Phoenx, as I had been informed was the red eyed woman’s name had just stared at me blinking before replying quietly. “It would appear so, it comforts me that we are on the same page.” I had heard several different manners of speaking from the way people talked, if they had an accent, their tone; everything but this one made every other person I had encountered before different and it wasn’t in the good way. She frightened me more than the Sergeant did when he was pissed. The bad thing about it was she seemed to be very kind but it was her eyes that made me want to jump back and cower for just a second.

There was this part of me that had me holding her gaze as if I didn’t feel an ounce of cowardice within me. I wasn’t sure what was supposed to say to her really. I couldn’t say that I was happy that she was alive. All I knew was that she was. I was starting to feel more confused by the second, especially when they turned away from me and begun communicating in that way that I couldn’t hear. They weren’t even looking at each other but it was in their body language.

“Do you always do that?” I blurted out.

Phoenx was the only one to turn to me. “Do what?” She asked. I gestured with my hand towards them. “Talk like that.”

“We don’t know you.” Interjected Essie who jaw was locked while Phoenx frowned turning to her sister giving her a look that obviously read out the four letters: DON’T. The strange thing was that it seemed the one that I was afraid of was the one that seemed to not be bothered by me in the slightest. “We were talking about you if you would like to know.” Phoenx continued, ignoring her sister who suddenly gripped her arm. “Nothing bad, just trying to decide what we should do with you. Not that you know much of anything. Essie told me that she displayed a rather neat trick in front of you in order to protect you from being an idiot.”

“Hey!” I exclaimed only to see her smirking at me. She was joking with me but it was quite truthful all on its own. Essie had mentioned that if I had touch those things that I would be dead. I grinned at her.

“We can only tell you so much. This is your first day in our company, if we told you everything I fear it would be too much for you.” Phoenx continue after a beat of laughter.

“Do you think I am weak?” I asked.

“No.” They both answer simultaneously, “You do.” Informed the crimson eyed woman.

“What?” I muttered, obviously I wasn’t understanding something.

“I can see things,” was all she said before looking down at her hands. She seemed unsure. “I know the things you’ve thought in the past four months. Every single detail. No memories though, thankfully. I think that would be more embarrassing on your part.”

I balked. What she was insinuating was mad. They were bloody out of their mind. I may be a man but that didn’t mean I was that kind of one. I spent most of my day around town keeping an eye out for threats and checking in on patients. I had little time for…that.

“I’m just joking with you, Stephen. I had you there though. I can’t actually do that but I wasn’t lying about the seeing part. I do see things. I’ve known you were coming for about six years now.”

“Six years?” I blinked. How was that even possible?

Phoenx nodded, her hair falling down into her face as she bent down to sit down next to the bag that her sister had brought. I watched amazed as her eyes got brighter for a second and then there was a small fire sitting a few meters away from her. I didn’t see the small twigs that were sitting under them at first but now that I did I felt slightly better about the situation. We were now at eye level and I can view her closely enough.

Her hair was much longer than her sister’s and it was a different color. I thought they were twins but of course I knew that if that was the truth they were fraternal and that was just fine. I didn’t ask them this just yet. I wasn’t through with my inspection yet. I was one of those people that like to observe from a distance if I was granted accessibility. For my job I was up close and personal but when it came to this new atmosphere I was ushered into just hours ago I knew that I had to keep my guard up and I needed to be very aware. I don’t think I was doing such a grand job of the latter but I was blindsided by this.

Phoenx had long wavy dark brown hair. It wasn’t red nor did it have any streaks that made it look such. It was just dark almost like how she had presented herself until moments ago. Her eyes were red but I wondered if she could do what her sister did and dull them down to another color and if she could what it would turn out to be. Would it be brown or gold or even purple? I wondered and waited but she didn’t change them. Her face was small and her mouth even smaller. When she smiled or smirked it sunk in a bit making it seem like it wasn’t really there. She was tiny as a whole. Her body looked fragile and the way her clothes were practically too large for her made me wonder if she didn’t feel as such.

I was having a look at her shirt which unlike her sister’s had some sort of drawing on it, I was trying to decipher it when she took to focusing back on me. “It’s a very old shirt. I grabbed it from a bin in one of those hand-me-down places. No one noticed. Then again it was years ago.” She smiled. “You have questions.”

I nodded. “I don’t know where to start.”

“Essie is going to tell you a little bit about what we know about ourselves while I take a walk. Maybe you’ll have figured it out by then,” Phoenx muttered before getting to her feet again. She took the jacket that her sister extended to her that she had took from the bag. Then she just walked away past them towards the creek and then past it where I could no longer keep tabs on her movements.

He was brought back to the fireside by Essie who only seconds after her sister left began talking. “I won’t pretend to enjoy telling my history to some stranger but it’s what my sister wants. She thinks it’ll be beneficial to the process. When she saw you six years ago – it wasn’t literally, you two have never met but she got hope in her heart about what she saw and now here you are a bumbling, confused mess and I still don’t get it. However, I can’t refuse her not even a little bit because she’s all I have and there’s something to be said about that.” I heard the crack in the blonde’s voice as she sighed.

“We used to live in the city like you when we were born. I’m sure if you looked in the town’s records you’d probably find our birth certificates and our supposed death certificates though the latter are falsified. When we were born – twins, our parents – our mother specifically was very happy about it. We had these strange qualities however that made it impossible for even the best of parents to want to deal with us long. There was a lot of pressure from the town to do away with the family as a whole but father would have no part in it. So as we grew they formed a plan and when we were seven they took us on a trip to the very house we were staying in. They didn’t leave us alone exactly. We had a caretaker or a nanny who would come up and fix us food and look after us until it was time for us to sleep and taught us things. She was everything to us after our parents disappeared but we couldn’t have that forever and one day she just stopped coming. She gave us letters on our sixteenth birthday that were from herself as well as another from our mother that she had been given the day she agreed to take care of us. She mentioned that we were different and that had never been a problem but we were older and we had to learn the harsh realities of life on her own. We started to see what everyone saw. We began to fear what we could do, we begun to try to hone it and stop it all together but it didn’t matter because we couldn’t go back home. We didn’t belong there anymore.

We had died and so we began to create a new life for ourselves on our own. We would send parcels to the nearest stores to get groceries and new clothes and materials. When it was required to go into town we would conceal ourselves with attire that would give the appearance that we would need to continue on without being suspected and we’ve managed. However, there became something wrong with that. There were whispers about “The Wicked Ones” as I’m sure they called us when they told you to come look for us. There have been stories about people like us with special gifts who can do such damnable things. It bothered us a lot because we know that apart of us is capable of doing such things. When we were children we had done things accidentally. I don’t mean like wizardry or something like that. We have gifts but we don’t know anything about that. I just mean there were accidents and we understand why we were left behind. It doesn’t hurt any less but it is what it is.

A couple years ago we heard some whispers that made it completely impossible for us to be able to show ourselves even if we somehow got back into the good graces of the community. This was right around the time when the infectious breakout started. There is this darkness in the city and in other cities. A community, a cult with only one mission. Kill the wicked ones or bring them in for experimentation. I’m sure you’re wondering how we know. The people you met today are a part of it. They call themselves the Shadows and they have a fearsome leader who has an agenda against anyone who can pull anything like what we can do. Phoe is afraid of him. She has seen what he can do and this is dangerous business. In the end there is only death and neither one of us is guaranteed to see the end of it safely.”

Essie’s eyes were glimmering with unshed tears. She chuckled as she finished talking, “We sound like a damn TV show. I fucking hate it. Anyways that’s as much as we know.”

“You said something about the military wanting you before?”

“It’s a suspicion we have. I don’t wish to go there and be subjected to the torturous task of finding out whether or not that is actually true or not.” It was Phoenx who had come back. She looked completely exhausted. Her eyes looked dimmer but they hadn’t lost their bloody color.

I nodded, understanding. “Do you need to get somewhere?”

“Are you offering to be our chauffeur, Mr. Soldier?” Phoenix grinned at me, lazily.

“If I have a car still, I suppose it’s the least I can do. You saved my ass today.” I turned my gaze over to Essie who looked almost at ease. She smiled a little at me.

“I got it out of harm’s way when I blew up the house.”

“Wait, you what?” I’m sure my eyes were pretty wide at this point but I tried to keep it together as I eyed Phoenx.

“I have a knack for weaponizing things technologically. I managed to flip out the window in time.” She told me as if it was the most simplistic thing in the world. None of this was simple.

A hiss coming from the right side of our camp gave me the obvious idea that perhaps I was more correct about that than I imagined. Before I could unholster my gun, Phoenx was on her feet again and rushing in that direction. Her eyes lighting up again and I decided it would be very stupid of me if I just let her go at it alone. So I got up and followed behind her. Essie stayed near the fire. That puzzled me for all of two minutes before I felt a strong wind almost pushing me in the right direction.

That was her doing. She could do that.

I just went with it and soon found myself standing in front of a crowd of dead ones. They were screeching in agony as a large fire consumed them one body after the other. One kept trying to lunge for Phoenx who just stood there focused on them the fire growing higher and higher, the wind stronger until all was left was a large state of burnt bodies.

I was there to watch all of that and then to catch her as she fainted afterwards. I didn’t think that was a particularly good sign but I did my best to carry her back with the forceful wind guiding me along the way.