Arcadia: Amorphous

Chapter 1: A Story Once Told

For so long I had forgotten it. A bedtime story my mother told. A magical school on a long lost continent that trained heroines, magical protectors. Ordinary seeming people like you and I who live ordinary lives, chosen, plucked from obscurity to wield the amazing gifts dormant in all of mankind, to protect the world from the evil that plagued it. ILK short for Ichor larvae katafractarii, an antiquated name meaning something along the lines of demon warriors of god's blood, whatever that means.

These ILK were supposedly the source of great woe in the world. Unseen by most men, they played with the "primordial forces" resulting in natural disasters. Most of us by grade 6 understand the basics of how an earthquake or a hurricane happens, but even science has trouble with the why. Why is so much energy being built up, why is it that warm water forms a low-pressure zone that literally spirals out of control. We have laws and math the can more or less explain the how and we can guess at the why, but this kind of stuff is subject to chaos theory tinny little "chance" changes. This is what ILK do, chaos. If a storm could happen they make sure it does. If a person is having a bad day, they make it worse. If a man is born, one bad day away from becoming a sociopathic killer hell-bent on disrupting the fragile order of a run-down city, then the ILK will give him that bad day, somehow. Ok, I stole that example from a comic book, and yes, the premise is kind of ridiculous. I remember questioning it too as a kid, but at the end of the day, it was just a story. I mean how could it not be just a story? I wanted it to be real, I asked so many questions.

"Where is the school mom?"

"Antarctica"

"Isn't it too cold there?"

"It is now but millions of years ago it was actually quite warm."

"So the school is millions of years old?"

"Not quite, it was founded hundreds of years ago when it became clear that new generations needed to be properly trained. 7 great sorcerers used magic to travel back in time to a place where their school could be built and remain undisturbed."

"Why?"

"Because it would be dangerous if people discovered the school. Students needed a safe place to train where they were safe from persecution, and people were safe from them."

"I thought they were heroes, why would anyone need to be safe from them?"

"Accidents, David. You think you're the only one who messes up sometimes. The school needed to be isolated so the teachers could minimize any havoc caused by the students inexperience."

"Seems kinda dumb. If they can time travel and see the future and stuff why would they need to worry about accidents."

"Because humans need to make mistakes, they need to, to grow. And they need a nurturing environment in which to grow."

"Ya, but one of the teachers could definitely just like magic it all away. Like they know it's gonna happen, they could just fix it or stop it. It just makes more sense to stop bad things from happening."

"If that were true David, all that would be stopped is life." Then she'd look at me in my confusion. Kiss my forehead and whisper. "You'll understand when you're older."

Mom, she always made it seem like Arcadia was real, and she would always joke about how we would get to go one day. My sister never believed her, but for a few years, I did. To her, it was just a story, but for me, it was more. Those bedtime stories were some of the best and last remaining memories of my mom. Stage 3 Melanoma, the doctors thought they caught it in time, but just when treatments seemed to be working, they would need to try something new. I have trouble remembering everything, I was still pretty young, she was still young. I don't mind not remembering too much, It's not exactly a pleasant group of memories to relive. I think my sister remembers too much sometimes.