by Gruder, Liz
Kaila barely heard her. Brandy and Tara studied her with narrowed eyes. She prayed they wouldn’t gossip about her hand.
Mrs. Bourg fluffed her brassy hair. “Today,” she said. “We have a different lesson. Imagine traveling great distances in space. There are many theories on how it would be possible to travel to other galaxies. But there is only one of them that works.”
She snapped her fingers. “Antonia, come to the head of the class.”
Antonia obediently stood in front of the class. Her skin was rich as espresso, her eyes dark as coffee beans. The silver overalls displayed her toned physique, revealing firm breasts and sturdy, long legs. She wore a purple t-shirt below the metallic overalls. Her hair was short, with tufts sticking out in wild abandon. She had larger, more sensual lips than the others.
Kaila remembered Antonia had said that she, Melissa, and Pia were intuitive and evolving. She had tried to be friendly.
Mrs. Bourg prodded, “Antonia.”
Antonia put a hand to her kinky hair. Then Kaila leaned over to return her inhaler to her book bag.
“Look at me,” Antonia commanded, clenching her fists. Her pupils expanded, leaving no hint of the coffee iris, till her eyes were solid black. Antonia’s eyes magnetized the students so that they could not look away.
“Come to the ship,” she said. Then the classroom walls started to shimmer and fade; the ceiling popped off revealing dark space.
Kaila saw that the students were under Antonia’s spell, their heads lowered, their eyes blank. The whole classroom vibrated and shimmered.
Was this real? Or was Antonia creating a visual illusion like Jordyn had with her knee? The walls could not actually be vibrating.
But not only were the walls vibrating, they emitted an ethereal glow. Kaila gasped and covered her mouth.
Mrs. Bourg snapped her fingers. “Antonia!” She pointed to Kaila.
Antonia leaned over Kaila’s desk and put her lovely face two inches from Kaila’s. Her black eyes were huge and powerful. Kaila could not look away.
“When you wake up and declare your alliance, I will not have to do this to you anymore,” Antonia said almost as an apology.
As every muscle in Kaila’s body went limp, she felt the floor of the classroom drop down into the universe.
“Come to the ship,” Antonia repeated.
Mind-split.
All the students were aboard a ship. Bright white light glowed, but Kaila could not detect the source. Everything was white—the walls, the floors, the ceiling, and everything had rounded edges. A low hum vibrated throughout the craft.
“The craft looks small to you from the outside, but when you come inside, you see how large it truly is,” Antonia explained.
The students trailed after Antonia who led them through bare white rooms. She took them to a larger room. The perimeter curved, and embedded in the curves were gray screens. Above were portals, or windows. In the middle was something like a bay window. Outside, all was black.
“Here we have no phones or computers,” Antonia said. She pointed to the controls on the ship. Red, green, and white lights blinked. “You can control this ship with your own power.” She stepped to Kaila entreating her with her large black eyes. “Kaila. Move the ship with your mind.”
“I can’t,” Kaila said, aware she was submerged in a dream state.
“You can.” Antonia stepped closer.
Kaila smelled ozone and a disturbed energy field. Antonia put her face right in front of Kaila’s so she felt her warm breath. Antonia’s eyes were darker than the deepest well, dragging her down. Kaila swallowed a lump of fear thickening in her throat.
“Do it,” Antonia commanded. “Move this ship with your mind.”
Duly commanded, Kaila’s fear submerged. She scrutinized the blinking lights on the control panel.
Echidna put her face to Kaila, her eyes solid black. “Do it.”
Viktor stepped closer, his cheeks ruddy, his eyes serpentine. “Do it.”
Lucius went to Kaila. He wore no sunglasses now. His emerald eyes fastened on her, then the black pupils expanded like a kaleidoscope. “Do it,” he said.
Kaila felt drugged, asleep and awake, conflicted and understanding, splitting in half. This dream was a non-reality. Or was this the reality and when she was awake the non-reality?
“You all don’t know how to talk to her,” Jordyn said. “Kaila, don’t let them scare you. Take my hand, I’ll help you.”
“You have to hold hands?” Echidna sneered. “Are you going to change the little baby’s diaper too?”
“Shut up!” Jordyn yelled with his mind like a dart thrown at Echidna.
Echidna staggered, losing her balance. Kaila flailed with the force of Jordyn’s words and emotions.
“You can do this Kaila,” Jordyn said. “Don’t be afraid. Hold my hand and make this ship move.”
As Jordyn’s fingers curled over hers, she saw five pairs of alien eyes staring at her like a drove of hypnotic praying mantis.
“Look,” Jordyn said, pointing toward the huge bay window to the dark sky. “You see that star way out there?”
“Yes,” Kaila said, grateful he held her hand. She wanted to lean against him, feel their edges melt as they had in her dreams and merge into one. If this was a dream, she wanted it to feel good, not with these persistent edges of invading fear.
“With your mind, move the ship toward that star,” Jordyn prodded. “Imagine it. Envision it. This ship moving toward that star.”
Kaila noted Jordyn’s commanding eyes yet felt his hand and emanating warmth. Though aware she hung in suspended consciousness, she forced herself to rise to alertness, to know his intentions.
As he gazed at her with his golden eyes, she felt as if a burning sun shone upon her. And yet, yet … at the edges lay darkness. She wanted to press herself against him, feel his arms about her and shut her eyes.
He touched her wig. “May I?” he asked.
Kaila hesitated. Her mother claimed the wig protected her.
“You will have better access to your mind,” he explained. “Try it. Move the ship. And put it on after if you like.”
The hive stared at her expectantly with folded arms. Kaila nodded.
Jordyn removed the wig, then unwrapped the black plastic from her head. Her real blond hair spilled down her shoulders, damp and curly.
Jordyn said telepathically, Isn’t it better to be free and who you are?
Kaila nodded, yet uncertain as to who she really was.
“Now access your true powers,” Jordyn said. “You can do it. You’ve always had much hidden inside.” He put his thin lips to her cheek. He transmitted loudly with his mind, Know who you are.
Kaila fixed her mind on the distant star and in her mind envisioned the ship moving. Then, as if talking to her dogs, the ship lifted.
Home, she thought, her eyes and mind fixed on the distant star. The ship whisked through space. This star was home, she realized, knowing then that all were sprung from the stars. But that fact was forgotten. Or was it suppressed? Why shouldn’t we remember? Kaila wondered.
The hybrids gazed reverently at the star. From their expressions, she knew her intuitional guidance was true.
Douglas, Phyllis, Brandy, and Tara stared at the star too, but Kaila noted they were not really conscious. With a start, she realized they might not remember this. She pitied them. Or was she like them? Would she remember?
“Jordyn,” she said as the ship glided silently through space. “Don’t let me forget this.”
“We are proud of you, Kaila,” Jordyn said. “Know that one moment can last forever and time has no boundaries like you know it. But raised as a human you can’t have it all in full consciousness yet.”
“Please,” Kaila said. “I want to remember.”
She understood she was realizing something profound. When fully conscious, she would investigate further till satisfied. Question everything. It was the Science Channel’s slo
gan. She didn’t want to stay slave to cultural beliefs … she wanted to know.
Jordyn pressed his lips to Kaila’s ear. “There will be a time, dear, when you remember all. But humans have a tendency to always ruin the present with worrying about the future. For now, just be in this moment.”
Kaila realized that most people lose their lives worrying about the future. They were doing things, worrying about texts on their phones, what they would wear the next day, the present always slipping away to the future.
The ship wavered. The craft stopped.
“Class.” Mrs. Bourg clapped her hands. “What Jordyn just said to Kaila was most important. And this is directed at the class that is asleep.” She looked at Brandy and Tara, the zombie preps. And then she turned to Phyllis and Douglas, the so-called dorks and said, “Did you notice when Kaila started worrying how our ship stopped?”
The students under the spell stared obediently at Mrs. Bourg. “Notice that being in the present is okay,” Mrs. Bourg said. “No matter how much emotion you experience, it passes. And fairly soon you pass to that future you worried about. To worry about the future incessantly destroys being in the present. It is wasted thought energy. To think about the future creates the emotion of anxiety. To think of the past creates the emotion of depression. So stay present, always. Concentrate on the task at hand.”
Strange, Kaila thought, her mother with her yoga and meditation said similar things. She had dismissed her mother as an eccentric old hippie.
Jordyn’s whole being radiated a tangible power. Kaila could feel all of him, as if obscuring storm clouds had evaporated, opening a channel of clear sky. His energy emanated outward like heat from a burning star—and she realized he radiated out to her, for her and her alone.
Overcome, she averted her gaze. Don’t look away, his mind entreated. His hip and arm touched hers. But she could not meet his eyes. She wished the moment would hang in eternity. Yet, now, basking in this incredible silent communion, she grew shy, afraid to yield completely to his alluring and foreign power. Why was she so bold one moment, then so meek another? She toed the white floor with her black shoe. She wished she had the confidence of these people.
You do already. She peeped at Jordyn. He was smiling. Kaila looked down, embarrassed he’d seen her insecurity. He took her hand and squeezed.
“Enough,” said Mrs. Bourg. “We do not need to get to the star today. Today’s lesson was mind potential. Kaila, you did well. You got interrupted with worries; but you realize the importance of staying present and having a clear focused mind, don’t you?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Kaila said.
“Do you think you could guide this ship to that star?” she prompted.
Kaila looked at the blinking red, green, and white lights. In reply, the ship moved. Glided at hyperspace toward the star.
Jordyn, Lucius, Viktor, Antonia, Echidna, Toby, turned their heads simultaneously, one unit.
The ship shot through space.
In another moment, they had blasted through a wormhole. The ship hovered above an alien planet.
“We have just traveled thirty-nine light years from Earth to the Zeta Reticuli binary star system,” Mrs. Bourg stated, “Yet we’ll make it back for after-school extracurricular activities. In another class, we may visit Draco and Orion. Who knows how we travel through space so fast?”
Douglas raised his hand. From his hypnotized state, he spoke mechanically. “When you collapse space, say you have a drawing of Point A at the left end of the paper and Point B on the right end of the paper. When you fold the paper in half and Point A meets Point B you create a wormhole. Add to this heightened electromagnetic energy and you form a dimensional portal that you can travel through anywhere in the universe.”
All six hybrids turned to consider Douglas. Suddenly he was not the nerd in the dumpster.
“I am proud of you Douglas,” Mrs. Bourg said. “Come to the controls. Let your mind guide the ship back to school.”
Douglas went to the controls, cocked his head, and squinted through thick glasses. Then, the ship began to move.
Kaila felt a powerful precognition that Douglas was being groomed for a future mission.
“Stay present,” Jordyn said, squeezing her hand.
But glimpses of the future fell into her mind like meteors dropping from the skies. “Oh my God,” Kaila said.
Viktor approached, his blue eyes glinting like lightning. “Never say that,” he said.
“What?” Kaila asked.
“Go aside,” Jordyn said to Viktor.
“I will not be commanded by you,” Viktor replied. He sidled next to Kaila. “Look at you with your sweaty hair, your pumped up shoes.” He regarded her with alien eyes. “We are in the middle of space. Total darkness.” He pushed his face to hers. “Where is your god now?”
Kaila’s mind lapsed into another reality—a slip, a blasting through another time and place, a wormhole as Douglas had called it.
“All I said,” Kaila said, hearing her words from far away, “was oh my God.”
The ship vibrated.
“There is nothing out here, or anywhere,” he replied. “That is your controlling lie.”
Kaila became aware of a thickness invading the ship. There was another alien force in here—something she hadn’t yet experienced.
She was wide open as the heavens and she detected a growing, unseen presence, sure as the barometer dropping before a storm. It wasn’t quite here … she closed her eyes. It was nearby. She ran to the interior of the ship.
The room was circular and empty, the light white with no identifiable source. Yet here an unseen force clustered. It was thick and dark the way gray clouds gather and hang before culminating in thunder and lightning.
Then Kaila grew aware of this force becoming filmy and transparent, yet large and dark, maybe nine feet tall, a shadow that appeared reptilian. It had red glowing eyes, the pupils slit like a snake’s. It hovered over her. She couldn’t make sense of it—the presence was here above her, yet this pit in its shadows was like the brain of a creature, reaching, spanning, invading the entire ship.
It was everywhere.
Kaila felt it creeping inside of her mind. She grew so frightened, she could not move.
She trembled, panting, unable to decipher the creature. It defied conventional reality. It was a shadow, dark and pervading, but seemed as if it wasn’t even truly here … merely a projection of its potential horror. She inhaled an acrid odor, something like burning sulphur.
Kaila was aware that the presence inspected and inhaled her. As if it knew everything about her down to her atoms and the spaces inside the atoms. It traveled inside her, through her, into the reaches of the space and eternity between those atoms, gleaning her essence in entirety.
She grew dizzy, her thoughts whirling like black oil down a galactic drain.
Its immense power sucked her being and mind down inside of it, yet occurring in another physical reality. She chilled with horror realizing that it was actually feeding on her fear.
She heard a low hiss and rumble, again emanating from another heretofore unknown reality. As she was sapped of strength, her knees softened; she could barely stand. In a moment, she would sink to the floor.
Kaila staggered from the room and limped toward the front of the ship. She felt faint and thirsty as if it had drained her life force. Woozily, she wrapped the plastic on her head and yanked the blond wig back on.
“You will not have me,” she stammered.
She drew a breath, summoning strength. Be damned, nothing ever would have her. Never. “You will not have me!”
“Kaila,” Jordyn said, reaching for her. “Don’t let your mind go crazy.”
She thought, I am not crazy. In that moment, she wondered what had control of the hive. The hive submerged her mind, she knew, but she realized now that there was something else beyond them.
She floated in a dream, yet begged, please, let me remember. She knew she
was affected, but there was something beyond, controlling them.
She needed help. She needed answers. She folded her hands, bowed her head. “Protect me,” she prayed.
Mrs. Bourg shrieked, “Hive, to Earth. Now! Go!”
Mind-split.
They were on Earth, in the classroom, everyone seated at their desks.
They had a lesson on wormholes, hyperspace, and space travel with hand-written notes to prove it.
It was two-fifteen.
“When is your party?” Jordyn asked.
Kaila tried to remember something. But she couldn’t think of it. She had had an interesting class theorizing on wormholes and hyperspace. Einstein had been right about the reality of four-dimensional space time. Tesla had been a genius.
The party. Yes.
“I’ll send you an invitation,” she murmured.
Viktor, behind Jordyn, said, “We love an invitation.”
“Open the gates,” Lucius mocked.
Jordyn directed his huge black eyes at them. Not another word was said.
As the bell rang, Kaila wondered what was real, what was not. She had just lost an hour and a half of conscious time, she was certain. And she had come away with something she couldn’t quite remember. But she had tons of notes on wormholes and hyperspace.
Douglas Lafarge hitched his backpack on his shoulders.
“Good class,” he said to Kaila.
Viktor approached Douglas, tapped his shoulder. “Good class.”
Kaila noted the way Viktor devoured Douglas with his eyes. But on another level, she was glad to see Douglas not in the dumpster, instead earning respect. She wondered what these aliens would do to bullies like Derek Mendoza and Wade Stoops.
Kaila walked through the hall, gripping her backpack straps in front of her shoulders. She wanted to get on the bus, go home, regroup, eat, and then see Melissa and Pia.
She needed to talk to someone about all this or she would end up in a wacko ward.
“Here she comes!” Wade leered at Kaila.
Instinctively, she grew guarded. Wade was a large boy, a linebacker on the football team, with huge shoulders and muscular arms. He had a buzz cut and a ruddy complexion.