There were several reasons why I chose not to physically get into the war zone. I passed the drills each time I had been thrown into them but that didn’t have anything to do with why I felt it wasn’t for me. I would see the same bloody men from where I was. I did actually have to go out and pull my brothers back to safe ground to treat them as best as I could. In all actuality I might have been a coward in that light.

I found myself thinking about this as I rushed through the woods that surrounded the home of the two who I was sent to retrieve. I was sure to trip over something soon but I keep going as I heard the green-eyed one shouting at me from above as she leapt from trees. I continue to keep an eye on her from below with the hope that I didn’t run into a branch in my path. I might have been a little too intrigued about the fact that I was actually seeing someone leap from one tree to the next. Those were things that you only saw in movies and I hadn’t seen a film in a long time. They were not a necessary these days but if one had the electricity for one then they could watch a small portion of one back in town. This wasn’t to say electricity was a rare occurrence, there were places that had it I just had been without it for so long that I didn’t see it as something I needed anymore. As long as there was food and water to bathe in there was nothing to worry about.

The task I found myself in now made me stop thinking about those things however as I heard the distinct shout from above from the goddess with the bright green eyes telling me to “Jump” and I did a bit shakily, I had lost my momentum in that moment and as a result I felt something knocking me to the ground. I turned around, whipping out my gun just in time to shoot the brains out of a man that was very much alive and carrying a hissing ball that I didn’t think was what I thought to be a bomb but all the same I rolled and crawled for the small patch between a set of trees. By this time the sphere had exploded and with it the body of the already dead man.

I had killed him and while I should have been happy about this I was caught off guard by what I saw when I peeked back through the trees. The ground wasn’t on fire nor was there debris of torn flesh marring the ground, instead I found golden specs glowing. It covered the trees and the entire radius of that single area. I got to my feet almost forgetting that there was once a man after me with a weapon I imagined was his actual end beyond the bullet that I had use. I bent down to touch at the flecks of gold when the green eyed tree hopping woman who I now saw had donned her glasses again was commanding me to stop. I looked over to the side of the field to see her standing there. I couldn’t see her eyes anymore but I could tell that she was looking about the area searching for something.

“You’ll end up just like him if you even try to mess with it.” She told me as she crouched down like I was from the other end. She gathered some of the golden flecks in her hand and blew at it. I watched carefully as it swept away. It wasn’t only what she had gathered in her hand it was every single piece that coated the ground from the trees to where I was standing.

“How did you…?” I began to ask when she strode over to me and extended a hand out to me. I looked at it warily unsure if there was any residue left from this supposedly lethal matter. She laughed, “It’s all gone, I promise. I’ll explain things when we get to safer ground.”

That’s when I knew that I had to ask her. “What makes you safe? I came here to recruit you and suddenly I am running for my life from a mixture of dead ones and people who resemble a pack of ninjas only they have weapons that I have only ever seen terrorists use but then again I have never seen golden specks be the only remaining evidence of a man who I killed.” I paused for a moment, her head was tilting again. She had done that before when we were still in the house. I didn’t know if it was something significant or whether this was just something that she did out of habit. It made me very aware and it frightened me.

What frightened me more was the way she just straightened up and pulled me to my feet. She began ushering me forward much like the way she pulled me inside the house. The house that I didn’t have the knowledge that was still standing. We had left it behind with her sister still inside. We had left her to face that mob of people in black.

“And what about your sister?” I tried to ask but she said nothing to me only pushing me further through the mass of trees.

When we got to a clearing near a creek that’s when she turned to me and whispered carefully, “She’ll be fine. She was the one that told us to go, remember?”

That was the truth.

In the moments after the glass shattered chaos followed. I got to my feet knowing that I would either need to defend myself or find a way out. The one with the red eyes. Dammit, why didn’t they tell me their names during the debriefing? They continued – they being the Gov. mostly, to refer to them as The Wicked Ones. While I shouldn’t have let my mind roam much in this instance I found myself wishing that I didn’t feel like a trapped mice in a cage with seven snakes that were just slithering quickly for the kill.

I was not defenseless however. I had a knife in one hand and my gun poised at the ready but I didn’t know what exactly I was waiting for. It seemed that the two who I was stuck in here with had other ideas on how to protect myself. “Follow me and don’t turn back.” The emerald eyed one muttered. She had a bag on her shoulder and she had stepped beside the other one for a moment. They looked to be talking but I didn’t see either of them say anything. Their lips didn’t move. I froze again and waited with baited breathe as the door was pushed in and I saw them.

They were all in black. Long coats, fitted pants and the nicest looking boots I had ever seen before but I didn’t stay there long. “Let’s go.” Then I was being moved over to the window and carefully instructed to jump down. It wasn’t very high but this room was on the second floor so there would be a leap. I took a shaky breath trying to look but failing as I only saw those green eyes. I couldn’t decipher her expression but I felt an urgency to jump out the window then so I did and then I was running and I heard her beside me.

“I’ll catch up.” I heard faintly from inside the house but that was the last I heard of the quiet monotone that the other one used. I could vaguely remember her fiddling around with something under the drawer that was positioned on a table against the back of the sofa. She looked intense as she continue to mess with whatever it was. I couldn’t see it but I had a feeling it was a trump card of sorts.

Then we were running with several of the dark masses of people rushing after us with malicious intent…

There was a slight breeze coming from the water that brought me back to the present. “What’s your name?” I asked her quietly. She had stepped closer to the water and though I couldn’t see her face she seemed to be very relaxed just standing before it. She didn’t turn toward me but she spoke to me. “Essie and my sister’s name is Phoenx. No I in between the n and x. Do you know why you were sent to retrieve us?”

I took a glance at the rest of her form while she wasn’t looking. She was quite beautiful. Her hair was blonde and rested on her shoulder in ringlets. She wasn’t as small as her sister, her legs went on for a bit. I had her pegged for being at least five-ten. She wore shorts and a cotton lemon colored shirt. A pair of chucks sat on her feet, they looked old and worn but at least they weren’t coming apart at the soles. She had placed the bag on the ground next to her. It was only after I had gave her a once over did I remember that she had asked me a question. “They want you to help them with something. I am not classified to know much about it.”

“You were just upgraded to at least finding out.” She turned slowly around smiling at me. I blinked, her eyes had changed. They were now a dimmer shade of blue. How did she do that? I admitted that it didn’t make me want to not look her in the eyes anymore.

“Wait, what do you mean?”

“I told you I would tell you when we are safe. This is a safe place.”

“I’m sorry but I have a hard time believing that when there are at least fifteen of those things close enough to have nearly killed me.”

“Stephen, listen this area is restricted from those things or anyone except for people like my sister and I and those who we allow to come past it.”

I stopped her again because of two things. The first being that I don’t remember giving her my name and then the one little phrase she said that clicked inside my head that this was more than a simple recruit mission: “people like my sister and I”. “How do you know my name and what do you mean people like you and Phoenx?”

She took her bottom lip between her teeth, gnawing at it as she shifted from one side to the other. “Who else do you know that have eyes like ours?”

“I haven’t seen your sister’s…yet.”

She smirked. “Yeah well if you have such a reaction to my normal color then you won’t like hers. The point is there is a reason why most people stay the hell away from our home. We used to be like you, we used to live in the city until we didn’t. We were abandoned because of what we look like and the things we can do.”

“The things you can do?”

“Yes, you saw a part of it back there with the specks. I know that’s not a normal thing. People can’t just blow and things just disappear. I have other attributes as well and my sister does too. The reason why you were sent was because of a secret organization who you just met several members of. They want us and so does your military and we want no part of it. Once we can do away with the ones that are circling around the place you can go tell them that.”

I noticed a quick change in her then. Her eyes flashed for one. The deep blue turned that bright green for a moment and then it went back to the dullness of the blue. Then there was her tone it had a bite to it. I gulped, knowing that perhaps I had been right. I was way over my head in this. I didn’t even know specifics yet but I knew that I clearly wasn’t wanted here.

There was this thing about me that had always annoyed nearly everyone since I was a child. I had to know things even if it could spell danger and it almost always did and that was why I took a step in her direction even though she was giving me very bad vibes. “What do you mean that the military want you?”

“That package you brought with you. I know what the contents are but I have no interest in them. Like Phoenx said, you came at a really bad time. If you knew what was good for you, you would leave that town altogether. Grab your sister and just go.”

I just eyed her for a few moments trying to gather what needed to be said. “You still haven’t explained anything. I get that there is something wrong here but why don’t you tell me what that is exactly then I can decide for myself what I can do about it.”

“You’re just one person, what makes you think you can do that?”

“I’m not running away right now, am I?”

She smiled at me as she peered down at the ground. “No but that doesn’t mean we’re going to let you just slip into this. You know nothing.”

“Tell me then, like you promise.”

“I have to wait for her.” She told me quietly before bending down and picking up the bag and fishing through it for something. A little shuffling later and she was tossing me a package. “Eat.” She told me before unwrapping her own foiled wrapped sandwich. I nodded in thanks and took a bite out. It tasted delicious.

I took a moment and peered down at the contents and found something rather normal. Cheese, ham, more cheese and turkey. “We aren’t aliens.” She muttered as she sat down on the ground. I soon joined her after a moment. My legs suddenly feeling a bit stiff from the running and standing for so long.

We sat in silence for a while and with it came the darkness of the night. I had left about two hours after the meeting with the good doctor and the Sgt. and it took me at least another to navigate through to their home another three must have passed by now. I was starting to grow tired but I kept my eyes open long enough to see a sudden flash of a person as they slipped into my field of vision.

“You’re alive.” I muttered and was startled in the same moment when the duo turned and I had a pair of crimson looking eyes staring back at me.

Next Chapter: Escape Plans