Common Ground (The Common Ground Trilogy Book 1)

by Barry Chaison

  “Zoe,” a worried voice said distantly. “I need you to calm down.”

  I continued to stare directly at the floor while my breathing grew more out of control. The words were meaningless and no matter what I did, the air still felt like it was slowly and painfully being drained from the room.

  “Please, try to relax,” the same voice said, at the same time a comforting hand rested between my shoulders. The moment the hand touched me, my breathing suddenly came under control.

  “I’m sorry you had to see it this way,” Professor Woodward sighed, bending down next to me. “But there was no other practical way to do it.”

  My mind was spinning while I attempted to rearrange myself. In one split second, every little detail and story Professor Woodward had told me since the beginning no longer sounded far-fetched. His history with my parents and the world of angels and demons that he said existed all suddenly felt real and undeniable. Everything I thought I knew about the world was erroneous. Even the concept of time didn’t seem valid anymore.

  “Professor, what is happening to me?” I asked weakly, wiping my mouth. “What am I?”

  Professor Woodward stood for a moment, eyeing me carefully, maybe making sure I wasn’t going to pass out again. After my hands stopped shaking and my body regained composure, he cautiously led me back towards outside.

  “Zoe, for longer than you can imagine I’ve exceedingly struggled with this. There are no simple or easy ways to divulge what I’m about tell you. I know what I told you a few weeks ago came as a shock and this won’t be any different. But I need you to promise me that you will listen with an open mind and heart and understand that what I have to say is very complicated but extremely important. Can you do that?” he asked while we exited the gym and began walking back towards his office.

  Even with the gunshot fresh in my mind, the fact that I’d just travelled back in time was enough to get me to believe almost anything Professor Woodward was about to say, including a world of angels and demons. With every ounce of effort possible, I nodded.

  Professor Woodward walked along next to me and stared ahead. After a moment, he spoke in a low voice, only audible enough for the two of us to hear.

  “The history of angels and demons coincides with the origins of the human race. In the beginning, there were the humans and those of us with heightened abilities. There were no angels and demons, just one group of special beings who held powers that defied the laws of nature. Humans were oblivious to our abilities because our goal was to blend in with them and not draw any extra attention to what we really were. We decided to call our world Common Ground because it was the place where we were able to coexist with humans, even with our secret. Concealing our true identities then became the first of three rules we adopted as a code to maintain the secrecy of Common Ground. The second rule was that we could never physically harm humans. Our powers were so far beyond human capacity that we were afraid any physical altercations would result in their deaths. Taking risks wasn’t something our kind was willing to experiment with and that helped us live in a peaceful and safe world.”

  My mind was reeling. Hearing a first-hand account of the beginning of humanity was mind-boggling, especially coming from a man that was walking next to me. It was impossible. But after what I’d been through the last few weeks, I couldn’t deny it had some validity. My eyes remained locked on Professor Woodward while we walked and my desire to hear more grew with each new step.

  “The last rule focused specifically on maintaining a constant population. Since the first two rules were supposed to keep our world a secret from humans, we had to make sure our population didn’t get so large that we couldn’t keep track of everyone. That’s why being intimate and having relations amongst angels and demons was strictly forbidden. As a result, not procreating meant there were an established number of us that never fluctuated. The few hundred of us that existed from the beginning never changed and our population remained the same for thousands of years.”

  “Remained the same? You guys couldn’t die?” I asked, feeling confused.

  He shook his head. “At first, we all thought our abilities were unique to the individual. Everyone had their own set of abilities. Some of us could fly while others could feel specific human emotions. It wasn’t until we all started witnessing the bitterness of mortality when we realized that our greatest power was one we all shared. It took some time to get used to, especially because all the humans we lived with started to die and we just didn’t have the mental capacity to understand it.”

  The more we walked and talked, the less difficult it became to hear about things like immortality and super powers, even knowing that what he said meant I was immortal too. But every time he gave me an answer, more questions popped into my head. I understood how Professor Woodward was able to reference the beginning of humanity, but I didn’t know how he still looked so young for someone who clearly was much older.

  “So if you were immortal, did any of you age?”

  He chuckled slightly and looked over at me. “No. Once we reached the age of 21, our bodies were fully developed and we never aged a day beyond that. But, in order to avoid suspicion, we then had to become nomadic. We couldn’t stay in one place for very long because people would have started to realize that we were forever young. A big drawback with that was we never were able to fully immerse ourselves with humans because when we would finally get settled, it would be time to move on. Humans remained, for the most part, a big mystery to us.”

  Random students passed us on our way back to his office and every time they did, Professor Woodward’s voice dropped slightly. I knew he wanted to keep it all secret, but I knew that nobody would have believed what he was saying if they even heard it.

  “Nevertheless, we quickly grew accustomed to our situation and continued on with our lives. We continued migrating, meeting and living amongst new and exciting people for a while. But, as time went on, we began to wonder what our purpose was in the world. We were endowed with supernatural powers, but yet we didn’t understand what we were supposed to do with such gifts. It wasn’t until some of our kind started to get frustrated with our stagnant and repetitive lifestyle that we discovered another power we all shared. Can you guess what that is Zoe?” he asked me.

  His question caught me off guard. I was so tuned in to his story that I almost had forgotten he was talking to me. For a second, I had no idea how to respond. But when my stomach churned unpleasantly, reminding me of what I’d just experienced, the answer dawned on me.

  “Time travel,” I said awkwardly.

  “Exactly right,” he smiled.

  At that point, we had reached Professor Woodward’s building. He stopped talking when a group of students came scrambling out the door. After working our way through the crowds and up the stairs, we reentered his office, where Annabelle was on the phone. She gave me a soft smile and wink while I passed. Professor Woodward escorted me into his office and closed the door behind him. We sat back down in the leather chairs and faced each other.

  “Getting back to where we were,” he said, crossing his legs. “You’re right, time travel was the second and final power everyone possessed. We all had the ability to travel through time, but there was a glitch in the system. Instead of being able to jump freely to any point in time, we discovered that some of us could only travel to the past, while the others could solely jump to the future. For the first time in our existence, we encountered a situation where we were all bound by limitation and it wasn’t received very well.”

  “What happened?” I whispered.

  “The ability to time travel became a dividing line. We were no longer equals. There was now a physical force that separated and caused us to break into two different entities. Things remained peaceful between both sides, but we found ourselves getting more comfortable with those of us who shared the same abilities. It was at that point when both groups started to wonder if having the gift of time travel was the key to figuring out our pu
rpose on Common Ground. Over the course of many years, each side spent time traveling throughout the past and future, looking for any clues that would help us put the pieces of our world together, so to speak.”

  “Did anyone find anything?”

  “Yes, but they weren’t physical clues. Those who could jump to the future saw how violent and deadly the human race became over the course of history. They decided that our powers were given to us so that someday we could use them to control humans in order to maintain peace.”

  “What about the others?” I asked. “What could they possibly have discovered in the past that would help?”

  “We didn’t necessarily discover anything. Instead, we were able to witness the human capacity for peace and love, and see how humans have always maintained the ability to be peaceful. With that, we concluded that our powers were to be used to help make humans better people and avoid confrontations before they began.”

  “But those are pretty different philosophies Professor,” I said, sitting up a little straighter. “I mean, one side thinks it’s better to use powers to control humans whereas the other side believes it’s better to use abilities to help humans. It just doesn’t sound right. It makes it seem like humans were supposed to be pawns in your game.”

  “That’s an astute observation Zoe,” he said, smiling. “Since both sides were so persistent that their hypothesis was correct, it started to divide us all on a much deeper level. Ultimately, we grew so divided that both entities decided to give themselves names in order to separate from the others. The group that traveled back in time was the beginning of what we today know as angels and the future jumping group became known as demons.”

  Never in my wildest dreams could I have imagined listening to a story about the formulation of angels and demons resulting from arguments over the purpose of special abilities. Even though Professor Woodward implied that time travel and the use of abilities caused the rift between both groups, I had a feeling their problems ran much deeper than that.

  “However, remembering that our rules didn’t allow for the use of powers in front of or against humans, the whole debate became insignificant and as a result, time went on and things calmed down between the two groups. Both angels and demons continued to travel through time, sharing information with the other side, which actually helped us learn quite a bit more about the human race. Even after thousands of years, we were constantly surprised by the diversity and uniqueness of humans.”

  At that point, my brain started to feel full. The more I heard, the harder the information became to digest. I was falling deeper and deeper into this new world, and it was starting to become overwhelming. I pulled my eyes from Professor Woodward and glanced down at my hands, which had started rubbing together uneasily.

  “But growing closer to and better understanding humans had repercussions that none of us ever saw coming. Don’t forget that before we discovered our ability to time travel, we moved around so frequently, we were hardly able to learn and study human behavior. During our travels, many of us started to see the powers humans had that we didn’t possess. Many angels and demons actually grew jealous.”

  “Jealous?” I choked. “Angels and demons have all the power in the world! What could they possibly be jealous about?”

  “Zoe, imagine living the same life, over and over again for tens and thousands of years with no end in sight” he said sternly. “We took our ability to live eternally for granted because we never experienced meaningful and lasting relationships. The beauty of mortality is that everything in the world is special because any day could be the last. As angels and demons, we didn’t have that capacity to love so deeply or understand heartfelt connections. Once we started to realize humans held powers that we could only dream about, many of our kind grew restless.”

  “But what could you do?” I asked. “If you were all immortal, you were stuck with that life. You couldn’t become mortal, could you?”

  For the first time that day, Professor Woodward looked flustered. I slouched back in my chair, unsure if I had said something out of line. It was impossible to know where the respect line was anymore.

  “Professor?”

  “Yes,” he finally responded, almost inaudibly.

  Even though he looked much older than 21, I never even thought about what had happened to make him age so much. The pieces were all connecting slowly, but I needed more.

  “How?” I asked carefully.

  He sighed heavily. “Over time, the restlessness many angels and demons felt grew into bitterness about our system, most importantly, towards the three laws we had lived by for tens of thousands of years. Some angels and demons ultimately decided that if they couldn’t become mortal and experience everything a human could, they would at least try and make some changes to our world in order to add some excitement. This same group of individuals eventually chose to violate our sacred rules and see what would happen as a result. It was their rebellious mentality which resulted in the beginning of the end of our world as we knew it.”

  “I’m confused,” I responded quickly. “If demons can travel to the future, wouldn’t they have been able to foresee that eventually both races would become restless?”

  “The future is not set in stone Zoe,” he said firmly. “Even angels and demons have free will; we just didn’t know it at the time because we had lived the same responsible life for so long. But, we found that out the hard way and our world changed forever because of it.”

  Professor Woodward continued to look troubled. It seemed that reliving old memories tore deeply at him but he continued to go further into the story. Even with his discomfort, I couldn’t help but grow more curious.

  “What’d they do?” I asked, back on the edge of my seat.

  “Let’s just say that many of the angels and demons decided that if they couldn’t be human, they wanted to at least act human,” he said, suddenly turning his eyes towards the windows that looked out over the desert behind his office.

  “Act human? What could they possibly do-” I cut myself off when the answer came to me instantly.

  I was speechless. My eyes grew wide and Professor Woodward looked back at me, looking very somber. What was already a strange and odd world had just gotten wilder.

  “It was the most human act we knew of that none of us had experienced,” he said quietly. “There weren’t many who were that rebellious, but there were enough. A majority of us didn’t even know that some had engaged in the act until we started to see physical changes we’d never seen before.”

  “Like what?” I asked.

  “They started to age,” he said softly. “Their hair slowly turned gray, wrinkles began to cover their face and even their abilities lost some potency.”

  I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “Are you telling me that having sex took away their immortality?”

  Professor Woodward nodded. “Once everyone figured it out, more and more started to engage in the act. There was finally a way out of the world that had grown so boring and tedious. It got to the point where more than half of our entire race had chosen a mortal life and that made those of us who abstained nervous. Because a majority of our people became mortal, we started to worry that our population would dwindle significantly.”

  “But what about children?” I asked.

  The question caused my heart to ache and I suddenly felt very sad. I looked away from Professor Woodward and started looking aimlessly around his office, not wanting him to see my emotional shift. I could feel tears slowly building behind my eyes and for a moment, I felt like getting up and leaving.

  “That’s what happened,” he said, snapping me out of my funk. “Even though the rule was in place to keep our numbers constant, we weren’t sure if we could actually have children. It was all precautionary. We saw that humans were able to have children and thought that it was safer to not even test the concept.”

  Every mention of children kept bringing my parents back to the forefront of my mind. I
had to take a few shallow breaths to compose myself before I turned back to him.

  “We discovered that the moment any of us engaged in relations, our immortality was stripped and we could start to age. That caused many of our kind to become much more human, which included the ability to become pregnant. As a result, a good portion of our population chose mortality and many of them ended up having more than one child. Those children were then born immortal and given the choice to remain that way or become more human at some point.”

  When he finished, he sat there in silence, staring blankly at the floor between us. His demeanor had changed dramatically since the beginning of our talk. The silent break had given me time to put everything together he had told me up to that point. All of the history and details had answered so many questions, but the more I thought about it, the more frustrated I became. Any energy that had built up from his story dissipated quickly. There was something missing.

  “Professor,” I said slowly. He lifted his head and looked like he’d been pulled from hypnosis.

  “Yes Zoe?”

  “I’m confused again.”

  “About?”

  “Well, everything you’ve said so far has helped me understand more about the world you’ve told me about, but I still don’t see where I fit into all of it. If my father was an angel and my mother a demon, what does that make me?”

  “To explain that, you’ll have to be patient with me a bit longer,” he said, leaning back in his chair. “I knew you’d ask that and I’m almost there, but there’s a little more you have to understand before I tell you.”

  I didn’t know how much longer I could wait. After sitting there for almost an hour and learning about a completely new world, my patience had started to wane. I’d gotten so many answers, but the biggest questions still sat on my mind. I snorted softly under my breath and waited.