by JBV and Joel Quill
Jay's eyes flutter open to a strange glass light illuminated above him. His head is spinning as he looks around his environment. Though his vision remains blurry he can make out that everything in the room around him seems to be made of metal. He can make out what looks like a metal bed and desk, and a door with a tiny window in the corner. He reaches down and grabs a thin blanket that has been wrapped around his body. He begins to stand up, taking the blanket off of him, but the dizziness that causes his world to spin makes him fall on his butt once more. Jay begins to question how he got here and what exactly he is doing in this peculiar place, when his memories flood back to him. The screams of Lalend, the laugh of Tyrius, the steam rising from Euctis's body all flood back into him. Jay crawls across the floor to the nearest wall and begins to pant. Initially he could not manifest a tear, but now being removed from the shellshock the tears won't stop. He curls up in the corner, letting the solace of being alone over take him. He finally begins to process everything that has happened. In the course of a day he lost his home, his future, his brothers, and his father. Not only was he given the kingdom without any desire for it, but also watched its destruction. He experienced the betrayal of one brother, the death of the others, and his father being crushed in Tyrius's portal. Jay, the least of them, the fifth in line,was the only one to survive. Jay is now alone, cold, and homeless; with no support anywhere. Jay no longer feels the world shaking, it is now collapsing. The sky is falling down around him and he has no choice but to be crushed underneath its weight. Jay's soul starts to shake and crumble as if a mountain had started to crack. But then the shaking stopped; Jay felt peace and comfort wash over his body and he could finally breathe again. His lungs filled and then deflated over and over again, with each repetition he could feel himself relax. It was only once his tears stopped that he noticed the hand on his shoulder. He turned his head to see a palm placed upon him, with a glowing gold light coming from underneath the hand. He turned his head a bit more to see the face of a little girl, no older than maybe five smiling at him. He froze looking at her, it wasn't that this little girl scared him necessarily; it was more so her appearance. She had short auburn hair that was obviously cut very choppily in order to keep her hair from the collar that was around her neck. The collar was completely made of metal, with a glowing red light on the front of it. Her eyes were golden and glowing as she released her magic on Jay. Jay continued to breath softly, even if he wanted to be more afraid there was no way he could as his emotions were all focused on the singular desire to relax. She smiled at him with a toothy grin, she was missing her two front teeth.
"Sorry if I scared you, you just seemed sad…" she said in a sweet voice, the voice you would expect of any child, except the dirt on her clothes and the bruises on her arms didn't make her seem like a normal little girl. She removed her hand and her eyes stopped glowing, Jay felt a little anxious once more but the influence of her magic didn't let him get too much of a rise, he felt better than before.
"You're...You are an Em...empathy right?" Jay asks her, he begins to cough wildly as his breath steadies. His lungs get used to the air filling deep and slowly rather than fast and shallow. The girl has a worried look on her face as she shakes her hands in a frenzy.
"Are you ok??? Do you want me to use my magic again, please don't die...sir," the girl speaks frantically. Jay waves his hand to brush her off of him.
"I'm ok, I just need a second to relax. Thank you for helping me calm down," Jay smiles back at her. "I have had a hard day, I definitely needed to relax a little. Your empath magic is really good for being so young." Her concern melts away and she smiles at him widely.
"You really think so!" She says having a hard time pronouncing her T's and S's. "When my dad uses his medic magic, he always has me use my empath to…" She looks sad once again. She begins to sniffle and cry suddenly, Jay's eyes widen. He has never had to deal with children before, so he acts as a novice when one begins to cry in front of him. He moves his hands around trying to think of the best way to comfort her. "I'm sorry…" she says to Jay, wiping her tears, "I just try not to focus on my family too much, it only makes me cry." Jay feels a darkness in his heart, he knows her feelings all too well. He just sits there and doesn't try to comfort her, how can he comfort a child when he doesn't even know how to comfort himself. The little girl ignites her magic once more and places her hand upon her chest. She begins to breathe softly and relaxes just as Jay did under the same magic. She turns and smiles at Jay again, "I'm Lillian."
-
For the next three days Jay was stuck in the room. He was desperate to find a way out, but Lillian didn't seem to share his sentiment. She just seemed happy to have someone to talk to. She told Jay about many different things, like how the people aboard the ship all had black hair, that they spoke a language like she had never heard, and that they didn't have magic at all. There were a couple of books in the room that Jay had looked through, but in each were strange symbols he couldn't understand that he assumed was their language. The only helpful information he got from them was on diagram of the strange weapons they carried in one of the books that had a word that looked similar to his language. The book called the weapons "Assault Rifles," or simply "Guns". Jay spent a good amount of those three days studying the diagram of the gun. By the end of the third day Jay was able to understand exactly how the function worked and was fascinated at engineering of true science. The ship seemed empty in the little piece that he and Lillian occupied. Jay assumed that Lillian was locked up here, but at no point did any soldiers or higher looking officials come to deal with her. With the assault on Illverstand, most of the soldiers were making landfall rather than dealing with a little girl. Once a day, Lillian would tell Jay to hide in the dark corner of the room as Lillian went to the door. Jay would hear the door open and could only barely see dark hair and a foreign face that would try and communicate with Lillian to no avail. The person would leave Lillian food, which Jay and Lillian dispersed between the two of them, and then would be on her way. Jay asked Lillian everyday after the encounter who that was and she would always answer "a friend" never expounding on that explanation.
Despite the strange interactions and the distraction of otherworldly science, Jay had formulated a plan on how to escape. From the outside it seemed very simple; there were almost no guards, they both had magic, and they were in a room with a broken window. However, the truth was neither of them had strong enough magic to get through either door. Jay came to the conclusion that escaping out of the wall with the window was a non-starter, seeing as the ship was made of durable metal, so the only true option was the door. Jay originally wanted to attack the person who came by every once in a while, and flee that way, but Lillian refused to hurt her friend in anyway. Because of Lillian's hesitance, Jay knew they had to remove or open the door another way. A simple technique among magic users with telekinesis was to push a large amount of telekinetic energy towards an enemy or object and cause it/them to topple over; but Jay had never been able to master this technique. He needed something to latch onto with his mind in order for his ability to work. Jay racked his brain for answers before noticing the large metal sheet that was supposed to be a bed had some sort of pins that held it into the wall. From this, Jay formed his plan.
-
Lillian clinged onto the back of Jay's dirty tatters that was once his shirt. Jay positioned himself, with sweat rolling down his face, to take hold of the pins holding the bed into the wall. Jay's vision felt blurry, and his stomach rumbled. Despite the lack of sleep and food Jay felt a fire in him to escape the metal walls that made up his cage.
"Jay...this doesn't seem safe…" Lillian says meekly, grabbing Jay's clothes tighter.
"Lillian," Jay starts before being interrupted.
"LILY! I told you to call me Lily!" The two of them look at each other for a second with annoyance before Jay lets out a sigh.
"Lily…" Jay says. At the mention of her name she chuckles and smiles for a second before becoming scared again. "This is our only option. It will take me a good amount of force to get the pins out of the wall, but I will be able to stop them before they fly off and can hurt either of us. You have nothing to worry about…" Jay thought for a second,"...but just in case would you stand somewhere that wouldn't be in the line of the pin?"
"NO!" Lily yells loudly, "I am not going to let you do this alone!" Jay admires her confidence but in his head tries hard not to point out that there is no possible way for them to be alone in this room. Jay turns towards the bed and reaches out with his mind. His eyes ignite in a white glow, and he can feel the tethers of his mind wrap around the six pins that are embedded into the metal wall.
"You ready Lily?" Jay asks her. Lily moves more behind him and yells out.
"Ready!" Jay breathes in and out deeply then in one fell swoop uses a massive amount of force to easily rip all six pins out of the wall. They fly through the air towards Jay at an incredibly fast pace before they stop in a perfect row just before reaching Jay's body. The bed falls and hits the ground with a loud clang and then there is only silence. Jay breathes out once more and then releases the pins from his grip. They make a smaller clang as they hit the ground, Lily moves from behind Jay to see what has happened. Lily gets a wide look in her eye and then begins to clap. "We did it!" she yells out running around. Jay laughs a little, the first time he has laughed in days then pats Lily on the head.
"Yeah we did, help me move this towards the door." Jay says moving towards the now broken bed. The bed is a large metal sheet around six feet long and maybe two feet wide. It is about five inches thick and seems to be a complete block, metal through and through. After much struggling Jay and Lily position the object that was once used for sleep in front of the door, sideways, so that it is standing up like a short wall. After positioning it, Jay and Lily stand off to the side and admire their work for a minute.
"What are you going to do once you are out?" Lily asks. Despite the rigorous thinking he had undergone the past few days, that was one thought that had not crossed his mind. He obviously didn't want to be stuck here, but he also had nowhere else to go. His entire life had consisted of the walls of the castle, a forest near the mountains, and a town just within seeing distance. Those three elements that made up the setting of his life were now burned to a crisp along with those he loved. He had preoccupied himself so much with thought that he hadn't even realized that it had only been three days since he had lost everything, but he was still moving. Almost as if his pure spirit was moving him forward if nothing else, but when he actually had to think of where he was going, he was lost. He opens his mouth to try and give Lily an answer but all the words get lost in despair and idealism. He finally just simply says:
"Wherever you want to go Lily, I will go with you." Lily beams with happiness at this answer.
"Really! So it's like I have a big brother now! A big brother who sucks at using his magic!" Lily says forgetting the situation and herself.
"I am not that bad at magic! I got the bed off." Jay gets caught up in her taunt and seems to forget his situation as well.
"You can't even use basic forms of telekinesis, you're like 12 years old shouldn't you be able to move stuff freely by now?" Jay tries to protest but feels beaten by his new pseudo-sibling. Jay brushes her off, Lily begins to laugh as she realizes that she has won this argument which only leaves Jay annoyed. He grabs hold of the bed with his mind and begins to slam it against the door like a battering ram. One hit after the other slam metal on metal causing the room to reverberate monotonous vibrations. Lily covers her ears at the ringing and shaking. Jay continues to thrust the bed against the door, release it, move it back, release it, then do it again. The door and the bed both begin to bend from the repetition, but not enough to where the door will actually open. Jay's anger begins to grow with each hit, at the beginning he was only slightly annoyed but after 15 hits he is fully enraged. He begins to shake and the bed hits the door harder and harder each time. The bed itself begins to bend all over as he applies more and more telekinetic force to the bed. Lily seeing this begins to get scared and grabs Jay's leg. She begins to yell at him, trying to break through the noise and Jay's own minds preoccupation, but is unsuccessful. Jay sees the images of his brother's death, the smile on Tyrius's face, and the tears that ran down his father's cheek. The images bring a deep harrowing into his heart. His eyes become fully ablaze as little wisp of white energy seem to float out from the side of his eyes. He screams and thrust his hand forward. The bed thrust forward at a speed unseen by the eye, the bed melds into the door and both metal objects crush together. The door flies off its hinges, and from the momentum, crashes into the door of the cell across the hall, breaking that cell door as well. Blood begins to flow out of Jay's eyes, which he immediately wipes away in order to not scare Lily, not realizing the fear she already has. This is the first time that Jay has ever linked his magic to his anger, and let the pure emotion control the action. Jay breathes heavily, still exuding an aura of anger. He hears a meek voice come from his side. "Jay…" Lily says up to him. Jay moves his head and looks at her. Her entire body is trembling and despite the rush from his power, he feels regret in the feeling he has bestowed upon his new young friend. He looks around the room and sees that all around him the room is bending and dented. The very presence of his power was enough to crumble and disrupt the metal around him. A realization of power that brought both amazement and horror, the same feeling as looking a dragon in the eye. Wanting to leave his place and position, he grabs Lily's hand and runs out the hole that used to hold a door. He basically drags Lily behind him as he enters into the hall, ready to run full sprint. Instead of an open lane, he finds his path impeded by a foreign body. A girl with long black hair, a round pretty face, and short stature stood before them. Jay didn't know what to do, she didn't look like a soldier but she also definitely was not from his world. She had long black hair that came down just past her collar bone, she was tall and kinda scrawny as if she hadn't eaten enough. Her hair was covering one of her eyes but Jay could tell just from the other half of her face he could see that she was pretty. They stayed frozen staring at each other for a moment before Lily was the one to break the silence. "Yokinna…" Lily said, looking at the girl. Jay didn't know what that word meant but it seemed to be a name. Jay then recognized the hair and knew that it had to be the girl who visits them almost everyday. They both relaxed at seeing her, feeling as if the threat and tension had come to an end, but Yokinna stilled appeared anxious. Lily ran towards her friend in reassurance, but then stopped as the presence of a small black box with an antenna attached to the top of it. Yokinna slowly moved it towards her mouth, neither Jay nor Lily knew how to react. In a flash Yokinna began to yell into the black box, a rampant amount of indistinguishable words flooded into the device, and Jay knew none of them were good. Lily looked more astonished than Jay and began to cry.
"Lily, LILY, what is she doing," Jay asked while shaking her arm.
"I have only seen the men in black carrying those strange black boxes…" Lily says, she turns her gaze to look at Jay, "she is calling them to us." A static voice comes through the other end of the device. Jay reaches his hand forward and with the ignition of his magic, makes the black device leave Yokinna's hand and fly through the air into his own. He looks down at it, a very simple object but in his hands it felt very complex. In fear he throws it against the ground breaking it in a fit of static. With the heel of his foot he begins to stomp onto the device until it is in pieces and no longer makes a noise. Yokinna shudders as he breaks it and trembles with baited breath. Voices come from the end of the hallway in their direction. Jay reaches out with his telekinesis and slams the girls head against the wall next to her, hard enough to make her unconscious. Before Lily can have a fit, he tugs hard on her arm, and begins to run in the opposite direction.