Lost But Unforgotten

I continued a stroke with my paint brush. This was the finishing touch to my painting. I stood back and admired my painting. It was a painting of downtown. There were many buildings of different sizes lined up shoulder to shoulder. Light emitting from the windows of the buildings brightening the otherwise dark sky. Many people inhabited this painting. After all, downtown was not simply a place for one type of person but many. There were businessmen scurrying to work, teenagers standing in groups, women hurrying with open purses and beggars lying in the shadows hoping not to be seen. In the centre of the painting was a protective father and a loving mother surrounded by two mischievous children. The family - my family - was laughing and smiling as they walked down the busy streets of downtown. The shadows from my family enlightened the rest of the painting.

“Finally done your picture?” said an anticipated boy behind me. It was my brother who had just walked into the room.

“You really got to do something other than paint all day. Let’s go outside and throw the football around.” he said.

My brother was now twelve. He had grown since the event this picture took place. He was very tall and had tanned skin. His eyes were a shade of red which was very uncommon but many girls liked that about him. His body was a lot more toned now after years of playing football. He was the favourite child of the family because of his personality. He was great with words and could entertain people for hours about random things. He was my role model. I knew I could never be like him but it was nice to know that there was a realistic goal that would be obtainable instead of aiming for an unobtainable goal.

I shook my head left to right. “Okay bro but your missing out.” said Grayson, my brother. With that he walked out the door. He left me sitting in my room to ponder on whether I took the right decision. I did not say no because I did not want to play, I said no because I knew that I had the freedom to do so.

He was much more understanding than he expressed in front of me. Considering that I was basically a mute, he never treated me any differently than people treated him. I had a speech problem. It was a mix of cluttering, stuttering and dyslexia. Many people do not bother to talk to me for this reason. I have always had a problem talking so I chose not to and conveyed what was necessary through art. I think very differently than the regular child. What I mean is both being smarter but taking a different approach to a similar situation. If there were two paths that were laid out before me, and every other person took the right path, I would take the left path. I do not mean to do it but it was naturally programed into my system. I also have perfect memory. I can remember every detail of my life since I was four years old. I am one of the twenty people in the world that have this ability. I think it had something to do with my odd way of thinking. Since I do not get the chance to talk much, I have a lot of time to ponder on random things. That made the way I think very unique. Today, I turned ten years old.

I walked downstairs to show my mom the painting. Dad was on the way home from work. He and mom worked in a nuclear plant. They were scientists that studied radiation. My mother was working hard in the kitchen. Her hair was a mess and her clothes were splattered with random colours and powders. It looked like she had just returned from a paintball tournament. I jumped up in front of her with the painting in my hands.

“Let’s take a look at this.” said my mother softly and took the painting from my hands. “You’ve got quite the artistic mind. Wow. Is this the day we went to the theatres and Gray dropped ketchup on his shirt? I can see it in the painting. You have quite the memory.” She said bending down to my level and ended the conversation with a tap on my nose. Her finger left a bit of flour on my nose. I gave her a little smile and a nod.

“I’m home.” I heard a loud voice coming from the entrance of the house. I went running down to greet the voice. I stood at the entrance and smiled at the person at the door, my dad.

My mom walked up to him and whispered in his ear. “That sounds like a great idea. We’ll go right now before the guests arrive.” He replied.

Within a couple of seconds we left the house and were at the theatre. My mother had told him about my picture and they assumed that I wanted to watch a movie at the theatre. We went to watch a movie at the theatre. It was very dark in the movie theatre. The trailers began running and I wanted to go to the washroom before the movie starter. I poked Gray in the arm. He looked at me with a questioning look. I lifted a closed fist and lifted the pinky. “Alright. Let’s make it fast.” replied Grayson.

We went to the washrooms and I heard a loud bang. My gut was churning. There was something wrong. I quickly ran out with Grayson and saw a very large man guarding the theatre doors. He stood there with his arms crossed and a gun in his hands. We heard a lot of screaming coming from the inside. Grayson and I grabbed each of his arms and begged his. There were tears streaming from both of our eyes.

“Please. Please.” I heard Gray crying.

The man stood there not fazed by anything Grayson and I did. His mouth cracked and a grin appeared. There was something twisted about that man. There was only one way we could go in but I would not be able to do it. I would have to do it because I could not tell him. I stepped back and ran at the man. I punched him in the gut but it left nothing. The man was confused why I would attempt to pull off a trick like that which would never work. Grayson understood. Within a second Grayson flipped the man over, took away his gun and was in the theatre.

There was a gigantic hole where the projector should have been. There were no sign of people alive. We looked around and saw our parents. I ran up to them and they were lying there motionless. There was blood oozing from everywhere. Grayson grabbed my head and covered my eyes. Tears flowing from both of us. How could they leave us and just leave? Was this a dream. Grayson whispered in my ears “It’s going to be alright.” Even though I knew he did not know if it was, it was enough to relax me.

I felt a hand push me to the side and grab Grayson. “It was you who did this wasn’t it?” I heard a man say. I looked back to see a policeman trying to handcuff Gray. I could not let that happen.

“It, It, t” I could not get past that. There must have been another way. There were more tears flowing. I could not let them take away Grayson too. I felt a power amount of energy in my head. I could feel my heartbeat in my brain. I directed the energy towards the cop. I send images of what had happened. He was on his knees screaming as I continued to send images in his directions. Somehow I had blamed him for everything that had happened today. He began twitching on the ground. It must have been a seizure. Grayson grabbed me and ran. We ran right out of the place and never came back to that gruesome place.



Living Sculpture

That incident had changed both of our lives. Years had passed before we got used to them not being there. Grayson was now 17 and I was 13. No family wanted to adopt us so we decided to live on our own and pretend as if a guardian was taking care of us. We both forged signatures whenever necessary. I practiced my powers with Grayson because it was a much easier way of communicating between us. I usually put a picture in his head and he would reply back. At first, we were surprised by it but we realized that I needed it to communicate like this and it was a faster way. I got so good at it. I began actually speaking with a voice in a person’s head. Grayson stopped going to school and began working to earn money for us to survive on. He did almost every job to earn money. I had lost count of the number of jobs he had taken. Most of the jobs were hard labour.

I continued going to school but I also took a part time job. My part-time job was working for a Hindu Temple. I was a Christian but the churches only offered volunteer services. Being a Christian, it was very different from what I was usually exposed to. One thing that I definitely thought was very different was that it was very loud. I would help clean up in the after they would lock up, hand out food to people in line and carry some boxes here and there.

My hour was up and I left. By the time I entered the door it was late. Grayson had already went to sleep. There was a package on the kitchen counter addressed to Grayson. It had already been opened. I peered inside the box out of curiosity. There, lying in the box, was a gun and a note attached to it. I picked up the gun. It was a lot heavier than I thought a gun would be. The note fell to the ground. My eyes picked up on a few words while it was falling which were; target and tonight. Something terrible was about to happen.

“That would be enough.” I heard an angry voice from behind me. I turned around to see a furious Grayson standing by the stairs.

“Why are you going through my stuff?”

“What are you doing, Grayson.” I focussed into his. “There’s a gun in the middle of the kitchen.” He stood there staring at me.

“We needed money. It was the only way. It is too late to back down now.”

“There is always another way. What makes you any different than the people who killed our parents.” I replied. A surprised expression plastered his face. Within a flash he took the box and left the house.

He never returned to the house. It was just going to be me from now on. I took more shifts at the Hindu temple to make money. It was hard studying and working but I was managing. One night the temple took longer to close because it was a special event. Finally, my last hour was up and the place looked clean. Having time, I thought that I should look at the different hindu gods in the altars. They were of many colours and each had different facial features. Most of them had human characteristics.

I found another sculpture that did not resemble a human but looked more bird-like. The named was written above the altar; Garuda. There was something very unique about this god. It looked slightly frightening yet elegant at the same time. The eyes were especially frightening. They were large and pointed in more than one direction. There was something different about this bird. I looked around to see no one around and walked near the sculpture. I touched the eye of the sculpture. There was a sudden vibration arousing from it. Had I broken it? The eyes suddenly locked into place and stared right at me. There was one thing going through my head. Please don’t kill me. A powerful light flashed from the gold placed on the sculpture’s chest and it blinded my eyes forcing them to close.

White World

I opened my eyes to be surrounded by white. There seemed not to be any other colour except white. There was no objects, no walls, just white. It was as if I was trapped in a white blank sheet of paper. The only thing that was not white was golden symbols spinning in circles. some circles were bigger than other. I had seen some of these symbols before but I did not know what they were. I had not noticed the gold symbols but it seemed as if they were alive.

“Hello.” I heard a booming voice. It sounded as if it came from everywhere. I looked around but there was no one in sight. I look around to see if anyone was there but I could not find anyone. The voice sounded wise but very commanding.

“Who is it? And where are you?” I said out loud. I spoke. How was I able to speak. Is this some sort of magical place? Was I dreaming? I was so confused. I did not even know how I had ended up here. This place was so different. It appeared to be a fantasy world. I was probably dreaming. That was the only explanation for this.

“Stop looking around. I will come out when it is ready. There is something that needs to be done. Be prepared and look for the signs.” said the mysterious voice. There was something odd about the voice. It was deep, calm and sounded and came from every direction. I tried to concentrate to see which direction it was coming from but it was no use.

“Be ready. There is an evil lurking in the shadows. Look for it until the time is ready.” said the booming voice. What was he talking about? I tried to make sense of his words but they all seemed to be some kind of warning.

“Why are you telling me this?” I replied. “And you did not reply to any of my other questions.” I was really confused. What was going on? What I going insane? Was this heaven? Maybe I was talking to God.

“Use this mark to guide your explorations, Young One.” I heard the voice say. Before I could think of the word what, a light from above came and hit my forehead. I felt something powerful enter by body from my forehead. So much power was enter my head. It felt like it was a highway. I could feel the veins at the side of my head pumping blood faster and faster. My head was spinning but I could feel my adrenaline levels increase substantially. It was using so much energy. It was getting so tiring. My eyes were slowly closing but I tried fighting it with all my strength. I tried but eventually gave in and closed my eyes.

Hiss

My eyes bolted open. Everything seemed the same; except for a memory of the weird incident. My finger was still on the sculpture. The sculpture looked the same. There was no weird vibration and the eyes looked weird but was not staring at me. I was drenched in sweat and breathing rapidly. My fingers slid around on my forehead looking for a hole or opening that was left. All that my fingers felt was a slippery forehead caused by perspiration. I did feel different after the experience. It was probably all in my head. It was time to go home so I left the premises.

It was dark outside. Dark colours began creeping onto what was once a much lighter colour. It was very quiet with a gentle breeze tonight. The breeze licked my exposed arms as I walked through the night. A loud scream echoed through the night. I looked at the direction the sound came from. There were two shadows that danced in the night. I ran closer to see what the commotion was about. The shadows were of two women fighting.

One woman was wearing business clothing. She was probably coming home from work. The other woman was wearing a black costume. The black costume woman bit into the other woman’s arm. I knew that there was something weird about the black costume woman. She had a symbol of a snake on her back. Her eyes were glowing with a red pupil. Her pupil was a red line from the top of her eyeball to the bottom. she often stuck out her tongue which was a fork shape. At this point I was not sure is she was even human.

As I got closer and closer, I felt my adrenaline levels spike. My shoulders were glowing. There was a fiery outline of a symbol that was on my arm. I did not have time to see what it was. I needed to save the business woman. I got to the two women who were still fighting. I got to the back costume person and punched her. While my hand was reaching her face, a fire enclosed my hand. It was not burning but kept my hand warm from the breeze. When it made contact with her face, the fire exploded.

The person did not seem burned but turned her head to face me. She hissed at me. From close I could see the details of her face. There were scales covering her face. she appeared to look like a snake but had arms and legs. She had no ears on her head. What this some kind of mutant, maybe an alien of some sort. Whatever it was, the other woman needed to be protected by it. I tried to punch again but the snake-like-person punched me much faster than an ordinary person. It made my body move back a little but was not enough to push me off my feet.

I continued punching her face. With every punch, the fire appeared and exploded on contact. How was I able to do this. There was not enough time to think about the situation now. I noticed something different every time she punched me that I had not noticed before. Each punch slithered up and down faster than a normal person’s reflex’s and when it made contact, it left the same type of vibration.

I had enough of playing around. I grabbed the head with both my hands and squeezed. A fire engulfed my hands and began burned it’s face. It left a high pitch scream. My ears began to hurt and I had to left go and cover my ears. I closed my eyes hoping that the noise would stop. Suddenly, the sound stopped and there was just the silent sound of night. I opened my eyes and the monster was gone. I looked both ways to see if she was really gone.

On the ground, was the business woman unconscious. I ran up to her and checked her heartbeat. There was a heart beat. I picked her up with my hands and carried her to the hospital. On the way there, I noticed two blue marks on the woman’s arm where the thing had bitten her. I hope the thing was not venomous. I left the woman in the emergency center. As I was leaving, I heard the doctors say something. Something that was very important to the mystery.

“This is the third victim that was admitted this week with these strange blue markings.” My mind began doing flips. There was nothing at all normal about this situation.

Friend or Foe

I spent a lot of time attempting to find out what had happened. The first thing that crossed my mind what that weird day dream which I had at the Hindu Temple. I did some research to find out about that god. It turns out that it was not actually a god but a living creature called Garuda. Garuda was a large bird that was a sworn enemy of a race of serpents called Nagas. It is referred to as a violent force, fast and martial prowess. It was also closely related to the god Vishnu. There were many stories of Garuda. Some even suspected that he was actually proof of an alien.

After surfing the web, I went into the tub to train. I took the time to practice my new found skill. I was able to not only punch with the fire but to throw it. I started through it like a dodgeball at targets. I knew that what I needed was training. If I was to master these powers of mine, I needed to be perfect. i only got the idea of throwing the fire after watching Avatar: The Last Airbender. It was a television series that I enjoyed to watch as a child. I continued throwing the fire at different directions, and aiming it at certain targets. As the day progressed, I was able to aim and smaller target and hit them perfectly. I knew there were a few factors that I needed to include: physical training and imagination. I decided that the perfect way for me to do this was to take martial arts, as many as I could. My mind was bursting with ideas to put these powers to good use but at the end of the day, I needed a break. I worked by body harder than I had in a very long time.

There was a lot of dirt and scratches on my body. While washing I felt a different texture while rubbing the palms of my hands. I turned them over to look at them. There was a design tattooed into the palm of my hand. The design was a reddish orange colour. It looked similar to the Nazis swastika but had dots in between the lines. There were four dots in total. It gave a different vibe. I had seen this image before during my volunteer at the Hindu Temple. This symbol meaning all is well. It is used to evoke power. This tattoo was probably how fire is being conducted in my body, but how did it get there?

I had spent the day researching and studying. The day was once again taken over by night. This was the best time to investigate the scene where I had fought the strange reptile-like person. I threw on a jacket and went outside. There was a cool breeze that replaced the heat from the sun. I balanced out the humidity and made it the right temperature. It was dark as usually. The night was filled with silence. The echo of my footsteps could be heard throughout the whole street.

I continued walking until I reached the scene which was restricted by yellow police caution tape. I went over the caution tape to see if there was any evidence that the police missed out on that could help me find the culprit. While I was looking around, there was a shadow that had crept beside me. I noticed the shadow but continued to look around as if I had not noticed anything. I was waiting for the right possible time that this person would attack. I maintained a safe distance. The shadow lunged towards me. I spun around as fast as I could and punched the person in the head with some fire escaping my hands.

This person was not a person at all. It was a reptilian like creature with an elongated body that it used to slither and arms. It also had a human head but covered in scales. I would have thought of it as a legless lizard. The scaled were a dark blue colour. The thing landed on the concrete and rolled a couple of times. I had been able to surprise my visitor. To look threatening, I maintained the fire on the hands. If it made the slightest movement, I was ready to scorch it to ashes.

“Ssssss. Good one. I thought you were a mere mortal. But that isssss not true isss it.” said the unidentifiable reptile. This time it lunged at me before I had time to react. The punch was similar to the snake-like lady that I fought early. The punch vibrated in the air and when it punched me, it caused a vibration in my body, causing my internal organs to hurt. The punch had surprised me and knocked me backwards on to my back. I quickly got up and stood far away from the reptile-human. From far I was able to throw the fire to hit it. Most of the balls missed as it swiftly dodged it like a snake. It would swirl its body around the fireball at the last second. When he got close, he usually got a hit and I would evade and continue firing from a safe distance. We continued this for a long time. We were both exhausted and had not energy left but tried to beat the other.

“Enough!” I heard a loud voice from the thing. “Why are we fighting? We do not even know each other. If anything we have something in common; we are not human.” I was too tired to argue that I was human. My body fell to the ground out of exhaustion.

“So what brings you to these fine parts of the city” I said in his head. At first he looked surprised but then it sunk in.

“A missssssion. We are looking for rougessss that have trespasssssed the treaty. How about you?” He mumbled. He put more questions in my head than I already had. Like what mission, who is we, or what treaty?

“I am also on a mission. I think we are looking for the same person. A person attacked me and another woman.” I replied to his question through my mind. He gave a nod as if he had already figured that out.

I felt vibrations on the ground. Something was running towards us. I looked in the direction to see the snake-woman who I had fought. I lifted my arm and shot a burst of flame but it came out of my hand and landed on the concrete beside me. Before the fire turned into oxygen a powerful surge of pain emitted from my head and the world went black.

Trapped

I, Garu Rao, have gotten myself into a lot of trouble. To begin with I am stuck with population the size of a village of half-human/ half-snake who have my hands stuck in a pot of water to not spew fire. Beside me is a evolved intelligent species of snake that refers to himself as a Naga and goes by the name Gendra.

It has been a full day since we have been trapped here. It gave me a lot of time to talk to Gendra and the beasts. Gendra told me about how he belongs to a race called Naga. A female Naga and a man had children many years ago which resulted in a new the species that kidnapped us today which call themselves the Pali. Today there are a village worth of Palis. Gendra was sent on their mission by his king to pursue this group because he got information stating that they were putting their secrecy to risk.

I had no reason but to believe Gendra because he had no reason to lie to me and he was in a worse condition than I was while being tormented by the Pali. I was starving, weak and felt as if I was going to faint. I could feel my eyes slowly giving in. When my eyes finally close, it was not black, but white. The only thing that was not white was golden symbols spinning in circles. some circles were bigger than other. I had been here before. This is the place where it all began. There was a difference this time. This time there was a figure standing before me. It looked like a bird that had some human attributions. Its skin was white. The wing were of red, black and blue. I had seen this figure before. It was Garuda.

“I see you have made it.” said Garuda sitting cross-legged and not moving his lips.

“For some reason I have returned here. Why?”I asked. For some reason I am able to talk in this white place.

“From now on. I will be here. Every time you fall asleep you will come to this realm. This realm is between the very fabric of reality, heaven, space, time and hell. This is where I shall train you to continue the namesake of the Garuda.” replied Garuda. It had a very wise voice and made you instantly want to become an apprentice and learn.

“Do not worry about time. Time is slowed down exponentially because the human mind is works faster than the speed of light itself. Every unit of time feels 20 times faster in this area. You do not age more because this is in your mind. I will explain more about this place later. First let us train. We will begin with martial arts from india since it is the place where martial arts began.” said Garuda.

We did many forms of martial arts. We began with Silambam which is the tamil bamboo stick fighting method. We began with basic step techniques for a while. After perfecting them, we began using the bamboo stick along with other weapons but worked more on the bamboo stick. I never exhausted in this world. We trained for what felt like 60 hours continuously. I learned many different styles in Silambam including the snake, tiger, elephant and the most important, the eagle form. Garuda explained that each style was based on a species of half human and half other animals. The eagle form was based off of Garuda and the snake form was based off of the Nagas. The snake form was more of an evasive style. The eagle form was using a series of attacks and was for on opportunity. Once the opportunity is found use a full force attack to end it.

Garuda ended the lesson with allowing me to experiment with some of my true powers. He told me that I have wings. At first I was in shock but he showed me how to control, hide, attack, and fly with them. When I opened my wings I examined them. They were rows of black feathers on the tips and red feathers in the middle with blue feathers closest to me. The feathers were made of a type of metal. My wings were about 3 meters on both sides. The tips of the metal feathers were very sharp. With that I was awake.

It felt like I was trapped to this rope many days ago but I was back. I was not going to waste any time. I released my wings to cut through the rope. The rope snapped easily. I wished I knew about these wings earlier to escape. Gendra was staring at my wings with his mouth wide open. He may have went into shock.

The two Palis were able to feel the vibrations of me escaping. I had made a bigger scene than I prefer. If I had done it more silently, I could have slipped away. They saw back to see me flying towards them at top speed. The plan was to use my wings to ram both of them into trees and hopefully knock them unconscious. I had not counted on the sharpness of my wings playing a role in this. They had gone straight through them. I had cut their bodies into two clean pieces. I was surprised by this. The plan was not to kill them. I needed to learn to control my new powers more efficiently.

Impressum

Bildmaterialien: Rhiannan Starkey
Tag der Veröffentlichung: 15.08.2012

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