Journey To Chronicalia

Orion has to save the world, with the help of a strange girl from another world.

Journey to Chronicalia

To be revised later!      In media res

 Capture

My heart…it’s beating too fast…too fast. Too fast… it’s going to burst out of my chest. Its pounding…hammering on my chest from the inside… My eyes are bursting out of their lids. My veins are running. Everything is going too fast. “It won’t hurt,” the scientist said before injecting me with an unknown fluid. He lied. For some reason I feel like I’m going to die. I want to scream for the scientists to stop, but the fluid is already taking over my entire body. I try to speak but my throat is too numb and hoarse. This is it, I’m dying is all I’m thinking.

     The voice in the back of my head is taunting me “This is how you die? Undergoing an experiment you were so gullible to consent to? You’re weak,” laughs my conscience.

      “I am not, I had no control over it,” I voice in my mind, as if my conscience hears me. The pain, my eye is finally losing feeling. I should be happy the pain stopped somewhere, but I’ve lost sight. The first thing I’m thinking now is how I’m going to see what they’re doing to me.

      “Help me,” my thoughts recite, the strange thing is that the thought was involuntary. It’s like my body is taking over me, taking over my reasoning. Whatever concoctions of elements are inside of me their burning like acid in my every cell. “Go away, this isn’t your body,” I’m thinking, as if my conscience can hear me, but the drug keeps overpowering everything in me. I can’t move my body, but I can still hear.

      “She’s having a seizure!” is what I make out, then screams and sudden gunshot, and then everything goes numb while I listen to my heart monitor being unplugged.

 

The Beginning

      “It’s cold,” she stated monotonously.

     “It’s cold, but that’s not what we’re here to talk about,” the speaker explained. “We’re here to talk about what you did,” he sternly snapped.

     “I didn’t do anything.”

     “Well you must have done something to make half the student body avoid you like the plague.” The tall lean man, who happened to be wearing an awful yellow tie, took a pause and sighed. “Your teacher told me some objects got broken, a computer and a desk. She didn’t say anything else- she was too in shock. Care to explain that to me?”

     The suit clad man turned to the girl, who was fidgeting with her blouse. “I can’t. I didn’t do whatever they say I did,” she said with seriousness in her voice.

    The man looked at her and rolled his eyes. “It’s always the same thing Rose. You’re obviously doing something because these things keep happening. You’re on the road to expulsion and you need to take responsibility for your actions.”

     I looked into my communication devise and whispered as to keep the people from hearing me from the trees, ”Her name is Rose,” I said, awaiting a response, though unfortunately I received none.

      “Principle, I can assure you that there isn’t a possible way that I could have done any of those things they say I did.” I could tell the girl was becoming more and more agitated the longer the conversation went on. “Now could you please shut the window?”

     “Now, in the middle of our conversation? I think not.”

     “Excuse me sir, but I’m a student here, and I would hate to go through the trouble of calling my parents about this, about your unusual accusations, sir.” I could tell the girl was getting a little too confident by her tone of voice and smug expression.

     “Don’t even lie, I know you don’t have parents,” the man said, looking equally as smug.

     “Just like you don’t have proof I broke the desk and computer.” And with that I watched the man shut the window.

     The next day of watching the girl was basically the same. Rose would get into some kind of mischief and I would spy on her and observe her surroundings.  You see I was sent to Earth from a different world named Chronicalia to spy on her. I had no idea what her significance was at all to my world. I was given vague instructions and was sent here. There just happened to be a war between our two worlds for unknown reasons and for some reason ours had the intentions of recruiting one of them.

     I continued to monitor the girl, looking for anything unusual, and for the most part everything was normal, until a few weeks later and I had decided to enroll in her school. Another reason they chose me- I’m her age. It was lunch and we were allowed to sit wherever we wished. I had bargained for as many classes as I could get with the girl, with Rose, without being suspicious. Anyways, a few students were outside sitting under an overhang attached to the building, consuming and conversing with each other, and while they weren’t looking I scaled the side of the building searching for Rose. I’d seen her sneak back towards the wooded area behind the school. When I saw her I witnessed something remarkable, yet familiar.

     Rose had her back towards me and was facing the growth. What caught my eye was what she was doing. She had somehow started flame from her hands. The flame kept growing and expanding. I could feel the dry heat radiating from the fire’s glow all the way to where I was against the side of the beige building. The fire kept growing and swelling. It reached further towards the trees and one caught fire. I gasped in shock while the tree began to incinerate.

     The girl turned to me with her green eyes looking wild, as if she were pleading for help. I could see she was struggling with keeping the flare from increasing in size. I thought fast and searched the land with my eyes for water, I found none and rushed to Rose, but not too close as to get burned, and tried to calm her down however I could think of, which wasn’t much other than literally telling her to calm down.

     The fire decreased by little, but then burst again at the sound of a snapping twig, setting fire to multiple other trees. I tried to tell her to calm down, but it was difficult from where I was standing. It was moments until the fire died down to a few embers and then vanished. The girl grabbed me by the shoulders and nearly yelled “what’s wrong with me?!” directly in my face. As if I knew. I had seen that ability somewhere though, I just don’t remember where. Of course everyone in Chronicalia had certain abilities, except this wasn’t a power anybody just had. It was the most unique thing I had seen. Now I knew what I was sent to retrieve her for. Rose is certainly not of this place called Earth.

     I stared into the girl Rose’s fearsome eyes. She finally stepped away after a minute of staring her down, but didn’t leave: she was still looking for an answer. I had no planning for what I was going to say next. “If I told you something crazy, would you believe me?”

     Rose hesitated before replying, confusion was clear on her face as her eyebrows were scrunched up, and she had a crooked expression. “Probably not considering I haven’t even met you before. But It depends, how crazy?” Rose asked almost as if she were challenging me.

     “What If I told you that you did not belong in this world?” I asked. I stared at Rose for a moment, waiting for a reply. Rose just rolled her eyes, laughing. I did not break my facial expression. When I glared at her, she stopped laughing. Her face gradually grew serious.

     “You’re kidding me, right?” Rose asked. “You have to be kidding me; this isn’t the Matrix.” Rose said hesitantly. I could tell she wasn’t a very social person, and had a bit of an attitude, just like that day I was watching her while she was in the office with that person, I think his name was guidance counselor. Rose stared me down some more, and this had gone from awkward, to unbearable. I figured I should break the silence and tell her that, yes, it was true. Worst case scenario she was an enemy spy sent to kill us all.

     “Well…actually, it’s not another universe; it’s kind of like a separate galaxy.” I said, continuing her previous accusations. Well now that I have that off my chest, I can start with the explanations. “Rose, you are not from here. I was sent here to your Earth to retrieve you as a secret weapon of war.” Way to explain that sensitively. “Do you recall when you first noticed the flames coming from your hands?”

     “Wh-what are you even getting at? You can’t be serious, so please, leave…you’re scaring me.” Rose shouted. I had no idea why she should be so upset; I only told her what she needed to know. Unless there is the obvious answer that she is in denial. I would be to if there was fire bursting from my hands.

“If you really must know, I’ve had this disability since before I could remember, if it’s really that important.” She thinks of her ability as if it were a disease, it is pitiful because I would kill for such a unique ability, I would kill for any ability at all though, considering I have none. “Why do you ask?” This is going to be extremely difficult.

     I thought about her question for a moment, and yes, I wondered that to. Yes why indeed, why indeed would Rose have gotten to Earth with power like hers? I’d only dreamed of such ability, one of the more rare ones if any alike were to be found at all. Most people had the same ability of something useless, and I was one of the few who had nothing to show at all. “I ask because as I was saying, you and I do not belong here. We are people of another world, I was sent here to recruit you for the war that is happening between Earth and Chronicalia, the land you originate from.” Yet again, I happen to be awful at this sort of thing.

      Rose started furiously giggling. I knew she would not take me seriously. Her laugh died down to a snicker and she opened her mouth, not to laugh again, but to speak. “You’re insane,” was all she said in reply.

     “I am not insane, please try and take me seriously. I can prove it. Come with me and I will show you.” This is it; I have her in the palm of my hand.

     “Come with you where exactly?” Rose asked with a suspecting raised brow.

     “To Chronicalia,” I answered to Rose, she continued smiling, until realized I was serious, but she voiced no opinions of declining the offer. If only she knew how bad it would be there since the war started. I took her hand and dragged her along behind me. I suddenly remembered how no one was to know how to get to and from the two warring worlds. I remembered the sedative I had stored for this purpose. I waited with her at a bus stop so we could get to the portal. We had not spoken the entire ride on the filthy bus, though it was probably for the best because it was crowded with strangers who would look at us like we were mad due to the probable choice of topic. We exited the vessel at our stop. I watched Rose and she looked around, probably wondering why we were here. I just told her to fallow me. I got to the destination, the portal that separates our two worlds that were so different, yet so alike in many ways. It was strange that the passage was in a locked door to a small book shop, but it couldn’t be helped.

     “Why are we here? What, do I have to be in a book to get to your strange world?” her idea was an imaginative one, but incorrect. What if? There are so many what ifs in life it is hard to know what is fact or fiction.

     “No, but hand me your water, I am thirsty,” I said, working my plans to slip the medication into her water. She handed it to me and she wandered off to look at some novels on the shelves. I twisted off the bottle cap, pulled the capsule from my pants pocket, and broke the outer casing, pouring the powder into the bottle. The medication was colorless but had an awful smell like sulfur or rotting eggs, but I hoped she would not notice. “I am done. Now drink this, you will need to be hydrated for the journey.”

     I handed her the water with the fully dissolved drug and she took it and instantly drank from it. It was moments till she had become tired and nearly fell asleep. I retrieved the door key from my pocket where I held the pill and put it into the door’s handle. I took an extremely slow time turning the key, listening as the gears and locks began to shift in the handle. I opened the door quietly and was met with a gray and cloudy abyss. I grabbed the now sleeping Rose’s form and walked through the door. We drifted to the ground, Rose’s body being carried in my arms. I laid her on the ground, looking to my communication device. I spoke into it, whispering so I could not wake the sleeping girl beside me. “I have the girl, we are in a field west of quadrant 4” I said, again without reply. I sighed, gathering the girl and walked towards the closest transportation I could find, considering this was a far less destroyed city, despite the stormy gray clouds and ash from previous bombings and fires from close by towns.

     There was a trolley station up ahead, about a kilometer or two after walking a few hundred meters. Rose, despite her frail appearance, was only getting heavier, and I had hoped she would soon wake up, but I trudged along and finally reached my destination of the station. There I found a bench and laid Rose down so I could catch my breath. When the trolley came, I again gathered Rose and stepped on. There was no one in sight on board, except for the driver. It hurt seeing so few people around anymore. They had either been bombed, or were taken as slaves by the enemy soldiers while they were trying to escape, but unfortunately, it was this town that had survived, and the other ones had been turned to dust. We arrived at the warehouse shortly. And she was still asleep. I carried her, yet again, inside, to a small room apart from the rest of the giant building. There was a couch there, and I laid her down. I left promptly to see what the group was doing.

     I was greeted with my crew lazing around. Matt was playing games, Ciel was eating, and the rest were being equally as inattentive. “I go on a potentially fatal mission for a month, and I’m greeted with this?” I said, extremely unhappy with the results of my team members after such a difficult mission. Everyone looked up, surprised to see me in so long.

     “Well? Did you complete your duties?” Matt said, half attentive while playing his hand held gaming device. He would not care either way though; I was just doing the emperor’s chores. Should I tell him that, yes, I have the girl? Maybe, or rather I should have my team figure it out themselves. I’ll choose the more practical methods of telling my crew.

    “You think I would be here if I had not?” I looked Matt in the eye, his face I could tell, was showing signs of disbelief, exclusively by the sarcastic smile on his face. “I sent for you all twice, but you never answered.” At this I saw a few people looking a little guilty, particularly the ones I was closer to.

     “You know, it is not like you are the only one who had to deal with anything while you were gone, the emperor has been on our case ever since you left.” It is a war, everyone is on everyone’s case, I thought. Get used to it. “Prove she’s here,” Ciel challenged. I waved them over and they nervously exited the torn apart room. I lead them through a dim hallway, lights flickering, and stood outside the plain white door to Rose’s current room. I turned the handle of the door just so slightly as to not wake the sleeping girl inside. I entered the room first, the rest of the team in tow.  I looked to them as they found her still sleeping on the sofa. She was probably beat, not just from the medication, but she was possibly worn from the day’s adventures, if you could really call them that. Maybe even a time change difference, like jet lag.

    Matt was first to break the silence”, Well you finally did something right for once,” he said. Gosh, sometimes I just wanted to punch him in the face. Rose flinched in her sleep, she was waking up. I crouched down, eye-to-eye level with her. Her eyes fluttered open and she wiped the sleep from them.

     Rose startled most of us, except for me, considering I am the only one who’s had contact with a human before. “Where am I?” she yawned. It would be a shameful thing if that pill gave her amnesia.

     I answered her: “You are in Chronicalia, do you not remember? You have been asleep.” I hoped she would catch on. Maybe not about everything, considering I secretly gave her sleeping medication.

     Rose continued to rub her eyes, until they were rimmed with red. The rest of my team was nervous; humans were only things they heard of as rumors, though people such as me can be considered humans, the unlucky ones anyways. What struck me though is that she’s not human. They probably didn’t know though, they only received limited information as to what my mission was. Bringing back a girl from Earth would usually mean she was human; but no, she wasn’t human, no matter how long she lived in that land, she was a true Chronicalian, and nothing could prove otherwise. My thoughts were taken back to earlier when she produced a wild yet glorious flame, It was exceptionally wonderful, I had never seen it in my life in this world where everything, including the spectacular display of people’s certain “gifts” they received at birth, was a normal everyday occurrence.

     I looked down at her hands, the tips of her fingers and the palms of her hands were burned, singed with inflamed pink bumps all over, outlines in blisters. They must have been at least 2^nd degree burns. Now I understand why someone would hate to have such talents as her own. Rose slowly sat up; I could see she was careful of touching her hands on anything. The burns must have hurt, I assume she must have experienced this before; all I know now is that she is in no shape to train at the moment, At least not physically. The worst part is I have to present Rose to His Highness immediately. “Can you gather yourself to be presented to the royals?” I inquired.

     Rose stood from her resting place on the couch and snapped at me, “Why? Who are the “royals” I don’t want to be shown to some official, this was not our agreement. Second of all, I don’t even know your name, much less some governments. You very well could have drugged me and kidnapped me. I’m calling the police.” I watched Rose shoved past the rest and walked away, stomping her feet out of anger. This definitely wasn’t good.

      “Wait…your cellular devices do not work here.” I said. “And by the way, my name is Orion.” She turned towards me and gave me a deadly glare.

     “Don’t give me that. I know this was some kind of joke, I don’t care what this place is, I just want to go back to school, the orphanage, somewhere, anywhere but here.” I concluded one thing from this: Rose is definitely not a morning person.

     “You want the truth, right? Just listen: I was sent to Earth to find you. You have a gift like no other, though everyone in this world has their own talents. You see, there is a war between our two worlds going on at the moment. We need you, you may in fact be our only help, you come from Earth, yet you certainly do not qualify as human. You know how these people act, how these people think.” I nearly shouted at her towards the end of my explanation, but she had calmed down. Her face was softer, her eyes showed sympathy, and she did not continue walking away. “There is just one problem; you have to fight.” Her expressions grew colder at my words.

     “You have to be kidding me, you must. There’s no other world, and this is all just a nightmare. I’ll wake up in the morning and this will all go away. And if this isn’t a dream, I refuse. I’ll get killed. What am I, a seventeen year old high school student, and you want me to fight against my own people? What grounds do you have for doing that?” Did I really have to explain this to her?

     “You will not wonder why in the morning when they are bombing us, getting rid of the last of our race.” It was true, when Citizens of Earth weren’t enslaving us; they were bombing us, performing autopsies on us, finding what makes us different from them and they were in the middle of committing genocide on our people.

     “I don’t want to trust you, how can you show me what’s going on?” Rose pressed.

     “I will show you in the morning if you will trust my word; do you trust me to tell you the truth? Because Rose, without your help, we are already dead.”  It was a good Idea to wait till the morning, whatever damage that could possibly be done, will happen tonight. All I can hope for now is your alliance Rose so please don’t mess this up.

     “I’ll trust you. If you can prove what’s going on.” That was everything to me. Those were the words I had been waiting for too long. Now we just have to win the war and this will all be situated, be the same as before the war, or begin our gradual process of repairing our lives to normal, except there was no replacement for the loss of many.

     It was late and my squad and I were sitting around, bored. Rose was asleep in the room we established her in, it was silent in our empty suite, and everyone was occupied with one thing or another, but the silence wasn’t satisfying. Someone finally decided to speak up. It was Matt, and he had the million dollar question on his mind. “Well, you have the girl, so what now? Our problems aren’t solved, what if she bails, or what if she isn’t what we expected?” he inquired. What would we do? She was our last resort, and I refuse to give in to enemy commands from brutal soldiers.

    I thought the most respectable and responsible thing that sounded fit in my mind “, we do what is expected of us, and nothing else. We cannot fail; there is no turning back now, for anyone.”

     “We can only hope for the best, I mean what would she do if she knew this was practically a suicide mission?  No one would agree to that,” Matt added.  A suicide mission? Well this is the first I’ve heard of it. All I knew was that Rose was to be brought in for help with the war. No way will I let the officials toss her into a war she has no knowledge of without any idea how to fight it. Not on my watch.

     “Exactly what do you mean when you say ‘suicide mission” I asked, hoping for a different answer than my knowledge already could explain.

     “I mean she is going to basically die, no doubt in my mind. It’s pointless anyways; I mean what is she going to do, set some fire to things? Not to be rude, but the enemies already have that down. Anyways, it says it all in this scroll,” Matt explained, pointing to a wound up paper on the wall. “Remind me again why he uses these while we can use regular paper?” he sighed. “Wait- you didn’t know this? You would think you would know about this stuff, mainly for your duties.” 

     Rose was creeping down the hallway silently; making sure nobody asleep could notice her presence. She was almost to the room that was occupied by the Orion and the bunch. She’d gotten plenty of sleep, and now was the perfect time to eavesdrop on the men who brought her here.

     Rose halted when she heard the muffled voices of Orion and Matt through the door. All she could make out was “Rose…die in battle… probably… basically suicide…” what did this mean? Rose thought, heart racing. She caught the last few words of their conversation before complete silence filled the building and anger took control “don’t tell her.”

    Mathew had confirmed the worst of my fears; Rose was expected to die in the process of saving our land. There were ways around her death, right? No. The enemy was brutal, she would not be saved. But if she knew what was going to happen she would never have agreed to it. It was my entire fault that she was going to die, I mean she could be absolutely useless in our mission, and she would have died for nothing. I cannot let her find out, she has to save us.

     I quietly walked to her room to check on her, she wasn’t there. I searched high and low and came up with nothing. I searched outside for her. She was angry; she knew what was supposed to happen to her. I called for her. She just kept storming away from me. Up ahead were aircraft carriers, enemy aircraft carriers. “Get inside!” I shouted for her, she ignored me. “Get inside now, or you’ll die!” I screamed, but it was hopeless. I chased after her running against the sound of jets and bombs’ soaring through the air, there goes the last city. “Come back you’ll get killed!” I yet again screamed.

     “Isn’t that the plan?” Rose screamed. She did know. How, I had no idea, but some form of eaves dropping had to be involved. She turned to keep running away, but I forcefully grabbed her hand before she could leave. She snapped her head towards me with a harsh look on her face.

     I knew then and there it was my responsibility to get her to come back. “Rose, don’t leave. I didn’t know about any of this till last night. I didn’t agree to any of this. Trust me; I didn’t want to tell you because of this. Think about the lives it would save to win the war!”

    “Think about mine!” Rose shouted, shouting her anger at me. “I’ve always felt worthless, been worthless, I finally thought I could be worth something, help someone, and you took that away from me!” she continued to fight me to let go, but I wouldn’t, couldn’t let go, for the sake of everyone. “I think your forgetting that other people have emotions to.” Am I really that bad? Am I the monster she is making me out to be? That was the last thing I wanted, this and that. I’m not trying to be cruel Rose, please understand me.

     “This was completely out of my hands. This is just one big misunderstanding. I know you won’t die. You cannot, you are too strong for that.” And she was. She had lost both of her parents, grew up in a world completely not her own, lived a lonely life, and she still survived. She pushed through it is all that matters. “So please, don’t go, because I can assure you there is a better chance of you dying in this blitz than dying in controlled combat.” She looked at me with a softened gaze. I wrapped my arms around her small frame in response, and we rushed back inside the building.

     When we were safe inside, Rose continued to glare at me. “I’m still mad at you” she said. 

    “And what for?” I know the answer. I shouldn’t have brought her in the first place.

     “What for? For dragging me to some strange place, perhaps? For the emotional pain you’ve caused me? For doubting me and refusing to go into further detail about this ‘mission’?” she paused. “Or maybe for drugging me? Maybe that’s why I’m still mad.” She crossed her arms and stared even harder into me, digging holes in my flesh with her gaze.

     “Look, I said I was sorry, how many times must I apologize?” I asked, pleading for forgiveness. “I did not know! Please, I know you shall get through this if you train hard enough, and practice your technique.” I sternly said.

     “Apologize as many times as you’d like, but I’m still terrified of what will probably happen. I doubt I’d be of any help to anyone. Did you know I live in an orphanage? They don’t always have money for food, the other kids laugh at me, and I often get sick. At my school, I’m a loser because I’m shy. I try too hard, and I’m sure everyone who’s met me hates me.” Rose quickly stated, nearly shouting. “I don’t know what to do with my life… and I would go back in a heartbeat.” Ouch, that hurt I thought, cringing.

     “I…. I had absolutely no idea. But Rose, do you really think you are the only one going on the battle field? I am sorry all that happens, I’m sorry I have practically kidnapped you, but you are not the only one risking their life. We need you, Rose, why is it taking so long for you to understand that? If you do not help us win this battle, hope is lost for everyone. So what is the worst that could happen? We could get hurt. But on the other side, what if we are victorious? What if we win the battle and Chronicalia lives on, if only for a little while longer? Think about it, lives are in your hands.” I hope she understands, lives are at stake here, make up your mind.

     “I don’t want to play a game of sympathy and empathy. If we’re supposed to win this war, we need to be prepared.” Rose said. They were the most reassuring words I had ever heard in my existence.

     “You will join us? Then we are going to have to train.” I said with a growing smirk on my face. Suddenly the ground started shaking under our feet. The bombs were getting closer. “Everybody to the cellar!” I screamed, hoping the others would hear me. I grabbed Rose and ran dragging her behind me by her arm. The cellar was about 100 feet away from us and the bombs kept getting closer. The others were closer and we barely made it, just shutting the entrance, when a bomb came crashing too close for comfort, collapsing the front of the building. We were safe inside the basement/cellar/bomb shelter. No one was dead, no one was injured. The bomb blizzard got further and further away, and the sound soon came to a halt.

     I looked around at everyone, some people kept a poker face; the brothers Lucas and Gabriel tried to catch their breath from the shock, and Rose was on my shoulder crying- sobbing, actually. “We’re dead, we’ve died, what do I do?” Rose kept repeating, rocking back and forth in the fetal position.

     I put my index finger to my lips to get her to be quiet. “Shh, be quiet” I said, wrapping my arm around her frail body. She didn’t stop though. Suddenly I heard a plane fall from the sky and crash in the distance. It was an eerie sound reminding me of falling trees and structures. “Come with me, we are leaving this place. They’ve found us and they cannot be too far off. We need to set up camp somewhere else.” I said without hesitation.

     We scrambled to leave the cellar. “Thank goodness, I still have my handheld!” Matt said, retrieving the game from his pocket.

     “Leave it, we don’t need anything to weigh us down” I said. At this Matt frowned, placing the device on the ground. When we reached the surface again, I noticed that the warehouse hadn’t been too severely damaged. “Let’s head out, grab food and water” I directed. Rose still clung to my arm, though her tears were growing weaker.

      “I’m so sorry that I dragged you into this” I apologized, holding back tears of my own. I’ve been apologizing a lot lately. The team came back to me and we hiked away from our now abandoned building in direction of the crashed jet. We walked till sundown when we settled ourselves by a tree.

     We broke out the rations of food and matches, sending the rest of the team to search for fire wood and dry grass. Rose was still a bit shocked so we stayed back. I pulled from my backpack a small blanket and wrapped it around Rose. She still sat there, staring in the distance at absolutely nothing. “Rose, are you okay? You’ve been like this for a while now.” I said calmly, attempting a soothing voice. She simply shook her head no. “The bombing is over, nobody got hurt. What is the matter?” I asked.

     “We’re all going to die, aren’t we?”  She said, fidgeting with the ends of the blanket. It was just the paranoia talking, was what I was forcing myself to believe. But I knew that anything could happen at this point in time.

      I said what my mother always said when I said something involving death. “We all die someday, it is natural” because I honestly do not even believe what I say anymore. To this, Rose did not have any response. The few got back in a little under forty-five minutes. Of course something had to go wrong and it began drizzling all over the fire wood. There was only one other way to solve this problem. “Rose, I’m going to need you to start a fire.”

     Rose looked at me, shaking her head side to side. “I can’t.” She said. Oh yes you can. “I can’t control my power, and sometimes…it’s different.” She said, her green eyes avoiding mine.

     I was intrigued. “What do you mean by different?” This girl was just getting stranger and stranger. She had a look of concentration on her face with her green eyes squinted shut and her brows scrunched up.

     “Can everyone step away for a minute, I have no idea what’s about to happen.” Rose said. Everyone scrambled out of the way, leaving a large area of space around her. Nothing was happening. Not a moment later a sort of indescribable translucent dome formed in her hand, growing and growing until it consumed her. It was a fantastic display of her ability. But it wasn’t fire as it had been when I saw it and made contact with her for the first time.  Her long blonde hair was in wisps, standing on end. Her face looked drained and pale, all but the lavender bags that grew under her eyes. I stepped closer, not noticing what I was doing. I put my hand out and put the very tips of my fingers against the dome. My hand didn’t go through the thin surface, it was like titanium. Suddenly Rose collapsed, along with the force-field-like structure she produced.

     I was astonished, and shocked. This was a phenomenon I had never witnessed. I believe nothing like this has been witnessed by anyone. And it was fantastic. It took us a while to come to our senses, and realize that Rose had just fainted from exhaustion. It was such a shame; it would be so helpful in battle. I rushed to her side where she lay, checking her pulse. Her heart was beating and she was breathing, faintly, but she was breathing. What a relief, I thought.

     I sat with her, checking her pulse every few minutes. I had sent the rest over to find water. We were going to be here a while, and Rose could die at any minute. Looking up at the sun I wiped my sweating brow. It had to be the hottest day that we were stranded. I snatched my canteen of water that was speedily decreasing. I took it to my dry and chapped lips, careful not to drink it all. I stared back down at Rose and checked her pulse again. I lifted her head to try and wake her, maybe give her something to drink, but my attempts were failed. If she didn’t die from passing out, she would die from the heat I’m sure. I poured the remaining contents of the canteen over her head. She stirred a bit but still didn’t wake from her exhaustion. Off in the distance were the rest of us. Thank goodness they found water.

     But the joy was short lived. The Earth beneath us started shaking, startling Rose awake. We simultaneously looked to the sky in the general direction to where the sound was coming, finding a V-shaped formation of fighter jets closing in on us at a rapid pace. Stuck still frozen I made the first commandment to my team, which would be surely, be gone by the time the battle was over. “Move out, and stay together!” I shouted at the top of my lungs, crippling my tired voice.

    I made the first move to gather Rose and haul her over my back, running far from the jets that were arranged like a soaring bird flock in the sky. Everything had to be scattered over the field, branches, twigs, etc., only making my escape more difficult. Rose thrashed around in my arms, but I wouldn’t let her go, solely based on the fact that in the long run I can’t let a thing happen to her, or else we’re all doomed to be condemned by death. Plus you would have to have been blinded by stupidity if you were to let a recently passed out person walk, let alone run. The marching of feet could be heard, and as I looked back, I immediately regretted it. The bombers in the sky were now the least of my worries when the soldiers on foot showed with machine guns and horses. I think I have taken a new liking to running, and carrying around Rose has become a hobby of mine.

     Rose beat her fists against my back and begged me to let go. My knees weakened and I dropped her. I turned to retrieve her, but the marching sound got closer. The soldiers latched onto Rose’s arms and directed her away from me. I shouted the only thing that mattered at the moment “Finish this!” is the last thing I said until I was smacked across the face with the barrel of a gun and everything went black.

 

Capture

     I awoke with my heart beat pounding in my head, with artificial light surrounding me. When I came to my senses I thrashed around, yanking wires from my arms. Where am I? Is this a hospital? I thought, peering around the white-on-white room. Where’s everyone? Where’s my awful foster mom, the annoying foster kids, where’s Matt and Ciel? Where’s Orion? I thought as I curled into the hospital grade head board on the bed, curling fetal position into the white sheets. I heard the clank of shoes on tile floor heading in my direction from what I would suppose would be a hallway. I panicked and hid under the bed. The door creaked open to reveal not one, but multiple people who looked like either scientists, or doctors in their oversized white lab coats.

     A man with thinning blonde hair and a crooked and skin crawling smile peered down at me. “Control your test subject” said another man with a nasty, yet posh voice.

     “Get back on the bed you mutt” he spat. The venom in his voice was the only thing that influenced me to do so. I am not a dog; do not treat me like one. Frightened I sprawled out on the hospital-type bed with my eyes bulging out of their sockets. I looked up at the ceiling but I could see in the corners of my eyes men and women alike, wearing lab coats, speedily writing in note pads like they were college students taking notes, and staring at me intently. The man with the broken smile placed the IV back into my arm. From what I saw he opened a cabinet and pulled out a syringe and a bottle of a strange liquid. He filled the syringe with the liquid, and I began fearing for my life. Not like I wasn’t before. The man injected the fluid into my IV bag, mixing what I supposed was normal saline with whatever that was. He shook the bag, obviously trying to increase the flow into my bloodstream. The people surrounding me rapidly continued to take notes. Within a minute, everything burned my body, my head, and my mind. Everything. The pain was so unbearable. The last thing I remembered was what Orion last told me, “finish this.”

 

Amnesia

     I woke up in in a hospital bed. It was cold, but the nurse was tending to my sheets. I didn’t know how I got there. I had no idea who I was. The nurse filled with joy when she saw me. She fled the room and returned with another stranger. He stood at what I would guess was five-foot-nine to six-feet. He had dark hair and piercing blue eyes that filled with tears. He was thin for his height. For some reason I felt I should know this man. I did. But I didn’t want to tell him that. He, Orion took my hand. It was the warm familiar hand that I remembered.

     “We did it.” He said. But we didn’t. We lost, and he was probably too upset to come to terms with it. I know because I was back in my personal hell called Earth. He left and that was the last that I saw of him, of any of the Chonicalians, because Chronicalia didn’t exist.

Author's Note

PLEASE CRITIQUE! TELL ME WHAT IS WRONG ASAP! I am auditioning for DA with this! Excuse the cheesy title.