Tearoh

The streets are empty, strewn with rubble. My fellow prisoners have moved on for the day.

What a shame, I think as I’m strolling along the street. I wanted to make some friends.

But they seem to have disappeared along with the moon and now that the sun has returned, they’re just not here. Probably in another part of town. Why would they be scared of the light, after all? It’s beautiful. So much better than those cold neon lamps from our prison. It’s warm! It makes me feel nice. It makes me smile, like so many things do at the moment. It’s all so familiar and yet still evokes this exciting sense of discovery in my chest.

I jump, climb on the hood of a mostly broken car. The woman from home would’ve hit me for doing this, but she’s not here. It feels taboo to be here, which only makes it better. Nobody can tell me what to do and what not to anymore.

I left Bone behind, earlier. He was still sleeping and I wanted to have a look around town, maybe find some food.

Right. Food. Because I’m hungry.

I look around. Shouldn’t there be any stores nearby?

“Pssst!”

Behind me. I turn and look curiously at the girl that’s staring at me intently through the crack of a door.

I raise a hand in greeting. “Hi!”

She must be about my age, but she seems kind of scared.

“Not so loud,” she hisses, then signals me to come closer.

Leisurely, I slide off the car and stroll over. I have to make a good first impression, after all. This is a potential friend!

“Hi!” I repeat, stopping before her. “I’m Tearoh. What’s your name?”

Her eyes go wide and she opens the door just far enough for me to step through.

“Are you crazy?” she asks earnestly, as soon as she’s closed the door behind me.

I shake my head. “Why?”

“Don’t you know it’s dangerous out there?”

I put on a proud smile. “Not for me. I’m-” I pause, suddenly realising that they might not like me if I tell them about my powers. I can’t tell them, not immediately anyway. “I’m not scared,” I finish, finally.

The girl gives me a weird look. “Where are your parents?”

I mirror her look. “They’re dead.”

Shock on her face. Right. Because that’s not normal.

“Come with me,” she says then and leads me down the corridor, to the door of an apartment that’s still standing ajar.

“Mum!” she calls.

Hasty steps coming from somewhere inside the department.

“Be silent, Abby!” A woman hisses, then her face appears in the door and she halts. “Who’s that?”

Abby shoots me a worried look. “That’s Tearoh,” she says, pointing her thumb. “Her parents…”

A second of confusion on the mother’s face, then horror. “Oh Sweetie…” Her voice trails off.

“It’s not recent,” I hurry to explain. “They died when I was really young.” Honestly, I don’t even know if they’re dead. But I like the thought that they died better than that of them giving me up and putting me through all this.

“Who’s taking care of you, then?” She looks me up and down. “Aren’t you cold?”

I shake my head. Better not tell them why I don’t get cold. “A friend takes care of me. But he was still asleep this morning and I went to look for some food.” As if to confirm my point, my stomach growls.

There’s a moment of consideration on her face, but I do my best to look innocent and hungry and Abby also gives her Mum puppy-eyes. It doesn’t take long and she ushers us into the apartment.

“We’ll have to see how much we can give you, we don’t know when we’ll be able to go to the store again, but I’m sure we’ll find something.”

The apartment is large by my standards. There’s a lot of open space and the furniture looks warm and comfortable. They have a separate dining room and the chairs aren’t made of plastic, but of wood and they even have cushions worked in.

We’ve barely made it into the room and there are steps behind us. Two of the doors we walked past have opened and a man and a boy have come out. The boy is older than me, maybe twelve and he eyes me suspiciously.

“This is Tearoh,” the woman says. “She…” She interrupts herself and the two parents do this thing where they communicate through their gaze.

“Did you let her in?” the boy asks his sister reproachfully.

“She was all alone and look at her.” She points. “She was freezing and she’s probably starving!”

“Dad said not to open the door!” he hisses and Abby flinches away when he raises his hand.

“Stop it, Jacob,” his mother snaps.

“But Abby-”

“I said stop! It!”

And finally, he does.

The parents seem to have come to a conclusion. The mother walks to the counter and gets out a bowl and a bag of muesli. As she does so, she turns her head and asks, “So, Tearoh, where do you live?”

I’m about to say that I don’t have a home, but I don’t want them to feel too sorry, so I say, “Not far. I didn’t walk far earlier.”

“Did you see anybody on your way?”

I shake my head. This time, I don’t even have to lie. “No.”

She begins cutting a quart of an apple into small pieces she drops into the bowl, then she fills up the rest with yoghurt. “Don’t you know it’s dangerous to be out there right now? Didn’t your… friend say anything about staying inside?”

Finally, she puts the bowl in front of me and hands me a small spoon. It looks lovely and smells great. So much better than what the guards gave me.

“No. He knows I can take care of myself. And if anybody messes with me, he’ll come for them.” That about sums it up, right? And it even leaves out the superpowers. I’m pretty proud of myself for coming up with all this, but the parents don’t seem too happy.

The woman hands me a glass of orange juice just as I put the first spoonful in my mouth and begin to chew. It really does taste great.

“Do you have a phone number we can call? So your friend can come pick you up when it’s safe?”

Phone number? My confusion must show because once again, the parents exchange glances. Then the woman gives me a reassuring smile. “Eat, for now. I’m sure we’ll find a way.”

As they take the seats around me, I look up and towards the living room. The curtains are mostly closed, but through the crack, I can still see a bit of the street.

The silence is heavy as I eat. Not even the two children talk. At least they don’t watch me all the time, like they’re trying to read my thoughts. Their parents are.

Finally, I make up my mind to restart the conversation.

“Do you know what exactly happened last night?” I ask into the silence and they flinch ever so slightly.

Again, they exchange glances. Then the father says, “A group of wielders started running amok in the eastern city and worked their way to the centre. A lot of heroes were killed, trying to contain the damage and a lot of civilians, too.”

“Do you know where they came from?” I don’t expect them to. The organisation that kept us captive probably doesn’t want anybody to find out. But I am curious.

The father shakes his head. “No, and I don’t care as long as they disappear again soon.”

I frown. “I heard they were locked up in a secret research facility and finally managed to break free.”

“And where did you hear that?”

I don’t meet his eyes and he doesn’t press it.

“Even if that’s really true, they were probably locked up there for a reason, dangerous as they are.”

I’ve lost my appetite. The muesli is suddenly dry in my mouth. Am I dangerous? Probably. They said I’m strong, so if I wanted…. But I don’t. Not them, anyway. They didn’t do anything wrong, not to me.

“And what if they didn’t do anything?” I ask after a moment.

He shrugs. “They’re doing it right now. I know, you’re young, everything seems black and white to you-” He pauses. His gaze is stuck on one of the living room windows. I look over. There’s a hulking figure there, slowly walking along the street.

Bone.

I get up. I’ve had enough. My bowl is almost empty, I’m full.

“Thank you for the food,” I say as politely as I can. “I’ll go now.”

Abby gets up too, like she wants to stop me. “But there’s somebody out there! It’s dangerous!”

I shake my head decidedly. “He’s not. He’s actually really nice, if you’d try to be nice to him, I’m sure you’d find out.”

The parents don’t seem like they understand. Both of them have gotten up and they’re now blocking my way out.

“You can’t leave,” says the mother. “It’s too dangerous.”

“Let me through,” I tell them seriously. They can’t hold me. It’s not only that they’re not allowed to, they actually can’t. But I don’t want to hurt them. They gave me food, they cared.

“No,” the father says. “I can’t allow that.”

I try to squeeze past him, but his hand snaps forth and raps around my arm. Not so tight that it hurts, but tight enough that I can’t just pull free.

That’s the moment I finally have enough. I heat my arm. Not to the temperature of my fire, but hot enough that he lets go.

He jumps, pulls his hand away, and looks at me with shock in his eyes.

“What are you?”

What a dumb question.

“I,” I tell him, “am one of the innocent they experimented on in that horrible place. And I’m never going back. NEVER!” I shout the last word and both of them took a step back from me.

Suddenly, there are arms around me and a body collides with mine, drawing me to the floor.

“Don’t hurt them,” Abby shouts. “Please don’t hurt them!”

I’m about to tell her that I never planned on doing that, when I look up and see the father lunging for the knife the mother cut my apple with. He grabs it and turns around, his eyes wild.

He doesn’t get close, though. Before he can even fully turn back towards me, I throw a ball of fire right at his hand. There’s a scream and the smell of burnt flesh fills the room as the father falls to his knees, staring in disbelief at the charred skin of his hand.

I push Abby away and get back to my feet. She’s frozen with shock and fear, just like the others.

“Hurt us and we’ll hurt you back,” I tell them as I walk past the mother and down the corridor. “Thank you for the food.”

Bone hasn’t gotten very far. He’s only made it a few houses down the street and immediately turns when I throw the door shut behind me and walk towards him. They’re not going to follow me. I don’t have to be scared of them. They can’t make me go back. Nobody can.

“I was worried about you, you know?” Bone says when I arrive at his side. He doesn’t seem angry, though, and his brow is only slightly furrowed. “What were you doing in there?”

I don’t want to tell him the whole story. I don’t want him to get mad at them. I dealt with it, the conflict is settled.

“Eating,” I say simply.

He accepts it. “Okay.” Pause. “I found out where we can find the people that helped us escape,” he says then.

Immediately, I feel better. This is great news! We’ll ask to join them and then help them take down those evil people. And the world will know what happened to us.

-

“Leave,” the man says, calmly. He’s standing by the gate to the warehouse yard, blocking the way in. One of the two women that’d stood guard had called him over and now his steely eyes are fixating me.

He doesn’t look friendly. He’s a lot smaller than Bone, but his jaw is strong and his gaze intense. I hate to admit it, but he scares me a little. I’m sure he’s strong, too.

“But we can help!” I plead. I can’t believe that he won’t even listen to what we have to say. He just walked up, looked at me, and told us to leave. “We’re strong!”

The man glances at Bone. “You can stay, if you wanna,” he tells him. “But the child has to leave. We don’t work with children.”

Defiantly, I push my chin forward and meet his gaze head on. “I want revenge. Do you know what they did to me in that prison?”

For just a second, there’s something else in his eyes. For just a second, they grow softer and he crouches before me. “Yes, Tearoh,” he says, his voice friendlier.

There’s a flutter in my belly. I never told him my name.

“I’ve been told about it and some of it I experienced myself. But you have to understand, this isn’t about a few guards that want to keep you alive. This is war. They have their own wielders and they are many.” He gets back to his feet and I want to argue, but he continues talking. His words aren’t directed at me, though. He’s talking to Bone.

“The two of you should leave the city. The country, too. Start over where they don’t know you. Raise her. Take care of her. Your fight is over.”

Something snaps. I don’t want to be safe. I’ve never been safe. I want to see them burn. I. Want. Revenge.

As the man turns and walks away from us, I point both my hands at him and grit my teeth. A beam of flames erupts from my palms, aimed right at the man. The fire roars and the two women jump to the side. They weren’t even in the stream, but they must feel the heat, too.

But the split-second it takes the flames to get to the man is enough for him. At the snap of a finger, he disappears and I stop my flames to see where he went and then a shadow leaps out of the asphalt and lands right before me. It happens so fast I can’t react.

He’s changed. His eyes are glowing red, now. His hair is white and shaggy. His arms are longer and his nails are sharp talons, inches away from my throat.

“Calm now,” the creature whispers and I can see the fangs in his mouth. “I really don’t want to hurt you.”

And then there’s another voice. Not the same authority. Relaxed, almost humorous.
“Riekah! Leave her alone!”

And the creature hisses and steps away with its strange gate. Now that he’s no longer right in front of me, I can see the man leisurely coming in our direction. He’s taller than the creature and he looks normal.

“What did you say your name was?” he asks with a friendly smile, crouching before me. His eyes are brown, like Bone’s, but his have just a spot of green in them.

“Tearoh,” I say, looking up at him. Even crouching, he’s taller than me.

“I’m Noah,” he says and offers his hand. “It’s so nice to finally get to know you.”

I take his hand, but my confusion must be obvious, because he continues to say, “Riekah told me about you and I think you’re very brave for having gone through all that the way you did. You’re a fighter, Tearoh, and I think that if everybody here was just as brave as you, we’d have already won the war.”

His words make my heart flutter. It’s true, of course. I am brave. I am a fighter. And Noah knows it. His hand is warm in spite of the cold and it envelops mine like a rough but comfortable blanket. I like this. He’s almost as nice as Bone.

“Tearoh, do you and your friend want to become my personal bodyguards?”

I don’t have to think about it. I just beam at him and nod.

--------------------------

Riekah

“You can’t be serious!” Riekah yells. “A child? That’s low, even for you!”

They’re alone for the first time since the child arrived at their camp. Riekah sent her to run some errand he made up and she happily complied.

“Where do you see the problem, friend?” Noah replies. “At my side is probably the safest place in the city, right now. I can protect her and if she stays close, you can, too. And she’s strong, didn’t you say? They’ll think twice about attacking me when I’m being protected by such a determined little fighter.”

“You really meant that, earlier?” Riekah asks suspiciously.

Noah nods. “Of course. It amazes me, how she managed to live through all that and still have strength left to fight. We can all learn from her.”

But there’s something else, too. It’s in his eyes, hidden behind the confident smile, and it irks Riekah that he can’t decipher it.

SeptemberMorgan

I know, I know, not the most thrilling of chapters and not the main storyline, either. Bear with me, Tearoh is a really, really important character. Also, I thought it'd be cool to use the opportunity to showcase the 'normal' people's opinions and life in this situation and also get a little more into the relationship between Riekah and Noah :)
As always, please tell me what you think and have a nice week!