Outsiders

CHAPTER 7 - Let's Make a Deal

Vox proceeds to go through the door "Follow me, inside here you may find a few answers to some of your questions."

"Well it better have some answers, because I sure have a whole lot of questions!" says Mach in a sarcastic tone. Vox ignores him and steps inside while the others follow, but before they enter Tenbris stops Mach and Nasa and says "Guys, I don't know about this. Can we trust him? I mean we only just met and things are happening a little too quick for me to understand what's going on."

"Oh look who started getting second thoughts, the guy who encouraged us to come here in the first place!" Says Mach in a joking way. Nasa shushes him and says "Listen we literally have no choice, these forests are probably infested with these weird-looking monsters, I don't know about you but I'm taking all the help I can." Mach adds, "Yeah I gotta agree with waterboy, also I don't want to be captured again by those freaks."

"H-hey! Who are you calling waterboy... bird-man?... That sounds-"

"Guys stop it." Says Tenbris "But you're right, we should probably take all the help we can at this point."

"Well, what are we waiting for? Let's get in!" Mach says with excitement. "Yeah, just don't embarrass us." Worryingly, says Nasa as he and the others walk into the cottage to find what looks like a living room. There are a few doors around, one of them seems to lead to a kitchen with a table in the middle and the other door seems to lead to a bedroom. Vox shows the boys to the living room couch and says "Wait here I'll be back."

A few seconds passed as Vox left the room, the boys sat there in silence, that's until Nasa broke it saying, "Hey guys, what if Vox comes back holding a machete and just murders us intensely." Mach and Tenbris look at him confused as to why he would reach that conclusion, "Why would you think that?!-" Suddenly they hear approaching footsteps and wood creaks, that's when a woman who appears to be in her early 30's comes out of her room and calls out to Vox seemingly worried, "Vox? Where the hell did you-" But before she finishes her sentence she spots the boys sitting on her couch. "Oh hello, who are you and how'd you find this place?"

Vox speaks up and says "I was sent on a special mission to search for these lost boys in the forest and was ordered to bring them back here."

"I see, well great job Vox, just as expected from you." She says with a warm smile on her face. "Excuse me but what the hell is even going on here?" Says Mach with frustration.

"Woah woah, calm down feathers, try to stay calm for now." She turns to Vox and says, "Make some tea for our guests." Without a word, Vox goes to the kitchen to make tea while the woman starts to introduce herself. "The name's Zoe, nice to meet you boys, mind introducing yourselves?" The boys turn to look at each other, Nasa shrugs his shoulders to Tenbris while Mach seems unworried. "I'm Tenbris, this is Mach and Nasa."

"Well do you mind telling me what happened to you all to end up deep in a forest?" Vox comes back with a teapot and a few biscuits and places them on the table. Mach speaks up, "I got an anonymous mail that asked to meet at a place I've never been to, the message even had a very detailed map of that area. I thought it was just my friends pulling a prank, so I went to tell them that I've had enough of their shit, but when I got there I was captured and used for experiments in a lab that gave me these wings. We were captured for weeks, training, waiting for signs of high energy on the radar, that's when it finally showed up. We went to the location to finally get him this energy and give it to the doctors, in exchange for our freedom, that's when we realized it was a person, a boy." He turns his head looking at Tenbris who is shocked about his story as things start to make more sense. "Oh right, forgot to mention, others exist that have similar mutations as I do. Anyways, we captured him as we were ordered, but he managed to escape and well I've tried escaping for weeks before but got threatened to have my head obliterated to pieces, so when I saw my chance, I took it and ran into the forest, as far as I could get."

Zoe speaks up and says, "I see, and what's your story?" Turning her head towards Nasa. "W-well I really like visiting lakes and rivers as I did so recently, but this time I found a woman weeping at the end of the docks when I tried asking her what's wrong, she pulled me in the freezing lake screaming out some kind of incantation and ever since then I had the ability to manipulate water. Although I can't remember what she asked me to do, she wasn't even speaking in English, but somehow I understood. Oh and also, this all happened in the forest, so.. yeah, I was here from the start."

"I'm sure you'll remember when the time's right." She says with a smile on her face. "You believed that?" says Mach, surprised as Nasa gets salty. "I have my own reasons to believe, now what about you Tenbris? I'm curious to know how you ended up here now that I've heard the other two."

Tenbris hesitates for a moment remembering all that had happened to him and tries his best to explain it in the simplest way that he could put it in. "I- I was on my way to school and I encountered a dark alleyway, I ignored it but I kept seeing it again and again. My curiosity got the best of me and I went inside. There I found something that looked like an orb. It was a glowing purple ball with something black oozing out of it. It was the only thing around me so I grabbed it. It then was absorbed into me and the process hurt. It felt like the end for me when I found myself back at the beginning of the alleyway. I didn't know what happened so I hurried to school. I kept having dreams of me talking to this thing in my head I believe, who keeps telling me to give it something which I'm not sure of. About a couple of weeks later, I was out when suddenly the voice came back again. It sounded angry and frustrated and it kept telling me to give it something. I then started to feel dizzy and light-headed, but I was able to stand, so I hurried back home when I spotted two girls getting attacked by this monster. I ran back home just to find out my parents had been-" Tenbris starts to tremble as a tear rolls down, remembering the sight of his parents lying lifeless on the floor.

Zoe speaks up and says, "It's ok you don't have to-"

"No, I started so I might as well finish. So I grabbed a knife and ran outside, that's when I heard a kid crying. When I went towards his voice, I found that one of these things killed his mother, that's when it killed him too. I tried helping him, but it was useless. That's when I got captured by Mach and some others, taking me straight to a psychos cage!" He says as he turns his head towards Mach, showing him how pissed he is, while Mach fidgets his fingers awkwardly, slowly looking downwards as he softly says sorry. Tenbris then continues, "Somehow I created some sort of energy wave I believe, that destroyed the place just enough for me to escape, so I ran in the forest." Mach and Nasa look at each other when they realize that Tenbris was dealing with many horrific things. Zoe speaks up and says "As I was listening to all of your stories, I was building up a theory, and I think I might have an explanation for it all."

"And that is?" Mach interrupts.

"Well I'm not sure what it is to be exact, but as I was listening, I heard similarities between your stories, especially Mach and Tenbris's. So, let's make a deal."

"A deal?" Nasa replies.

"Just listen to what I have to say. There's an academy under this cottage with people who hold supernatural abilities like you all do, so if you join us, we might be able to figure out the whys and see how your stories could be connected to each other?'' The boys look at each other in a hesitant way.

"Don't worry, we will offer you a place to live and even help you develop these powers of yours. Is that convincing enough?" Mach speaks up and says, "Well these majestic wings shouldn't go to waste, so why not?"

Nasa adds, "Well it's not like we have any other choice, isn't that right Tenbris?"

"Yeah," Tenbris says as he thinks about what all this is about, all this chaos. "I'm in." He says, excitedly, Zoe pats both her knees as she springs up. "Well said, gentlemen!"