Preternatural (Worlds & Secrets) (13 page)

“
Hi, Nicholas,” Anne said responsively, getting herself comfortable in one of the glass chairs. “Why does Tantrus always address you as ‘Mr Tarchall’?”

“
I suppose he’s intimidated by me,” the older man jested. Mum strode over to this tall man and hugged him.

“
Hiya, dad,” she said to him, lightly pecking him on the cheek. Ah, so that’s why their eyes were uncannily similar.

“
Dad
?” Jaden, Jade and I exclaimed, rather stumped.

“
Mum, I though your parents were dead?” Jade asked, rather stunned.

“
Well, my mother is, but I’ve still got my father,” she replied calmly.

“
So, I suppose you’d all be my grandchildren. Jade, you look more like your mother than I thought. The boys resemble their father more. Rather curious how
one
twin inherited blonde hair –?”

“
Well, my hair’s black now,” Jaden interrupted rhetorically, with the sound of nostalgic tears in his throat for the longing of his previous blond hair – the idiot.

“
Of course it is. Okay, enough chit-chat!” my apparent ‘grandfather’ stated, already finding Jaden profoundly boring. We
might
just get along.

“
We can share pasts later but I believe we have serious official business to attend to,” he added.

“
Actually, it’s more of an explanation,” Jaden and I responded simultaneously. Jade hit us both on the backs of our heads.

“
Stop trying to be a pair of smart-arses,” she snarled to us. We sat down, Jade sitting next to Tammy.

“
You must be Tammy?” she cautiously approached.

“
Yes, nice to meet you,” she replied with her large, warm and welcoming amethyst eyes.

“
I’m Jade,” she introduced herself calmly. Tammy suddenly grew a warm grin. “I know.”

“
Okay, so let’s get the obvious stuff out of the way –”

“
That this is a bunch of twaddle and I would like my old life back? Yeah, I know,” I disturbed cheekily. I may have sounded as if this was a very light-hearted atmosphere, but doing so seemed to be the only thing that I could resolve to in a time of distress. Mum and Jade both stretched over and hit me behind my head again. It would be a miracle if my scalp wasn’t bruised by the time we were done with the meeting – or whatever it was. We were all listening attentively to Mr Tarchall. Mum’s dad. I mean granddad…

It wa
s an awkward situation.

“
First of all, as cliché as this
will
sound, none of us in this room are really human – including you three. We are, obviously, humanoid; however.”

Ab
-so-lute
twaddle.
I sat upright in my chair;
definitely
fervent.

“
We’re aliens?” Jade asked dully.

“
Well, I wouldn’t call it being an alien. I would just call it – not being from Earth,” granddad suggested.

“
So,
ALIEN
!” us teens all exclaimed aloud.

“
Okay, okay – it’s
your
generation,” granddad said defensively.

“
I don’t want to be an alien. With the tentacles and all –” Jaden said, paranoid and fretful. Jade looked at him as if he were a baby.

“
Grow up, Jaden! Better be an alien than a human. Think about all those movies – it’s always
better to be the stronger ones,” my sister harshly responded.

“
Yes, but the humans always find a way to kill us at the end.”

“
But that’s just a Hollywood dream! It’ll never happen. We’ve got stronger guns and airships, remember? They just always win because there’s always an intense, bad-ass of a soldier who attempts to do something crazy to save mankind. Read my lips, little mouse:
it-will-never-happen
. Cowards,” Jade went on.

“
Stop this alien thing; we are not aliens! Well,
yes
,
technically but not quite,” mum cut in out of frustration.

“
But, mum, I don’t get it; what does any of this have to do with –” I stopped and slammed my head on the table whilst groaning loudly.

“
What’s wrong?” mum asked worriedly.

“
My hands, they feel like they’re on fire again!” I said. I knocked my head on the table, trying to distract my nerves from the burning sensation.

Suddenly
, I noticed the three holes on my palms were rearranging themselves, all forming the shape of a triangle and emitting thin smoke. I watched as the black vapour swirled and twisted into the air. I then looked at my fingers. Five holes – one for each finger – were being burnt into existence, bringing along a
searing
pain.

“
It burns!” I said childishly. I blew on them ridiculously, but nothing of what I expected happened. Instead, the blowing just caused my hands to go up in flames. I shrieked and I stared at the flames in complete terror. The blazing orange of the fire reflected off my electric blue eyes.

“
I’M ON FIRE!” I exclaimed loudly.

“
Don’t worry, it’s part of your metamorphosis. It’s natural,” Jojo said nonchalantly, sipping water from her glass. Then, Robbie began snickering and I shot an evil glance at him.

“
What’s so funny?” I asked in an aggravated manner.

“
I’m sorry, it’s just that you latecomers are so pathetic!” Robbie scoffed. The nerve! To actually call me pathetic after every single thing that was going on at the moment was extremely
brave
of him!

“Pathetic?
” I snarled in disbelief with an insane look in my eyes. The orange flames on my hands suddenly reddened. Robbie’s eyebrows furrowed in confusion.

“Uh-oh,” he muttered.

“
PATHETIC
?!” I then yelled. An unprecedented anger suddenly rushed through my core – something I had never felt before. It was a sweet, desirable yet, bitter anger that brought about a wave of adrenaline.

“HOW DARE YOU!” I suddenly burst out. I saw
the startled expressions on everybody’s face as they flinched, jumping away from the table. I was even more stunned (but too fumed with rage to properly notice it) that blood-red flames had erupted beneath my feet and were swirling around me. It was as if I was standing on a pit of fire that raged upwards like a spiralling tornado. My hair had turned a dark crimson, my eyes began glinting like sparkling red rubies and my canines felt much more threatening, being exposed more aggressively from my teeth. The flames from my hands and the inferno blazing from underneath me were conjoined in a series of violent twirls.

“DO YOU HAVE
ANY
IDEA WHAT KIND OF A WRECK TODAY HAS BEEN? WHAT
YOU
HAVE ALL PUT US THROUGH! You better sit down and SHUT UP!” I growled again. I had no clue what was wrong with me. This newfound attitude spewed out of me uncontrollably and there wasn’t much I felt I could do about it. The others were pressed to the wall in fear.

“Aden, Aden –” the others tried to calm me cautiously. I swiftly turned my head towards them. I was panting heavily and breathed as if I were suffocating
from the black fumes diffusing into the air.

“
HOW
am I supposed to get rid of these flames?” I exclaimed, somehow more to myself in anger than to the others.

“
Drop and roll, drop and roll, drop and roll,” Jaden mumbled to himself.

“
THERE’S NO
GRASS
TO ROLL
ON
YOU
IDIOT
!” I bellowed, increasing the power of the raging fires. I was looking at myself and my arms from a stranger’s point of view as the inferno continued to waver around me. I couldn’t control myself. I stared at my arms – angry, surprised and completely shocked. Suddenly, I noticed the glass table slowly begin to melt and tiny beads of sweat began to form on the others’ foreheads. To my surprise, Robbie gently strolled forward, his eyes lightening to hazel and his hands glowing white in the process. I wasn’t sure if this was to protect himself from me.

“
Aden, you’ve been talking for
this
long and you haven’t yet screamed in pain – try and see for yourself if you can actually
feel
the fire,” he said calmly. I kept prancing up and down, but in the end I did as he suggested. I hated so much to admit it but he was right. There was no pain that accompanied this burning hellfire – well to me at least. It was just a slight caressing touch of that comfortable warmth you first experience after a very biting winter. Robbie had calmed me but this fire was still ever-present and the table was still melting, alongside the chairs.

“I can’t turn it off though,” I said gentl
y with a hint of fear in my voice and on my face. Robbie then suddenly approached his glowing white thumbs and pressed them on the front face of my wrists where my jugular veins were. Instantly, like a quick ventilation of mixed emotions and strange climate changes, the soft warmth was suddenly vacuumed away and replaced the sensation with a frosty cold that instantly circulated from me. As the flames quickly withdrew themselves to the base of my feet in a messy spiral; and as those on my hands disappeared with a bright orange glow of my hands and a trail of smoke, a sheet of frost diffused throughout the room and cooled the oven-hot atmosphere. The melted glass tables and chairs were suddenly solidified again but left in an utterly violated state. I breathed heavily as I slowly regained proper calmness over myself. What further seemed to confuse me was how none of my clothes were burnt – not even warm. They were ice cold. Before Robbie’s eyes and hands dimmed to their original state, he turned to face the table and chairs. He placed his right palm flat-out in mid-air at his chest’s level, a few inches away from it.

He
circled his hand, still flat-out, and then flicked it upwards – his palm to his face – as if throwing an object in the air. Suddenly, the melted glass from the table was lifted and re-solidified into its circular form and the melted glass from the chairs rose up to form the objects they once were. Finally, Robbie’s vibrant eyes and bright hands dimmed.

“
Aden…” Jaden said as he unclearly pointed towards me. I walked over to the mirror on a cupboard at the back of the room and looked at my reflection. I grew confused. I reached for my hair on my back and saw that it was still a blazing red. Turns out it wasn’t any reflection from the fire – my hair had
actually
dyed itself red.

“
Your eyes are red as well,” Jade told me as she stared at me in fascination. I stared at myself in the mirror; my blazing red hair suddenly streaked itself back into blue as well as my eyes.

“
Okay. I’m convinced;
talk
!” I said irascibly, turning around sharply as everyone re-seated themselves.

“
Well…sit down first,” my grandfather stated. I rushed to my seat, overzealous
for an explanation that made sense.

“
Okay, I’m seated. Now if you would be so kind to explain–”

“
We’re on another planet – one that goes by the name Vernaesce, a parallel world to Earth.”

“
But –” I was silenced by granddad’s raised hand.

“
Let me finish. Then you can ask your questions.” I slid down in my seat sheepishly.

“
It isn’t
so
different from Earth. We have the same number of continents – though we classify our continents as regions – and they have their population, each one of them with a specific power; but of course, that doesn’t restrict people from migrating to other areas. It’s identical to Earth, see. The Porto-Pyrons possess the ability to control fire; the Hydrottes control water, humidity and to some extent, certain liquids; the Terra-Turfers control the Earth and vegetation; the Aero-Capers can play with air as simply as how you breathe; the Shifftocastans are capable of shape-shifting into any animal and any creature except humanoid beings – with some exceptions, however; the Time-Morphers, with the talent of bending space and time, grants them the abilities of teleportation and time manipulation; and lastly the region of the monarchs. It is the region where the leading monarchy and Supreme Court, which we call the Supremacy, reside, along with the palace guards that have multiplied over the years to form the Unclaimed. They have incredible agility, strength and stamina but no manipulative powers,” granddad finished. Jaden, Jade and I inhaled deeply.

“
This is a
lot
to take in,” Jaden said, exhaling so loud it seemed like he was struggling to breathe.

I all of a sudden thought of Jojo and her family.