured that. Considering that they figured out the whole psychic thing and decided to stick with that. Would be silly to believe that they just got lucky.” I snickered and noticed that there was a bright-red blush appearing on the girl’s cheeks.

Eve sighed and the blush faded away, then she said: “My ‘power’ was meant to be similar to that of a Chameleon. To blend in with my surroundings… But it’s so… Incredibly difficult to maintain this state of mind. If I lose control of my emotions for a moment… You wouldn’t want to see that.”

“No, I totally would, haha~!” After laughing for a while, I watched as she slowly faded into the ‘background’. Then I complimented, “That’s actually a pretty decent ability. But you probably can’t make the most of it unless you’re naked or wearing camo gear… In that case though, couldn’t anyone just wear camo?”

After a few seconds, she reappeared and told me: “My father is African American, so I try to maintain darker skin-tones as much as possible. It’s easier and more natural for me to blend in with the environment around me. And you’re right. If I’m completely nude, I can easily hide in the forest at night, but during the daytime… It’s dangerous.”

“Ah, is it a UV thing? Will you lose your power if exposed to the sun?” I sighed almost at the same time as her, since I love the way the sun feels on my skin. Even makes me energized. But in a normal way, not a superhero kinda thing.

Eventually she glared at me, “You can sit down if you’d like… Or just stand there. But please stop pacing back and forth. It’s very distracting.” 

I snickered and then nervously stood in front of her again, “Sorry… Did I forget to mention the OCD thing? Oh what the hell, I’m gonna take a shower when I get home anyway.” It was super awkward, but she scooted over to the left and I sat down on the right side of the couch… Facing the brown wall…

After a minute or two, I turned to her and noticed that she was still staring ahead, as if she was trying not to look at me. Eventually I asked, “Umm… So aside from taking care of birds and uh, the Chameleon thing, what else do you do? Not superpower wise, but just as a person. Have any hobbies, goals, play any video games or…”

“I meditate. A lot.” She turned her head slightly and glanced at me, then turned back facing the wall again. After a few moments, she continued: “I rarely go out during the daytime. But at night, I take care of my garden… I’ll need to rebuild the fence, clear away whatever the birds and scavengers don’t eat, then sow new seeds. The earthquake this time was far more powerful than the previous ones… We might not be able to receive any supplies for a long time. I also like to fish and swim in the ocean.”

“Ah, I’m a night owl too sometimes.” I snickered, “But I usually don’t do it on purpose. I’ll stay awake for sixteen hours and sleep for ten to twelve. My nights and days usually move around all the time. Wait, what do you mean by the earthquake thing? I’ve never heard of an earthquake happening near Jacksonville before… Like, ever. And you’re younger than me, right?”

Eve sighed again, “Whenever a strong hurricane hits, there’s often an earthquake. I’ve experienced it twice so far. The first time was when I was a child… I was living in the ‘Nursery’ back then, so we never ran out of supplies or needed to worry about anything. The second earthquake was smaller, and happened when I was nineteen. I was living on my own in this house. Didn’t hear from ‘them’ for a whole year. No supplies, no shop, nothing. It’s a good thing I was already pretty self-sufficient by then.”

“Wait, wait, what? How is that possible?” I thought she was trolling me at first, but then I smiled wryly and asked: “Eve… How old are you now?”

She turned her head towards me again and said, “Twenty-five. I guess they didn’t tell you much about this island? They call it a Localized Temporal Anomaly Zone. Every so often, there’s an earthquake and then… Depending on how strong the earthquake is, the longer it lasts. The first time was five years. The second was only a year. This time… I’ve never felt an earthquake that strong before.”