The Children of New Earth (8 page)

Chapter 6

The gate opened completely and sunlight flooded in. We ran out into the crisp, fresh air, taking deep breaths and sighing in relief. I no longer felt sick, but was still a little shaken from what I’d just seen. I surveyed the landscape, and saw that we were close to some body of water. The ground was made of this light brown, powder-like material. I picked up a handful of it, and the small particles flowed out of my hand, scattering into the wind. We were surrounded by large rocks, and about 100 feet ahead of us was a body of water. Waves crashed onto the shore, making a calm, soothing sound. White birds were flying overhead, dotting the light blue sky.

“What is this place?” I asked curiously.

“It’s called a beach,” Rachel answered. “I’ve been to a place like this during one of my hunts.”

“What are we standing on?”

“Don’t tell me you’ve never heard of sand.”

“I mean, I’ve heard of beaches. I just didn’t imagine it like this.”

Aaron and Cora had carried Aelia out of the tunnel, but she was still unconscious. They gently laid her down against a hill of sand.

“She’ll be fine, just needs some rest,” Aaron stood up and took in the view. “Beautiful, isn’t it friends?”

“I don’t suppose there’s any way we can stay here?” Cora asked hopefully.

“I second that motion,” Lynn said. She glanced at Aelia. “You sure she’ll be OK?”

“Well, that fireworks display was taxing for her, but she’ll recover,” Aaron answered comfortingly. “But until then, we’re gonna have to stay here.”

“No argument from me,” I said. “Mark, is it safe?”

“Besides us, and a few animals, I sense no other life forms in the area.” he answered. “This seems like an ideal location to recuperate until Aelia wakes.”

“And when she does?” I inquired.

“Philadelphia,” Rachel said confidently. “We go to Philadelphia and finish what Cora’s parents set out to do.”

“Agreed,” we all replied in unison.

As the other’s settled, I walked closer to the water to admire the view. The morning fog had begun to clear, and exposed more of the landscape on the horizon. The image that was revealed proved a stark contrast to the aesthetic waves crashing onto the shore. I saw the skyline of a city in ruins. I’d also heard stories of skyscrapers and towers standing tall and majestic in the days before the war. At night, their lights decorated the sky, and people came from near and far just to stand in the presence of these mighty structures. Now, they had been reduced to rubble. Only a few structures were left standing, and none of them were taller than a couple stories.

“Manhattan, I think they used to call it,” Rachel walked up next to me.

“I wish I could’ve seen it.” I remembered back to my dream when I was in the city. I didn’t feel like a resident as much as I did a tourist, like I didn’t belong there. “I wish I lived in a great city like this one.”

“We’ll live in a better city,” she said, staring at the ruined city. “We’re young. We’re powerful. We’ll rebuild.”

“That’s what everyone keeps saying. That we’ll rebuild,” I echoed her words.

“Or,” she turned her head up towards the sky. “Maybe we’ll just…build something new.”

I saw a glimmer of hope in these words. We stood silently on the shore for several minutes. For a moment I felt like I was in another world, one that didn’t have Demons or anarchists or sanctuaries. I wanted to stay in this place forever, but it hurt me more than anything to know that I couldn’t. My trance was broken by Mark’s robotic voice.

“Hello! Sorry to interrupt but I believe Aaron is looking for you.”

I sighed, both out of exasperation and relief. “What does he want?”

“It’s about Aelia, she’s awake.”

Rachel and I followed Mark to where Aelia was. She was now sitting up, eyes back to normal, but she was shivering. The others were sitting around her, trying calm her down.

“I’m fine. I’m OK,” she insisted.

“What happened?” I asked.

“She saw something,” Aaron said.

“It was just a bad dream,” she retorted.

“What exactly did you see?” Cora asked worriedly.

“I don’t know. It was like a woman. But she was more like a Demon than a human. And she wasn’t trying to kill me she was just looking at me with these intense, red eyes.”

“An intelligent Demon?” I wondered. “How?”

“The Demons are a very primal race,” Cora replied. “It’s unlikely that they made their way to our planet on their own.”

“Are you saying they have a leader? Like, a Queen?” Aaron suggested.

“The Queen…that has a nice ring to it,” Rachel said.

“It’s possible, but it’s just a theory,” Cora said.

“But Aelia just saw something that might fit the description?” Aaron seemed a little nervous.

“We can’t know for sure.”

“Exactly,” Lynn interjected. “We don’t know so let’s not worry about it!”

“Well,” I started. “This only happened because she used her power so heavily.”

“To save our lives.”

“Still, I think we should refrain from using our abilities until we learn more.”

“Learn more how? This has never happened before in the entire history of mankind.”

“I just think it’d be better to play it safe. ”

“I think we need to stop being so goddamn afraid of everything,” her frustration was rather sudden. “I’m going for a walk. Do what you want.”

“Let her go,” Aelia said. “I’m too weak to chase after her anyway.”

“No worries. You just rest up, friend,” Aaron said reassuringly. “In the meantime, what do you say we go for a swim?”

“A swim?” I was caught by surprise. “Everyone's a little shaken up.”

“Exactly!” he said, taking off his backpack. “It’s the perfect thing to calm us down.”

“I think it’ll be fun,” Rachel said.

Cora agreed, but Aelia was hesitant.

“I’m just gonna rest here for a bit.”

“Alright let’s go!” Aaron exclaimed. “Maybe you and Lynn can join us later.”

I walked up to the shore and took off my shoes. I dipped one foot into the water, and found that it was cool to the touch, a stark contrast with the hot sand. I saw the others do the same. Mark hovered over the surface and allowed his body to slightly submerge. Apparently he did not appreciate the sensation.

“This environment gives me no pleasure,” Mark said, rising quickly out of the ocean. “The liquid only seems to irritate my sensors, distort my readings, and inhibit my motion.”

“Well, you don’t have to swim if you don’t want to,” I said sympathetically.

“I’m surprised the water’s so clear,” Aaron asked. “What about all the pollution?”

“It’s been decades since we’ve dumped such large amounts into the river,” Cora answered. “Given time, nature has its own way of purifying itself.

“Well, that’s a lovely thought,” Rachel observed. She was the first to strip down to her undergarments and jump into the water.

Cora, Aaron, and I exchanged glances and followed suit. I waded into the water, and felt its cold embrace climb up by body. I hesitated to go further, even while my friends slowly walked on. I saw the wound Rachel had on her right shoulder. On many occasions she regaled us with the tale of she got it on a scouting mission, exploring an abandoned building. Apparently, the floor gave in and she fell on a sharp rod, which partially pierced its way into her shoulder. With the help of others and after several stitches, she lived through it. It had healed by now, but the scar was still there.

Aaron and Cora were a few feet ahead of me. They looked at each other for a moment, then held their noses and submerged into the water. Upon resurfacing, they both pushed back their hair and cleared their eyes. When Aaron turned around and signaled me to join them, I saw the gunshot wound on his chest; it was significantly faded, but still visible. He was soaked all over, and the water glistened on his well-defined muscles. I walked up to him and Cora, who was standing adjacent. Her skin was white and clear, with no scars or marks that I could see. Her flawless complexion was only further purified by the beads of water running down her body.

“The water is so nice. what I wouldn’t give to stay here forever,” Cora said, holding her arms out to her sides. She then leaned back, let her legs rise to the surface and, to our amazement, actually began floating in the water. I wanted to ask her how she did it, but her eyes were closed and she seemed so at peace. Aaron and I copied her motions. I gently leaned back into the sea, my ears just barely under the water. Then, after a few brief moments of hesitation, I let the water carry me.

I was astonished at how serene this was. My ears were submerged so all I heard was the comforting sound of the ocean flowing around me. The sun crept through the clouds, as if some higher power decided to allow this moment of tranquility to reach its full potential. The light was grew very bright so I closed my eyes, trusting my body and the laws of physics not to let me fall. After a few minutes, my skin adjusted to the relative temperature, and with all my senses at equilibrium, I had never felt more calm in all my life. My body was in a state of absolute comfort, and even time became an irrelevant concept.

Time. I then had a thought that contradicted my earlier statement about limiting use of our powers. I decided Lynn was probably right, and that we were scaring ourselves for no reason. I took in a deep breath, and slowed time by a rather dangerous amount. In this state, an hour for me was about a second in real time. I felt the flow of the water and wind slow, but the sensations were relatively the same. I then allowed myself to relax; maintaining this perception of time was surprisingly easy. Minutes turned to hours, and a steady stream of peaceful thoughts ran through my head.

For some time, I wasn’t even on Earth anymore, and existence became a distant concept. I wasn’t an entity, but rather a consciousness. My only purpose here was to think, and I could change my mental state at will. Instead of having my brain create a scene based on my senses, I was artificially constructing a reality based on thought alone. A dream would’ve been the best description, but I knew in some corner of my mind that the worlds I was imagining were not real. However, I even forgot this at times.

When I finally stood back up and returned to reality, I saw Aaron and Cora floating along next to me, with Mark levitating over them. We had just gotten into the water, but I felt like I’d been here for ages. I stretched my limbs and took a few deep breaths before scanning my surroundings. Rachel was a few feet away, practicing her telekinesis on the water. The light from the sun reflected off the ocean and decorated her lightly tanned skin. Her hair was still dry, despite the stream of water levitating in spirals and loops around her.

“Wow, that was fast,” I approached. “You can control water now?”

“Amazing, right?” she agreed. “And surprisingly easy. All you do is focus on the quantity of water you want to control, and somehow that volume of liquid becomes a singular, manipulable object.”

“Oh, is it that easy?” I asked sarcastically. “Here let me try.”

I proceeded to splash water all over her, interrupting her telekinetic concentration.

“You did
not
just do that,” she said.

She then made a rising motion with both hands, summoning a huge globe of water over my head.

Now, I could’ve used my power to avoid this, but I decided I would wait a while before playing with time again. Instead, I just looked at her with a defeated expression and just the hint of a smile. The water then crashed over me, and I felt soaked to my very core.

The subsequent waves interrupted Cora and Aaron in their state of relaxation. The water washed over them and they were submerged briefly before the resurfaced and looked at us with very annoyed expressions.

“Sorry!” Rachel and I yelled out.

“Freakin’ telekinetics,” Cora muttered, pushing back her wet hair and clearing her eyes.

“Hey!” a voice called out.

I turned to the cliff on the shore overlooking the water. It was about 20 feet high, and standing at the top were both Lynn in animal form and Aelia, ready to jump. Aelia was first to take the plunge. She landed with a flash, and when she came to the surface, steam was rising off of her skin.

“Why does the pyrokinetic,” she said, shaking her hands, “get all the side effects?!”

“I don’t know, but I think that one’s kinda cool,” Rachel laughed.

Then, we all looked to Lynn. Clearly, she was feeling better about earlier, and couldn’t resist the call of the sea. She jumped off the cliff and, in mid-air, shifted back into a human before meeting the water.

“Nice of you to join us,” Cora said.

“Hey look, it’s a school of fish,” Aaron observed a few feet away.

“WHERE?!” Lynn waded as fast as she could to where Aaron was pointing.

“Right here,” Aaron motioned at the water right in front of him. “They’re orange with white stripes, funny looking aren't they?”

Lynn submerged herself to get a better look, and stayed that way for almost half a minute before finally coming up for air.

“Got it,” was all she said before plunging again into the sea.

The water was quite lucid, and we could see Lynn as she slowly shifted into the fish we just saw. She then began to swim around rapidly, and was even able to jump a few inches out of the water. We all cheered her on as she explored this new form. Once she got a feel for the mechanics, she joined her kin and they swam around us, darting back and forth through the clear water.

“Which one is her?” I asked.

“That one there, friend,” Aaron pointed with minimal specificity at the swarm of fish. “If you look very closely, you can see that she has two extra white stripes.”

After several minutes, Lynn returned to human form.

“Well, how was that?” Aelia asked.

“Not gonna lie,” Lynn said, trying to get water out of her ear. “I expected more.”

We burst out laughing, and for a moment forgot about all the pain of struggles of the real world. For now, it was just us, the sun, and the sea. Eventually, Aaron and Cora left the water, and as the hour went by, so did the others. I decided to lay back over the water as I’d done earlier and relax a little while longer.