The Chosen Ones: Red Smoke

by Mitchelly Melo

  "It's not so funny when it's with you, is it, Maena?" Isys said.

  "Elizabeth, try with me," Runne said, looking excited.

  “All right.”

  I looked at Runne and focused on her.

  "Come on, Elizabeth. You can do this. Wow, we stayed for much longer than I imagined. What the hell."

  She began to hum a song I didn’t know and I started to laugh. I could hear the words and I couldn’t help but be excited. This power could be incredibly useful.

  "Thank you for your confidence, Runne," I said, smiling.

  She smiled.

  “You heard that?”

  I nodded and turned to the front, now focusing on John.

  "I just hope she doesn’t have to use it," John thought.

  I placed my hand on his, squeezing lightly.

  "I hope so too," I said quietly.

  He looked at me with a smile on his face, but with sadness in his eyes.

  When we got to the hotel, we entered trying not to make any noise. Everyone went to their room and I went to John's. I went to change in the bathroom thinking how exhausted I was of thinking of the hunter. I just wanted to forget him for good. At least for today.

  "So, you want to tell me your story with Scott?" I said as I left the bathroom.

  John was already wearing his cotton pants and long-sleeved shirt.

  "He was on that same terrace when we first met," John said. “Deciding whether or not to jump.”

  I stopped where I was and stared at him.

  “He was going to jump?”

  “Yes.”

  “What happened?”

  "I was passing by on the street when I saw a small crowd looking up. He was on the edge looking down. No one was even paying attention to me, so I went up to the roof. When he looked back and saw me, it looked like he saw ghost. At the moment I didn’t think much about the consequences, I just did it.”

  ‘How did you get here?’ Scott said. ‘I locked the door.’

  "So, I did my best to try to convince him to get out of there. We talked for a while and I found out that his mother had just died and he had no one else. Friends, girlfriend, family. I started telling him about this girl. I told him that I couldn’t talk to her or get too close. I just watched her from a distance, and even if I couldn’t talk to her, only her smile gave me more reasons to live. It made me the happiest I had ever felt. "

  Now all I could think about was how I had met John before. I don’t regret having known him when I did, but I felt this strong will to have enjoyed every extra millisecond we could have had.

  I smiled at him and sat cross-legged on the bed, motioning for him to continue the story.

  "After a long conversation, and a few tears, Scott came down from the edge of the roof and we went to a cafeteria for coffee, "John continued. "He understood that this wouldn’t be the solution at all. And I said that one day he would find his own special girl and would be glad he didn’t jump. But more importantly, he should learn to like himself so that when he met the girl, she could also like him. I think he just wanted someone to care.

  "Did he find anyone?" I asked. "He looked good when we saw him.”

  "Oddly enough, only two weeks later," John said, smiling. “A new trainee from the company he works for. I'm pretty sure they're engaged.”

  Suddenly I was happy for this stranger.

  "I'm so happy for him," I said.

  "Me too," John replied. “He deserves it.”

  "And what about your power, what did you say?" I said, laying down beside her.

  "That he didn’t need to know much or would put him in danger. And he said he'd rather not know anyway.”

  We smiled.

  I closed my eyes for a second and felt John fiddle with a lock of my hair. When I opened my eyes again it was already morning.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  The next day, I was the subject of the day; which wasn’t anything new. Everyone now knew that I was an Aster and made no effort to hide their looks or whispers. It didn’t take long for me to suspect that the Council itself had begun to tell people.

  As I began my day training with Zal, I shared my suspicion.

  "They certainly did," Zal confirmed quickly, to my surprise.

  “Are you serious?”

  We were running around the pool before we started training.

  "They're smart, Liz. They know that people are scared, and they know how to seize an opportunity.”

  "Am I an opportunity?"

  "Liz, you don’t understand how important this is to our people. Imagine the humans and their fairy tales. Now imagine that one day they would find out that they are real. It's just like that for us. We have all these stories about an Aster and we've never heard of one. It's practically a miracle.”

  "So that gives them hope," I said more to myself than to Zal. Somehow, after yesterday's incident, I could relate more to the feeling.

  "Exactly," he replied.

  A few minutes later, John joined our run. He wasn’t wearing a shirt, which distracted me for a moment.

  "I'm going to the training room, are you guys going?" John said as he finished running.

  “Training room?” I asked, still out of breath.

  "Yes, where we usually train," Zal explained.

  “What?! And why did we never train there?” I said.

  "Because you wanted to train here, remember?" Zal said. "You said you liked the outdoors."

  "Yes, because I didn’t know we had a room just for that.”

  "But it was probably for the best," Zal continued. "Imagine if we were in an enclosed place at that first practice?"

  Zal and John began to laugh. I remembered the image of Zal crossing the wall of the pool and the surprise of everyone present.

  "That's true," I said, feeling a little embarrassed.

  We started to go back inside the hotel. With Zal leading us, I took John's arm.

  "And why didn’t I ever see you training?"

  "I slowed down lately," he said slowly.

  I suddenly found myself contemplating reading his mind. The thought left my head as quickly as it entered.

  "What are you not telling me?"

  “Nothing.”

  “John...”

  "He stopped training to focus on protecting you," Zal shouted from the front.

  "Thank you, Zal," John said irritably.

  “It is true?” I asked.

  "I just slowed down, I didn’t stop completely. It was the right thing to do. I had to focus on you. And honestly, I didn’t care.” John paused and took my hand. "Liz, believe me when I say nothing, nothing is more important to me.”

  I couldn’t be annoyed, but I couldn’t help but be sad for him. I didn’t want to see him give up on things for me.

  "I'm sorry," I said, hugging him.

  "Don’t be," John said, kissing my cheek. “I’m not.”

  We walked to the entrance of the hotel, but instead of going through the glass door as before, we entered the door on the right that was below the stairs. The room was full of equipment and much of the floor was covered with rubber mats. Isys and Maena were practicing on the punching bag.

  “Seriously? Even you two? No one thought to tell me about this room?” I said.

  They laughed as they kicked and punched.

  I fought with Zal for almost an hour, occasionally taking a peek at John, who was training alone or with Isys and Maena. When Isys and Maena finally got tired and left, Zal suggested that I train with John.

  "Liz already said she didn’t want to train with me," John said, showing some discontent.

  "Because you would’ve take it easy on me," I explained. "But now I can make sure that doesn’t happen.”

  John opened his charming smile and Zal started to laugh.

  "That'll be interesting," Zal said, then sat down in the corner of the room.

  John and I stood in front of the other with fists raised. When I stepped forward, John disappeared and reappeared behind me,
pinning me from behind. I felt his body quiver as he began to laugh. He let go of me and stood in front of me again.

  “Take him down, Liz!” Zal shouted.

  John scowled at him and I seized the opportunity. In the small interval, I disappeared and reappeared rapidly within a few inches of him, staying down on one leg and using the other to knock him down. Still with my knee on his stomach, I heard Zal's high chuckle.

  "First rule: if you don’t pay attention, you die," I said, smiling.

  “That’s my girl!” Zal bellowed, clapping his hands.

  I got up and reached out to help him up. He took my hand just to a second later pull it hard, knocking me over him. He turned his body to stand on top of me and opened a smile. He held me to the floor with both hands.

  "Third rule: Never underestimate your opponent," John said.

  "This is better than any movie," Zal said, smiling. “For real.”

  With bursts of laughter, we continued the training for almost another hour. At night, John told me that we were going out. Like last night, he was incredibly puzzling about it. After minutes trying to figure out where we were going, I gave up. We waited until everyone went to sleep and we escaped from the hotel.

  “Where are we going?” I asked again.

  "When we get there, you'll see.”

  "You know I can read your mind now, right?" I teased.

  John looked at me with narrowed eyes.

  "You wouldn’t dare!"

  I started to laugh.

  "No. Not this time," I said.

  We drove for a few more minutes and I was surprised when we pulled into the same building from the other night. I looked at John and he smiled.

  "We're going..." I started.

  "Not today," he answered, opening the car door for me.

  When we got to the glass door, we stopped.

  "You don’t have the key?" I asked.

  "No, I gave it back to Scott.”

  "Can’t we just come in?"

  John smiled.

  "Scott does me a favor by letting us use the roof. I'd rather keep his trust. We'd better wait.”

  We waited for another few minutes until Scott appeared and unlocked the door to let us in. He held a black briefcase and looked much less tired. Even smiling.

  "Liz," Scott said, smiling at me. "It's all set," he said, giving John the key. "You know, no mess.”

  "I know, Scott," John answered. “Thank you again for doing this.”

  They shook hands and Scott left.

  We went into the elevator and I wondered what we were going to do. If we were not going to jump like last night, what was it? The elevator doors opened and we went up to the roof. I reached out to open the door to the roof, but John took it, a smile on his face, and opened it.

  Again, the only light on the roof was the moonlight, but the floor had hundreds of lighted candles. Some small lights were hanging in the air by thin wires. There was a path of candles from the door to a rug and a basket on the floor. I smiled and took John's hand.

  "I thought I'd make up for last night," John said.

  "When did you do all this?"

  "Today," he said, smiling. "When I said I was going shopping. Sorry for lying.”

  "You're forgiven," I said, laughing. "The place looks beautiful, John.”

  I looked around and saw small white flowers all over the roof. John opened the basket and took out a small bouquet of the same flowers.

  "I wanted to bring you something, but the more I thought about it, the more I became indecisive because I couldn’t think of something special enough to give you." He stroked my hand. "After walking all over town, for some reason, I stopped in front of a flower shop and went inside. This bouquet caught my attention, I thought they were beautiful. That's when I discovered that they are called aster.”

  I smiled and picked up the bulky bouquet. The flowers were delicate; small and white. They had a subtle smell; as if they wanted you to come back and smell it again.

  "They're small and beautiful, like you," he said, kissing my cheek. "And by the name, they're special, too."

  I started to laugh and suddenly I felt a tear fall. John wiped it with his finger.

  “Why are you crying?” he asked, frowning.

  “I’m sorry, I'm just happy,” I said, wiping my face. “It’s weird.”

  “Weird?”

  "Yes. I'm not used to it."

  “To being happy?”

  “Yes.”

  “No one is. Our instinct is to think that something wrong will happen because in this world, happiness is too good to be true.” John approached me. "But despite everything that's going on in our lives, I'm happy. You make me happy.”

  "So, we can get used to being happy?"”

  "Together," he said.

  “Together.”

  John started taking food out of the basket. Fruit, small bottles of juice, sandwiches and a few more things. He also brought two slices of a blueberry pie that I made. It was his favorite.

  We sat there talking for hours. The night passed calmly and we were lost in the conversations and laughter. After hours, we fell asleep. I had my face on his chest and the sound of his breathing was like a song I loved. I couldn’t hear enough. After what seemed like the best night's sleep I ever had, I heard John call my name in my ear. He wiggled his thumb over my arm gently.

  When I finally opened my eyes, I saw that the sun was rising. I looked at John's face and he smiled back. We continue lying down watching the tones in the sky change and the sun appear. After the city was fully lit, we got up. I drank the rest of the juice that was in the bottle and ate a sandwich. John drank some juice and began to store the bottles and the blanket on the floor. I began to gather what was left of the candles.

  "No, you don’t have to do that," John interrupted.

  "We can’t leave this mess here. Scott won’t like it.”

  He smiled and came to me.

  “I know. And there won’t be any mess. I paid the janitor to clean up here.”

  “Good. Because I'm still a little sleepy," I said, laughing.

  “So, can we go?”

  “Let's go.”

  John picked up the basket, I took the bouquet of flowers and we went home. We went straight into the room so no one could see us entering the hotel. I took off the coat I was wearing and jumped on the bed to take a nap before training. John did the same thing.

  "I had so much fun yesterday," I said before we fell asleep. "Thank you for doing all that."

  “You deserve it. And I had fun, too.”

  I turned to face him. He laced his fingers in mine.

  "And thanks for the flowers. They really are beautiful.”

  John smiled.

  We fell asleep as fast as we were awakened by the knocking on the door. I got up quickly. John still slept for a few seconds before the beats got even louder. I dragged myself to the door and opened it. Isys passed me like a figure. She was flushed and with a smile that threatened the structure of her face. John sat up in bed looking confused. Isys started jumping and clapping.

  "Why all this fuss?" John asked.

  “They allowed!” She shouted as she jumped.

  “They allowed what?” I asked, returning to sit on the bed.

  "The Council allowed me to throw a birthday party. Remember? The day after tomorrow?”

  I looked at her sheepishly.

  "Okay, Liz has the excuse of being new here, but you don’t” Isys said angrily at John.

  "Sorry, Isys," he said. "But did they really authorize a party at the hotel?"

  “Yes!” Isys returned to her state of complete joy. "Liz, you have no idea how long we haven’t had a party here. Not ever for a birthday. Can you imagine?”

  "What a crime," I said, and John let out a small laugh as he rubbed his eyes.

  “Rogi thought it was a good idea to raise people's spirits. Torim, as always, didn’t like it very much,” she said quickly. “Grace gently reminded us that the twins' bir
thday was last week and there was no celebration. But I reminded her that the boring twins didn’t want any parties and they, too, are not me!”

  "Breathe, Isys," I said.

  She smiled again.

  "Anyway, I just came to tell you that everyone is excited, as Rogi has wisely anticipated, and that everyone will help with the preparations," she said suggestively.

  "But we…" John tried in vain to get us out of this.

  "Everyone, John," Isys emphasized, smiling.

  I touched his shoulder, smiling and nodding. It would be nice to have something different to do, and I wanted Isys to celebrate her birthday. She and all the others deserved to have a fun evening for a change.

  "We'd love to help, Isys," I said.

  "Good," she said, leaping to her feet. "It's not every day you turn 19, is it?"

  Isys left and closed the door with a thud.

  "I guess we’re helping, then," John said, going back to bed.

  "I didn’t know it was Isys' birthday," I said.

  "Lucky you, this year she didn’t make the fuss she always does. She was probably using her energies to persuade the Council to let her have this party.”

  "She can be persuasive," I said, smiling.

  “And don’t I know?” John said.

  He took a deep breath and stood up, going straight to the bathroom. I heard the sound of falling water and I also got up. I grabbed my workout clothes and started to get changed quickly before John returned.

  I heard the tap closing and finished as he appeared at the bathroom door wiping his face.

  John started looking for an outfit on the dresser and I finished putting on my sneakers. I went to the bathroom and washed my face and brushed my teeth quickly. I grabbed a rubber band and tied my hair in a ponytail. I did it three times to make sure it wouldn’t fall. I looked quickly into the mirror and saw that some dark circles were starting to appear. I thought I'd put some concealer, but I decided it wasn’t worth it. I would sweat anyway. I went back to the bedroom and saw John with his clothes in his hand, clearly waiting for me to go out to change. I started to laugh.

  "Don’t worry, I'm leaving," I said, still smiling. "I'm going to have some coffee, and then I'm going to run a little."

  "Wait," he said.