Altered

Epilogue

- The Legacy of the Enhanced - 

"Granny?" A little girl asked. "Tell me the story about the enhanced again?"

"Not right now, Janie, I'm busy," her Grandmother said, but the look in Janie's eyes stopped her.

"All right, just one more time."

"Yay! Tellee tellee tellee!" The little girl danced around her, sitting down on a pillow near her feet.

"Once, not so long a time ago, I was standing on a hill near our village picking herbs for your great grandmother, my lovely mother, who used to make medicine for the village. She was a great woman who loved other people, but she had thrown herself into her work after my father died. She was poor and widowed and desolate. She often sent me out to work the fields. On this one day the sky seemed nice and sunny and I headed upward farther than I usually do. The rain is usually rainy here. As you know," her grandmother gave her a wink, smiling at memories of the Janie's barely contained energy when she couldn't go outside.

Janie bobbed her head up and down, impatient. "What happened then, Granny?"

"The sky all around me darkened," she covered Janie's eyes with her wrinkled hands. "Furious clouds tumbled over the hills; black and roiling, as if the world knew something was wrong. Electricity was in the air. The ground beneath me jumped and trembled. I knew somehow in my heart that something was wrong."

Janie pushed away her hands, looking excited as the story reached its climax.

"I began to be frightened. It was like someone had yanked away the light from the world, and everything that once was and all that could be hung in the balance of this one moment. And before I could talk myself out of it, I went to go and see. I crawled behind one of the bushes near a place I could see smoke, and I saw a girl a little older than me, flying in the air like she was a bird. She was flying toward a huge lizard-like creature. There were others behind her, but I could only focus on the girl. Her eyes glowed, young Janie. Glowed with pure, untainted light. I've never seen a thing like that 'fore or since."

Janie sighed in pleasure. "This is my favorite part."

"She shouted something then that I will always remember. She said as she faced this massive "You shall not take this world. We are its protectors, foul beast. None shall take it from us! We. Are. The. Enhanced!" A young girl was defending me. Defending the whole earth. I didn't know who she was, or what the creature was, or the strange beings that surrounded her after she finished it off, but I do know that she saved my life; and we all owe her an unpayable debt."

"Tell me her name again, Granny!"

"The man who leaned over her called her Gina. A name suited to such a warrior. It looked like he.... loved her."

Janie's eyes grew round. "Love, Granny? Are you swure? Love is something special, isn't it?"

"It is indeed, young one. It is indeed."

They sat in silence after that, enjoying each other's company. Thinking about the young people who had fought so bravely against the evil.

"Were they human?" Janie asked.

"They looked human, but I can't be sure. To my eternal shame I became terrified and fled the scene, shortly after the girl vaporized the creature. She seemed so small and frail after she defeated it. Like she was exhausted beyond comprehension. I was afraid the creature would come back and she wouldn't be able to fight it off again."

"If it was me," Janie thumped a fist to her small chest with pride, "I would have stayed and fought. I wouldn't have run, Granny." She jumped up with her stuffed doll held out like a sword and swung it around in arcs as she marched around the room. "I would have been a wawaior, just like Gina!"

"I'm sure you would have," her grandmother said, with laughing eyes, grabbing Janie and tickling her. "But first you'd have to face me: the tickle monster!"

"Ahhhhahaha!" Janie giggle, kicking her feet around in the air. She leaned up and kissed her Granny of the cheek. "I love you."

"I love you too, Janie dear." Her eyes grew more solemn. "I hope that when I pass on, which I'm sure will come soon for these old bones," she sat up a little more with a grimace, "that you will continue to tell your children the story of Gina. Of all 'the enhanced'. And that they will tell theirs. We must remember their sacrifice."

"I pwomise, Granny," Janie told her, and ran off.

Thank you Gina, Melanie thought after Janie trotted off. As she had thought many times. Thank you for all you did.

THE END.