Miracle

Chapter 12: Half-Blood

“Just focus on the inner core that is constantly spinning in your body,” Eugene lectured as I attempted to meditate, his voice sounded slightly fuzzy from the auditory transmitter. The morning had passed me trying to find “inner peace” but to no avail.

“I can’t do it!” I pulled at my hair, frustrated “It’s just so boring.” I flopped backwards from my lotus pose and sprawled my sore limbs across the silver mat. Who knew that meditation was so hard? I absentmindedly stabbed myself with a fingernail but felt nothing, I wasn’t hooked up to nerve transmitters so I couldn’t feel anything inside the stimulation. The only thing in the stimulation was me, a mat, and 4 white walls.

“Why aren’t we fighting or somethin’?” I could imagine the rest of the teens sparring next door. But here I was, linked to a stimulation aimed at coming to a “balance between my mind and my powers.”

“You need to come to peace and realization within yourself before attempting to disrupt the balance of others,” he instructed. 

I stared at the pale ceiling, “Seriously?”      

I heard Eugene sigh, “Maybe I should call mother over, she explains it better than me. Yeah, let’s do that.”

“Your mom?” I arched an eyebrow and he sighed, through the microphone it sounded like a gust of wind.

“Yes, because obviously I can’t explain it good enough for you.”

I gave the ceiling a sheepish grin “Sorry I suck at this,”

“Great, shoving your mess onto me, what do I look like? Your mother?” a familiar voice interrupted.

“That old hag from yesterday!” I exclaimed in recognition, it was the old woman from the torture chamber, “That’s your mom?” I added sitting up.

Eugene laughed “Yeah, have fun kiddo,” and his voice disappeared from the transmitter.  

The old hag cleared her throat, “You probably still hate me,”

“Yes,” I responded instantly then bit my tongue, “What I meant was-”

She hmphed, “I don’t blame you, I would hate me too.”

“It’s just that-”

“Little girl, let me get a sentence in, my name is Elnora not old hag despite me being born in 3002.”

I tried to calculate her age in my head “But that would make you over 500 years old!”

There was pause “Yes, that was my mutation, my “Ability” as an Aellyni, I aged very slowly.”

“Wait,” I held up a hand “If Eugene is your son you must have had him when you were 470?”

She gave a short bark of laughter, “No, he’s not my biological son, I picked up that rascal when his parents died during the rebellion.”

“The rebellion that started the tournaments,” I echoed.

Her voice turned serious, “Mericle, this isn’t just a game. See everyone else?” a live image appeared in front of me. It was the rest of the teens in the gym, sweat dripped from all of them and some had colorful bruises, even Rain was covered in sweat. “They aren’t training for fun. They’re training to win because if they don’t win, it’s more than just game over, it’s death.”

I was silent.

“When was the last time you activated your powers?”

“Um, escaping from you.”

“Good that means there’s still a chance.”

“A chance for what?”

“A chance for change, you think like a street rat, you act like a street rat. We don’t need street rats, we need fighters.”

I bristled at her name calling. “But, I haven’t been able to use them ever since.” It was true, after I had calmed down, my powers seemed to lock themselves up in a tight box somewhere.

“That’s why we’re meditating, because your concentration ability is the size of a walnut.”

The live image showed Jo beating the crap out of a punching bag. I kicked the image, I could fight too! Stupid powers, I gritted my teeth and sat down with a huff. The image blinked out of existence.

“Relax,” Elnora’s voice came over the transmitter.

I tried to loosen my muscles but they were all taunt in aggression.

“Mericle, do you trust me?”

“No,” was the first word out my mouth. I heard a soft chuckle.

“Good, never trust anyone, but just let your guard down for a moment, I promise I won’t do anything to harm you.”

“Yeah right,”

Her laugh crackled over the communicator. “Now just think of a time when you were happy or safe,” My mind trailed off to before my world fell apart, when I was three. “Do you feel it?” a calm feeling washed over me.

“Yeah,”

“Take the feeling and imagine it becoming a sphere.”

I tried to make a sphere out of the feeling but failed. “It’s a feeling, how do you make it into a object?”

“Try spinning your hands in a circle,” she suggested.

“What?” I responded doubtfully.

“Just do it,”

Surprisingly it worked and soon there was a spinning ball of blue light in front of me.

“Now grab the sphere,”

I reached out to grab the orb but it kept slipping out of my grasp like mist.

“I can’t get it,” I groaned frustrated.

“Picture the sphere coming to you,”

I imagined the ball of light coming to me but it refused like a stubborn child. I attempted time after time but the stupid orb ignored me.

“Come here!” I finally commanded angrily and it sped up to my hand. I looked down at the floating orb in surprise.

“You did it,” Elnora seemed surprised as well.

“I did it!” I stared down at the sphere bobbing next to me. “Now what?”

“Now, we rest and keep going tomorrow,”

“Great,” I opened my eyes and stretched out my stiff limbs. My stomach grumbled.

“What time is it?” I asked Elnora and she glanced at her wrist.

“Almost 7,”

I’d spent over 5 hours meditating! No wonder I was hungry, I started to pull off the wires sticking to my skin “Hey Elnora,”

“What?” she seemed to be typing a report of something, probably me, at a furious pace.

“Thanks for helping me ya know with the power ball thingy,”

She glanced up from her work, holo glasses perched on her hawkish nose.

“I’m just doing my job,”

“Uh yeah, can I leave now?”

She nodded. I walked slowly past her, trying to see what she was typing. She caught me looking and shooed me but before I was out the door I caught three words “NOT A HALF-BLOOD.”

The words on the screen haunted me throughout dinner and Rain was baffled when I said I had no appetite.  I always had an appetite.

That evening I tinkered with the pesky shower controls, and a voice command that never followed any commands I told it. Finally finding the right shower temperature I stepped into the shower and the pounding spray helped me to relax. Elnora had written that I wasn’t a half blood. What did she mean? My mother was Aellyni and my father was human. What else could I possibly be?