A Heart's Thoughts

Day 22 - Part 1

After they'd found a relatively clean spot to sit on, they started making pairs to divide the six available earpieces. the first two pairs were made pretty easily. Julian claimed Annabelle and Francis paired with Jack. Next up was Felicia.

"I'll go with Elias."

Elias's head shot up and he gave Felicia a look of disbelief, "what? Why would I want to team up with you? You made my arm disappear the other day!"

Felicia huffed as she rolled her eyes, "oh shut up, I'm trying to apologize by sacrificing myself and pairing up with you."

Elias fell silent for a moment before sighing loudly as he lowered his head and raised his arm towards Julian to give him his earpiece. Cecilia noticed a small smile forming around Felicia's lips as Elias received his earpiece, but it was gone as quickly as it had appeared.

Anthony took the word as soon as Elias received his earpiece, "I'm going with Cecilia."

Eden protested almost immediately, "I think I should be the one to go with Cecilia. If there ever is a moment in which we have to run, she'll last longer if I'm with her."

Anthony stared at the ground, pondering over Eden's words when Jude spoke up, "now wait a moment, Eden. Think about the pairs we're making. Julian and Annabelle both have mildly offensive powers, which are strong when combined. Francis and Jack are the same. Felicia and Elias can just make themselves or their enemies disappear without a trace, so they'll always be safe as well. But both you and Cecilia don't have any offensive powers, not even a little. Both of you should pair up with someone with offensive powers like me or Anthony. Since Anthony wants to pair up with Cecilia, there's no reason to stop him unless Cecilia doesn't want him as her partner."

It was Eden's turn to fall silent and Anthony tried to fight back a small smile as he internally thanked Jude and turned to look at Cecilia, waiting to hear her decision.

After a while, she nodded, "alright, I'll pair up with Anthony. I think it's best if Eden and Jude pair up with Alec. Alec is the only person who can come to us quickly and if anything were to happen, we need Eden to treat the wounded and Jude to erase or manipulate the minds of whoever decides to become our enemy."

Julian gave Cecilia, Alec and Eden their earpieces and sat down, after which Cecilia took the word again, "alright, now that we've made pairs we should all rest and explore this place before we go exploring. When you go out make sure not to use your powers where people can see you and try to find people willing to help us navigate around this city and maybe even provide us with materials to make or buy stuff."

Everyone nodded and after a few moments Jude stood up, motioning for Francis to come with him. The others followed suit as they left one by one, leaving only Anthony and Cecilia sitting on the ground. Neither of them said anything for a while and after a few moments Anthony put his hand on Cecilia's knee, causing her to chuckle softly before asking, "what's up, Anthony? Something on your mind?"

Anthony had his eyes fixated on the ground and he absentmindedly drew circles on Cecilia's knee with his finger as he spoke, "we're here, outside our city as fugitives in an unknown land, but what's the purpose of this? We've escaped the Council's grip but are we really going to live in hiding like this until we die? I'm telling you this in case you hadn't noticed, but everyone is here with the intention to return home one day."

Cecilia didn't answer for a while, causing Anthony to turn his gaze to her, scanning her face before he stopped drawing circles, "you don't plan on going back, do you?"

Cecilia shook her head and Anthony let out an exasperated sigh, "then what's your plan?"

She finally spoke up, careful to keep her voice down to avoid the others hearing her, "I told them to find people willing to help us, didn't I? Those people can help us build connections, until we're a part of them. We can settle somewhere outside the city, where it's not too crowded and continue on with our lives. Nothing will change even if we somehow manage to damage the Council and return home.
When we go back, you'll still be in charge of heating, Elias will still provide light, and Eden would still act as our physician, simply because we don't know any other ways to handle things. And even if we did find other ways, it would most likely cost us way too much time and money for anyone to want to go through with it, and we probably won't even get to experience the changes. It's no use hoping to go back there, because that's nothing more than a dream. Going back isn't an option for us."