The Battle of Our Minds: Flesh and Blood

The Cohorts

This was everyone's favorite part. It happened every year, but every year, the freshman reacted differently. Leo had watched the procession of this ceremony happen for seven years in a row now. Once, he was a pledge, just like the rest of these freshmen. Now, he was the officiant of the ceremony.

Oh, how times have changed.

Leo loved watching the students struggle to make sense of the word, "Nephilim." Some knew what it meant. And some usually meant one or two per year at best.

"Nephil-what?" asked Savannah condescendingly.

"Nephilim. You're descendants of fallen angels," Brianna answered gravely.

Aaron added to her skepticism, "This isn't rational. I'm sorry. Did I accidentally stumble upon a cult?"

Noah and Jezebel looked like they were ready to hear more. They'd probably waited their whole lives to have someone provide a reason for their abilities.

Leo turned his eyes towards Everly. He expected that she would be excited to find out that she wasn't actually hallucinating. Her reaction, though, didn't meet his expectations. When Brianna made her announcement, Everly stopped in her tracks, pivoted around, and then glared Brianna dead in the eye.

"If I'm a descendant of a fallen angel, then what I've seen is real. I'm not sick." Her words were more of a question than a statement.

"No, Everly. You are not sick. You never have been."

"How can I trust that what you're saying is real? You've been lying to me since the moment I got here."

Everly glowered at Brianna suspiciously, looking even more hurt than betrayed.

"You're right. You have no reason to trust me. But my evidence is in your life. You can act skeptical, but I know that you don't doubt what I say is truth. I don't have to provide you with evidence because you already know it."

"Why wasn't this the first thing that you told me? If you've known about what's been happening to me, why are you just now coming into my life? Why did you let me – all of us – suffer through traumatic childhoods if you knew what was happening? You act like you're our savior, but you abandoned us to fend for ourselves for eighteen years."

"Everly it's not just us that you see here today. The Five Minds is composed of numerous generations of Nephilim. The Nephilim that are a part of the Five Minds aren't even all of the Nephilim that exist out there in the world. There are thousands of others out there like us, but we can't recruit them all. The people that you see around you are the strongest and most powerful of the Nephilim that we know of, recruited for a very specific purpose."

"And what's that, exactly?"

"To save the world from the Darkness and be proponents of the Light."

"You speak of the Darkness and Light but you're being vague and not explaining what any of it actually means."

"Well that's because you haven't given me a chance to. So, I think now it's my turn to talk."

Everly scowled back at Brianna, stung by her sharp comment.

Brianna began, redirecting her attention to the whole group.

"From the dawn of creation, man was born with an innate sense of good and evil. We refer to these as the Forces of Light and Darkness. While both Forces are powerful, the Light has the power to expel the Darkness, but it doesn't work the other way around. The Darkness thrives in secret. It's like an infection that spreads. If you ignore it, it continues to worsen, sickening its victims, coercing them into abominable, loathsome deeds. If you expose those that are trapped in the Darkness to the truth of The Light, they can often be redeemed from the ways of the Darkness. Ultimately, it is their choice, but without exposure to the Light, the Darkness will prevail over those who become enamored with it."