Sentilia

I woke up in an empty room, in a home I didn’t recognize.

Not again.

I lifted myself up on my elbows, and my head started throbbing painfully. I took a deep breath, and channeled the pain out of my body. It was all the pain had vaporized itself. I was getting good at this.

I got up and walked slowly towards the entrance. My leg didn’t hurt at all, in fact, I was surprised at how well I could walk.

“Hello?” My echo was the only answer. The house was empty. It was pretty bland, similar to the apartment I lived in. I actually wondered for a moment if I was still on the island, if it all was just another dream. I made my way out of the house as quickly as I could with my handicap.

I was right across from the med facility, where I had lost consciousness. There was no one in sight. Not a sound could be heard. I closed my eyes and tried to focus, trying to hear or feel anything or anyone that could be near.

Where was everyone?

I felt frightened, even if I didn’t know why: no people therefore no danger, right?

I wobbled down the front stairs to the street. I decided to walk down the street, thinking I would eventually find someone that could help. After a block or two, I was getting tired; I saw a speeder down the road on my right. I thought it would be easier than walking with the condition I was in.

I started to make my way to the speeder, but stopped dead in my tracks. The vision I had was more powerful than I’d experienced before, and I wasn’t even focusing on anything. The speed at which I was learning astounded me.

First, I saw hostile men in the forest. They hadn’t left yet.

Then, I heard voices coming from nearby. I couldn’t pinpoint the exact way it was coming from, so I didn’t know which way to go. I listened closer, hoping I would hear some sort of indication to where they were exactly.

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.

The Advisors’ men were not going to leave. They knew they couldn’t get past our shield, but they were going to wait to see if it would fail again. They were hiding in the forest, not knowing that we could sense them.

What were we going to do? What was going to happen? These were all questions unanswered by either party.

I started walking towards the safeguard, still listening to the voices, which were getting clearer. Abruptly, I stopped. William was speaking. “Someone will have to tell them we know they’re here. If they see what you guys are capable of, that might make them flee, frighten them. They’re at a clear disadvantage, they just don’t know it yet.”

“We can’t let them know what our minds can do. We’ve kept it a secret for hundreds of years.”

“Actually, Maia, they already know we have...abilities.” I thought I recognized Damien’s voice. And in the silence that ensued, I imagined he was showing her with his mind what we had done to confuse the soldiers and keep them from attacking us.

“Whose idea was this? Do you want to get us all killed?” Maia then asked, with indignation. I felt in that moment a horrible amount of guilt, because it had been mine.

“Maia, we had no choice. It was us or them.” Damien replied.

“It was her, wasn’t it? You guys are already protecting her. I can see why. She’s getting stronger by the second.” Maia said, resignation in her voice now.

Was she talking about me? I guessed it had to do with the fact that I could help them through my mother somehow.

Part of me was wondering what she had meant by me getting stronger, but for the most part I now just felt horrible for divulging in some way a secret that had been kept for so many years. I had to fix this, to make up for it. But how? How could I make them go away without using violence? Because it was out of the question that I hurt anyone.

I walked on, wandering towards the forest, while the voices in my head were getting louder, and the soldiers’ thoughts were getting clearer.

What I saw then, made me shut everyone out. I knew what I was going to do.

One of the houses built on the very edge on the forest had recently added an extension to the backyard. Only the main structure was finished; it made a sort of portal, allowing me to pass through the energy barrier to the other side, to the forest.

I stepped on to the extension floor and crossed to the other side; now I was completely unprotected, completely vulnerable. I looked back at the dome, and from the outside you couldn’t see a thing. Even the bright blue spheres weren’t visible from here.

I took a second to check if anyone had noticed me. It didn’t seem like it. So I climbed my way towards the enemy, hoping they would give me a chance to talk. I wasn’t exactly sure what I was going to say, but I wasn’t exactly sure they would give me the chance to say anything, anyways. But this was the best idea I could come up with. I was sure of one thing: this could be resolved without using guns. But after being shot in the leg, and speared in the arm, the voice in the back of my head—my own, this time—wondered sarcastically if I really wanted to die that much.

Suddenly, something was different. I stopped and listened. Fright crept in me all at once, as if I hadn’t been controlling my body until now; as if I had just realized what could happen to me.

Maybe the fright was due to the group of men exiting from the woods and surrounding me.

My heart started pounding.

Slowly, one by one, their guns started pointing in my direction. They were waiting for the order to shoot.

I had to act fast, I had to speak now. But something was choking me; I couldn’t speak. I wanted to scream, “WAIT,” but nothing came out when I opened my mouth.

Everything then seemed to happen in slow motion. In a second, it was like all their minds pointed me to their leader’s. My mind connected to her’s in the following second, and she whispered: “Lead, on my signal. Fire.”

I was already looking straight at the soldier who shot the first bullet. But instead of shooting it at me, his gun was pointed towards the sky. Maybe it was some sort of a warning signal. But then, he looked at me—in fact, they all looked at me, and then at each other—with a mix of fright and confusion.

Again, I opened my mouth to speak, shout, growl: not a sound came out.

“Everyone, on my signal.” I could hear her now through their audio devices. “Fire!” she said with a low voice through clenched teeth.

A hundred shots shrilled through the air. I closed my eyes.

A second passed; I was still alive.

I opened my eyes again and saw my hands creating a useless shield between me and the soldiers. I lowered them slowly and realized their guns were all pointing towards the sky; they all looked equally shocked and more than confused. I swiveled back towards the city, now flooded with people, thinking it might have been their making. But it seemed everybody there, including me, wore the same dumbfounded look on their face. It was so quiet, not a sound broke the silence.

I didn’t waste a second more. I cowardly started running back towards the house with the extension, without looking back, protecting my head against the shower of bullets starting to plummet back down.

No one said a word when I first crossed back the way I had exited the safeguard. It took a minute for them to completely demolish the structure of the extension. I could see disapproving faces as well as fascinated ones. But everyone just kept their focus on the army of men, standing there, clueless.

K silently crept up behind me and whispered in my ear: “What the hell were you thinking?”

I jumped, then turned my head around and he shook his head, “we’ll talk about this later,” he muttered firmly.

After a few moments, after the bullets had all fell to the ground and the soldiers had the harsh realization we were way out of their league, they started leaving. One by one, they scurried into the forest, and I could feel relief from the people around me growing proportionally.

K eventually came around me and took my hand. I looked down and noticed that it was shaking. In fact, my whole body was trembling, and all of a sudden I felt the urge to sit down. My legs faltered as soon as I had that thought, and a second later I was sitting on the grass, clenching it nervously, my legs folder under me. K crouched beside me: “What did you do? How did you do that?” His tone was expectant.

And then a voice I didn’t recognize called Kleio: “We need to speak, let’s go. Maia, Damien, you too. C’mon.”

I looked up and saw him and Maia both looking at me with a strange expression. K pressed my hand and smiled before leaving with the man I didn’t know. They walked down the main street, 2 houses down, and entered a white house to their left. As soon as they were out of sight a loud whisper branched out slowly into panic, amazement, question, and laughter. Some people were happy, some were scared, but everyone eventually started throwing glances towards me, pointing me, and I started feeling guilty. I knew the people of the city had done everything they could to keep their secret safe, and someone had thrown that all away by saving my life in the most unexplainable way. But who?

William appeared out of the crowd, panting. Everyone became silent.

“Are you okay? I heard so many gunshots, I ran as fast as I could.”

“She’s fine, thanks to Kleio!” I heard someone say, but couldn’t tell who it was. A buzz started resonating but everyone quickly went quiet again. So they thought Kleio was the person who had stopped the soldiers from shooting me. I guess it made sense. He would probably be the only one here that would be willing to betray years of secrecy to save me.

“What happened?” William looked half worried, half annoyed.

“Well...I’m not sure...” I answered, honestly.

I felt Kleio approaching before I actually saw him.

“We need to speak, now!” He was sweaty and red, and I wondered what had just happened with the others for him to look so flustered.

“What’s wrong?” I got back to my feet, using William’ hand to stabilize myself. I felt better now that I was certain we were safe.

Suddenly Kleio took a gun out of the back of his jeans, and pointed it towards William.

“KLEIO! What are you doing? What’s the matter with you!” My voice was high-pitched and strained. Why did he have a gun? Most importantly, why was he pointing it towards anyone of us, let alone Will? I couldn’t believe this was a jealousy thing. K would never hurt anyone, I knew it deep in my heart, even with the proof right in front of me.

“K, tell me what’s going on,” I asked, with an authoritative tone.

William took a step back, and put his hands out in front of him.

“I’m going to shoot him, in 3...2...”

“NO!”

I jumped in front of William—arms extended towards K—trying to protect him. Almost simultaneously, Kleio’s arm flew up towards the sky before he pulled the trigger of his unloaded gun. A loud click was heard, and his arm fell back down.

Everyone gasped. Kleio’s face was perfectly straight. He knew exactly what he was doing. He was trying to prove a point; I could hear his thoughts now. He was trying to prove that I was the one that had done it; I was the one who had blasted all the soldiers’ guns towards the sky, instead of towards me.

What I had thought Kleio had done was actually all me.

I pivoted to face William, and took his hands in mine, worried about his state after having just been threatened by a gun for the first time. He took a step back, fright all over his face when he looked at me. I let go of his hands, hurt. I could feel his thoughts; I could feel he was freaked out by my abilities. But I couldn’t blame him; even I was thoroughly petrified of what had just happened, and what it meant.

“I’m sorry,” he had realized what he had just done; his mind was replaying the moment he saw me flinch from the hurt. He took a step forward, realizing suddenly that I had risked my life to try and save the city, and hesitantly brushed my face with his hand. I could sense his calm come back slowly. But his hand somehow didn’t feel as soothing as it should.

I turned towards Kleio, confused; his face full of pride, a smile was dancing around the corner of his lips. Instead of fright and confusion, I could only feel more love, and I felt it back as intensely, for the first time. It only lasted a second, but it was enough to set doubt in my mind.

“We have a lot to talk about, Max.” K was right. I couldn’t believe what had just happened, and it kind of felt like this was all a joke, like someone was toying with me. How could I control someone like that? How could my abilities have grown so much, in just a few hours? It was all so impossible.

“Like I said, we have a lot to talk about.” He extended his hand towards me, and I took it, with a last glance towards William, I let Kleio lead me to wherever he wanted, because he was the one with all the answers once again. I didn’t think about William. All that mattered to me was to find out what I didn’t know, and to make sense of what I didn’t understand. I needed to focus on me for a while.

As we walked, we could see the soldiers’ transports leaping towards the sky, leaving the island, and it looked like a reversed meteorite shower. It was beautiful, for it’s significance was peace, for now. “Or retaliation,” Kleio said with a grim tone. I was getting good at ignoring his sarcastic comments. The cries of joy and celebration were enough to make me shed a tear, that I quickly wiped off my face as I laughed at how shaken I was.

“Where are we going?” I asked, perplexed we weren’t going to the house he had met with Maia and Damien in.

“Well, it’s a common historic notion that the first thing we must do when we win a battle, is celebrate. And as much as I know a big party wouldn’t mean that much to you, I’m going to do something special just for you, as a thanks for getting those men to leave the island.”

We got into a speeder, and I didn’t argue. I realized I needed to wind down before tackling all the information that was going to come my way. For a second I felt scared, scared of what I would discover, scared of what I was, and scared I could never go back to the way it was: simple and easy. But I braced myself for whatever was coming, because I felt like I brought this onto myself, because I’d always wanted something more out of my life, because my mother had told me: “be careful what you wish for, because it just might come true.”