Part IV

  Kya – Sayrin – Wade – Carcello – Rener

  In hindsight, it was obvious. We should have seen it coming. We even found one of their setups early. But we were so preoccupied with so many other things: the army moving in, the religious resurgence from Life and Water, the appearance of the founders. It was all too much. The things that should have been larger concerns instead just… slipped through the cracks.

  - Testimony taken after Spring alignment, Lyra, 1079. Source was a 1-Star (Knowledge) archivist for the Guild.

  - Thirteen Years Ago -

  Kya stumbled and rolled slightly forward, one foot on the pedals of her sister's bike- well, the pedals of her bike. The other foot trying to keep her balance as she stood in the concrete driveway.

  “The seat is definitely too high Dad, I feel like I’m gonna fall over.” Kya said, awkwardly dismounting with a couple little hops, before wheeling the bike back over to her father where he stood watching from the shade of the garage.

  Though it was already September, and still relatively early in the morning, the North Carolina heat refused to abate, and would likely stay around for another couple of weeks before finally breaking for some relatively cooler fall temperatures.

  “Alright, I’ll lower it down a bit more, but you know little one, despite the fact that you refuse to eat your broccoli and sprouts, you will grow taller at some point.” He said, his slightly raspy voice over what was once a rich tenor. He scooped her up by the waist, and held her like a sack of potatoes while he put the bike back on his work table.

  Her father, a tall man with dark skin and darker hair that had started to go a bit gray at the temples, had always been a well muscled man. His construction job made sure he stayed that way. Kya never really knew the details of what he did, just that he helped build buildings. Whenever they were driving through town, he would sometimes point to various offices or shops and say “That was a tricky one.” or “Built that one all on my own with one hand behind my back.”

  “Dad! Dad, stooop!!! Put me down!” She was trying to sound angry, but couldn’t stop the giggles from coming out.

  “Oof, you’re getting heavy. Remind me to stop feeding you until sometime next year.” He stopped and took on a contemplative look, all the while Kya continued to thrash back and forth like a fish on land. “Now that I think about it, that would probably be a good way to keep you from growing taller.. Hmm.” With a casual shrug, he hoisted Kya up and sat her on the table next to the bike.

  Blowing hairs out of her face, she huffed at him and was about to say something when she saw him glance quickly at the watch on his left arm. She knew it was almost time for the switch. He held out his mit of a hand and said “Allen wrench.”

  “Uhhhhh…” all the protests over her previous treatment died in her mouth as she turned around and scanned the wall of tools trying to remember and then locate the allen wrench. “This one?”

  “Perfect, except for the fact that this is an open wrench, see how the ends are open on both sides? The allen wrench is the bent one that looks like a hexagon.” He gestured to the big red piece of plastic the size of her wrist with a bunch of metal rods sticking out getting progressively bigger as they went.

  “Alright, well if this is the thing you wanted, you should have said ‘wrenches’ not ‘wrench’ cause this is at least forty wrenches or something.”

  “This is a pack of twelve, little one, you can tell that by the big number twelve on the front right there. Remind me to stop feeding you, and call your math teacher later.”

  “Remind me to come out here and mix all of your tools up and put them in random places.”

  “Remind me to sell your bed and all your left shoes, you don’t really need them.”

  Kya stuck her tongue out at him, and he stuck his out back at her before they both looked up at the sound of the garage door opening.

  “Hey, how's it… right never mind, dad’s being exactly as mature as I would expect him to be.”

  “Wha- She started it! I was just responding in kind, that's all” Dad exclaimed with mock outrage. “You’ve got to understand, she was threatening to ruin my organization system.”

  “Ooh, Kya, you know that’s a step over the line, Dad, I stand with you on this one, do what you have to do.”

  Her father was nodding along, while Kya just looked back and forth between them. “Dad… Mae… I hate you both… I hope your pillows are warm and your sleep is sweaty.”

  Maeva, or Mae as she liked to be called, shared their fathers height and their mother’s beauty. While they both shared their fathers dark skin, Mae had their mom’s blonde hair tied back in a ponytail extending down to her back. Her “JROTC” T-Shirt she’d gotten last week after joining the club. Kya wasn’t sure if it was the coolest thing in the world, or the nerdiest. From the way Mae talked about it, she was basically joining the army as a fourteen year old. She would be getting a uniform next month if she stayed in the club and would have to go to “Army training” after school.

  The trio talked and joked for another few minutes, and Kya gave the newly lowered bike seat another try, feeling much more comfortable on it at last. Just as she reached the end of the drive and was about to turn and fly back towards them, she saw the family car driving down the road. A small stone settled into her stomach as she made her way back to the garage, the car following alone behind her like it was chasing her.

  Kya wasn’t sure how she knew, but she could tell the air had changed in the small garage. Her dad, once again checking his watch, had grabbed his duffle bag, lunch box, and bright yellow hard hat and was hugging Mae before giving her a quick kiss on the forehead. He turned once more scooped her up as she hopped off the bike and gave her the same bear hug and forehead kiss. “Be good, your mother just had a very long shift so don’t be crazy. Lunch is in the fridge, I’ll make dinner when I get home.”

  And like that, he walked away. Kya stood there, one arm across her chest and holding her elbow, she watched as her mom and dad shared a couple quick words she couldn’t hear. Both of their expressions seemed… not what she would call delightful as her dad gestured to his watch before saying something. Her mother waved her hand in the air, turning her back on him to get her stuff out of the car. They quickly pecked a kiss, something that Kya still found decidedly gross, and then her dad called “Love you ladies, have a great day! I’ll see you this evening!” And like that… he was gone.

  “Good morning girls” Their mom sighed as she walked over. She ruffled Kya’s hair, put an arm on Mae’s shoulder and then walked on into the house.

  Mae and Kya shared a glance and then with a weird smile, Mae said “Kya, do you uh… like my old bike?”

  Beaming, Kya said “I really do, it’s way better than my old one!” Kya’s old bike, the one she’d gotten when she was six, was bright pink with sparkly tassels hanging off the white handlebars. This was all well and good, but now that she was ten and a half years old, she was ready for something a bit more grown up. Getting to ride Mae’s bigger, dark purple bike was like Christmas coming early.

  “Tell you what, take the next hour or two to get used to it, explore around, but come back at 11:00 for lunch, okay? I recorded the Kids-Next-Door movie last night, so we can watch that while we eat. Sound good?”

  Kya gasped and looked down at her Hellokitty watch surrounded by dozens of sillybandz and saw that it was already 9:20. “Are you serious?!? Ooo, thank you Mae, that sounds awesome!!”

  Picking up her sister’s- her bike from where it had fallen, she waved and said “I’ll be back in an hour then, byeeee!”

  “Stay between here and Poplar street, and don’t cross the highway!” Mae called back with a wave.

  For the next hour and a half, Kya sped like the wind all around the neighborhood. She went all the way to the waterfront and rode through a big group of seagulls all squawking at her, and so of course she turned and rode through them three or four more times while squawking back at them and laughing. She went to Walnut park and played on the swing set and playground for a while. Having just started 6th grade, Kya already missed getting to play during recess. The metal slide was way too hot to go down, so she instead climbed up it and looked out from the top of the playground while the wind tousled at her hair.

  The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

  Taking her bike and walking it over to the shade of the trees along the side of the playground she sat in the shade and got out her Gameboy and spent the next twenty minutes or so playing Pokémon Sapphire. She was a little upset at the game because her adorable little Mudkip, she’d named him Bubbles, had evolved into… well, it was still cute but like… it was also definitely less cute and more weird. Still, she had Bubbles, Fluffy, Pecky, Shroomshroom, and had just caught DumplingHead in a cave on an island. She figured with a little more training, she’d be ready for the next gym battle, but every time she went in there the screen got tiny and made her question if she really was ready or not.

  Still though, she didn’t want to keep Mae waiting, and so she eventually headed back home, once again marveling at the speed of this larger bike. Kya kept reminding herself that this was her bike now, not her sisters. It was harder to pedal than her old one, but the reward was much greater speed and to her that was a fantastic pay off.

  Dropping the bike to the garage floor and running up the three wooden steps, Kya all but slammed open the door. She was about to shout when she remembered that it was the weekend and needed to be quiet. Closing the door behind her gently, Kya walked into the kitchen and saw Mae was already heating up their grilled cheeses and there were two little bowls of tomato soup already steaming on the lap desks they would use.

  Kya turned wide eyes on Mae and asked in a hushed, unbelieving tone “Are we going to eat… on the couch???”

  Mae turned, a twinkle in her eye and a smile on her lips. In the same quiet voice, she answered “It’s hard to see the TV from the kitchen, isn’t it?”

  “Oooooo!!!” Kya said, jumping up and down, before grabbing her tray and turning to run over to the couch.

  “Leave it here, dummy, you still need the sandwiches! Go turn on the tv and pull up the movie, remember, low volume!”

  “Alright, alright, alright.” Kya said, before darting over and sliding to her knees in front of the tv. About as wide across as it was tall as it was deep, Kya was pretty sure the tv was as old as she was, but her father said as long as it worked, they didn’t need a new one, so this one they kept. Kya had asked Mae once if she broke it, would they get a new one, and Mae had said if she broke the tv, she would break her so… She now treated the old thing with delicacy.

  Pushing the massive power buttons to both the tv and cable box, Kya grabbed the remote and scrambled back to the couch.

  Twenty minutes later, the sisters sat next to each other on the old sofa, demolishing their sandwiches with occasional spoonfuls of the roiling hot tomato soup and sips of ice water to help them not burn themselves.

  “How do they have a base on the moon?” Kya whispered. “Do we have a base on the moon?”

  “I think with the rocket ships, lasers, and memory devices, they’re basically magic. But, no, we don’t have a moon base in real life.” Mae whispered back.

  A couple more minutes passed, and Kya leaned over again “Why is he bald? Is he sick?”

  “I don’t think he’s sick, I had a kid like that in my class last year. It’s some sort of skin condition that made all his hair fall out, eyebrows, nose hairs, everything.”

  “That’s weird… I think he would look weirder with hair though, does that make sense?”

  “Yeah, I can get that. Maybe you should go bald, could make you look better too.”

  “Hey!” Kya said and shoved her sister with a laugh.

  That was when it all went wrong.

  That simple action, not a thought put into it, was the start of the chain reaction that ruined the rest of the afternoon,

  Kya’s shove made Mae lift up her leg out of pure instinct. A simple movement, without a single thought put into it. Mae’s bowl of soup, half eaten and still very much hot, sat on the corner of her lap desk, toppled over, spilling out across both the couch and Kya’s exposed leg. Recoiling at the sudden burning on her leg, Kya jumped up with a scream, sending her entire lap desk, plate, and bowl of soup tumbling to the ground. The plate and bowl, in a sound that was several times louder than it ever should have been, shattered, sending sharp shards everywhere and staining the gray rug red.

  With a slam that brought with it an oncoming storm, their mother flew out of her bedroom. Her blond hair was messy and in complete disarray, her bathrobe hung like mist around her shoulders, and her piercing blue eyes held lighting and thunder in their depths.

  “Are you both alright? What was that noise, what broke?!?”

  Mae, now looking three shades paler than she had moments ago, said as calmly as she could “We’re fine mom, everything’s fine. You can go back to sleep, I’ll take care of-”

  Their mother gasped, hand flying to her mouth as her expression became three shades darker than it already was. For a split second, for the single beat of her heart, for the time it took for Kya to look from her sister to her mother and back again, no one spoke. The only sound was the movie on the tv playing at the lowest audible volume.

  Then the yelling started. The screaming, the fighting, the arguing. Mae looked over at Kya and said with more force than she had ever heard before “Kya, go to your room.”

  Her mother yelled both for her to stay and clean up the mess, and for Mae not to boss around Kya. After a moment of indecision, Kya ran. She closed the door behind her, but she could still hear the shouting. She got under her bed, and put pillows in the gap between the floor and the bed, but she could still hear the shouting, she turned the volume on her Gameboy up as loud as it would go, the triumphant sounds of the gym blaring out of the tiny speaker… but could still hear the shouting.

  ~ ~ ~

  Hours later, and silence reigned in the house. Not the silence of a peaceful night's sleep, not the silence of friends waiting to yell surprise, but a different kind of silence. The kind where you yearn for something to happen. The kind where you just want someone, anyone to say something. The kind you can’t stand, the kind that feels like you’re suffocating and drowning and.. and… the kind that made it so even Pokémon wasn’t enough.

  Click…. Click… Click… Click…

  It was hard to see, and not just because Kya kept turning the flashlight on and off. It was hard to see because the lights in her room were off. It was hard to see because her blinds were closed, single black blue curtain drawn. It was hard to see because she lay on her stomach underneath her bed, where even the light that made it through the window couldn’t find her. It was hard to see because of the hot tears that kept falling despite her best efforts to stop them. Somehow, that only made it worse, it was so… frustrating. Why did hating that she was crying make her cry even more?

  Click…. Click… Click… Click…

  She didn’t know how long she’d stayed there, she didn’t know how long she could stay there. She knew that eventually, someone would come talk to her. Tell her to be strong, that everything was fine, that we would be okay…

  Kya started to shake, which confused her more than anything. Her teeth were chattering and her arms were trembling, like what happened when she went out in the cold without a jacket. But she wasn’t cold, she was even a little sweaty if anything. Her breathing came in short, shaking hisses, she… she couldn’t think about what had happened at school. She should just… just focus on the flashlight. On the dim light showing the underside of her bed, showing some random pieces of toys she’d discarded and thrown under here. Other than that, there wasn’t all that much. They kept a nice clean home after all.

  Click…. Click… Click… Knock-knock…

  Her breath caught in her chest, her throat felt crowded, like her heart had suddenly decided to relocate. Her door slowly creaked open, and a soft voice called out “Kya? Kya, can I come in..?”

  She relaxed slightly, it was only Mae. Only… only Mae…

  She watched as the door opened a little wider, belatedly turning off her flashlight as the shaft of light from the hallway pointed right at her. A dull click sounded as the door closed and the room was once more plunged into darkness. Quietly, her sister got down on the ground, moved her pillow wall aside, and wiggled over until they were shoulder to shoulder under the bed. What had seemed like so much room moments before was now noticeably cramped and a bit uncomfortable.

  “Scooch over you little troll, I can barely fit under here as is, and that’s without you taking up most of the space on your own.”

  But Kya just turned and faced the wall. Better the wall than her. Better the wall see her face and her tears and her snot, ugh, why was crying so gross?

  A soft sigh came from behind, then after a moment, “So I…” another sigh, “Mom wasn’t really mad, you know? She was just worried about us when she heard the crash, that’s all.”

  Her body went cold again, she drew her arms and legs to her chest, she couldn’t… she didn’t want to shake like this anymore, not in front of her sister, not in front of anyone.

  “Kya, what…” But then, silence.

  And then… warmth. So warm, the simple embrace, the hug that, though it was awkward because of where they were and how they were laying, nonetheless filled her with… with blessed warmth.

  All at once, like they had thawed and were now flowing freely, tears and sobs spilled out from her in a torrent. Kya turned and wept into her sisters shoulder, all the while asking why; why they fought so often, why they couldn’t joke with her like they did with dad, why did she always get hand-me-downs and never anything new, why, oh why, was there always so much shouting in the house, why…. Why did mom hate them so much.

  At the last one, Mae stiffened and squeezed Kya a little tighter. “Mom doesn’t-” Mae’s voice broke, and with it Kya’s heart. She hadn’t even realized her older sister was crying too. “Mom does not hate you, or me, or dad. She loves us all deep down, you know that. They both…” a sigh, a sniffle, and a deep breath, “they both work so hard to make sure that we live well. When I turn fifteen, I’ll get a job too, just to… help out. Things will get better Kya, once we have a bit more freedom, a bit less stress, you’ll see, things will get better. Can you just… Can you be strong for me until then? Can you be strong for me and for dad?”

  Scooting back slightly, and breaking their hug, Kya could see in the murky darkness Mae’s eyes as she looked back into her own.

  Wiping her nose on her shoulder and taking a deep breath of her own, Kya nodded resolutely, a new-found determination filling her heart.

  “I can be strong, Mae. For you, for dad… I can be strong.”

  “Good, good. Now, I learned this calming exercise today, so let's try that and then we can go get cleaned up in the bathroom before dad gets home for dinner, okay?”

  Kya nodded firmly, “Okay.”

  “Alright, we’re gonna count by one’s ‘til ten, two’s ‘til twenty, three’s ‘til fifty, fours til seventy, and fives til a hundred. Say it with me now, ready...”

  ~ ~ ~

  Kya lept out from the walls of Cetus, her slow fall ability combined with her momentum carried her dozens of meters out to where an aggressive rabbit had just formed from the drops of molten shadow falling from the sky. It looked around, growling and stomping before one of her daggers slammed down on it from above at the same time she canceled her ability to use all of her weight to drive the blade home.

  A notification popped up, but she waved it away as she breathed out and stood tall, gazing out at the dozens and dozens of monsters forming all around her, lit only by the three moons in the velvet sky.

  “One.” She whispered, joined moments later by the rest of the Users from the city, all striking out against their own enemies.