Chapter 2

more introductions.

It seemed I lived my life oblivious to the world that surrounded me. Until that day I thought that I knew everything there was in life. I lived day by day, never thinking of the future.

But as we stood frozen besides the river, all that ran through my mind was the question of what events would unfold in the coming years, would I be there to see it.

Even so, acknowledging these questions would not deliver me from the situation I was in, only fate could have done such a thing.

Sept and Mia stood completely still, like statues in a wondrous display of art. Carefully they examined every subtle movement in their surrounding enviroment. It all seemed like a moment forever etched in time. Perhaps time would have been forever frozen had Sept not made the first motion. He began to sheath his blade by pointing it ahead of him. He released his hold on the grip, as the sword fell a blinding flash emitted from the blade and a sudden gust of wind blew a cloud of dust and grass into the atmosphere. The double-edged sword returned to its previous form, a carefully crafted rosary. It seemed suspended in midair as the ashes that had scattered away in the wind quickly came back to their masters hands, reforming the chain that held the rosary. The chain dangled freely from Sept’s wrist with the rosary on its end.

Sept motioned at me. “So they sent you out here for him?” he asked Mia as he put the necklace over his head.

Mia relaxed her stance, letting her arm fall to her side. Loosening her grip she let go of the gun. Much like Sept’s sword, it transformed in a blinding light, hovering in midair. Rather than a necklace it became a plain looking beaded bracelet. Looking at it a person wouldn‘t discern it as anything else.

“Yeah, I was. There’s gonna be more coming if I don’t come back with him soon.” She replied.

Sept nodded. “I know. So whose in your team?”
“Only Sol and Tak. Moon is on another assignment,” she said as she began to approach us.

“Keep,” Sept called my name. “You know anywhere we can hide?”

“umm, yeah,” I hastedly replied without taking my eyes off of the brunette women. “but how do you know my name, I don’t remember ever telling you.”

“Claudius…er… I mean the old man told me.”

He turned his attention to Mia. His eyes met hers and without hesitation said , “it’s Okay.” It seemed as if he had just drawn a truce with the enemy. With that, the fear I had felt subsided.

She nodded her head in agreement, understanding what he meant. “I’m coming though.” She said sternly.

Sept told me to lead the way. My secret location wasn’t far, so I thought it would be alright. Mia followed us and though the unerving fear had gone, I couldn’t help but think that she would double cross us. Regardless, Sept’s presence made it feel like everything would be alright despite the situation.

I led them into the woods on the other side of the stream-like river. The further we delved into the shadow infested forest the less light could be seen, until there was nothing but black. No light could pass through the thickets of leaves, branches and pines. At that time I had to rely heavily on my former knowledge of the area. But it was all second nature, I had been to this place countless times before, it was here where I first spoke with Lilith.

 

A couple years before I met Sept, Lilith went missing.

On that day I remember Claudius running around the orphanage in a panic asking if anyone had seen her. He was obviously worried for her well-being, since we were told a simple cold would have her bedridden for weeks.

Though I had known who she was at the time, I couldn’t say that I had really spoken with her. Honestly I didn’t want to speak with her, because the rumors of her being a ghost had been spread amongst the children and I was a believer. Not devout, but I wasn’t willing to take my chances.

For a few hours Claudius and some of the other children looked for her, they searched around the orphanage, in every cupboard, closet and room. Claudius even went as far as the river to search despite his aging body.

She was nowhere to be found. In desperation Claudius called down to the town to plead for a few men to aid in the search. Every place had been scoured except the dark woods beside the river. But he was only one old man and was unable to do it himself. Also he didn’t want to put any of the children in dangers way.

As he sat outside the orphanage waiting for help to arrive something came over me. A voice told me to search for this girl, to do it alone. Of course I fell to pressure, I was easily persuaded, especially when it came to imaginary voices. When I reached the woods it was much like it always was- pitch black.

I had never been to that part of the area, but I was confident. As though the voice was leading me. After only a few sparse minutes of searching I was able to do what Claudius spent the whole day failing at.

I crawled through brush and vines, scraped my knees and bruised my elbows until I finally reached a clearing. A single shaft of light escape from the sky, piercing through the thick branches and leaves. There I saw her, lying on the wet dirt and grass, so serene.

She was beautiful with her ivory skin and her soft flowing hair; she was an angelic sight. I couldn’t help but stare for a time. I had never seen her this way before. Perhaps it was because of the light that illuminated her fragile form. In the orphanage, she was sickly, always in dim lighting, but beneath the heavenly glow she seemed celestial; a seraphim resting peacefully.

I headed over to her and nudged her shoulder with my foot to avoid the act of bending over or kneeling.

“Lilith!” I shouted.

Quietly, she opened her eyes and looked at me. Not startled by my shout or presence.

“The skies don’t have any clouds today,” she said calmly.

I looked up towards the sky to see that it wasn’t visible from where I stood.

“What skies,” I said, “you can’t see them from here so how can you te… ahhh…aaa….aaa.” She took hold of my hair and pulled me down. I instantly fell on my knees when she tugged.

“It’s soft.”

Our faces were merely inches away from one another and for the first time I had a good look at her emerald eyes, absolutely breathtaking.

“Your eyes.” She said as I continued looking at her dumbfounded. Her grip on my hair tightened and I cringed in pain. She continued without hesitation, “your eyes, they look like the sky on a cloudless day.”

I blushed in embarrassment then grabbed her hand. She released her grasp of my hair.

“It’s ok Lilith, I’m gonna take you home, everyone’s been worried.” I told her.

Her eyes began to tear up and a few drops of tears managed to stream down the sides of her cheeks despite her obvious attempt to hold them back.

“I’m sorry,” she said, “I just wanted to play outside.”

She put her head on my shoulders and her arms around my body. She tightened her hold on me, almost as to ask me to never leave her side. I hugged her back, I was clueless as to what to do.

For a few minutes we sat there until her tears dried up. From then on she would always come to me for any of her problems and I eventually came around to telling her about mine as well.

Often times we would go back to the same place we first spoke. We’d lie there and talk for hours, it always felt calming to be with her, alone with nothing else to worry us. She was my only real family.

 

I led Sept and Mia to that place, a place I felt the safest. When we reached the clearing Sept walked around clumsily, just as he had when I first saw him in Eveland. I guess that was how he surveyed an area. I went straight to the light and laid down. Mia followed and sat next to me.

“Miss Mia, do you have a tattoo?” I asked curiously. I needed to know if she were really the women from my dreams.

She quickly glanced at her left hand and grinned.

“Yeah, I do. how did you…”

“Well, its hard to explain,” I interrupted, “I guess the best way to put it is, I had a dream.”

I wanted to see the tattoo, to clear up any doubts I had. Instead she made a comment that almost made me forget about it.

“I see, that’s why they want you.” she said happily, as though she just had a life changing epiphany.
“What do you mean?”

“They’ve been looking for someone like you for quite a while now.” Sept intruded as he came to sit by us. I looked at him then Mia then at him again, I was puzzled as to how everyone was related to one another. “Ya see Keep, you’re what we would call a seer, someone who has the ability to predict the most likely outcome of things by reading and understanding the flow of mana.”

Mia glared over at Sept, looking as though she were ready to smack him for interrupting her conversation.

“What? What’s mana?” I asked, I was completely stumped.

“Mana has been known as many things in the past, chi, spiritual energy, but whatever it’s called it’s still the same thing. It resides in everything, some people have control over it and so they can manipulate matter, energy and even space.” He said it as though he had to explain this a hundred times before to people like me.

“So, only some people have control of it?” I asked.

“No,” he replied, “everyone has control over it to some extent, but some are just born with natural talent. With enough hard work anyone could reach a certain point of control. But your talent is different, it’s special. Only a few have been born with your ability.”

“Seeing the future?”

“You could say that. But it’s much more than just seeing the future. It’s like an eye that sees all things. You aren’t able to see the future. You only see the most possible path. Your ability allows you to read all flows of mana from where you stand to the other end of the world. Not only can you read it you can understand it and put it all together. I suppose since your 12 years old you must’ve done something you felt was strange?”

I thought back to the time I found Lilith in the woods. I finally understood how I knew where to go. Perhaps it was this mana that spoke to me.

“Sept, how do you know everyone?” I still wanted to know much more.

“Well, I can answer that one.” Mia quickly replied in an abrupt manner, trying to get back at Sept for interrupting her. “Its ‘cause he’s one of us. He’s a member of CONTROL.”

“CONTROL?” I asked. I knew I had heard of it before but I couldn’t remember at the time.

“Not only is Sept in CONTROL,” she continued, “Commander Claude used to be in it to. But Sept has been on leave for the last 2 years.”

“What’s CONTROL!” I screamed, I was frustrated at myself for not remembering something that seemed at the tip of my tongue.

“CONTROL is the organization that watches over the world.” Replied Sept, “It does whatever it takes to ensure that there is ultimately no war. They do so with utmost care and extreme but often times covert force.”

“CONTROL, ahh yeah I remember,” I said, “Claudius told us about them before. They’re like the police of the world. Taking out all the bad guys and making sure the good guys win.”

Sept chuckled, “I guess you could say that, but there’s more than that.”

“So they weren’t gonna do anything bad to me?” I asked beginning to feel stupid.

“No, we were just gonna take you in to do some testing.” Mia replied, chuckling. As she finished her statement her mind began to wander, thinking about how I had gotten myself into this situation.

Mia, looking puzzled as she took hold of Sept’s sleeves and tugged on it a couple times. Sept looked at her wondering what she wanted. It seemed their focus had drifted away from me.

“Yeah?” he asked.

“Can I talk to you for a bit?” she replied. “Keep, why don’t you stay here for a bit I need to do some catching up with Sept for a little while.”

“Okay, that’s fine with me. I’ll just try to use my new super powers.” I replied.

Mia smiled at me then dragged Sept by the sleeves until they were outside of the clearing. She put both her hands on his shoulders and it looked as though she were going to cry. She hadn’t seen him in 2 years. He must’ve just left one day without telling anyone the reasons why, but whatever his reasons I knew that they had to be sound. He didn’t seem like someone to do something on a whim.

They stood far enough so that all I could hear were quiet muffled noises in the distance. A part of me was curious as to what they were talking about, but I was more curious about my alleged powers. I wanted to see if I really had the abilities they spoke of. Listening to what Sept had just said, I assumed that if I just concentrated hard enough it would come to me. I had always felt something was different about me.

I closed my eyes and laid on the patches of grass and dirt, concentrating on the surrounding environment. Concentrating intensly on the mana that was supposed to be all around me, invisible yet present. I wasn’t sure if I was doing it right, or even what the outcome could be. All I knew was that this was the first time I had ever tried to consciously use my abilities.

 

For a small time frame I felt like I could hear the entire surrounding area, the whole woods was under my surveillance. Every animals footstep, every breaking branch, flowing stream, I could see, hear, smell, taste and even feel them. Almost as though I had become the earth.

Drowned in the noises of the dark woods I could hear faintly the voices of Sept and Mia. Though I asked myself not to pry, my ears began to intently listen in on their conversation. Soon I felt as though I were them.

“What’s the problem?” Sept asked Mia as he lifted her chin.

“Nothing, its nothing,” she said, “I’m just happy to see you again.”

“Wow, I’m really that popular with the ladies aren’t I.”

She chuckled then gave Sept the hug she had been waiting to give him since she first realized it was him. She felt sad that he had been gone for so long. Almost betrayed, but just seeing him made her forget that he had gone. She could hear the pounding of his heart as she firmly pressed the side of her head against his chest.

“What is it?” Sept asked. He was nervous, but his cool exterior made it seem as though he didn’t care. His heart pounded rapidly and even his pale face had a tint of pink.

She let go of him and looked him straight in the eyes, thinking to herself how beautiful his eyes were, almost losing herself in the sky-like eyes.

“I don’t think he’s a seer.” She said, finding her composure.

“I know.”

“You noticed it too.” she said, shocked, “I mean, The dream he had not even Alph could have had that vision. All the past seer’s and even Alph can’t read the flow of mana on the island or its effect it has on the world. Somehow he was able to see it.”

Sept looked over at me and saw that I was just lying on the ground not moving the slightest. Something in him felt as though he were being watched, he could feel a strange flow of mana in the area, but disregarded it and continued on. “Do you know who gave the orders for you to take him in?”

Mia, curious at what he was looking at, followed the path of his eyes to me before she answered. “Icarus.”

“Okay, I understand now.”

“Why?” she inquired.
“Classified.” He said sounding like a military man, “Anyways, how long do you think it’ll be before we can leave.”

“Not long. You know Sol and Tak, they’re so lazy. But since its only been the four of us, without you they don’t do anything. And they don’t really listen to me without you standing next to me glaring at them.”

I opened my eyes and sat up. I leaned back supporting myself on the palms of my hands and looked over at Sept and Mia, they looked happy- no, they were happy. Old friends catching up on old times, she laughed and he laughed.

Though I was no longer in a trance, a part of me felt different, as though I had awakened something that had been dormant my whole life. I could still feel the slightest bits of thoughts and feelings from everything around me. Especially the uneasiness Mia felt for disobeying orders and betraying her partners, Sol and Tak.

They eventually came by me and sat down. We talked and joked for the next hour or so, just waiting for Mia’s partners to leave. Though, I began to doubt the seriousness of the problems at hand.

“I don’t get it, if all they wanna do is take me in to take a test why am I so scared.” I thought.

As the hour passed by they asked me a lot of questions. At times it seemed like an interrogation, but for some reason, though I had just met them, I trusted them. There was no intention to harm me, if anything their only intentions were to protect me.

When the well of questions ran dry Sept tried teaching me how to use knowledge to control mana. He explained that mana manipulates the natural laws of the world. But it constantly flows in a certain way that everything seems constant and predictable, thus science could predict the outcome of things without including mana as a factor, but disrupting the usual flow results in bending natural laws. Understanding mana meant understanding existence.

He mentioned that, even though mana manipulates the laws of nature, understanding those laws will help, as an example he gave me ice. He said that ice is really just water that has lost all its energy. By forcing the energy out of the molecules I could make something freeze, such as water to make ice. If I were to do the opposite and introduce more energy I could possibly make fire. He said it is easiest to use what is around and manipulate the environment, but rarely there are those that have trained enough or have enough talent to create actual matter.

We went through it many times before I decided to give up. Just understanding the natural laws wasn’t the hardest part, it was feeling and manipulating the mana that I couldn’t understand. So for 15 minutes I sat in the middle of the woods trying to freeze things only to fail. All the while looking like I was extremely constipated.

I wanted to try fire, but Sept denied me any opportunities, saying that if did manage to do it there was a chance I would burn down the woods.

 

When we were ready to head out we all stood up but just as that happened we heard a rustling in the distance. It was coming from the same way he had come from. I looked at Mia and Sept, afraid that it was a large animal or perhaps one of their partners had followed us here.

“Don’t worry Keep,” Sept said in an assuring manner, “its just a little girl.”

“A little girl?” I thought, “The only little girl that I knew who knew of this place is Lilith.” Sure enough a few seconds later Lilith popped up from the darkness looking as innocent as usual. When she came out, both Sept and Mia were surprised at her appearance. There was a look of disbelief on their faces, almost as though they had seen a ghost.

“What’s wrong guys?” I asked them.

A part of me thought that they were in shock from her white hair and I was slightly angered by that thought. But before I could do anything about it, Lilith came running to me and hid behind me, afraid of the strangers she had just seen for the first time. Sept and Mia glanced at each other before they looked at Lilith again.

“Little girl, have you ever seen the red moon?” Mia asked Lilith in a kind almost condescending way.

Lilith held her breath and nodded her head gesturing a yes.

They began introducing themselves to her trying to make her a little more comfortable with them. I expected them to start asking her more questions relating to the red moon. But besides introducing themselves they didn’t really mention anything else. They just gave each other strange looks of confusion and left it at that.

After the introductions I turned to Lilith and asked her. “What are you doing here?”

“Well, I wanted to come outside. It looked really pretty today.” she replied.

“You know you shouldn’t go anywhere by yourself. You might get hurt.” I said in an angered voice, I felt as though I were scolding her. “Did you at least tell the old man?”
“Yeah, he said it was okay if I came with you.”

“What?” I was puzzled, did she come out here for me?

Her eyes began to tear up. “Stop being such a jerk, I just wanted to see you.” she said as she burst into tears.