Alexandria's Genesis

Colorful Explorers

Aleissia steps out of the grandiose double doors onto a beautiful terrace halfway up a mountain. There were two fountains and several channels of running water, rather quickly rushing down, dripping down every so often into a new pool an inch below. Intricate stonework litters the ground using a light stone. There are light green bushes around the area. Nikal smiles and Avrel's mouth drops open wide, but Aleissia remains sullen.

"This is so pretty," Nikal blurts in awe.

"I would love to live here," Avrel comments.

"Yeah," Aleissia agrees, quietly. "But I don't think she does."

Nikal lightly patters down the path to the edge, where stairs curve down to the plains below.

Avrel turns to Aleissia. "Hey, are you ok, Aly?"

"I'm just worried about Alex," she responds.

"Well don't be," Avrel tells her. "She's strong. And she's been here much longer than us."

That's not what I meant, she wanted to say. Instead, she says, "Yeah. You're right."

Avrel turns around and so does Aleissia. Avrel jogs over to a patch of grass with a big tree. Aleissia watches Sevantei exit the door and stretch. Everyone is enjoying themselves, so why am I not? 

Aleissia shrugs and walks over to Avrel, and sits down on the grass. Nikal skips over and joins them, followed slowly by Sevantei.

"Does anybody else worry about what's going on back home?" Nikal poses.

"No, actually," Avrel admits. "I haven't even thought about home since this all started."

"Nothing has changed since we left," Sevantei reminds them. "We can come back to the second we disappeared. Or everything has happened. Or nothing has even started to happen yet."

"Very optimistic," Aleissia says sarcastically. 

"Well, we shouldn't worry too much. Like Sev said, we can come back to exactly the moment we left," Avrel mentions.

"Have you thought about what they'll say when they see how we've changed," Aleissia says lightly. Everyone hesitates. This was the one thing no one considered, until now. They look at the ground or slowly glance at each other. Avrel gets up and grasps Aleissia's arm. He gently persuades Aleissia to follow him and leave Nikal and Sevantei. 

"What's wrong?" he says sternly. "You're worried about something."

"No," Aleissia tells him, "I'm worried about everything!" She stares at Avrel silently. "We just learned that everything is a million times different from what we thought it was, or from what anyone thought it was, for that matter. And I am worried about Alex. For a good reason. She's alive, but I don't think she's living. So far all I've seen from her is work. Work, and strategy, and professional. And no one has thought about us. Our bodies changed forever. We'll never be the same. We've left everything behind without ever returning because we can't. I can't walk up to my family and have them accept me as red. Red is not a thing. And this is our life now: chasing down things that didn't exist a few days ago. So yes, Avrel, I am 'worried about something'."

Avrel nods slowly and ponders what she just said. Aleissia breaks the stare and slowly turns around. As she walks away, Avrel calls out. "There's nothing we can do." She stops and Avrel jogs back up to her.

"We were forced into this," he continues. "We can't change anything that happened. What's done is done. We're all stuck without a home, traveling through all of time, doing our duty. But we have each other, and it's not like our powers are that much of a burden. We're powerful, and we've got abilities that no one else has ever had before besides one person. We even get to finally see color. How cool is that? And it might be crazy and scary from time to time, but how amazing is it that our universe is way more expansive and awesome that we thought it was?"