The Battle of Our Minds: Flesh and Blood

Branded

Everly stood in the great room alongside her cohort members, Zander, Aubrey,

and Julian. They seemed nice, but truthfully, she didn't really know any of them yet. In a lot of ways, they were intimidating. Here she was, surrounded by three other people who were almost just like her. They were all tormented by the same demons that she had been tormented by the whole of her life. She knew what they had been through – what they experienced emotionally – and yet she had never felt more disconnected with three people. It must have something to do with the brand. At least that's what she told herself. The brand joins hearts in a way no paper contract could. It wasn't a legal contraction. It was a joining of minds.

While Brianna had debriefed Everly on all that the brand entailed, the main thing that Everly got from this debrief was that she could only understand the brand once she had one. A whole lot of help that was. She was also experiencing the same fears that Savannah had felt. Burning a permanent scar onto your skin didn't sound like the most pleasant experience. Everly knew it was small, but it sounded excruciating. Nonetheless, if all her predecessors had done it, she knew she could do it, too.

Julian stood before her, holding the cool brand with a small "P" on the end. It was backwards, like a stamp or a mirror image would be, so that the letter would be in the correct direction once it reached her skin. Julian had smooth, dark skin and copper eyes. He looked like he'd been carved from onyx. He was breathtakingly beautiful, but also looked deadly. He was a born leader, which anyone could see from the way he held himself. Julian was a senior perceiver, meaning he made the most contact with the spiritual world. Everly has only had three confrontational encounters with the spiritual word since arriving at New City, and she feels like her world has been flipped upside down. She couldn't imagine, at this point in time, what it would feel like to have the whole of the Nephilim community relying on you to detect demonic movements.

Prior to branding Everly, Julian would present Everly with more information about their cohort and what would follow this commitment. Brianna filled her in on most of the information, prior to her entering the great room, to ensure that Everly would be comfortable with the whole process going forward. Committing your life to fighting in spiritual warfare isn't exactly an easy thing to do. To put it simply, Isaac would present a history of Nephilim, and then reiterate their role in the Five Minds and their post-graduation expectations - how they would be placed in a specific community, setting up future communities of Nephilim in the service of the Light. The commitment she would be making this evening was not just for her college years, but for a lifetime. She could not take this lightly. Julian was also going to reveal the secrets of the brand to her, but that was something Brianna decided to leave Julian to divulge.

With Aubrey and Zander on either side of him, Julian began to speak. "The ritual of the brand is an ancient Nephilim practice, passed down for centuries since the fall. You may have heard that once, long ago, that demons are actually fallen angels. The angels that refused serve the Light and fell to earth weren't always demons. Not yet, anyway. One phrase that we use often here in the Five Minds is that no choice is still a choice. The angels that fell refused to serve the Light that created them. Therefore, they were cast out of the heavenly realms and forced to live with the human beings. They wanted to live like humans - to have the free will of humans - so the Light granted them their request. Unfortunately, the angels weren't capable of living without a Force to serve. Nobody is, not even humans. Ultimately, in life, you only have two choices: to live for yourself, or to live for others. The Light calls angels and humans alike to serve one another in the pursuit of love and truth. The Darkness calls angels and humans to serve itself in the name of themselves. The Darkness pursues hatred and deceit. Nothing else. The Darkness corrupts, and it used the angels' inherent desire to serve against them. They were fooled, thinking that they were living their own lives, while all along, they were living for the Darkness. They committed every heinous act you can imagine. One of which resulted in children."