After Fate Fell

5 • ELLA

1 year, 3 months, and 12 days after it all
•ELLA•

Chicago. Destruction. Sam is going insane. Six is about to die. I know this part like the back of my hand, but this time, even though it seems more real than all the rest, I am somehow able to just see it without believing it as true. It's a dream and I know it.

I am jolted awake by a sudden shuddering of the plane. I can't believe that somehow I've been able to sleep on both the bus to get to the airport and the plane. I haven't been able to sleep like that in forever. Not even just deep sleep, but calm sleep, where I can distinguish the real from the fake, real life from nightmares. Maybe it's because I know that these visions can't be real in a world after war, in a peaceful world, or maybe I have just gotten so used to the same visions that I started realizing that it's just my mind playing tricks on me. Whatever it is, I'm glad for the change.

The plane shudders again. Turbulence I guess. A voice comes over the speakers, I'm guessing it's the pilot, and says something that makes most of the frightened faces calm down a bit. I'm guessing she was just reassuring everyone that things would be alright. The storm will pass. Lightning strikes through the sky, not far from the plane.

I am in a tree. What am I doing here? The clouds are getting darker, and I know that it's Six's powers doing this. We are in a dense forest somewhere in Spain, not far from the convent where I spent just a short time, getting to know Marina. Marina and Six were the first two Garde I met on Earth. Actually, they were the first Garde I met ever.

The Mogs were hot on our trail. The wind was picking up, and inside that little hollow tree, I felt fear, real fear for one of the first times in my life. Before then, it was almost all like a game.  I didn't really understand what it all meant until it was right there in front of me. I was being hunted. They were going to kill me if they found me.

So in that little tree, I stayed quiet. I shivered because of the cold and the wind and the rains, but I also knew that this would be the last battle which I would sit out of. This would be the last battle which I wouldn't be fighting.

Another strike of lightning. Some of the passengers gasp. "It's just a storm," I say aloud. Some of them look at me, confusion in their eyes. It's just a storm, I tell them in my head, even though I know they can't hear me. My telepathic powers are weaker than ever. All of my powers are weaker than ever now, for a slew of reasons, the main one being my distance from Legacy, from the Sanctuary. But they've also become weakened because of how long it's been since I've used them, or at least used them extensively. And I was just learning how to really control them by the end of the war.

John has scolded me for using my telekinesis up on the mountain. We were gathering firewood and I was picking up some sticks with my telekinesis, and he looked at me, anger clear in his eyes, and said "Ella, do not ever use your powers here. We are not at war now. Go pick those sticks up with your own hands."

I looked at him and cocked my head to the side, not as a question to him, but just out of utter confusion. His eyes looked watery as I looked at his face, and he turned away. I didn't understand him, but I picked up sticks that night with my hands and carried them in my arms, as I did every night since then.

Something changed in John after the war ended, and not just him, all of my friends have been acting differently. Between the trauma of losing so many, the energy-draining nature of always battling someone or something, and the sleepless nights dedicated to saving as many lives as possible, we all have inherited monsters in our minds. Even though mine may be chronic and unbearable, I can't say that I know what any of the others are going through personally.

Marina carves pictures into the walls, right next to the old prophecies, as if she's making her own. Most of her pictures involve Eight, her lover, the one she saw herself being with for the rest of her life, the one who was taken from her too soon. I have watched her carve these prophecies into the wall many times, and her face always has that same longing emotion, but with some other emotion mixed in. I can't explain it.

Nine throws rocks down the mountain every morning. He's up at god-knows what time, chucking rocks the size of my head in all directions.

Six takes hikes almost every day, in all different directions. She could probably map the whole area around the mountain in a fifty mile radius. I don't know what she does on those treks, but whenever I used to ask if I could come with her, she would always just shake her head.

We've all been through it all, and I would say we made it, but did we really? Because none of them are really there. They aren't themselves anymore. I'm hoping that by going to the Sanctuary and talking to Legacy, maybe things can change. Because I can't bear this anymore. We need to get back up on our feet, we need to set our sights on Lorien, on our home.

I may have the most monsters in my mind out of any of us, but I'm the only one who can say who I am and what I want.

I am Ella. And that is my real name, given by my parents. My parents who lived and died on Lorien, my home planet. My home planet, which I am returning to.
With or without the others.