IN THE BEGINNING THERE WERE NINE OF US. We left when we were young, almost too young to remember.
I am told the ground shook, that the skies were full of light and explosions.
We were in that two-week period of the year when both moons hang on opposite sides of the horizon.
It was a time of celebration, and the explosions were at first mistaken
for fireworks.
They were not. It was warm, a soft wind blew in from off the water.
I am always told the weather was warm.
There was a soft wind.
I've never understood why that matters.
What I remember most vividly is the way my grandmother looked that day.
She was frantic, and sad.
There were tears in her eyes.
My grandfather stood just over her shoulder.
I remember the way his glasses gathered the light from the sky. There were hugs.
There were words said by each of them.
I dont remember what they were.
Nothing haunts me more.
It took a year to get here. Iwas five when we arrived.
We were to assimilate ourselves into the culture before returning to Lorien when it could again sustain life.
The nine of us had to scatter, and go our own ways.
For how long, nobody knew. We still dont.
None of them know where I am, and I dont know where they are, or what they look like now.
That is how we protect ourselves because of the charm that was placed upon us when we left, a charm guaranteeing that we can only be killed in the order of our numbers, so long as we stay apart.
If we come together, then the charm is broken.
When one of us is found and killed, a circular scar wraps around the right ankle of those still alive.
And residing on our left ankle, formed when the Loric charm was first cast, is a small scar identical to the amulet each of us wears.
The circular scars are another part of the charm.
A warning system so that we know where we stand with each other, and so that we know when they'll be coming for us next.
The first scar came when Iwas nine years old. It woke me from my sleep, burning itself into my flesh.
We were living inArizona, in a small border town near Mexico.
I woke screaming in the middle of the night, in agony, terrified as the scar seared itself into my flesh.
It was the first sign that the Mogadorians had finally found us on Earth, and the first sign that we were in danger.
Until the scar showed up, I had almost convinced myself that my memories were wrong, that what Henri told me was wrong.
I wanted to be a normal kid living a normal life, but I knew then, beyond any doubt or discussion, that I wasn't.
We moved to Minnesota the next day. The second scar came when Iwas twelve.
I was in school, in Colorado, participating in a spellingbee.
As soon as the pain started I knew what was happening, what had happened to Number Two.
The pain was excruciating, but bearable this time. I would have stayed on the stage, but the heat lit my sock on fire.
The teacher who was conducting the bee sprayed me with a fire extinguisher and rushed me to the hospital. The doctor in the ER found the first scar and called the police.
When Henri showed, they threatened to arrest him for child abuse.
But because he hadnt been anywhere near me when the second scar came, they had to let him go.
We got in the car and drove away, this time to Maine. We left everything we hadexcept for the Loric Chest that Henri brought along on everymove.
All twenty-one of them to date.
The third scar appeared an hour ago.
Iwas sitting on a pontoon boat.
The boat belonged to the parents of the most popular kid at my school, and unbeknownst to them, he was having a party on it.
I had never been invited to any of the parties at my school before.
I had always, because I knew we might leave at any minute, kept to myself.
But it had been quiet for two years. Henri had'nt seen anything in the news that might lead the Mogadorians to one of us, or might alert us to them.
So Imade a couple friends.
And one of them introduced me to the kid who was having the party. Everyone met at a dock. There were three coolers, some music, girls I had admired from afar but never spoken to, even though I wanted to. We pulled out from the dock and went half a mile into the Gulf of Mexico. Iwas sitting on the edge of the pontoon with my feet in the water, talking to a cute, dark-haired, blue-eyed girl named Tara, when I felt it coming. The water around my leg started boiling, and my lower leg started glowing where the scar was imbedding itself. The third of the Lorien symbols, the third warning. Tara started screaming and people started crowding around me.
I knew there was no way to explain it.
And I knew we would have to leave immediately.
The stakes were higher now.
They had found Number Three,wherever he or she was, and Number Three was dead.
So I calmed Tara down and kissed her on the cheek and told her it was nice to meet her and that I hoped she had a long beautiful life.
I dove off the side of the boat and started swimming, underwater the entire time, except for one breath about halfway there, as fast as I could until Ireached the shore. I ran along the side of the highway, just inside of the tree line, moving at speeds as fast as any of the cars. When I got home,Henri was at the bank of scanners and monitors that he used to researchnews around the world, and police activity in our area.
He knew without me saying a word, though he did lift my soaking pants to see the scars.
In the beginning we were a group of nine.
Three are gone, dead.
There are six of us left.
They are hunting us, and they wont stop until they've
killed us all.
I am Number Four.
I know that I am next.