𝙷𝚎𝚕𝚕𝚂𝚝𝚊𝚛

1

F
...
Four years have passed since we picked up Meran from off the street. She woke up about two days after we found her. Two years after that, Dad was killed. They wouldn't tell me who, what, or how he was killed. For a long time, I thought it was her fault that he died, but looking back on it, that was a stupid explanation for why it happened. I did some digging of my own, and found that he was killed in the crossfire of an extended branch of the government that does protection of the state, called Lux Æterna, and what the files described as a humanoid flesh eating beast. It also described my dad as one of those monsters, which I thought was preposterous. And the whole humanoid beast thing seemed preposterous. Until Meran started showing signs of having the same powers or abilities as what was described. Whenever she'd get spooked by something, I swear her eyes will flash a different color and these small skin spikes would show up on her arms. I'm pretty sure Dad's death changed both of us pretty much. For instance, my hair used to be that light honey-brown, I used to be pretty short for my age, and had according to doctors an average weight. Now my hair is a dark ebony, I'm almost too tall, slightly thinner than a normal 19 year old, and my eyes have changed dramatically. They used to be brown, like a normal person. But since Dad died they started to turn red, and in one eye, a white arrow, and in the other white circled that looked like a target that served as pupils. I could see fine, which was the weird thing. Maybe after I saw my eyes change I should have believed those reports more.

Meran was pretty much still the same as when we found her, but pretty skittish around a lot of things. She was quiet and barely spoke, and had a preeminent look of reminiscence and sadness. Her hair was an even lighter blonde than before, and pale blue eyes. Other than that, she shared the same interest as any other girl would have. Nice smells, cleanliness, nice clothes, etc. Neither of us liked going into big crowded stores, so we always went to my friend Tiago's store, which had virtually everything that we wanted or needed. Except for that, that government protection agency has started to take more power lately. Monthly or biweekly shut downs of everything, ordering everyone to stay inside for a while, while they searched houses and buildings for things. They never tell people what they want or what they're looking for, but they always say it's for the well-being and safety of the public. During these searches, Meran tends to get panic attacks, and I think it's from trauma from before we found her. But I've found that Frank Sinatra and Freddie Mercury seem to calm her down, so I always have them on speed play when these things happen.

One day, I watched how they did these shut downs, even though they say every time to close the blinds or curtains. There were people with weapons that seemed like they were something out of a sci-fi movie, in neat white uniforms. There were two others, a man and a woman, in black armor, with what looked like random chains hanging off the back, and they bowed their heads to a woman in a long white coat. They had brought out two people, seemingly scared out of their minds, having the same weird attachments on their bodies as Meran did, and the same type of style of the swords that some of the people in the uniforms had. And they murdered them right there in the middle of the empty street. After that, I found out from Tiago that he knew what the people were, they were called Seers. Humanoid, flesh eating people. The reason for these shut downs was to flush out these Seers, and exterminate them. Today, I was going to take Meran out and show her what these were so she wouldn't be scared any more. We were going to go to my friend's place to go over it. Surely we won't drag ourselves into something too terrible, I thought.

. . .

Meran awoke in her bed, surrounded by her pillows, her favorite stuffed animals, and her favorite blanket in which she stole from Feiten. She stretched, and felt a few joints crack. Sitting up, she looked out her window, at the few cars passing about 4 floors down. She looked down at her left wrist, which had a small area code of LXM-749. She hated that code. She hasn't found a way of getting rid of it either, but it was what it was. There was a knock at her door. Feiten's happy face peeked in. "Heyyyy! You awake yet?" He grinned. "Yeah.. Do you need something..?" Meran said quietly. Feiten threw a large dark hoodie and gloves on the foot of her bed. "So there's gonna be a shutdown today, but we're gonna go out! Put those on!" He grinned and let her be. He came back in for a split second. "And don't wear the perfume you got from Tiago kay?" And he slipped back out leaving a disoriented and confused Meran. "..Huh.?"