Not Quite Parallel

{5} Battle Scars

Sooooo, what's up peeps? New chapter here, I had to chuck in an explainer ...

Picture of Indi on the side. Dedicated to Indistanely because she gave me Indi as a character.

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RAYNE POV

"I KNEW IT!!!"

Rory's shout holds the tone of someone who's believed something her whole life, but is just having it confirmed.

Elena is sitting with her mouth open, not quite believing what we had told her.

Riley, James and Hugo look like they don't know what to think.

I can understand that.

"What do you mean?" Blythe looks at her oddly.

Rory stops whooping and fidgets, trying to scratch her arms under the bandages. "My Granddad used to tell me a story. Out of all his experiences he told me one particular one. It was about how he met a secret society." Her eyes blaze, and I can sense that she believed.

"A secret society?" Hugo asks, squeezing her hand.

She nods and smiles, but her eyes are distant. "Yeah, he said when he came back from serving in the navy -he was young, maybe in his twenties- he somehow found himself in the middle of a series of underground tunnels. He kept walking and walking until he could see an illuminated cavern ahead of him. He met my Grandma there, she was nineteen. And he told me it was love at first sight.

"Granddad spent week upon week down in these tunnels, learning their lifestyle, courting Grandma. But eventually he noticed that there was a reason for this society, that was living and flourishing under where people kept their homes.

"The reason for it's existence was not from this planet. This whole society was built as a safe haven for people from another planet. People who came in search of something planted by their leaders. This town was made for aliens who had given up hope." She then pauses, taking a breath, as if deciding what to say next.

"Then Granddad married Grandma, they moved topside, and raised five children. Hoping that they could remain ignorant of their other-worldly heritage. But, when each child turned sixteen, three of them came to their parents one day, telling them that they had thought they'd heard voices, when people weren't even talking. One of the children even believed she was mad. It's not a happy story."

Another breath.

"When my Mum married Dad, she was one of the two children that didn't claim to have heard an inanimate object speaking to her. So she thought her children would be immune to the gene. And all three of my brother's have surpassed the age of sixteen without hearing anything of this sort. But I alone out of them listened to my Granddad when he told us this story. About how a secret society of aliens were living under cities around the world. About how, when each of them turn sixteen, something in their blood comes alive, and they begin to hear things. I knew I was going to be the one, and I wanted to be ready for it." She looks straight into my eyes.

"I heard the fire talk to me last night. That's my symbol, isn't it? What do I do? What does this mean?"

Blythe took a long, deep breath; about to answer her. But I cut her to the chase.

"But . . . I heard the fire talk, no two symbols are alike are they? Then how can mine and her symbol be fire?" I'm not really comfortable with having a destructive force as my symbol, but the way it is is the way it is. I can do nothing to change it.