Title Page

The Five Realms

Book 1

By: MJ Fjeld

 

This material has been copyrighted and is subject to all rights and protections. 2015.

Table of Contents

 

Chapter 1: Harper

Chapter 2: Mutant

Chapter 3: Life and Lost It

Chapter 4: Stupid People Annoy Me

Chapter 5: Stupid New Stuff Annoys Me Too

Chapter 6: the Council 

Chapter 7: Multiple Spirituality Disorder

Chapter 8: Land of the Dead

Chapter 9: Reunion

Chapter 10: Flirting with Death

Chapter 11: The Paved Path to Hell

Chapter 12: The Land of All Things Creepy

Chapter 13: Just A Lot of Boring Conversation

Chapter 14: Betrayal

Chapter 15: Israfel

Chapter 16: There’s A Reason Everyone Hates Demons

Chapter 17: Tower of Raum

Chapter 18: Torture

Chapter 19: FOOD!!!

Chapter 20: The Fuzz is Back Boy

Chapter 21: Energy is Like, Awesome Man

Chapter 22: Freaking Death Man…

Chapter 23: Beverly Hills Anyone?

Chapter 24: The List Called Lord

Chapter 25: Alone At Last

Chapter 26: I Go to Church…

Chapter 27: I’ve Always Wanted to be Blind! NOT!

Chapter 28: Reunited and it Feels so Good

Chapter 29: I Swap Genders…and Species...

Chapter 30: Goodness Gracious Great Balls of Fire

Chapter 31: Home Sweet Home

Chapter 32: Self-Reflection Sucks

Chapter 33: Enlightenment. Or Just, You Know, Temporary Insanity

Chapter 34: Caelius

Chapter 35: Little Bundle of Joy…

Chapter 36: Guilt

 

Prologue

 I only wear shoes I can run in. I do it because running isn’t just probable in my life, it’s inevitable. And if I’m not faster than the people chasing me then that’s it; I’m dead. I don’t see much these days except for blurred shapes and faces that I run past. I know where to go instinctively, it’s been ingrained from years of practice, years of dodging, and years of hiding. His feet beat right beside mine, just as practically dressed, just as frantic. We both run. It’s just what we do now.

Harper

I used to have a name before all of this started. It was a pretty name, but I don’t use it anymore. Too many bad things have happened with that name. Bad things happen with my new name too, but they aren’t nearly as bad as before. I can deal with physical pain a lot better than I can deal with the emotional stuff. My last life, the pain was both. This life, the pain is just physical and I find it much easier to bear. 

I don’t miss my old life; I try to forget about it whenever I can—who wants to be reminded of being tortured? Sometimes though, little things happen that remind me I’m not supposed to be in this life, that I belong somewhere else. I try to ignore those things, but it’s hard to do when I’m so different from all the people around me. That’s what gets us into trouble: my differences. Even though no one knows about me for sure, humans aren’t as obtuse as my previous life told me they were. They feel the difference, even if they don’t know what it is. Human instinct has evolved much faster than the human conscience. 

I try to blend in whenever I can. I’ve gotten good at hiding, I’ve gotten good at pretending, I’ve even gotten good at lying—something that is as necessary as breathing since I came to this world. This life has hardened me, made me callous, it’s made me sarcastic, made me mean; but it’s also made me strong. My muscles are strong, my hands are strong, and my will is strong.  He is how I got my strength in the first place, and he is what keeps me strong now.

 

Ours wasn’t a typical first meeting. Actually, he found me in a dumpster, behind a restaurant known for throwing out food that wasn’t perfect.  After a few minutes of getting pizza sauce in places I’d rather not mention, I finally found a freshly baked, slightly burnt loaf of bread.  I was just about to jump out of the dumpster when I sensed something looking at me.  It was dark in the alley, but a flickering lamp at its entrance routinely showed all the stark shadows things could be hiding in.  I analyzed these shadows, letting my eyes see what the dark didn’t want me to find.  At first, I couldn’t see anything; but then, one patch of shadow at the opposite end of where I was, caught my attention.  All I could see were little reflective orbs, three or so feet above the ground that flashed in and out of existence every once and a while.  It wasn’t until I had been staring for over a minute that the orbs started to rise, rising four feet, then five, then a little more.  The orbs started coming toward me then, and that was when I noticed the person they were attached to.  

I jumped out of the dumpster quickly and glanced at the exit of the alley; I’d have to run past the person in order to reach it, but I could run fast when I wanted to—inhumanly fast.  The person must have noticed me looking toward the escape route because he took a few quick steps to put himself directly in my path.  I could still beat him.  He was foolish in taking me at face value.  I knew I didn’t look like much, but in the world I came from, we were equipped with certain physical attributes that would make us lethal weapons here.  He wasn’t even an intimidating species according to this world’s specifications.  He was tall, yes, but he was thin.  The more I scrutinized him though, the more determined I was to not underestimate his light frame—his skin was stretched with lean muscles.  His feet were planted on the ground, his knees slightly bent so he had a strong stance and good balance.  His eyes were evaluating me just as I was evaluating him.  I knew what he would see though.  He would see a skinny teenaged girl with torn, baggy clothes and greasy knotted hair.  I’m sure in the dark my hair would look black to him, but it was actually brown.  He had brown hair too, though it was very light, almost golden, and curls haloed his head in unfinished ringlets.  

The boy took a step toward me and I scrambled backward, clutching the bread to my chest and getting ready to run.  He hastily threw his hands in the air in front of him with his palms facing me.  This gesture was familiar to me, I noticed it a lot when someone felt overpowered, or they wanted to stop the person threatening them or hurting them.  It was a sign of surrender.  I didn’t know why he was surrendering himself to me though.  Obviously, in this situation he thought he had all the power.  I, after all, was just a girl. 

“Hello there.”  The boy spoke.  His voice was nice: light and soft, very warm and reassuring.  

He hesitantly took another step forward, and I matched his with a step back; I was running out of room.  I would have to act soon.  

The boy stopped walking but kept his hands up.  I nervously glanced toward the alleyway entrance.  If I could just make it there I could lose him in the city, I wouldn’t even have to run. 

“Please don’t run!”  The boy pleaded. Could he read my mind?  I started evaluating him more closely.  “I’m not going to hurt you, I promise. I just want to get to know you.”  

I cocked my head at him. Him getting to know me would lead to a desire for him to hurt me.  This much I did know about human nature; they didn’t like what they couldn’t explain, they were afraid of it.  They liked being in control, and they eliminated those things that threatened that control.

The boy thrust his neck out like he was trying to get closer to me without actually taking a step.  “What’s your name?  I’ve seen you around here before but I never had the guts to speak to you until now.”  

Now that he said it, I had noticed this boy before too.  I was never looking for him, but I do remember seeing that curly brown hair every once in a while.  How interesting that he hadn’t acted before-hand.  How interesting that he even wanted to.  People normally avoided me whenever they could.  They could tell I was different, and they were afraid of what that difference might mean for them.  Something else I knew about human nature was that people were selfish, self-interested and self-preserving—even at the cost of many others.   

The conversation was making me increasingly uncomfortable.  This boy’s words were defying normal human reactions. I knew that humans lied though. Lying was one of the things they did best. I decided it was better to not find out this boy’s motives and just run.  

I was to the entrance of the alley before he even processed what was going on.  I stopped and turned around briefly to look at him one last time.  He had just wheeled around in alarm, his eyes were wide, and his mouth was open when he saw me at the sidewalk.  His eyes were brown, a warm, welcoming, open brown I hadn’t noticed before.  

I turned and ran.  

I had lived in the city long enough to know my way around all the secret places people normally wouldn’t go.  I had avoided problems with the hostile humans so far; either from out running them, or scaring them by showing them exactly why I was not to be bothered.  I had even gained a kind of reputation, I guess, as someone to be left alone.  Some people had even tried to recruit me, bringing with them black toys that spit out hot, burning metal if I should refuse. They had found out quickly that such devices were not enough, and the repercussions of their failure were sufficient that the attempt had not been repeated.  

I ran until I was sure the boy could not have followed me.  I turned a corner into another alley and slowed into a walk.  My usual resting place was a cardboard box that had a picture of a grey rectangle on the outside of the box called a Refrigerator; it was lodged into the corner of an alley underneath some apartment windows.  I found an odd sort of comfort in listening to the human’s nightly rituals.  I walked over to my box, and pulled back the lid, freezing in place and gasping when the boy I had just run away from was found lying on my blankets.  He popped out of the box so quickly I was startled and the loaf of bread flew from my grasp.  I watched in painstakingly slow motion as it hurtled its way toward a puddle.  Sprinting is something that I rarely do, but this was a desperate time.  I sprinted and was just able to grab the bread before it landed in the water; I tottered on the edge of the dry gravel but soon lost my balance and belly-flopped into a large, cold puddle.

I groaned as I worked myself to my knees, throwing the soggy, soiled bread away in disgust.  To my utter astonishment, the boy started to laugh, and not in a polite, public sort of way, but in a way where he would start to suffocate before he took a breath and then keep on laughing.  I stood up and started wringing out my shirt, followed by my hair.  I walked toward my box, stifling the urge to smother him with my blankets and grabbed one of the two spare shirts I possessed.  I ducked inside the box, closed the lid and changed into the dry shirt, stripping off my pants and placing the blanket over my freezing legs I then opened the lid just enough for me to lay my pants and wet shirt outside and then closed the lid again.  

It was quiet outside my box for a long while.  I was just starting to hope that the boy had gone away and was preparing to settle down for sleep when an awkward sort of tapping sounded from outside my box and I could hear the soles of shoes rubbing against the gravel outside.  I sighed heavily, curled up, turned on my side and tried to ignore it.  

“Hey uh, mind if I open up the, uh, box? Door?”  

I did mind in fact, but I rarely spoke to humans if I could avoid it—they were emotional and rash and I was afraid prolonged contact would turn me into one of them.

The yellow light from one of the apartment windows suddenly cast its glow at the back of my box and I whipped around to find the boy kneeling at the opening of one side of the lid.  He froze at my sudden movement but then proceeded with opening the lid further and placing himself at the edge of my box and the gravel alleyway.

I tried not to be shocked at his behavior, but I found it difficult - he was very confident, this human.  

He noticed me looking at him and nonchalantly lifted up his hand and smiled.  “Hi there.”  He said casually and placed his hand back down wrapping his long arms around his bony knees.  

I frowned at him, completely perplexed and I turned on my side again, this time facing him so I could make sure he didn’t do anything hostile—as humans so often did.  

The boy turned his head to look around the alley.  “Nice place you got here.”  He must have seen the skepticism in my eyes.  “No I mean it!  Plastic bags underneath so the box doesn’t get wet. Newspapers inside to keep you insulated. Sticks in the corners so the top doesn’t sag. You’ve got a great set-up. It took me a long time before I found an abandoned alley where people would leave me alone.  You have to gain a reputation to have a spot this good.  I kept getting bothered though, so now I mostly live in a van I found in the junkyard.”

I couldn’t help the flame of surprise from lighting itself inside of me.  I leaned myself up on my elbow so I could be closer to the boy’s eye level.  The boy turned his face back toward mine.  He had tanned skin.  Not exactly brown, but not exactly pale; it was more…olive toned.  His teeth were straight and his eyebrows were thick and dark, much darker than his hair.  His face was thin but he had a square jaw; based on the symmetry of his strong features I assumed that humans would consider him attractive.  

Finally, I tore my eyes from his face and noticed his clothes.  They were baggy, just like mine were, and also just like mine the colors had faded and the fabric was worn and ripped in some places.  His shoes had holes in them and his socks were covered in mud.  My eyes traveled back up him, he had the bumps on his arms that humans often got when they were scared or cold.  He seemed calm, so I didn’t think he was scared; although, he was right about the reputation I had that allowed me to be left alone.  The season still had winter in the air, although, humans say that the time is what they call March. 

I found his eyes again and hesitated there at their warmth.  He had a very open, honest face, and most of that was due to his open and honest eyes.   They were very inviting.  Inviting me to open my mouth and speak to this boy who was so confusing, so interesting, so frustrating.   

“Wow.” The boy said. I raised my brows in confusion and he seemed happy to elaborate. “You have the prettiest eyes I’ve ever seen.” 

I looked down from his face, uncomfortable. I knew my eyes were striking. They held a color of blue so bright and vibrant I wasn’t sure the humans had the capabilities of copying its exact shade. In my world however, my eyes were a testament to my lineage. I had my father’s eyes. 

Slowly, I raised myself up so I was in a sitting position, making sure the blanket still covered my bare legs.  I had to slouch in the box so it would accommodate my height.  It wasn’t uncomfortable, just inconvenient.  The boy slowly lowered himself so he was sitting too and crossed his legs in front of him.  He sat there staring at me for a while.  We sat there staring at each other; until, quite embarrassingly, my stomach issued a violent growl.  I touched my hand to it and frowned as the pains of hunger stretched across my abdomen.  

“Hungry?”  The boy asked.  He looked at me with something like pity.  I felt myself getting defensive, I didn’t like that look.  

“I guess I kind of ruined your dinner didn’t I?”  He asked, seeming determined to speak to me whether or not I responded.  

I took my hand from my stomach and shrugged my shoulders in a noncommittal gesture—although I was still upset about him startling the bread from my hands.  

“No, I’m sorry about that,” he continued, doing that thing again where he appeared to have read my thoughts.  “I really didn’t mean to surprise you.  I followed you here a few weeks ago and when I realized you didn’t move around I decided I would try to talk to you.  You don’t seem to be much of a conservationist though, huh?” 

I shook my head slowly, trying to determine how I felt with the new knowledge that this boy had been stalking me.  I wasn’t upset, he seemed harmless.  I was…annoyed—I think that was the human word for it.  

“Well, that’s okay.  I’m not a shy person myself, but the nuns are always telling me I’m kind of unusual in that way.  If you want, we can go to them and they’ll give us food.  I mean, I only go every once in a while because if I go too often then people will notice and then Social Services gets involved and I have to find a new church!  I mean, I get why Social Services is important and they’ve helped a lot of kids and all that, but foster care isn’t exactly my idea of a good time. The system tries to keep the kids with whatever family members of the kids they can find; and most of the time, those people are no better. They put me with my uncle after my parents were arrested for beating me too loudly and he beat me just as bad!  So, I stupidly decided to become an emancipated minor and it’s been a lot tougher than I thought.  I do have a job though! Just…not a place to live and not enough money for food most nights.  I’m saving whenever I can.  If I can find food myself then that’s more money I can save so one day I can finally get out of this city.  You know that car in the junkyard I stay in? I’ve been fixing it up with parts people leave in there.  You’d be amazed at all the brand new things people just throw away, it’s incredible.”  The boy chuckled to himself and shook his head.  

He talked a lot.  It was actually quite fascinating listening to him. It was also disturbing. He was beaten as a child! I knew humans were bad, but I had no idea their savagery extended so brutally to the innocent. No wonder my old world considered this my death sentence.

“So, what’s your story?”  He asked, turning his eyes back to me.  “Are you emancipated too?”  

I shook my head.  

He furrowed his brows.  “So, are you a runaway?  You know I won’t report you if you are.  I actually ran away from home a couple of times.”

I paused and then shook my head again.  

The boy frowned at me, then laughed and shook his head.  I was beginning to be amazed at his happy attitude, most humans were very negative but this boy didn’t seem to follow normal social habits.  “Well, if you’re not emancipated, and you’re not a runaway, then what are you?”

I stopped and just looked at him, memories from my past came to the front of my mind and I sat, stunned at the emotional force behind them.  

I looked down at my hands resting in my lap.  “Abandoned,”  I spoke, my voice sounding deep and serious even to my own ears.  

It was quiet for a long while until the boy’s hand appeared in my peripherals.  Automatically I snatched the hand before it could touch me and squeezed the wrist.  The boy issued a small sound of pain and almost as fast as I had moved, another hand came in and stabbed me in a soft spot near my shoulder that caused my hand to go mostly numb and I found myself releasing his wrist without meaning to.  I was just about to get up and hurt the boy when his hands were back up in a surrender position. 

“Wow, whoa, I’m sorry! I was just trying to comfort you but you grabbed me and it was a reaction! I wasn’t expecting you to grab me like that.”  

His wide, honest eyes had me believing him, which might have been my mistake.  

I sat back down and started rotating my shoulder.  “What did you do?”  I asked, frustrated that he had this kind of power.

He looked at me with an amused expression. “So you’re British! Well kind of… Is that why you didn’t want to talk? So people couldn’t hear your accent? Are you British? You’ve got kind of a weird accent.”

I gave him another confused look. “I do not know what British is.”

His amused expression dropped. He looked at me warily at first and then as if he was evaluating my intelligence. “They’re not an is, they’re a who, they’re a people. It’s a type of culture. The way you talk, you sound a little like them. Like the way I talk, I sound like an American.”

I nodded my head. I knew humans had many different languages and cultures for each language. I also could hear the difference between how he spoke, and how I formed some words. My words were softer, less sharp the way his were - rounded, I guess would be the right word.   

The boy rubbed his wrist where I could see an outline of my fingers. This reminded me of my previous question. My shoulder was still sore.

“How did you make me release you?”

The boy looked back at me with open, confident eyes. “I’ve been in Martial Arts since I was a kid; it’s where I work now.  A guy I knew kinda took me in when he realized the situation I had going on at home and gave me lessons for free. I just hit you in your pressure point.”     

I wasn’t exactly sure what that meant but I nodded like I did.  It comforted me that he explained his power to me, but I was still frustrated that I didn’t understand it.  

After a moment of silence, I finally had to ask.  “What are Martial Arts?”  

The boy’s eyes whipped to mine in alarm.  “You mean you don’t know?  Were you raised in a barn or something? You don’t know Britain, you don’t know Martial Arts. I swear if you didn’t look so serious I would accuse you of pulling my leg.”  He chuckled quietly.  

I got offended, he must have noticed because he was suddenly serious again.  “It was just a joke, calm down.”  His easy smile returned to his face.  “Martial Arts are a form of self-defense.  Basically, it teaches how to defend yourself against a variety of attacks.”

Hmm, fascinating.  

“How does one defend themself? What weapons do you use?” I asked, finding myself interested without being able to stop it. “Do you hit more pressure points?”  

The boy looked at me with amusement and with something close to worry.  “Uh, sort of.  You want me to teach you?”  

I was about to agree, just to see how I would fare against human defense maneuvers, but then I realized my present condition and looked toward my wet pants outside of my box.  

The boy followed my eyes and laughed again.  “Well, I guess not tonight, but how about another time?  It’s not like I’m needed elsewhere. They only have work for me on the weekends.”

I nodded, settling back into my box.  As humans went, he wasn’t the worst I had met.  He was intriguing.  He was so…happy.  Was it normal for a homeless teenaged boy to be so positive?

The boy seemed to relax as I did.  I didn’t know what he was waiting for.  Was he planning on sleeping like that all night?  I hoped not.  

I found his eyes on me again.  “My name is Harper by the way, Harper Delfino.  Sorry I didn’t mention that before.  You distracted me.  You’re a very unusual girl you know.” 

I tensed, so he did realize that I wasn’t like him; and yet, here he was.  The more I learned about this human, the more he perplexed me.  

“So, what’s your name?”  He asked, continuing as cheerfully as before; I was still considering whether his happiness was pleasant and refreshing or just irritating.  

I paused, looking up at him and swallowed.  I wasn’t going to reveal my old name, that name was lost to me forever.  I didn’t know enough about the human culture to determine a suitable name for myself so I just shrugged noncommittally again.  

Harper laughed.  “You don’t know?  How can you not know your own name?”

An uneasy feeling grew inside me.  “I don’t know because I don’t have one,”  I said finally, rather harsh. 

Harper’s smile vanished from his face and his eyebrows pulled together. His eyes shifted to the side and he looked like he thought I might be mentally deficient.  “How can you not have a name?  Didn’t your parents name you?”  

A sharp aching pain spread through my chest at the mention of parents.  Memories flowed into my mind unchecked.  I brought the blanket up to my chin and tried to contain my emotions that wanted to run rampant inside me, that wanted to debilitate me.  

“My parents are not a part of my life any longer, and so the name they gave to me is not a part of my life any longer, either,” I said simply, my voice strong, hiding my pain.

Harper’s eyes widened and then he turned his head away from me, fingering the torn hem at the bottom of his jeans.  He seemed to be uncomfortable, it was the first time he hadn’t seemed confident since I met him.  

Another long stretch of silence came between us.  My eyes started drifting until, quietly, he spoke again.  “Well, I can’t let you be nameless.  So how about I give you a new name?”  

I thought about it, and then shrugged again followed by a small nod.

Harper looked off into the distance, his eyes squinting slightly.  He seemed to be thinking.  Finally, he looked back at me and stared for a while.  “You have really pretty eyes by the way.  I know I already said it before. I noticed them the first time I saw you.  They're so blue, but not like a clear blue or a dark blue, just a very bright blue.”  

I felt my eyebrows pulling in.  

“Jenny.”  

I looked up.  Harper was looking at me with a smile lighting his handsome face. “Jennifer Blue, that’s what I’ll call you. Jenny Blue is a song I know, for some reason, your eyes remind me of it.”  

I mulled it over in my mind.  It was a nice name.  I shrugged again.  

Harper smiled with his teeth and nodded contentedly to himself. 

I watched him while his eyes were down.  His body was relaxed, confident, and he had lines around his eyes that deepened when he smiled.  

“How old are you?”  I asked.  He had a young body, but old eyes; my old life had many people like this.  

Harper looked up at me and for the first time since I had met him I saw color rush into his cheeks; a color that often appeared when humans were embarrassed.  

“I’m seventeen.”  

I nodded.

“How about you?”  He asked. 

I wasn’t quite sure how to answer.  My old life judged time much differently than this new one.  I decided to answer him in human years, he wouldn’t understand my other age.  “I’m fifteen.”  

Harper smiled at me and then yawned.  He looked around himself.  “You wouldn’t mind if I stayed here tonight, would you?  It took me a long time to get up the nerve to talk to you and I’m worried if you send me away you’ll leave and I’ll never find you again. Plus, it’s quite a way to the scrap yard and I’m beat.”  

A tightness happened in my chest.  I had never invited a human to accompany me in anything.  Though looking at Harper, I didn’t think the tightness was an instinct of self-preservation, I just think it was nerves.  The more I considered saying no, the more that answer seemed wrong.  Harper was unlike any other human I had met before.  He was….kind.  I didn’t think kindness should go unrewarded, especially since it had so seldom made an appearance in my life.    

“If you would like,” I responded meekly, hesitantly.  “Though, I don’t have another blanket.”

Harper smiled and eagerly scrambled to his knees.  “Oh, that’s alright! If you’ll just let me in the box, I’ll close the doors and our body heat will keep me warm.”

I hesitated, but I had already agreed so I nodded my head and scooted as far into the back of the box as I could. I was not worried about defending myself should Harper prove to be someone more hostile than he appeared. I was more lethal than he knew, so I watched as Harper crawled inside, and as soon as he was lying on his hip, he reached behind himself and shut the lid to the box.  It was pitch dark all of a sudden and I tensed up waiting for an attack.  It never came.  Finally, my eyes began to adjust and I noticed Harper watching me as I was watching him; it seemed he too was not as trusting he appeared.  

Harper quickly proved to be right though, between the mixture of our hot breath and body heat, the space inside was slowly warming.  

“Thanks for letting me stay, Jenny.  Even though I’m alone all the time, I don’t like to be.”  

I nodded my head.  I knew what he meant.  Sometimes loneliness was a necessity instead of a choice, and yet that obligation did not make the solitude any easier.  

Harper yawned again and I smiled a little.  “Anyways, we can go to the church tomorrow and get some food.  They’re nice, and don’t ask many questions.”

I nodded my head again and watched as Harper’s eyes slowly dropped and then closed, and soon his breath evened out and deepened. 

I watched him for a long while.  I couldn’t judge my feelings, they were very mixed.  It was strange that Harper should be so trusting of me, even knowing the reputation I had gained.  I couldn’t understand why he wasn’t more cautious.  Though, I suspected his spying on me had something to do with it. Thinking about me now, my feelings were also mixed.  On the one hand, it probably wasn’t safe for him to remain with me; the more he remained the more he would notice what made me different from him.  I also didn’t want him to stay because I didn’t want to become like a human.  I thought they were an ignorant, close-minded, cruel species.  On the other hand, it was the first time since I had come to Earth that I had a companion.  I didn’t realize how much I had missed interacting with someone.  I was worried about what the years of loneliness had made me become, and what the further years of loneliness would lead to my becoming.  

I listened to Harper’s breaths for a long time.  Slowly, I pulled the blanket out from under me, laid it across myself and across Harper, pulled my arm underneath my head and allowed my eyes to close; choosing instead to deal with this problem in the morning. 

 

Mutant

The smell in the box was foul when I opened my eyes in the morning.  

I brought the blanket up to my nose and squinted into the soft light that had reached the seam in the box lid.  Harper was sitting up as much as the box would allow and he had a naked foot propped on his knee; the smell seemed to be coming from his toes.  

I shifted a little and Harper’s eyes moved to mine.  Once again I saw a darkening in his cheeks.  “Sorry…I didn’t realize how bad my Athlete’s Foot had gotten until I took my shoes off this morning.  I guess I’ll have to break down and buy some ointment.  I don’t like using money though…” 

I pulled the blanket down from my face and breathed through my mouth.  “What is Athlete’s Foot?”  I asked.  

Harper stopped what he was doing and looked at me again with his eyebrows pulled in.  “Uh, it’s a fungus that settles in your feet because your feet aren’t clean.  Where are you from?  How is it you don’t seem to know things that normal people do?”  

There it was.  Normal.  The word that could never exactly apply to me, even in my old life.  I looked down at my ratty blanket and sighed.  “I don’t want to talk about it.”  I mumbled, angry that I couldn’t fit in, even here where the average intelligence was so much lower than in my other world.  

Harper shrugged and picked up a sock that was so covered in mud and full of holes I assumed it had stopped being useful long ago and now was simply used as a matter of habit.  

“I think you should buy new socks too,”  I said, trying to be diplomatic.  If the fungus was caused because of uncleanliness, it made sense to cover the infected area with something clean.  

Harper frowned.  “No, I’ll break at ointment but not at socks.  It’s ridiculous how much they charge for those things; it’s practically un-American.”

I had never purchased socks before, so I wouldn’t know.  “Have you ever tried looking for socks in the things humans throw out?  That’s where I find most of my necessities.”

Harper looked up at me quickly, I didn’t register my mistake until his eyes widened and then I couldn’t breathe.  

“Humans?”  He accused, “Why did you say it like that?”  

I couldn’t talk, my mouth kept popping open and then shutting but no sounds came out.  

Harper was looking so intensely at me I thought the truth would appear out of thin air just by the sheer force of his will.  “I mean, you’re human too right?” He continued when I couldn’t.  “It’s not like another species is known to exist.  You look human, you speak like a human.”  He paused for a moment, and then said the words that condemned him.  “You don’t really act human though, and now you don’t associate yourself as a human.  What are you Jenny Blue?”

I looked down at my hands and tried to come to terms with what I was about to do.  No one could know about me.  They could speculate sure, but they couldn’t know.  If they did, the humans would think they had a right to experiment on me, and they did not.  I was glad that I hadn’t known Harper long; I had a feeling I would have come to appreciate his company.  I couldn’t shake the guilt that was accumulating inside for having to kill one of the few kind people this planet could boast having, but it had to be done.  

I looked into Harper’s eyes and held his attention.  I could tell he was coming up with theories in his head, applying logistics or hypotheses or whatever it was humans did when they were trying to come to a conclusion.  Slowly, I opened a vein inside of me—I wasn’t sure which, I didn’t even know that much about this ability myself—and let heat leak into my eyes.  As soon as the heat reached an appropriate temperature I could release it.  I knew what Harper would see then, this wasn’t the first time I had used this power of mine—a strange power, even by my old world’s standards.  He would see my iris overtake the white of my eyes. Soon he would be looking into a fountain of bright blue with my pupil being a tiny pinprick—a conduit for the power to come that brings death.  As soon as the whites were gone, silver lines would run through the blue in striking, violent patterns, almost like an electric storm. Then, Harper’s eyes would turn black, the skin around them would burn, and his brain would cease to function.

The heat was enough; I took a deep breath and slowly released it.  Harper’s eyes widened, and then, he shouted.  

I jumped, completely alarmed; normally when I caught someone’s attention and released the heat they were immobilized until the deed was done.  Harper’s shout turned into a loud laugh, and his mouth split up into a triumphant smile.  “I knew it!”  He shouted.  “I knew the government was doing human experimentation! I knew it!”  He crowed.  

I was at a loss.  I sat back, letting the heat dissipate, watching Harper with utter astonishment.  

Harper leaned toward me then, and I backed up as far as the box would allow me to.  “So tell me, did they abduct you when you were young or did they start on you as a fetus?  I’ve always wondered that.  What powers do you have?  How many of you are there?  Did they dip you in a vat of radioactive material?  Are you like the Hulk?  Or did they mix your genes with that of other species so you’re more like Spiderman?  I guess you would be more like Wonder Woman instead of Superman, considering you’re a girl and all.  Spider-girl?  Did they do awful experiments on you?  How did you escape?  Do you remember where they were keeping you?  Do you think we can go take it down?  Are you like contagious?  Am I going to get superpowers?  Oh, man, this is so COOL!!!  Can you show me what you can do?  Can you like shoot lasers from your eyes, or turn invisible?  Can you teleport?  What about flying!? Oh, that would be so epic if you could fly!  Could you fly while carrying me?  I’ve always wanted to fly.  I’ve never even been on a plane!  Can you…”  

I leaned over and covered Harper’s mouth with my hand.  

Harper’s eyes were so wide, and the lines around them deepened, proving that he was still smiling.  Hot breaths were blowing against my hand in rapid succession.  I couldn’t stop staring at him.  

“What are you talking about!?”  I finally cried.  

Harper removed my hand, but kept it in his grip and looked like he was trying very hard not to overwhelm me again.  

“You know,” Harper urged, and then leaned in and whispered.  “You’re not human,” he raised his eyebrows at me, “your different.”  His eyebrows kept raising, I wondered when they would stop.  “Secret government conspiracies.”  He nudged me with his shoulder.  

I paused for another moment.  

Harper sighed, exasperated.  “You’re one of the X-men, you’re a Mutant!”  

I balked at the offensive word and retreated.  

Harper misread my reaction.  “Oh don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone your secret.  I mean, even though it was pretty obvious, but that’s okay.  I’m sure the government is looking for you right?”

I just blinked at him. 

“I figure if I tell anyone then the government will find you and take you back and I’m not about to let that happen.”

I couldn’t stop staring.  

“Don’t worry Jenny; you’ll be safe with me.  Man! This all makes so much more sense now!  I mean, I was a bit skeptical about you when I first saw you, it’s not every day you meet a fifteen-year-old homeless person without any familial ties, and then you kind of talk weird even for a Brit and you don’t seem to know a lot of stuff, but now I totally get it!  Ah! It’s just so freaking cool I can’t even contain myself!”  

He sat panting at me with those same wide, excited eyes.  I hadn’t realized that I had been subtly leaning further and further away from him all this time until just then.  

What were humans teaching their children!?  Government conspiracies?  Human experimentation?  Genetic manipulation?  How was this species not in a complete revolt against all secretive institutions?  At least he didn’t know the truth though… Not even close to it.  At least I didn’t have to kill him.  

I leaned in towards him and tried to look serious.  “You promise not to tell anyone?”

Harper looked ready to burst; he bounced up and down a few times and nodded his head so vigorously I wondered if he would have the power to stop it.  “Yes, I swear.  Only, please tell me everything.”  

I thought about it, seriously thought, but then shook my head.  Before Harper could look too disappointed I quickly explained.  “I’m not sure how to even explain what I can do.  I can show you better, though I don’t like to do…things that are different unless I have to.”

Harper settled down and nodded at me, serious.  “That makes sense.”

It was quiet for a while, Harper was analyzing me, I could tell.  I started to get uncomfortable and brought my shoulders up to defend my neck—a human habit I had learned when I was feeling insecure.  

“Well, that settles it then,”  Harper said suddenly. 

I looked up at him confused.  “That settles what?”  I asked. 

Harper’s lips tilted up in a slanted smile and I couldn’t help but feel a warming in my stomach that wasn’t altogether unpleasant.  

“That settles that I’ll be hanging around you for a while.”  He said as plainly as if commenting on the weather.  

I felt my heart rate pick up.  In the back of my mind, I knew that telling him any information at all would create a bond between us, but I never anticipated that he would want to stay with me.  “Why would you want to do that?”  I asked honestly.

Harper looked up at me surprised.  “Uh, because not only is your existence pretty much the coolest thing that has ever happened to humanity but also because I’m just tired of being alone all the time.”  Harper looked down as he said this. 

I felt a surge of sympathy flow through me.  I knew what it was like to be alone.  I also knew what it was like to wish for something other than loneliness.  

My hand flew to my stomach as a tight pang of hunger went through me.  I chewed on the inside of my cheek and thought for a moment.  It was incredibly dangerous to allow Harper to remain with me; though, I was beginning to suspect that the consequences of sending him away might be worse.  

“Well,” I started, trying to make my dry throat keeping talking.  “Do you think we might be able to find something to eat?”  

Harper looked up at me with a sigh and a sweet smile.  I couldn’t help but smile back.  

“Of course,” he chimed and began opening the box and handing me my air-dried, mud-caked pants.  “And I can even get you new clothes if you want.”  

I looked down at my torn shirt and muddy pants.  Clothes were a necessity, yes, but a necessity that was very inconvenient on the budget that Harper and I had—nothing.  Slowly I nodded my head; this shirt wasn’t going to last much longer.  

Harper closed my box’s door while I finished getting dressed. I ruminated as I changed, wondering why, after all this time adhering to my careful rules I was willing to break them for this boy? By the time I was changed, the only answer I could come up with is that Harper made me...hope. A dangerous and deadly word in and of itself. But there was something about him! Something earnest and integral, and just plain good. I was dying to feel that again. To feel hope. Yet, I never wanted to feel that again. I didn’t know what I wanted anymore! I had never considered myself to be an impulsive person, but maybe that’s who I was becoming? 

When I was done I climbed out and stood with him in the alleyway.  The world was a different place outside my box.  Suddenly, standing here with Harper my life was different too.  I knew it would take me some time to get used to, so when Harper ushered me to follow him I did and tried—for his sake—to be okay with all of this.

 

Life and Lost It

The alleyway still had a cold nip in the air since the sun had yet to reach above the buildings. I started walking toward the mouth when my excessively honest companion graced me with his opinion.

“Geesh. Now that we’re outside the box and in the day, I can see how tiny you are.” Harper was looking at my body with a slightly disturbed expression.

I looked down at myself, unsure of how Harper could see my real shape beneath all the baggy clothes. Though I supposed the amount of bagginess in the clothes did more to hint at my shape than I thought they did.

I looked at Harper defensively. “It’s fairly difficult to maintain a healthy diet when your main source of food is in the garbage.” 

Harper laughed and patted his own thin frame. “Yeah, I get that. That’s why you have to learn to gain connections. I can take you to places that will give you their leftover food at night when they close; provided I don’t visit them too often of course. You look like you haven’t had a decent meal in two months.”

I narrowed my eyes slightly. “You ruined my dinner last night.” I was still feeling ungracious after he made me lose the bread I had found.

Harper just shrugged off my comment in that easy way of his. “That wouldn’t have even made you full. Come with me, the nuns have this mega carb-loaded, Baked Potato soup that sticks to your stomach for a week, come on.”

 

The Cathedral was like one of the many others I had seen while roaming the city.  It was old, Gothic, and cold in its demeanor. I stood at its steps looking up at the intimidating institution. How humans found comfort and peace here was beyond me. 

Harper started to lead me up the stairs. I didn’t understand how we were supposed to get food and clothes here. I knew very little about religion, except that most humans depended upon it in one form or another. I didn’t believe in God. At least not a merciful one. How could a merciful God have permitted all that had happened to me in my life?

As soon as Harper reached the impressive doors he opened them and out stepped a man in a black suit with a little white lapel. I froze. 

“Why hello Harper,” the religious man said before his eyes found my petrified ones. “And I see you’ve brought a friend today.”

Harper looked over to introduce me and noticed my terrified expression. Immediately he came over and blocked the man from my view.

“Hey, it’s okay!” He tried to console. “I promise, they won’t take you back to your parents.”

That wasn’t what I was afraid of. I had seen these men, on glass boxes that showed moving pictures in the apartment windows I slept beneath. These men dealt with Demons. They could find Demons and take them out of people, and most people who had them removed died. 

I had a Demon in me. It was what made me so dangerous. Was this man going to bind me and perform a ritual now? Could he sense my Demon?

“Jenny, what’s the matter? He’s not going to condemn you to hell or anything, scout’s honor.”

I didn’t know what a scout was but I decided it was not important enough to ask. I was beginning to identify when Harper was using an extremely human means of communicating called sarcasm. 

The religious man leaned around Harper and gave me a timid smile, though I could tell his eyes were concerned. 

At least, he didn’t seem to immediately tell I had a Demon inside of me. Perhaps because the Demon was buried deep he wouldn’t be able to sense it. I just had to be careful to not let it out when he was near me.

Finally, I nodded my head at Harper. Slowly Harper took my hand and tugged me toward the religious man. 

“Father Andrew, this is Jenny.” Harper offered introductions congenially. 

Father Andrew offered me his hand and after a moment’s hesitation, I took it. I looked into his eyes, preparing myself to see the Holy light of God shining behind them, preparing to strike me down. Instead, the Father held my hand only briefly and then allowed it to fall.

I looked up at Father Andrew, scrutinizing him. He honestly did not seem to be able to sense my Demon, or if he did, he was ignoring its presence. 

“It is very nice to meet you, Jenny. There is some warm soup in the kitchens, and if you’ll allow one of our sisters to show you to the showers, we have clothes to offer you as well once you are finished.”

Father Andrew had a pleasant voice, it was soft and kind. I was beginning to understand how Harper could trust him so. 

I nodded my head at him. I could have smiled, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it just then. Harper smiled at me. It was difficult to not feel calm when he smiled like that. I hated it. It made me feel as if I was letting go of my vigilance.

Instead of dwelling on the unpleasant and confusing thoughts in my head, I let Harper grab my hand and tow me into the Cathedral with Father Andrew following behind us as Harper led the way to the kitchens. 

I had never been inside a Cathedral before. It was very large. Ornate stained glass murals sat in the large window panes depicting colorful people whom I did not recognize. Long wooden benches ran along with the majority of the open floor and an intricate altar was set at the front of the church with dozens of candlesticks placed in red vases sitting on top of it.

Harper led us into a small, industrial kitchen where the smell of soup was so overwhelming my legs started trembling and would have given out if Harper hadn’t grabbed my elbow and supported me to the chair.  It had been almost two weeks since I had eaten a full meal. Father Andrew quickly went to one pot sitting on the stove next to a woman dressed in a black gown that covered her head. Harper sat next to me as the woman and Father Andrew set a chunk of bread in front of us and it was all I could do not to shove the entire thing in my mouth.  I knew if I ate too fast it wouldn’t stay down very long. Finally, the soup was served and I began reaching for my bread. Harper slapped my hand away and I looked at him angrily, prepared to fight. I was starving, they had given me food, why couldn’t I eat? Was this some kind of human torture?  

Harper cocked his head at Father Andrew who had his head bowed and his fingers clasped together, Harper mimicked the movement and I awkwardly lowered my head and held my hands while glancing at all the people in the kitchen who were doing the same thing. Then Father Andrew began speaking, making his addresses to God. I sat there, uncomfortable. 

Once Father Andrew spoke the words ‘amen’ the other people in the kitchen opened their eyes and started moving about again, Harper began reaching for his bread and I couldn’t stop my hand from shaking as I did the same. I tore off a greedy chunk and shoved it in my mouth letting my buildup of saliva practically melt the fibers of the chewy stuff before I could swallow.

Harper and Father Andrew watched me eat, it was weird and annoying but, I was much too preoccupied with my food to care.  After I ate, one of the women took me to some showers downstairs and gave me a new set of clothes that some people had donated.  I couldn’t remember the last time I had the luxury of a shower. Even though the water was barely luke-warm, it was bliss letting the clean water wash away all the dirt from my skin. I stayed in the shower for longer than I intended, just letting the water run down my back with my arms wrapped around myself. 

I never felt more vulnerable than when I was in a shower. It was there that I could accept my past and let myself feel sorrow for it. It was there that I felt okay about letting my emotions out because it was there I felt the most alone. I never forgave them though: the people responsible for what had happened to me in my other world. Not even a shower could bring me to that.

After I had showered and was dressed, I was anxious to get away from the church. I wasn’t used to people giving me things and taking care of me.  I didn’t want it to make me soft. I didn’t want to feel comfortable around people - I still didn’t trust them.  

Ascending the stairs from the basement, I walked into the main part of the church and noticed Father Andrew kneeling at an altar. I walked up to him and waited to be acknowledged. When the acknowledgment never occurred I awkwardly cleared my throat. 

“Um, thanks, I think I’m going to go now though.”   Father Andrew smiled and nodded at me and then turned back to his prayers.  

I was confused but decided to start for the door, pleasantly surprised when Harper suddenly appeared blocking my way.  I scolded myself for the pleasantness of the surprise. Harper laughed a little and shouldered a pack I could smell contained food.

“I hate to break it to you Jenny Blue, but you’re stuck with me.”

I tried for a scowl and even shouldered my way past him to the door, but I wasn’t able to suppress the satisfied smile that situated itself upon my face.

That was kind of the beginning of the end for me. Meeting Harper had been my beginning, and losing him had been my end. But I’ll get to that in a moment. 

  It took me a long time to learn to trust Harper, and I mean over a year of him hanging around and doing all the talking. He taught me so much about his world in the first few months we were together. He taught me how to talk like him and drop my ‘accent’ so I didn’t draw so much attention to myself. He taught me where to go to find the best food, the most unsoiled newspapers for insulation, the churches that would help you but  not report you to the authorities. Much sooner than I ever thought possible, I started to trust him, and when I finally did trust him, that trust quickly turned into deeply rooted affection.  

I still remember the first time we made a connection so clearly in my mind - and I don’t just mean emotionally. We had just gotten done running across the city and had raced to our little hide out in the abandoned alley that he had moved into with me.  I beat him of course, but I made it look like he almost got close to winning that time.  I was exhilarated because he had held my hand as we jogged and I hadn’t pulled away.  I felt my eyes burning slightly but I knew that they weren’t burning enough to be dangerous—I had gotten good at judging that.  I had turned around with a smile on my face and he froze as his eyes met mine and at first I had panicked, thinking I had misjudged the heat, but then he took a step toward me and laid a hand on my cheek and I felt my eyes burn hotter.  I tried to turn away so I wouldn’t hurt him, but he cupped my face in his hands and made me look at him.  He looked…awed.  I don’t think I’ll ever forget his face. 

 “Your eyes.  They’re...shimmering with silver.  They’re beautiful Jenny, you’re beautiful.”  

I looked at him in earnest confusion.  I felt the heat in my eyes, burning as hot as they had when I had killed the people who had threatened me, but I didn’t feel anger, I felt love—love for Harper.  

Then Harper bent in, cautioning me with his eyes, I knew why too. The first time he had tried to kiss me, I hadn’t known what it meant, and that is the story of how I gave Harper a black eye. Even though Harper taught me that kissing wasn’t a hostile act, he had still been guarded with his kisses since then. As he bent toward me this time though, I wasn’t afraid or nervous, I couldn’t wait for his lips to touch mine. 

Harper had his lips pressed to mine for only a moment before I began to see pictures. 

I was so alarmed I pulled away and Harper flinched in response, blocking his face from a fist he believed I was raising against him. 

“What’s wrong?” He asked timidly, slowly lowering his hands when he was sure I wasn’t going to strike. 

I shook my head looking at him wearily. “I’m not sure. I-I saw something when we kissed.

After a moment of not understanding, Harper came to his own conclusion about what that meant and then excitedly grabbed my hands. “Is this another one of your abilities?!” 

I started to shake my head, but then upon contemplating, I began to wonder. 

I looked at Harper deep in his eyes and felt the now familiar warm pressure in my chest. I held on to that feeling and slowly I moved in to kiss him. Harper kissed me back, confused but willing. I didn’t see anything that time. But as we continued in an embrace, the pictures showed themselves again. They were confusing and sporadic at first. It took me a moment to realize that Harper wasn’t the problem, I was; my walls were still up. Kissing Harper allowed me to lower my mental walls enough to let him in, and by letting him in I started opening up my emotions and my thoughts to Harper; and when I did that, I began seeing full scenes.  

I saw how my eyes looked to him before he kissed me.  Completely blue but with the small black pupil, and instead of violent silver streaks, the silver instead rippled across my eyes like sun ripples across waves.  We kept kissing and I saw more: I saw his dad beating him.  I saw him trying to protect his newborn baby sister as his mother shook her violently, trying to silence the crying and ending up silencing her permanently instead.  I saw him run away from home. I saw him face down the gangs by himself, and more often than not he was left bleeding in an abandoned tunnel., after trying and failing to defend his meager food or money. I saw him begging for food or money on the street, and most of the time, I saw him giving the food or money he had just received to a disabled person, or a child younger than himself. I broke away from the kiss gasping and Harper had just held me in his arms for a while. I hadn’t just seen what he had been through, I had felt it too; and after that experience, there was no going back to a time where I would have wished not to have known him.

During the next few weeks, Harper and I learned that we had formed what he termed ‘a connection’.  I don’t know if this was an ability inherited from my old life, or if it was a new ability that had cropped up because of my unnaturalness, but we found out that through physical touch I could hear his thoughts and I could place my own thoughts in his mind - although he couldn’t read mine at will.  

At night we would lay awake on our blankets, I’d hold his hand and Harper would play out his entire life, all his memories for me to see. He would show me favorite movies, his Martial Arts instructors who had been such inspirations to him, his favorite walks he had discovered, looking out across the ocean, the music he had heard, the food he had tasted. Harper showed me everything within the confines of our minds. He hid nothing from me and expected nothing in return, he only appreciated what little I did show him. I loved him all the more for it. 

 

Harper and I were together for a year more.  Two wonderful, magical years; and no matter what ability manifested itself in his presence he never looked at me as if I was a freak, or looked at me like he was afraid of me.  He just looked at me with love. 

Then, one terrible night, I had a dream. Or something that I thought was a dream at first, but it turned into a hideous, real, nightmare.  I saw nothing, but I heard just fine.  It was the council, from my old world, explaining to me that they had been watching me and that me falling for a human wasn’t something they had anticipated. They said they couldn’t risk what my off-spring might be and the abilities they might have, and then when I woke-up I found Harper dead... with his arms still around me as if we’d just fallen asleep.

I didn’t handle his loss well. 

I stopped acting so ignorant after that, I stopped really even trying. My old life thought I was a threat so I decided to become what they had feared I was. The thing was, I could never really bring myself to actually be a threat. Thinking of how unhappy it would make Harper kept me from acting upon those wishes to be something I wasn’t. Mostly, I just learned how to use sarcasm. I also learned how to lie; I got pretty good at that actually.   

I continued living on the streets. Sleeping in the same refrigerator box Harper had found me in. It was torn and moldy now; but no matter how cold I got at night, I couldn’t force myself to leave it. Even when the fleas infested, or when I had to use barbed wire to hold the lid closed, I stayed in my box. 

The year I turned eighteen I started venturing out again. During my time with Harper, my reputation had become more like a legend, and people had become brave approaching me. After I lost Harper, I had gone on something similar to a rampage. People had been after me after that. People in uniforms or suits who held up black wallets with golden medals inside. Harper would have known what to do then. He would have known that we had to leave, but I couldn’t leave the places where I had made memories with him. 

And so, that brings us to tonight. The night I almost got abducted by Federal Agents. The night my old life brought me back to them without giving me a choice, the night I had to make a choice: a choice to live or die.

 

Stupid People Annoy Me

The first thing I woke-up to was my box being torn open and large hands grabbing at me before I could react. I was frozen in place, looking at the torn shreds of mine and Harper’s home falling onto the ground when a bag was viciously pulled over my head.  Coincidence? Maybe, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that somehow, these men knew what my eyes could do.  Good thing too, because right now they were burning as the men led me down the alley and further away from Harper.  

Harper had warned me this day might come. I knew that ever since he’d been gone I hadn’t been as careful as I should have been. I just couldn’t bring myself to care anymore if I let out an ability here or there. What did it matter?  So I wasn’t so surprised that I could see from underneath the bag that these guys wore the same uniformed pants and tool belts. I prepared myself. I knew this wasn’t going to be easy. I had purposefully exposed only a few of my abilities to Harper while we were together, I was out of practice and scared. 

After Harper had died, I had developed a sort of apathy to everything and everyone. But, self-preservation isn’t something we’ve been able to evolve beyond, even in my old world. My adrenaline was making it hard to think of anything but getting away from these guys, so I did what I could - I relied on instinct.   

I felt thick hands on my body, yanking at my arms, jabbing me in the back, tripping my legs. Reigning in all my fury, all my hurt and loss and fear, I raised a leg behind me, flipping myself forward in the process. I smiled as my foot collided with a head and I heard a thud on the ground.  In another instant another hand was on my leg and I was being lifted into the air.  It didn’t help that I had lived in the streets half my life, so I had no extra body fat, only little amounts of muscle I had built up with Harper, but still, I wasn’t going to let the fact that these guys had over a hundred pounds on me stop me.  Oh no.

I went completely still as the goons were carrying me toward the soft sound of a motor car.  I felt their hesitation at my stillness and then their alarm as I was suddenly out of their hands and lying on my back at their feet.  I got the breath knocked out of me and reprimanded myself for not remembering about the concrete below me at the time.  I had discovered this ability in my old world. I could move through objects that resembled my anatomy, kind of like osmosis. I still hadn’t mastered that ability yet though, and it took a lot of my energy to accomplish. 

As soon as my breath returned, I furiously ripped off the hood and my silver eyes connected with the first victim, I watched in slow motion as he was suddenly held captive by my gaze. His pupil constricted, and then it started wavering and pulsing outward. Finally, his pupil broke the boundaries of the iris and started to flood his eyes with black. Once the black reached his skin I saw cracks starting; slowly the cracks turned into burns, and when the burns reached his temples, he dropped, dead.  The others dived on top of me then, pounding me with their fists, trying to subdue me, but I just used my ability again and moved through them until I was standing outside their circle. I paused for a split second while I let my healing ability work its way through my body and attend to the internal damage. 

By this point I was getting tired. Using my abilities was exhausting and those guys packed a mean punch.  The goon squad stood up and faced me, making sure not to meet my eyes.  There were six of them in all.  The seventh lay dead at their feet. 

I turned around and sprinted. Usually I had an ability that made me run faster than anyone around me but a lot of their punches had been directed to my legs and my abdomen, slowing me down considerably.  

They caught up to me quickly.  A bull of a man tackling my legs sent me face-planting into the pavement.  I felt gravel dig in deep in my forehead and across my cheek and in the palms of my hands where I had fallen.  The pain was intense and became even more so when another beefy guy sat on top of me, trying to force the bag over my head again, while the other goons continued pounding into my body with their fists.  In the background, I could hear the horns of traffic and women screaming on the streets and men shouting in frantic voices. I was too preoccupied with getting beaten alive to care though. I felt bones in my left leg and right shoulder break.  I was too wounded, and my brain was too muddled for me to use my abilities.  The jerks finally succeeded in putting a bag over my head and tying my hands and feet together with zip ties. I knew I wasn’t in danger from my injuries. I healed fast, but I also knew the broken bones in my leg and shoulder wouldn’t heal unless they were set properly. I stubbornly burst out of the ties and tried to go for my hood ahead. 

My hands were quickly yanked behind my back and I heard someone shouting for shoe laces. Once my hands and feet were resecured, they left the task of carrying me to one man, another one of the quirks from my freakish nature was that I was much lighter than another human my size.  Harper had loved that part.  He could carry me on his back all day long while he walked up and down the beach without getting tired.  It also made him cocky when we fought each other because he could flip and pin me so easily, but then I would pass through him and run away until I decided to let him catch me. He would wrap his arms around my waist and hold me against him, kissing my hair and laughing into my neck.  My eyes stung with tears as my heart drowned my thoughts with memories.

The goon squad loaded me into a car and I heard the tires peel out against the pavement.  This wasn’t good.  I knew I needed to get out before we left the city and I lost home field advantage.  Harper and I had memorized every street and every alleyway in Manhattan; we could get around the city like lightning.

I focused on healing, centralizing my energy always helped speed up the process, and when I felt my internal bleeding stop, I focused on getting my hands and feet unbound.

I knew I couldn’t use my ability to pass through the rope because it didn’t resemble my own anatomy.  I couldn’t rely on my eyes since they had been effectively covered.  Speed wouldn’t help me, nor would my ability to see and hear from great distances.  I couldn’t touch any of the idiots sitting next to me so I couldn’t read or manipulate their minds, and my uncanny strength was no use with my busted leg and shoulder.  That left only one other ability.  The one I hated most, because it hurt.  Bad.

I focused the heat in my eyes and made it travel down to my wrists.  I felt my skin burn and blister and I held back my scream of pain, grateful for the hood so the guards couldn’t see my agonized expression.  Then I centered my healing on my wrists to help my poor blistered skin and charred nerves.  I heard the sizzling sound as the fibers of the cord began to burn and break and I started shifting around to try and cover it up which earned me a jab in my ribs with a rather sharp elbow.

I felt the cord burn far enough that I could break through even with my busted shoulder, then I forced the heat down towards my ankles.  Again, gritting my teeth and holding back a whimper as I purposefully gave myself third degree burns again and again while simultaneously trying to heal myself.  My energy was wearing but I knew I had to escape, and escape now.

The rope was now weak enough and I prepped myself, using another ability to sense my surroundings.  We were in a big van.  Three of the Goon Squad were in the seat behind me, one on the seat with me, and the other two taking the driver’s and passenger’s seats.  The doors were locked, the door near my head had a handle a foot away and the door was a sliding one.  I had a plan.

The van slowed down a little, encountering traffic I presumed and I acted.  I broke my bonds simultaneously and ducked my head while throwing my legs over and back; rolling under, doing a mini backflip in my seat. My back was now toward the door and I was on my feet.  My broken leg was screaming in pain but I ignored it.  My hands acted simultaneously too: my left reached to remove my hood while my busted shoulder went for the handle since it wouldn’t rise any higher, I knew I could break through the lock with my strength.  My eyes caught sight of the man on my row.  I met his brown eyes and he dropped almost instantly.  The man I killed had on a bulletproof vest that said FBI on it.  I got even angrier that the Feds had found me and thought I was a big enough threat to probably stick me in a white room for the rest of my life conducting experiments.  No way in heaven or hell was I going to let that happen again.

While the rest of the Goon Squad scrambled, I wrenched open the door and flung myself out of the van.  I hit the ground hard and further damaged my already broken shoulder, this time I couldn’t stop the scream of pain. When I finally stopped rolling, I raised my head up enough to see headlights and hear a horn blare before I felt the pain of getting run over by a car.  It had hit me in my left hip and I felt the bone crack and shatter.  I let out another scream.  

The car had completely crushed my hip, my right shoulder was broken and busted and my left femur was broken as well.  My healing ability healed my cracked skull and new internal bleeding and ruptured femoral artery but my energy was almost gone.  I heard the car doors open and the sound of heavy boots running towards me. Men and women were shouting in the streets, car horns were blaring and metal was crashing against metal. I could barely see through the pain haze.  I felt a presence bend near me and I flipped myself over hoping my eyes would take at least one more, they were certainly burning hot enough.  I caught one goon's eyes, watching as they blackened and he dropped; but the rest were on me now, beating me and poking me with needles that made my brain even more fuzzy.  

I felt bones in my ribs crack, bones in my forearms broke under the pressure of trying to block my head and my kneecap shattered as a particularly harsh club struck it dead on.  Pain and anger like I had only felt once before roared up inside me and the heat in my eyes was nearly unbearable.  I raised my broken, bleeding hands and pushed the goons away at the same time as I yelled “Enough!” with all my might.  I felt heat leaving my body and surge outward in a silver current with such force it threw the goons off me.  I didn’t need to look to see that they were dead.  I felt their life force leave their bodies.  Another ability from my old life.

I was drained beyond belief and cold as ice as all the heat was stripped from my body in that silver blast.  A thick white smoke blanketed the air and smelt like burnt flesh. My breathing was too fast and my heart was racing.  I felt tears fall from my eyes and then freeze on my cheeks despite the muggy hot air.

Blackness encroached upon my vision.  I didn’t have any energy left to heal myself.  And I had so many broken bones I knew I wasn’t going to survive much longer.

I wasn’t really scared to die.  Mine had been a life no one would want, and I had lived it as best I could; but I couldn’t help feeling so relieved that I didn’t have to fight anymore. My panicked adrenaline surrendered itself to the pain and cold. My thoughts turned clouded and I felt my body start to relax against my will. A shimmering green vale appeared before my eyes, and I wondered, as my sight went black, if I would see Harper again.  Then I surrendered to the pain and to the dark.

 

Stupid New Stuff Annoys Me Too

I woke up in a warm bed under soft blankets and at first I was surprised, not quite believing I could have been admitted into Heaven - even with my family connections. That was when the pain finally registered.  It was like I was on fire. All of me burned and stung. I was stiff and I was miserable. So, definitely not Heaven.

 I felt plaster covering my left femur, my left hip, and my right ankle and both arms.  Then there were also heavy wrappings on my ribs, and pretty much the rest of my entire body.

My eyes were bound as well. Although I didn’t know if it was because they were injured or because some of the goons had somehow survived the silver blast and had taken me.  I tried to use my abilities to sense my surroundings.  It felt like a hospital, but it had a peculiar aura like I had never felt before.  Things didn’t have definite shapes, they were…blurry.

“She wakes.”  Said a deep voice near my bedside.  

I tensed and tried to move my arms; but despite the fact that they were wrapped in plaster, they were also bound to the guardrails of the hospital bed.  How rude, chaining up a dying, severely injured patient like I was some sort of common criminal...oh wait…I was way worse than that.              

“We mean you no harm girl.  We are friends.”  This voice was softer, gentler, a nice rich tenor.  

Still, I snorted caustically, it sounded funny due to the swelling in my face, but since I hadn’t died, my healing ability started kicking in and I felt the inflammation going down. “If that’s true, you might want to make a run for it since being my friend tends to get people killed.”  

I reached out to sense my environment and detected two... somethings.  They weren’t quite men, but they weren’t native to my old world either.  I didn’t know what they were.  They took a step closer to me and I had to grudgingly admire their bravery. Either that or feel bad for their stupidity. A now-familiar vein opened inside me and heat flooded my eyes.

“We know what you have been through,” spoke the gentler voice, “we have kept a watch on you ever since you were sent to Gaea.” I balked at my old world’s name for Earth.  “We have seen your trials, and know of your suffering, one who calls herself Jennifer Blue.”  

I froze with tension. These men weren’t humans. I still didn’t know what they were, but now I knew they were from my old life. A life I had spent almost ten years trying to forget and move beyond. A life that had tortured me. A life that was determined to torture me further.

 “Who are you?”  The heat in my eyes dimmed some due to curiosity and fear. I focused most of my energy on healing since my bones had been reset.

I sensed one of the figures take another step towards me. “As we have said before, we are friends.  You are in our realm, and we have brought you here under great peril to our realm and our people who reside here.  We saw you fight with the human men who would have imprisoned you and saw silver burst from your eyes and destroy the men, but then you fell and would have perished if we had not intervened.  We brought you here with the greatest secrecy and stealth, but we cannot be certain we were not watched by powers greater than our own.”  

I didn’t know what they expected from me. A heartfelt ‘thank you’? Applause? They had taken me back to the world that had cast me out in the first place; there was no gratitude in me to give.  

“Still doesn’t answer my question about who you are,”  I said, letting my annoyance color my tone.  My eyes were still burning, but I was grateful because it helped my energy rise so I could heal faster.

“We are members of the second realm of Celestine. I am Oren, I am under the command of King Harem. This is Kallan, he is under the command of Queen Jezreaal.  We are here to oversee your recovery and to protect you if such an unfortunate need should arise.”  

My headache had returned, and I knew no amount of concentration on healing was going to help it though. “If I’m in the second realm, how did I get here without having to go through the fourth and third? And what exactly are you?  Your names don’t tell your species.”  My old life was returning to me faster than I thought it should, given all the effort I had spent on trying to forget it. 

Humans didn’t know this but they actually lived in a world with five realms. Earth was the fifth realm. Angels ruled the first realm, and not the heavenly kind of Angels either. These Angels like to meddle in everybody’s business and think they know better than everyone else and do what they want with no one to stop them because they’re giant jerks with ego complexes! I guess I should explain that I come from the first realm…my parents are Angels. Or…at least…my dad is, my mom is human, which is what makes me such a freak, but I’ll get to that later. 

The realms move in a sort of cosmic order. The fifth realm, where the humans live flows into the fourth realm, where Death lives. The fourth realm is where all the souls and spirits of the dead go, it’s also home to phantoms and ghosts and pretty much everything creepy that gives you the shivers at night. The fourth realm flows into the third realm, that’s where the Demons live. I have a Demon inside of me. That’s what the Angels were so afraid of.

The third realm flows into the second, which is apparently where I’m currently being held, hostage. And the second realm flows in the first realm which flows into the fifth. No realm can move backward unless they are invited and a door is opened to them. It’s how the Fate’s designed it so each realm had some measure of security from the others.

I felt pressure on my bed, and I flinched.  

“I apologize. I vow that I will not harm you unless I must.” 

I felt my mind going through endless scenarios of how “must” differed from person to person.

“If I were to remove your blindfold,” Oren continued, “do you promise to not burn us with the silver fire that sometimes lights your eyes?”  

I thought about this.  Certainly, if they wanted me dead they had plenty of chances. The welcome I received here was actually one of the better ones I had received ever - handcuffs included. And although I wasn’t stupid enough to trust them, I also wasn’t stupid enough to be openly hostile. Maybe their friendship had some advantages? I’d never know unless I was patient enough to find out.

I judged the heat in my eyes.  It was still fairly hot, so I took some deep breaths to try and calm down—a trick that Harper had taught me.  That seemed to help.

“I promise, but be prepared to look away if I give the order.  I can’t always control it sometimes when I get mad.”  I felt some shifting on the bed and then gentle, slim fingers were reaching behind my head and removing the blindfold.  I kept my eyes closed, allowing them to adjust to the light in the room, and making completely sure the heat wasn’t dangerous.  

After my eyes stayed closed for a few seconds more, I finally opened them and looked at my surroundings.  They weren’t like anything I was expecting.  The air seemed almost cloudy.  It was like, nothing was substantial but then again it all was.  Almost like a film of colored water covered all surfaces, giving it the ethereal appearance I had sensed earlier.  

Then I looked at the man sitting on my bed - well, the Elf sitting on my bed to be more precise.  He was tall and lean and thin.  His long sandy hair was tied back in a leather strap and his forearms were covered in gauntlets.  His face was sharp and angular, his ears were indeed pointed—much to my delight—and his eyes were the color of moss.  He wore a green tunic and tan pants tucked into brown boots that laced up to his shins.  His face looked kind, but I could sense a fierceness that hid behind his eyes.  I assumed this was the guy named Oren. 

The man behind Oren was different.  He had a dark demeanor and was thicker in his build, but still had an overtly angular face. His hair was brown along with his eyes which were narrowed, either in a glare or just naturally I really couldn’t tell at this point. 

“Your eyes are….wavering, should we look away?”  Asked Oren.  

I shook my head, trying hard not to stare at his pointy ears. “No, I can sense when my eyes will become dangerous to look at.  As you can imagine, I’m not entirely comfortable with my circumstances. But if you unchain me from the bed I’ll bet my eyes will go back to normal.” I eyed him hard, testing to see just how much my friend he considered himself.

Oren looked at me for a moment and then turned to Kallan, whose gaze got even more narrowed if that was possible. Oren stood up and started to unbind me. 

“You can also remove the casts, I’m healed enough that I don’t need them anymore.”  

Oren looked at me in surprise. “Surely you would require more time, you suffered many broken bones.  A human takes...”

“Yes, but I am not only human; as all the realms are more than aware.”  

Oren looked at me for a moment, his lips pinched.  I felt the heat in my eyes rise and I looked away, taking deep breaths to try and calm myself.

“Very well then.”  He said, and he motioned for Kallan to leave the room.  

Oren worked on undoing my bonds, I let him do it in silence.  My head was so full of thoughts and fears I didn’t know which to give my attention to. Always at the forefront of my mind was the ever-present fear that the Angels would find out that the second realm had taken me and do something untoward to get me back so they could kick me out again. The next thought was that my abilities had a rather bad habit of multiplying when I was in stressful situations. Third, was the fact that I hadn’t in fact died, and so, I had to go on living without Harper again. That pain was almost as debilitating as my physical injuries had been. Why couldn’t the second realm have saved him too?

Kallan soon returned with another Elfish looking man with a big tuft of long white hair and wistful eyes.  

“Greetings child,” he said to me with a bow. I almost snorted at him too. “I am Keli, I am under the command of King Harem.” The older elf approached me without fear and looked directly into my eyes. “I understand you have asked for your settings to be removed from your body, and I hear you have also heard that under normal circumstances the bones would not have had time to heal yet. You have only been with us for two days.”  

I was actually surprised I had been out for that long. I looked at the beings in front of me. It was like I had never left my old life. I was starting to remember exactly what kind of creatures they were just because of how they looked. Their names sounded familiar to me too. I turned them over in my mouth annoyed that somehow they still seemed normal to me. I didn’t want this kind of normal though. Harper had gotten me used to earthly normal. I wanted that back…so badly.  

I turned my eyes to the doctor feeling the heat dim, and I heard him take in a sharp breath. Whenever there was any amount of silver in my eyes people were always hypnotized by them, even if my eyes weren’t dangerous. I was used to this. What I wasn’t used to though is those people then leaning in, grabbing my face between their hands and studying my eyes up close and personal. 

“So beautiful, so powerful, so unique. I wonder…” And then he lost me with the doctor/mystical babble talk… 

After the appropriate amount of time—meaning as long as I could stand—I slowly detached my face from the doctor’s hands, ignoring the disappointed look in his eyes and addressed his previous concern. “I understand what you’re saying doc, but I am unlike anything you have ever treated.  You just have to trust me that I’m healed and you can remove the casts now.”  

Dr. Keli nodded and then got out a saw type thing and began the process of cutting off my various casts.  

My confusion had me turning to Oren. “Aren’t Elves supposed to have magic powers so they don’t have to do stuff like this?”  

Oren smiled, he had a nice smile—which, for some reason helped set me at ease—and nodded. “Our magic works best on our own kind, and as we are not sure what kind you are, we decided not to take the risk of what our magic might do to you and the effects it would have upon your body. We are equally adept in human forms of medicine as well.”  

I nodded, both grateful for their almost paranoia, and calmer knowing they went through such great lengths to take care of me.  

After all my casts were removed, I was allowed to stand up on the deceivingly solid floor and stretch a bit.  My body still felt incredibly sore, but moving around felt too good for me to stop.  Stretching reminded me of the routine Harper had taught me to do before and after we did anything very physical, and picturing Harper’s face and hearing his words in my head helped calm me down the rest of the way.  

“Now reach out,” he would say, “and when you feel a burn you’re in a good place. Then with every exhale you do, try to stretch a little bit further.”

I stood up, took one more deep breath, and as I let it out I felt the rest of the heat leave my eyes completely.

I sat on the edge of the bed and looked down to see I only had a plain earth-colored tunic on.  It wasn’t exactly flattering, or modest, but I didn’t really have many other options since I didn’t know where my clothes were.  I looked up at the three men staring at me. I pushed my hair out of my face and rubbed my eyes, hoping that would improve my sight and somehow get rid of the cloudiness over all the surfaces.  It didn’t.

“So the second realm is the realm of the Elves?”  I asked, trying to be serious, but I couldn’t help but think I might get to see a battle scene from Lord of the Rings going on if I looked out a window. The realms didn’t really know the other realms at all - well except for Gaea, everyone knew about the Earth realm. They tried to keep things as separate as possible. Except where I was concerned I guess.

 I let my gaze drift toward a window, trying to block out unpleasant memories, and then I was curious to see if there actually were hobbits, and Orcs, and dragons.  That would be cool.  The dragons I mean, not the smelly Orcs.  Geesh, Harper had turned me into such a nerd. Don’t even get me started on Star Wars. 

Dr. Keli sat on the bed next to me while Oren and Kallan went to stand in the doorway, either protecting me from the outside or the outside from me, I wasn’t sure.

“Not exactly,” Keli began. “You could say that Elves make up the Royal family here.  But Celestine is a place where all creatures of what humans would consider magic and myth abide.”  Huh, so maybe I would see the Orcs.

“You don’t mean like vampires and werewolves and witches and wizards to you?”  I was now picturing a Hogwarts school next to Gondor... 

Keli smiled. “Indeed I do, child.  Every myth invented on Gaea has been derived from Celestine.  But we no longer allow physical interaction with humans.  Humans used to worship us, they did not want to live as equals.  They either thought of us as God’s,

Impressum

Verlag: BookRix GmbH & Co. KG

Tag der Veröffentlichung: 01.02.2016
ISBN: 978-3-7396-3486-9

Alle Rechte vorbehalten