Dragonflywriting

The End of the World
By Jessica Rud

I stood in the field and watched the world end. No, okay that’s a stupid beginning for a story, and it wasn’t really the world ending. It was just… my world ending. Which, in my opinion, was much, much worse. Because it meant that I was totally and utterly alone. Everything, everyone, every little mundane detail of my normal routine life was just... gone. Everything, down to my English assignment that yesterday I had been worrying about not doing a good enough job on the character sketch.
And, for someone who’s never experienced it, I can’t possibly explain what it’s like to lose everything that you have ever known. Everything that you have ever seen, ever loved, ever hated, ever thought about, everything in the realms of your consciousness, to just be gone. Its mind-boggling. No, it’s mind-destroying. Its like every thread of your self, your personality, being ripped apart, shredded and thrown into an inferno. Its burning, and freezing, and light so bright it blinds you, and dark so deep that you sink into despair. That’s what it’s like to watch the world end.
But lets back up. My name is Jonathan Peters. Or John, which is what everyone at my now non-existent school calls- called me. At first I thought that since no one knew that now, and there was probably no one left with that name any more, there was no point in keeping it any more. But there’s that small part of you that wants to keep something, some memoir of my home. So I decided to keep the name Jonathan Peters. Not like I would live to tell anyone that.
Because I did decide to kill myself, then. When the world ended. And if I hadn’t discovered my reason to live right then, I probably would have. I would probably have impaled myself on the nearest daisy root or something. But anyway, my reason to live. Her name is Lela. Yup, a girl. I’m not proud of it, but it’s true. I don’t think she likes me. I don’t think she even knows my name. She calls me Earth Boy. But she’s my reason for living, alright.
I didn’t know about her name, or that she didn’t like me, or any of that yet. All I knew, as she walked towards me through the flowers, was that she was the most beautiful girl in the world, and if getting married still existed, I was going to marry her.
And seriously, I know how shallow that is, I really do. Deciding to marry someone just based on how she looks. Lucky for me, Lela is actually just as pretty on the inside as she is on the outside. At least I think she is.
So there she was, walking towards me, with her red-brown hair flowing out behind her, wearing this floating white dress, and truthfully, at that moment, I thought she was an angel. I though ‘Yup, here it is. She’s found out that I came from that planet they just destroyed, and she’s come to finish the job.’
And then I thought something else. I thought ‘I don’t want to die.’ I’d actually never thought about dying before. I mean, obviously, I didn’t want to die. If some random person came up to you and said ‘Do you want to die?’ in this creepy voice, of course you’d say no. But I’d never actually thought about it before. Which was dumb, considering I’d just decided to kill myself. But seriously, I was fourteen. That’s like, a sixth of your full life span. And I didn’t want to die yet. Even if there was nothing left of my life, I still had five sixths left to go, and I didn’t want to die.
So I told her that. ‘I don’t want to die.’ I said, ‘Thanks, but no.’
‘I wouldn’t kill you if you did want to die.’ she said. She had a soft musical voice, like the wind in flowers. Sorry, but that’s what I thought at the time.
‘Oh.’ I said, ‘Good. Who are you?’
‘That’s not for you to know.’ she answered.
‘Okay.’ I said, ‘Why are you here?’
‘You will soon learn.’ she answered, ‘Please get up.’
I got up. When I had decided to kill myself, I had sunk to the ground in a sort of hopeless defeat pose.
‘Follow me.’ she ordered.
‘Where are we going?’
‘You will know soon.’ she answered, ‘Please be quiet.’
‘Sure.’ I said, ‘No problem. I’ll just stand here and follow some weird girl I’ve never met off somewhere that I don’t know, so that, for all I know, she can torture me or kill me or something.’
‘Actually, that would require you to walk, not stand.’ she said, and I noticed that she had an accent. I was sure I had never heard it before, but the closest that I could tell, it sounded faintly Spanish.
So I followed her. How could I not? She was my reason for living, remember?

Anyway, I followed her for about five minutes. At least I think it was five minutes. I had forgotten to put my watch on that morning. Back when there was still morning. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Or… behind myself. Never mind.
I was starting to get really sick of flowers by now. Five minutes may not seem like a long time, but trust me, when all you’re doing is walking, it’s a long time. I was also starting to think again. I realized that I had, previously been in shock. Duh. But I was starting to regain some feeling again. The first thing I felt was, and I’m sort of ashamed to admit it, relief. I’m not dead. I thought. That’s good.
Then there was grief. I had remembered all the people who were, now, dead. I walked behind Lela and silently cried for about a minute. I let myself think about all the people that I’d known, and sort of let it all wash over me.
Then, quite suddenly I felt a sort of mixture of confusion, curiosity, and most oddly, excitement. I had no idea where I was, I had no idea what had happened, but I was following someone who obviously did, and who, I was pretty sure didn’t want to kill me. Where was she taking me? Who was she? What was going to happen now? If I was the last human left, then what on Earth (or rather not) was she?
I pondered this for a while as we walked, my feet were starting to get a little sore, and began to get these crazy fantasies, like out of a science fiction movie or something. What else was out there? And was I going to see it? How cool was this?
I’m still in shock. I thought dully. How can I be thinking about this now?
Quite suddenly, Lela stopped. I almost bumped into her. I looked around confusedly. It looked the same as before, there were still flowers in every direction.
‘What-’ I began, but she shushed me. She bent down slowly and pushed flowers aside. Then she put her hand on the soil and it started to glow. Then all the flowers started to glow.
I gave an involuntary intake of breath as the flowers all disappeared. The blue sky disappeared too. They just sort of flickered out. In place was a starry sky. We were standing on what looked roughly like black ceramic. And we were, quite obviously, in space. I gasped, then realized that there was no air to gasp with. I started to choke. Then Lela walked up to me, and slapped me across the face.
‘Stop it.’ she said, but her lips weren’t moving. And she didn’t say it in English.
I gasped again and tried to say something, but couldn’t. There was no air.
‘Smarten up.’ she said, (or thought), ‘I know this is hard for you, but really. You’re not breathing. You haven’t been for the last ten minutes. That was just the ship reading your mind and transferring the thoughts directly into your brain. I wasn’t really talking to you either. And you weren’t to me. Just send your thoughts to my brain.’
I stared at her. She tapped her foot. ‘Please.’ she said/thought.
‘W-what,’ I thought at her, ‘Is this?’
‘This,’ she said, and waved her arm about, ‘Is the space ship- or whatever your mind translates what I call it as- Spirkilof.’ As she waved her arm, I noticed that she was no longer wearing the white dress. She was instead, dressed in strange, blue material, large boots, and gloves. Her hair was pulled back into a strange knot. I looked at myself, but saw that I was still wearing my ordinary school clothes.
‘How are we breathing?’ I asked.
‘We’re not.’ she answered.
‘How are we not breathing?’ I corrected
‘We don’t need to.’ she said, ‘Only humans need to breathe. Follow me, Earth boy.’
My mind exploded. Only humans need to breathe, she had said. I’m human! I thought, somewhat desperately. Aren’t I?
Aren’t I?
Lela was walking away and I ran to catch up with her. As much as I didn’t want to follow her, I didn’t really want to be stuck where I was, either, and I had some questions that I really wanted answered.
She led me over the curve of the ship, and then we were walking upside down. It was the weirdest feeling. The ground was still pulling me down, I wasn’t falling or anything, but I was standing upside down.
‘I thought that whichever way gravity pulled you was down.’ I thought/called up to Lela.
She send what was obviously a scoff back to me. ‘Do you know that’s true?’
I thought for a minute. ‘Yes.’ I said finally, ‘Because people that live- lived on the bottom of the earth didn’t walk around upside down.’
‘Do you know that?’ she asked me, ‘Had you ever actually been there?’
‘Well, no.’ I said, ‘But-’
‘Quiet.’ she interrupted. Then she bent down again, and did the same thing with her hand as she had before. She backed up quickly, and a door came shooting up out of the ground. Down, out of the ceiling. I corrected myself, but the truth was I was hardly noticing it anymore.
But anyway, yeah. A door. And it didn’t open into anything I could think of either than the other side of it. And when Lela opened it, big surprise, what I saw was the rest of the black space ship (or whatever it was) sloping off and curving away into the vast starry sky. I suddenly wondered where the light was coming from, but decided to keep my wonderings in the realm of the actually would be concerning me in the next few seconds. Otherwise my head would explode.
Back to the door. Lela had put her hand on a strange flat thing that had come out of the door frame. Again, almost predictably this time, it started to glow. It stayed glowing as she took her hand off of it, and as it slid back into the doorframe. Actually, it seemed to more melt back into the doorframe, as it didn’t look like it would fit normally.
Lela gave me a are you coming or staying look and walked through the door frame. She disappeared. I tried to gasp, but couldn’t because there was no air. Anyway, I did the only logical thing, which was to follow her. I didn’t let myself think about scary things like winking out of existence and cannibal aliens et cetera. I just did it.
It didn’t hurt. It kind of felt weird though. Like being sucked downwards. I realized that I was, for lack of a better word, being sucked into the ship. I was coming apart into fuzzy bits and being pulled into the crack at the bottom of the door frame. Then I was coming back together, and blinking from the light, and standing inside the space ship.
It was, of course, a space ship in the loosest sense of the word. It was more like… something very hard to explain. The closest I can come to is one of those Arabian tent-type things, with fabric draped everywhere, and short couch type things on the floor. Only everything was blue, and made out of strange fabric, with weird patterns, that seemed like they were shifting somehow. It was the strangest thing. You’d look at it and at first you’d think it was just the fabric moving, but then you’d see that the patterns were actually slowly changing.
Anyway, sitting on one of the couches was a man who I could only think was Lela’s father. He was tall and somewhat burly, with hair and beard the same brownish red colour as Lela’s, and his eyes were the same shape. He was wearing the same tight blue material, but with long swaths of a lighter cloth tied like an intricate tunic. He was carrying a strange staff made out of the same ceramic stuff as the ship, but it was silver, instead of black.
He stood up and walked towards me. I found myself looking up as he towered over me, looking down, his face a gruff mask.
‘Well.’ he said, or thought, there was still no air. It was the strangest thing, standing there inside of a space ship, completely quiet, because there was no air, not even the sound of breathing, and conversing telepathically with a strange man.
When I didn’t answer he repeated, ‘Well.’
‘Well?’ I replied.
‘So you’re it? The Remainder.’ He said it as if it were a title.
‘The what?’ I said.
‘The Remainder. The last one.’
‘Oh.’ I said, ‘Yes. I guess. I’m the last human, I think, if that’s what you mean.’
‘Earthling.’ he said, ‘You may have been born on Earth, but you’re not human.’
‘Then what am I?’ I asked eagerly.
‘No idea.’ he replied, ‘Truth be told, we were hoping you’d know. But its obvious you don’t, so why don’t you just go with Lela, she’ll show you to a room, and we’ll talk tomorrow.’
‘Um.’ I said, ‘Okay.’
The man turned to Lela, ‘A room, Lela.’ he said, ‘See that it’s a good one, and make sure he has everything he needs.’
Lela looked as though she would rather do something not worth mentioning, but she just stalked out of the room huffily.
I made to follow her, but the man put a large hand of my shoulder to stop me.
‘She’s gone to get a room.’ He explained, (Or rather didn’t because I had no idea what he was talking about.) ‘Sit tight and she’ll be back with one. I’m Bralan. Lela is my daughter. We were told to pick you up on our way to her adjudication.’
‘Adjudication.’ I said.
‘She's a Cilian.’ he explained, (or didn’t) ‘If she’s accepted, she’ll start school there to get her Cilian Wizards Honour. Its very important for us to see that every Cilian that's born gets the best possible training, you know.’
‘Um.’ I said, ‘No, I don’t.’
‘Of course you don’t.’ He said, ‘I keep forgetting. You look like a regular Amian you know. Its your eyes.’
‘Amian?’ I said.
‘Yup. You’re the last one. Except for your mother, of course. But she’ll be dead now. She sure hid for a long time too. And you. Too bad they found you when they did. And lucky your transmitter still works.’
‘Um.’ I said, ‘What?’
‘Of course, I’m confusing you.’ he said, nodding, ‘I’ll explain-’
Lela walked in, and threw a black disk at me. It almost chopped my head off, but I managed to catch it. Which surprised me a little. It’s amazing what you can do in the face of certain decapitation.
Bralan took the disk and inserted it into the wall. A door appeared. Seeing nothing else really, to do, I walked towards it. Another slip of metal came out of the frame. I imitated Lela by putting my hand on the metal. It felt very wierd. Hot and cold at the same time, while in some way, seeming to not be there at all. It started to glow, and then retreated back into the door frame.
'I'll explain tomorrow.' said Bralan with a smile, and literally shoved me through the door. I don't think he meant to though.
I found myself in a small room, like in a hotel, only smaller. Everything was made out of the same black ceramic material as the outside of the ship. It gave me the shivers. I wanted to be back in my bedroom at home. I couldn't even remember getting out of bed this morning, I had been in such a hurry to get to school. I hadn't said goodbye to anyone.
I sat down on the bed heavily, shivering like mad and feeling as if I was going to be sick. I tried to find that excited feeling I had felt earlier, but I couldn't. I was so weak and sick, I wanted to go to bed and wake up from this bad dream.
I pulled back the covers on the bed, relieved to see that it seemed pretty normal. I slipped under. It was very soft, but that didn't make it any more comfortable. It was strange, just like everything else, and I was sure that I would never get used to it. But I fell asleep anyway.

I woke up what my watch said was ten hours later. I hadn't known that I could sleep for that long. I pushed my hair out of my eyes and wiped them quickly. I was in a black room, with nothing but a desk, a bed, and a window. Was it morning? All I could see were stars, and a planet... a planet?
I jumped up and ran to the window. There was definitely a planet outside. It looked a bit like earth except that the water was a sort of yellow colour.. almost gold. But how were we at another planet? We had been at earth, ten hours ago, and it wasn't even a planet that I recognised.
Suddenly I realized that the golden planet was getting bigger. How was that possible? It took me almost a minute to realize that we were moving towards the planet- very quickly. Soon it filled up the whole window, and the small room was flooded with gold light. I had to look away, because it was so bright.
The door was glowing. It started pulsating quicker and quicker, and strange letters flashed across the front. Then Lela stepped through. I jumped and tried to fix my hair. Oh great, my girl problem was starting. I always acted really stupid around girls, especially ones that I liked. Usually I always started to worry about my appearance. Right now I didn't want to imagine what I looked like, as I had just gotten up, and never mind that, had slept in my clothes.
Lela gave me a somewhat disgusted look and threw something at me.
'We're landing in ten minutes.' she said, 'Wear those. My father wants you to.' she seemed to want it quite clear that me wearing the clothes (which were apparently what she had just thrown me) was not her idea. I wondered if she was going to be mad at me for everything, relevant or not. She stalked out.
I stood staring at the bag in my hands for a bit. I suddenly realized that I had managed to catch it when she threw it at me. The same as the room disk. Maybe gravity worked slower on this ship or something. I got changed. I didn't want to get out of my earth clothes, they were all I had left, but I didn't really see anything else to do. I slid my old clothes back into the bag, and then tried to figure out how to put the new ones on. They didn't seem to have any zippers or buttons.
I finally figured out that they sort of folded in a weird way, and then unfolded onto you, so that you ended up wearing them. The clothes weren't in any style I'd ever seen before, but they seemed slightly military-ish. Knee-high boots, with trousers tucked into them, and then a sort of collared shirt, with a jacket that could be worn like a long jacket or vest. I don't know how that worked, but you just folded it a certain way and it did it. There was no extra fabric or anything.
Anyway, it was all very complicated, and if it hadn't basically put itself on for me, I never would have been able to figure it out. Also, there was a strange patch on the right shoulder, with five stars around a gold circle, and the same lettering that I couldn't read below it. It seemed a lot like a uniform. Especially because it was all dark blue and gold. And because Lela had been wearing the same thing.
Feeling somewhat brave, I walked towards the door... and had no idea how to open it. I had seen Lela and Brelan work these things. They made a piece of metal come out, right? How had they done that. I examined the smooth doorframe, knocked on the metal, ran my hand around the frame, even shouted at it. Nothing worked. Especially not the shouting. It only made me remember that there wasn't any air to shout with, and spend a few minutes gagging, and trying to get over the reflex of breathing.
I sat down on the floor, mentally scolding myself for wanting to cry. I couldn't even open a door. How was I supposed to get along in this world at all? Okay, I thought. Since I was just sitting here, trapped, I might as well try to sort some things out. I backtracked.

Yesterday morning, I had gotten out of bed, same as every day, and gone to school. I had been walking to home room, when there was a huge rumbling sound, so loud that everyone had to cover their ears. Everyone started running outside to see what the noise was, and I had gone with them.
What I had seen then, I knew I would never be able to forget. The ground was exploding. Fire was spewing up from the ground, miles high. Some people started running away from it, and some people hid under the nearest cover. I just stood there. I'm not sure why. The fire came closer, and I thought something stupid. I thought, 'Is the planet exploding?' I had no idea that I was right.
The fire came closer, it had been miles away, and now it was only half a mile. It didn't just burn the ground. The fire was coming out of the ground, throwing the whole world into flames. I heard a rumbling behind me, and turned. Fire was coming from the other way. Destroying the people and cars that had tried to run away.
Everything was loud and hot. There was no one else around, they were all hiding, or destroyed now. And I was just standing there, in the middle of the fire, staring in horror as it surrounded me. I looked up, and tried to see the sky. it was all gray and black from smoke, but I thought I saw a little bit of blue. The fire came closer. There was screaming from all around me, the fire was only a few hundred meters away on each side of me. I felt my face burning.
I looked up again, at the small bit of blue left in the sky, and I felt something strange inside of me. I felt a cool, gold light, and I for some reason, I thought of flowers. Then the gold light enveloped me, and swept me away from the fire.
I woke up in a field of flowers. Up in the sky above me was earth, filling the whole sky, and I saw that I had been right. Earth was exploding. Fire ate away at it, seemingly slow, but I knew that it was really moving fast, too fast for anyone to escape from. The world was ending. At least, my world was.

I sighed, and looked around me at the strange room, in this strange place. Why was I here? Why had I survived? What was I? I looked down at my chest, where the strange gold light had come from, to take me to the field, or the ship as I now knew. Bralan had said, that it was a good thing my transmitter still worked. Was that what had done it? I had something in me? A transmitter?
What else had Brelan said? He had called me something... Amian. Said I wasn't human. He had said that my mother had hidden me. From what? Brelan must know. And he must have known that Earth was going to be destroyed. Why else would his ship be at Earth? It couldn't be a coincidence. He had acted like he had expected me. So he must have known who was going to destroy Earth, and why. Why hadn't he told me?
Maybe it was him! Maybe he destroyed Earth, to get at me. But then, why wasn't he holding me prisoner? Or... was he? I stood up and banged on the door again.
'Hey!' I screamed, 'Let me out!' but my cries didn't make any noise in the airless room. I stood by the door for a moment, staring at it. Willing it to open. Nothing happened.
Then, suddenly, the door started to pulse again, and the strange symbols flashed across it. I backed up quickly as Brelan stepped through it. He was so tall that he had to duck to get through. He stepped into the room and looked around in disbelief.
'What!' he cried, 'I told Lela to get you a nice room! Honestly, what is it that she doesn't like about you? She's usually a very nice girl. Whats wrong with you?'
I had backed against the wall, and was staring at him.
'What, did you finally realize that you're not dreaming or something?' He asked.
I shook my head. 'Who-' I said, 'Who are you? Why was Earth destroyed, how did you know about it? Why are you keeping me locked here?'
'Locked!' he said with a confused look, 'Didn't- you don't know how to open the door?'
I shook my head.
He looked concerned. 'I'm sorry.' he said 'I keep forgetting how you don't know about normal things. You look and act so much like someone who would. I- here. You press the wall down here to send out the slip. Then you put your hand on it, and step through. You can do it if you like.'
I grabbed my bag, and, still looking at him suspiciously, did what he instructed and walked through the door. I was back in the blue room. I got out of the way quickly, as Brelan stepped through. He turned around and somehow extracted the black disk from the wall. The door disappeared.
'I'm sorry about this room.' he said, handing me the disk, 'I can get you a better one.'
'No,' I said, taking the disk, and putting it in my pocket, 'This is fine. Are you going to explain things to me?'
'Um...' he said, 'Yes. To a point. There are some things that I can't tell you, for reasons that I can't explain, and some things that I don't know. But right now, we have to go, Lela has to go to her adjudication. And so do you.'
'Me!' I cried, but he had walked away. I had to run to catch up with him. 'Hey!' I said, as I followed him quickly through the different doors and hallways of the ship, 'I'm getting adjuducated? I don't know anything!'
'It has nothing to do with what you know.' he said, 'You're a Cilian, like Lela. Hadn't you noticed?'
'I don't know what that is!' I cried, 'Slow down!'
'Can't.' he replied, 'We're late!'
We rushed to yet another door, but this one was much more permanent-looking than the rest of them. Bralan did something entierly different than he had for the rest of the doors, and instead of turning into a portal of some kind, as the rest seemed to, it simply melted away.
Bralan rushed through, and I followed him, before the door had a chance to reappear. I stopped following him, though, the moment I stepped through the door. I just stood there. Then I gasped. There was air here! I could breathe!
I stood there for several seconds, taking deep breaths. Bralan smiled and walked back towards me.
'Ah yes.' he said, 'Breathing does seem to give one a wonderful boost, even if technically we don't need to.'
He was talking, I realized, but not in English. My mind was still translating the mental information that he sent me. I could hear the sounds that seemed to make no sense, but at the same time, I knew exactly what he meant, because he did. If that makes any sense.
And it was so good to hear again. I felt like a deaf man who had regained his hearing. I hadn't realized how much I loved hearing until I couldn't.
All in all, I felt like one does when they surface from being underwater. But, in truth, I wasn't even thinking about that, because the scene in front of me was so amazing.
'What is this place?' I asked Bralan, still delighting at the sound of my own voice.
'This,' replied Bralan, 'Is Sargato, home, and training place of Cilians." I heard him say the words Sargato, and Cilian, and my brain didn't translate them, I suppose because they were names. It was very much like watching a movie in a different language, with subtitles. I had a pang of homesickness when I thought of that, and forced myself not to.
Sargato was very beautiful. The planet had been gold from far away, and it still was. The sky was gold. Not yellow, but real, shining gold, like the sun, only it didn't hurt to look at. The few clouds that I saw were all tinged a very light yellow or white. And the ground was all golds and browns as well.
I looked around. It was a lot to look at at one time. We were standing on what looked like a deck of the spaceship, Spirkilof, Lela had called it. It was like I had seen it before. Black... and huge. The ship hadn't landed, because it was too big. We floated what must have been miles above the ground, but I didn't know why, I could see the ground very clearly. I thought perhaps the air was cleaner here or something.
"How..." I said, "Are we getting down?"
"Oh, we'll transmit ourselves." answered Bralan calmly.
I bit my lip, remembering. "Like how I got off of Earth." I said, "There was something in my chest. You said... transmitter?"
"Exactly." he confirmed, "You are smart. Yes, all Cilians have them implanted as children."
"So you're a... Cilian?" I asked him.
"Oh yes." he said, "Its usually hereditary."
"And it is..." I prompted.
"Look, it will all be explained." he said calmly, "Just be patient."
"Patient!" I exclaimed.
"Yes." said Bralan, "I will explain Cilians to you. Really. Right now we need to transmit ourselves down there." He pointed.
I sighed, and gave into the inevitable. "Okay." I said, "How?"
Bralan nodded happily, "Well," he replied, "You've done it before. Right now, there is a transmitter beam coming up from somewhere down there. Your transmitter should be picking it up, so you can go there as soon as you decide to. Just do the same thing you did to transmit to the ship. Understand."
"I think so." I said cautiously. I walked to the railing and looked down. Again, I could see the ground perfectly, although I still knew that we were very far away. I tried to remember how I had felt when I had sent myself from Earth to the ship.
Then, my mind, for some reason, had a quick lapse of belief. I think it was from thinking about transmitting myself from Earth onto a spaceship. I though maybe this was some sort of huge, mean joke, or study in human psychology or something, and I honestly didn't expect anything to happen. Of course, something did.
My chest started to glow that odd cool gold again, and I actually felt something in my chest, small and spherical.
I heard Bralan say, "There, you've got it! Very smart indeed..." and I was enveloped in the light. A moment later I was standing on a large, shiny white surface. It was made of the same ceramic stuff, I realized. Not that it mattered, but seeing as it was something that Bralan might actually give me a straight answer about, the moment he materialised beside me (in a blue light, not gold) I asked him, "What is this stuff?"
"Oh!" he said, looking very pleased that I had asked, "Bichuck. It's completely impenetrable unless molded with a certain material. There are whole planets of it, I think, where they get it."
"What are the different colours for?" I asked.
"They're just different kinds." he answered, "Different kinds are better for different constructions."
"Okay," I continued, "What are Cilians?"
"They're-" he began. Then he looked at me and laughed loudly, "Oh you're smart." he chuckled. "Okay, we've got a bit of a walk to the academy. I'll tell you on the way."
We stepped off of the Bichuck platform. I glanced back, and saw more people materializing in different coloured lights as well. Several of them were wearing the same uniform as I was. The ones that were seemed to be fairly young, the youngest being my age, and the oldest, maybe around nineteen. About half of them were accompanied by some sort of adult.
“So…” I began, “It’s like a school?”
Bralan laughed, “Yes.” he said, “It’s a training facility for Cilians.”
“What exactly do they train us for?” I asked him, thinking that I probably wouldn’t be very good at it, whatever it was.
“A variety of things.” Explained Bralan, “Regular things like arithmetic and language, as well as situational training, and of course, how to control and use your powers.”
My heart did a weird little jump thing. I could have sworn he just said powers. Powers! I don’t have powers!
“Did you just…” I said hesitantly, “Say control my powers?”
“Why, yes.” he said, glancing at me. “Why, does that word not translate into your language?”
“No, it does.” I said breathlessly, “It’s just… I don’t have any powers. I think I’d know.”
Bralan was still looking at me out of the corner of his eye. “Hm…” he said, “Well, it’s possible that your mother used an assimilator to Earth so that your powers would be dormant there.”
“My mother…” I murmured, “No, but- I’ve been off of Earth for over a day, and I haven’t noticed anything different…” my heart was racing, I felt as if something wanted to burst out of me. Was it true? Could I possibly have powers?
Bralan looked at me fully this time, smiling. “You haven’t tried to do anything different, have you?” he laughed.
“Like what!?” I said, my excitement overcoming any wariness that I had been hiding behind previously, “What can I do?!”
Bralan seemed absolutely delighted. He was still chuckling loudly as he said, “Probably just normal Cilian things- increased speed, strength and agility, that sort of thing. It’s rather uniform. But it does come in handy when you’re performing Cilian duties.”
“Cilian duties…” I began, but I trailed off as we crested a hill, and the school came into view.
“That’s it.” said Bralan, “The Sargato Cilian’s Academy.”
I was speechless, staring at the smooth, curved peaks of what I assumed was sand-coloured Bichuk thrust up into the golden sky. The building was the size of a small city, beautifully designed, all built of the same material. But the astounding thing was almost not the school, but the place where it was located. It was dwarfed by the giant gorge on which it seemed to almost teeter on the edge of. It had to be one of the most beautiful things I’d ever seen, and I just stood there for several seconds, staring at it.
“I…” I finally managed to spit out, “I get to live here?”
Bralan nodded, “If you pass the adjudication.” he said.
“I’ll pass any adjudication they throw at me!” I said, and I actually meant it. Here in this strange golden world, I felt stronger, and more alive than I had ever felt in my life. I really felt as if I could do anything.
Then Lela walked up behind us, snorted at my comment, and I immediately reverted back to a lovesick teenager. She was going to this school too right? I had to pass the adjudications now. I just had to.

Piczo