Nephilim Children

Chapter 2

His voice reverberated inside my head, like echoes in a dark cavern. It sounded almost musical, like a soft tinkling of bells, or the highest notes being played on a flute.

Come this way, he said into my head. I know a place we can stay and eat the fruit. He led me past roman style pagodas, people milling around, talking and laughing and drinking a honey coloured syrup from tall flutes. His dark blue eyes saw them all, but he went past them, aiming his path for a ruined pagoda, far away from any of the others. It was covered it green ivy, and a tree sprang from the shattered white marble floor. It was laden with fruit. The boy stood under the tree, looking at the large piece of fruit dangling from the lowest branch of the tree- still five metres above his head.

“You won’t reach that, you know,” I pointed out. He turned to me, his big eyes filled with humour, his thin mouth turned up at the corners.

His voice said, I can reach it if I want to. It’s easy. Watch. Then, from his standing position, he jumped 15 feet into the air, his hands closing firmly around the fruit. He landed lightly on the balls of his feet, which sank a little into the cloudy ground.

“Where am I?” I asked. The dark haired boy giggled.

You are home.

 

I woke with my face buried in my pillow. I could see my dream repeating itself back onto my eyelids over and over, in slow motion, then faster. I had no idea what time it was, so I rolled over onto my side and looked at my alarm clock. 6:00 a.m. Too early, I thought, and rolled back over. But, no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t go back to sleep. Partly because of the itch that the mystery lumps were causing. I sat up then, feeling the itch spread, and the urge to scratch it became a need. I lifted my shirt up so that my back was exposed, and started scratching at the annoying, painful lumps I had somehow inherited from a particularly bad night’s sleep.

So I frowned when I felt something wet, soft, and smooth in my fingers. That wasn’t there before, I thought. I gently tugged on it, and the sensation was as if somebody was dragging a cold metal rod over my back. I shivered as the thing came out- whatever it was it had been embedded deep into my skin. In the darkness I could barely make out my hand, as the only light came from my ancient alarm clock. So I twirled the mystery object between my fingers, not quite knowing what to do with it, or even what it was. I finally gave up guessing and slid off my bed, stumbling over a pile of clothes as I went to turn on my bedroom light.

It was blinding, really. I had to have my eyes closed for a full minute just so they could adjust enough for me to see. So the thing in my hands gave me a big shock when I did.

It was white, pure white, except for the speckles of red here and there, and it was about twice the size of my hand. I twirled it thoughtfully in my fingers again. It felt soft, like down, but it was very stiff, like the shaft of the feather was made of thin steel. Maybe it was. But that still didn’t explain why, and how, it was in my back. A terrifying thought crossed my mind- what it the lumps were filled with these feathers? Would they ever stop coming out? Would they get bigger and bigger until I exploded? My wild imagination got the better of me for a moment, and already I was thinking of my imminent death. What is wrong with me?, I wondered. Nevertheless, as I prepared for school, my morbid thoughts still nagged at me.

I didn’t tell anybody, not even May, whom I told everything to, about my little discovery this morning. The sky was unusually gloomy- dark storm clouds roiled overhead, and light rain sprinkled on and off all day. The library was packed at lunch, so May and I sat outside and read in the cold.

I was walking home that day when I passed a boy about my age. He had black hair and very dark blue eyes, like a mix between onyx and sapphire. I thought he looked familiar, but didn’t stop to ask him about the matter.

When I got home all the lights were turned off. It was odd- Mum was usually home by now and cooking dinner. I swung my backpack off silently and left it by the front door, where a cold wind was seeping into the warm hallway. I crept along the hall, peering carefully into every room I passed, the hairs on the back of my neck raised. I stepped into the dim kitchen. I was just about to turn around when something moved out of my peripheral.

“JESUS!” I screamed. “Josh!”

Josh laughed. “No, my name isn’t Jesus Josh, just Josh. But feel free to call me your Lord if you wish.” I groaned in annoyance. Josh was my mum’s boyfriend, and had been for a few years now. He was nice, but he never really saw me- he usually left before I got home from school. He looked me up and down. “You’ve grown. A lot.” He said. I just nodded. I had gotten taller, and curvier, which was a nice change from being a skinny ‘stick’. My face had lost some of its roundness too- I actually looked like a 14 year old now, not an 11 year old. My freckles had disappeared, much to my delight, and now my skin was very pale and smooth next to my layers of dark hair. Everyday my eyes got less brown and more purple, which wasn’t too bad, except for the fact that the teachers at school kept asking me to ‘take my contact lenses out’. One of them had even given me a detention when I kept saying that I wasn’t wearing any. Mum had to come up to the school to explain it off to him.

“What are you doing here?” I asked. At that moment Mum walked in.

“We were making out on the couch like a couple of teenagers at a party. What do you think, Nic?” she asked sarcastically.

I laughed darkly. “Making out on the couch like a couple of teenagers at a party?” I suggested.