My feet touched down on grass, covered in beams of sunlight. I looked up to what logically should have been a sky, only to find fish instead of clouds. My jaw dropped as I stared at the tides above our heads. Waves of light bounced and rippled over my body, filtered by the water, but as bright as if we were floating on the surface instead of deep beneath. I glanced at Lakin, only to find the same amount of amazement.
As astonishing as this image was, it was greatly overshadowed by the scene sprawling in front of me. Acres and acres of land, speckled with houses and gardens. Children chased each other and toppled on the lush grass, while adults chattered happily. In addition to this, there was not a hint of despair, nor anger, in any of the faces I gazed upon. Every being projected a distinct ambience of tranquility. It was as if they were all stuck in the moment I had shared with Lakin earlier.
“What is this?” The question floated from my lips on a breeze of fascination.
“This is the Eden. This is home,” Al replied, inhaling with relief as he moved forward.
Lakin took my hand, and we followed without reluctance. Perhaps the sight was too miraculous to be questioned, but there were no apprehensive intuitions. I felt a sense of safety I could barely fathom. I felt a sense of freedom that couldn’t possibly exist.
Eyes followed us without suspicion, but with welcome. A small girl with coppery hair giggled, handing me a dandelion before skipping back to her friends. People smiled and nodded at Al as we walked, gestures he happily returned.
The only explanation I could think of was that somewhere along our travels through the dark tunnel, we had all died and gone to heaven. Apparently, it was a conclusion I jumped to quite often.
Lakin and I continued to stare in stupefaction, while Al knocked on the door of one of the quaint, stone cottages along the path that had been worn into the ground from numerous years of treading. An angelic woman answered, nearly knocking him over with an ebullient hug.
I couldn’t help but smile at the charming scene of two lovers reunited. The woman’s long, wavy hair bounced as she smothered Al in kisses. Well, I certainly hoped they were in love, and not siblings. Otherwise, their intimacy would have been really weird...
“Angela,” the woman said in a sweet voice, keeping one arm around Al’s shoulder as she reached to me with the other, “I am Lily. It is wonderful to finally have you here.”
“Er, thanks... it’s wonderful to be here?” I said, shaking Lily’s hand.
“Forgive me, you must be quite taken aback by all of this. I’m sure you have so many questions,” Lily said, her deep, green eyes sparkling with her kindness as she smile. She reminded me of Emmy.
“Only a little,” I admitted, sighing with relief.
“And you must be Lakin,” Lily cooed, extending the same kind handshake to him. “We weren’t expecting to have two of you so soon, but I’m glad that we do.”
Lakin smiled as he shook Lily’s hand, but could not seem to find words. I didn’t blame him. We were in the middle of something that was entirely contrary to all reason. It seemed preposterous to believe that we had not drowned yet.
“Don’t worry, you won’t drown here,” Lily said with a grin, though nobody had asked.
Realization set in.
“You can read minds? Like Al?” I asked, eyes widening.
“Yes. It is the gift of our generation. But we will speak of this in time. Please come inside, you are all famished,” she said, holding back the door for us to enter the whimsical home.
Lining the walls were plants of all sorts; curly ferns and colorful flowers. Lily ushered us to a small, round table, surrounded by four plain chairs. There was a rugged, back-to-nature vibe emanating from every knick-knack and furnishing. It was very inviting, compared to the sterile atmosphere of The Facility.
“We live very simply, here.” Lily smiled, pouring us all cups of tea from a worn kettle.
The moment would have been awkward, as we all sipped on our chipped mugs of chamomile, but the silence was comforting. For the first time in my life, I didn’t feel as though anyone was observing me. I was surrounded by beings who were no different from myself; I was not an outcast.
“Is now an appropriate time to ask questions?” I inquired, glaring at Al.
He chuckled, looking to Lily. She nodded at him with warm approval.
“Fire away,” Al said.
I glanced at Lakin, wondering what to ask first. He was still in shock, staring into his cup of tea without any sort of acknowledgment to the outside world, but still gripping my hand tightly.
“Okay, first off—how is this even possible? I mean… We’re under a lake, right?” I questioned, eyeing the seemingly normal scene through the window. “And what is to stop William’s thugs from busting through that stone tunnel under the waterfall?”
“You have experienced only a small fragment of our relationship with the elements. It goes so much deeper than simply manipulating them. It is a kinship. We care for them, and they for us. The water in this pond protects us, as it would anywhere else on this earth,” Lily answered.
Any other person surely would have thought they had entered into a den full of loonies. However, I had experienced enough to be accepting, though Lily’s explanation did seem slightly far-fetched.
“In time, you will understand,” Lily said, addressing the thoughts in my mind.
I didn’t imagine that I would ever be able to grow accustomed to constantly having people read my thoughts. Even with the security system at The Facility, I was used to more privacy.
“I apologize. We have nothing to hide here, and we are all accepting of each other’s gifts. With our generation, it has simply become a form of communication. I will refrain from entering your thoughts, until you are more comfortable here.” Lily beamed, without a hint of judgment.
I nodded in appreciation.
“What happened earlier? Between us?” I asked, gesturing to Lakin and myself. I shifted my attention to Al, who simply looked to Lily.
“You bonded. It is a connection of your souls. Usually, this happens much earlier in life for us,” Lily answered.
“Why didn’t it happen when we were in the Energy Room?” I asked, cocking my head.
“It is a place for the consciences of your generation to connect when you have been separated. There are many here who have never experienced the Energy Room, and possibly never will. Touch and sight may feel real within the Room, but they are not. Bonding is physical, and so your physical bodies must be present,” Lily answered with ease.
“Is everyone here like us?” I asked, catching sight through the window of the same little girl who had given me the flower, which I realized I was still grasping in my hand.
“Yes. Special abilities differ from generation to generation—your generation has the gift of, what we refer to as, visual empathy. But we all share the same connection with the elements.”
“Are there more of us? More places like this?” I asked.
“We have safe homes much like this all over the world. Some of us travel for missions, but there are not many of us left.”
I sat silently for a moment, sipping my tea as I watched the children play outside. I felt an indiscernible spark inside of me as I witnessed the young girl heal the scraped knee of one of her playmates. In that moment, I felt the inescapable need to know the answer to the question I had been asking my entire life.
“What are we?”
Lily’s face morphed with happiness at the question. Al shook his head with amusement at Lily’s expression, though his eyes contained nothing but love for her.
“She doesn’t get to do this very often,” Al whispered to me, as if Lily couldn’t hear him.
Lily asked for my hands from across the table. She gladly accepted one, as the other hand was still being held captive by a silent Lakin. My face lit up in awe at the sight of Lily’s eyes becoming the purest beams of white light. She spoke, but her voice changed to that of an ethereal being, unlike anything I had ever heard.
>
“We are an ancient race, born with and of the earth. We are her guardians, and her children. We lived with all things, in peace,” Lily began in her divine voice.
My eyes fogged over. I plummeted into the story she was narrating, but I didn’t see it through her eyes; I attended the journey of time through the eyes of the world.
“In the beginning, all were free to live and die as they needed.”
Plants sprouted around me, some crumbling in decay while others thrived, and grew to the size of buildings. Creatures without names wandered, some smaller than my human eyes would have been able to see, others colossal enough to crush the enormous plants. Intertwining with all things, were what I instantly recognized as my own kind, stripped down to their barest form—Elementums.
“There were many great disasters, as is the way of nature.”
Meteors crashed down, causing blinding flashes to ripple across the planet, and torching nearly everything in their path. The sky was blackened, and the air was thick with steam. The Elementums emerged from the dense ash, traveling across the face of the earth in waves, spreading life in their wake until the planet was, once again, covered in beautiful existence.
“But none as devastating as the arrival of The Destructive Ones.”
Large, round, metallic objects fell through the sky, foreign against the landscape of nature. They settled against the earth with loud thuds, causing the ground to shake beneath my feet. Hidden doors separated themselves from the massive orbs, allowing unusual-looking beings swaddled in shining fabrics to step to the earth.
“They had devoured the resources of their home, and fled to the nearest planet that would support their life: Earth. We welcomed them with open arms, offering refuge and safety.”
The Elementums migrated toward the beings, but it was clear that The Destructive Ones viewed them as a threat.
“It is the way of The Destructive Ones to fear that which they do not understand, and to eradicate that which they fear. As life on their former planet was corrupt with war and greed, they could not understand peace—they could not understand us.”
I gasped, as the beings chased my kind across the plains, wielding strange weapons, which emitted some sort of purple, electric current. When struck, the Elementums tumbled to the ground, before flickering out and ceasing to exist.
“Once, we were many. Now, we are few. Our race was nearly extinguished in the midst of the violence. We were unfamiliar with battle. Those who survived, remained hidden in the deepest forests for many ages, observing The Destructive Ones from a distance, and trying to repair the damage that the strangers so carelessly left in their footsteps. Our planet could not support the technology of these invaders, and they were forced to adapt.”
The orbs that had carried The Destructive Ones decayed over time, leaving nothing behind. The fabrics that had clothed them became torn and useless against the elements. Their weapons lost power, falling to the ground to be abandoned and buried.
“Many could not adjust to the simplicity.”
Their great numbers dwindled across the earth, until only small herds remained, clothed in animal skins and swinging weapons made of sticks and stones.
“Most ignored that they were trespassers. Eventually, their species grew to believe that they were the true residents of our home. But some...”
From the eyes of the forest, I watched six of the Destructive Ones migrate through the trees.
“...some sought out the legends of the peaceful beings that had once inhabited the earth. They longed for tranquility, and a way of life they felt their kind could never obtain on their own. They found us, requesting forgiveness and help. We were as thankful to them as they were to us, but we knew that six would not be enough. To carry on our generation cycle, we would need fifteen men and fifteen women to step forward.”
The six Destructive Ones agreed, retreating from the forest. They returned in greater numbers, all staring in bewilderment at the realization that the legends of The Peaceful Ones had been true.
“It has never been within our power to create; only can we manipulate that which already exists.”
At first, the Elementums chose three men and three women to combine their existence with, and they paired off through bonding. Soon, the females’ bellies grew large. On the day of August 17th, six infants were born; a set of twins to each pair. On that day, twelve more Elementums intertwined their existence—six to adults, and six to the newborns. I watched in amazement, barely able to comprehend the life cycle that the Elementums created.
Five years later, on the same day, six more infants were born. On that day, twelve more Elementums intertwined. This continued for ten more years, until the entire race of Elementums, which had dwindled to a grand total of fifty-four, lived within the bodies of Destructive Ones.
“When the world was born, as was our entire race. We had never known our true death, until the arrival of The Destructive Ones. We simply recycled throughout our own generations. The old released their life to give breath to the young.”
On the day of August 17th, when the first set of six infants were twenty years old, the last adults to be intertwined with Elementums gave birth to their children, but there were no Elementums left to unite with them. A sense of understanding swept over me, as the first group to combine with the Destructive Ones were liberated from their aging bodies, only to continue new life within the infants.
“It is not our way to cause chaos or sorrow, but it is often that we are unable to leave the past within the body of those we connect to.”
Three of The Destructive Ones retained all of the memories from their lives. After knowing total peace for so long, they chose to remain with the Elementums, though they were left without abilities. However, the other three were left without memories of the last twenty years, and were frightened to suddenly find themselves old. They fled back to the civilization they recalled, but were put to death by those who could not understand their ramblings of the life within the forest.
“We were able to integrate ourselves into the lives of The Destructive Ones, who populated the world, carrying on our generation cycle to ensure our survival. Though we long to honor our promise of offering lives of peace to The Destructive Ones, as we promised those who originally sought us, we have yet to succeed. We continue to protect the Earth as best we can, but The Destructive Ones have grown to greatly outnumber us.”
I was in awe, observing time speed up around me. The Destructive Ones built small towns, only to tear them down and build bigger ones. They evolved, as did their technology. Having forgotten their true origins, each advance was thought of as a new discovery. They progressed further and further toward the lifestyle that had destroyed their former planet, but were incapable of knowing so. As far as they were concerned, they had evolved from monkeys. Finally, the truth I had been missing struck me like the skyscraper I was seeing topple in front of me.
“Humans? The Destructive Ones are humans?” Lakin choked on his words, having watched the vision through his contact with me.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
The Lost Generation