Kinetics: In Search of Willow (26 page)

In my readings I have
gathered together a story of how humanity fell from grace and lost
the ability to be more than just a man or woman. Not all the
literature that exists about that time agrees, but what follows is
what all of the text agrees upon.

One day, probably much
like any other day, a star appeared in the sky above the Earth. For
months the star moved around the sky like a strange spectre. Some
believed that it was one of their respective gods or goddesses and
prayed to it.

Then one day it fell from
the sky and landed just outside a small village in what most
believe is modern day Kenya. The son of the Chieftess was not far
away and approached the fallen star (some texts propose it looked
like a shiny, silver pomegranate and yet others say it looked like
massive sunflower seed). The son, named Hutor, was foolishly
curious and touched the star just as it cracked open revealing a
creature nearly twice the size of a human.

All of the texts agree on
what the creature looked like. It was bipedal, standing on two legs
with a huge tail. It was covered in orange and red scales and had a
head like a mythological dragon.

Hutor attempted to speak
to the creature but they could not understand each
other.

The creature reared up and
according to most it used some strange power on Hutor in an attempt
to possess him.

The boy lived long enough
to speak the name of the creature, Isiro, to his tribe as they ran
up to see the fallen star. Some of the texts disagree on whether or
not the creature intended to kill the boy, only that the attempt to
possess him was too much for a human mind to handle.

The Chieftess, by the name
of Anyan, in a fit of rage attacked Isiro with her power. Not much
is said this early on about what her ability was, but later texts
agree that her power was the ability to give or take away the
powers of others.

This power, when used on
Isiro, ripped his mind, and if such things have souls it ripped
that out too. Anyan took her son's favorite necklace, a single
green crystal, and encased Isiro's whole essence in it. After her
son's funeral she walked to a river and threw the necklace in. She
never expected to see the necklace ever again.

A few miles downstream,
there lay another village. Who knows for how long the crystal with
Isiro in it lay in the river bed, but one day a young girl called
Kahya found it and, not knowing the creature that lay within, put
it around her neck.

In the months that
followed Kahya became aware of another presence speaking to her in
the silence of her mind. Isiro had found some way to connect to the
young girl's mind and began speaking to her. She was a simple girl
with the ability to move the sands and dirt to her will and so when
Isiro began to speak to her, he found some way to manipulate her
powers into other things.

What the texts all agree
on is that no human was born with more than two powers, the ability
to speak through the mind and another, personalized power. But with
Isiro in her mind, Kahya began to be able to make the wind obey
her; the waters of the river listen to her commands; the cookfire
dance at a thought. None of the texts can agree on what the next
few years held for Kahya and Isiro, but some years later when Kahya
was a grown woman she began traveling from village to village
gathering people to begin what some say was an army.

Anyan hearing of the name
Isiro coming from the lips of traveling tribes knew the worst had
happened. She gathered together her tribe and moved them far away
from the place where the star had fallen years before.

She was out trading with
another tribe when a group of Isiro's people, including Kahya
appeared. They spoke of a battle to come, and that as many people
who would join would be promised a safe place and the ability to do
a great deed.

Anyan left the village
without trading and returned to her own, warning the night watchmen
to keep out any of these Isiroans.

More stories began to
reach the Chieftess about the rise of the army under Isiro's name.
She soon found out that the only reason he was raising this army
was because of humanity's powers. They were like nothing he had
ever seen and wanted to possess them all. The creature was like an
incarnation in their fables of a dark being who would tempt them
away from the light, and in those fables the being would try to
take over the whole of the world for his own.

Anyan knew that she alone
saw what Isiro truly was. She knew she was only person who could
stop her people from being enslaved. So, she sent her sons and
daughters to the distant corners of the world, telling them to
recruit as many as they could. For twenty years Isiro's army grew,
and for twenty years Anyan's children spread across the
world.

When she was sure they had
covered all of the land and waters where humans could reside, she
reached out and connected with the minds of her sons and daughters
and with the people they were connected to. She used her
connections to make her ability encompass the whole world, and with
the energy reserves of a thousand minds she ripped the powers from
the bodies of most of humanity.

***

Harry sat down in the chair across
from me, and sighed. "I got us a motel room for the
night."

"Oh, good." I closed the
book.

CHAPTER 19

“
Each
night, when I go to sleep, I die. And the next morning, when I wake
up, I am reborn.”
― Mahatma
Gandhi

The motel wasn't the best,
but it wasn't the worst either. I don’t know what kind of tricks
Harry pulled to make this happen but the room was cool, and it had
beds. That's all I wanted. The feverish feeling beginning to
overtake me again scared me. The last time this happened I had been
with Nick and he knew how to keep my body from burning itself
out.

As soon as we got into the room, I
laid down on the nearest bed and fell asleep. A couple times I
drifted back into consciousness as Harry opened or closed the door,
but I didn't hear him watch TV, I didn't hear him leave to get
food, I didn't hear him try to wake me up to eat. He would tell me
later how dead to the world I had been, running a fever and tossing
and turning in my sleep.

Instead I got lost in my dreams. The
fog of dreaming was thick and unyielding. I drifted from thoughts
that became dreams and dreams that became nightmares. Incarnations
of my parents, my brother, my friends, Willow always appeared in
front of me. They spoke, but the words were strange and muffled.
Images that might have been memories and memories that might have
been imagined all struggled in the space between waking and
sleep.

But Willow was the most prominent in
my dreams. Her voice pushed through thick muffle and I heard her
say my name. "Eugene, Eugene… What are you doing?" There was a
whimsical lilt to her voice, and when I turned to face her, she was
looking down at me from some kind of rock wall. I couldn’t see over
it.

"I'm going to save you," I said, and
reached out for her. She was too far away. The rock wall seemed to
inch away as I tried to get closer.

She laughed. "Why do you think I need
saving?" Her voice was getting smaller.

"They'll hurt you." I said, my voice
was small, and there was little confidence in my words.

She tilted her head down and
disintegrated in the wind. Somewhere back in my mind she appeared
like an avalanche. Something deep and buried rushed upwards and out
of its deep, dark crevasse in my brain. A memory.

Back when Willow had been
kidnapped she had passed something to me with her telepathy. I
could remember it as just a feeling that she wanted to tell
me
something.
Something important. That something appeared before me like
giant iron gates and it opened up a thousand thoughts and memories
and strange dreamlike images. They were Willow's. All of them were
rushing into my mind faster and faster, and I couldn't keep up with
them shooting past me.

But then I grasped one and focused
in.

I 
once thought that the world was simple,
Eugene.
 Willow stood on the
embankment of a raging river. Her red hair and her white dress
sailed in the wind gently. I sat on a wide boulder behind her,
watching the river pull trees and silt with its overbearing flow.
And even though I could see it, I couldn't feel it.

The world of our childhood
consisted of only moments of joy and happiness of friendship and
our love of play. Very few times did sadness and anger intercede.
We loved it, didn't we? 
She looked
back at me and smiled.

I once dreamed that the
world of our childhood was being overtaken by darkness. A darkness
that came from above. A darkness that consumed and used without
care or consideration the people and places it hurt. It's coming
for us now.  
She raised her eyes to
the sky and used her hand to shade them against the
sunlight. 
Isn't it?

Dream-Willow turned around to face me
and amber colored eyes met mine. These were not Willow’s
eyes.

“
Eugene, let me out,” she
said but then she faded away into the darkness.

And then it was over, and I was alone
in my dreams again. I couldn't grasp any more of the strings of
memory that were trailing through my mind, but I let them go for
now just so my mind could find some peace again.

I wandered for what seemed like ages.
Part of me knew I was dreaming, but that part of me didn't care and
didn't want to experience the waking world. I knew my body was in
pain again. I had used fire. I had actually used my power over fire
and it was hurting my whole body. What had Nick called it? The EOS?
The Energy Overload Syndrome.

I could feel the fire
burning through my veins and sleep was the only thing that was
keeping it at bay. In a moment of lucidity I was able to think back
on the incident with the man in the RV. I hadn't meant to use my
powers, but all of a sudden it came out of nowhere. The video Nick
had shown me of Joseph Carmichael and I flashed through my mind,
but suddenly it wasn't a memory of a video, it was an actual
memory. I saw the fire surround me, and I knew full and well that I
was in control. The fire was not just a tool or a weapon; it was
like the flex of a limb. The fire was not just an extension of me,
it 
was
 me.

But in the fire around me I did not
see fear but strength. In the fire I did not see destruction, but
utility. In the fire I didn't see my brother killing, I saw myself
as… as…

What did I see?

I saw me and only me and I was on
fire. But I did not burn. I was not in pain.

Eugene, a
voice said.

Eugene.
 The fire around me began to close in. I felt it, the
fear, beginning to take over. The brilliance of the light was
blinding and I was scared.

Eugene.
 The fire became monsters the size of rats, Crawling
over my body and biting at my fingers and face.

EUGENE!

I jumped up and slammed my forehead
into Harry's chin. "Ahg!" He cried out and stumbled back. I looked
around the room.

The motel, right?

"Sorry, man," I said, rubbing the
tender spot on my forehead.

"It's okay. You were having a
nightmare or something." Harry shook himself and sat in one of the
chairs that were next to my bed. "Are you alright?"

I sat all the way up and swung my legs
off the edge of the bed. "I'm okay." My fingers felt hot, like fire
was aching to be released. If the dream had gone on any longer, I
might have burned the whole motel down.

"What time is it?" I asked, rubbing my
hands and arms to release the tension.

"Three thirty a.m.," Harry said,
sitting back in the chair and sighing.

"Sorry, I woke you." I said, trying to
smile apologetically.

"It's alright. Did you want to talk
about it?" Harry smiled back while rubbing at the sleep in his
eyes.