Jemma

CHAPTER 19- New Truths

When I was seven, my father told me a story of how humans came to be. I remember it so clearly, the way he positioned himself against his chair, the way his hands gestured devotedly and his eyes sparkled as he muttered each word. He was gifting me with my first story, a knowledge that had been passed on for centuries and not once did I ever doubt that it was the ultimate truth of existence.

“It can’t be!” I deniably shook my head. How could it? I knew the story of creation and it certainly wasn’t what this stranger claimed it to be.

“But it is Jemma!”

I stared at Ava’s certain expression as dad’s words repeated in my ears. At the beginning of time, Earth was inhabited by nothing but the smallest organisms but billions of years into the future, an explosion brought animals into existence. These animals then evolved for over millions of years until humans finally came to be.

Standing suddenly, I began pacing until I finally found myself stopping at Ronnie.

“The dream. You came to my dream.”

He nodded. “Yeah I did. But it wasn’t really a dream.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“It was our way of communicating with you.” Ava answered for Ronnie.

“How can you communicate with me through dreams?” I asked turning back to her.

“It’s part of our ability. We are all connected.”

My eyebrow knitted agitatedly. “So you can just invade my dreams any time you want?”

She shook her head. “Of course not. You’d have to be open to it, let us in. You were in trouble Jemma and you called us for help.”

“I didn’t call anyone.” I denied.

“Maybe not consciously but you did.”

“What?” I asked, confused.

She sighed. “Jemma, if you’ll sit down and let me finish my story, you’ll understand everything.”

I shrugged. “Okay.”

Quickly, I walked back to my earlier spot and took a seat between Calla and Sammy. Ava waited for me and once I was settled, she went on with her story.

“After Nathaniel was marked, it set off a pattern. Every year, a new descendent would appear. Six years later, there were six of us; Nathaniel, his little sister Nollia, Me and three others. Then when came the seventh year and no one else was marked, we concluded that there were only six descendents.”

“That first day of the seventh year without a seventh descendent made our conclusion official and that very night, our planet celebrated the emergence of the six descendents and the planet’s long due coming freedom.” Ava swallowed bitterly. “But our celebration wasn’t meant to last as that very night, the night of the feast, our homes were attacked by Agroas’s men who showed no mercy in killing our families and everyone we loved.”

Seeming overwhelmed, Ava paused for a moment and as she struggled to contain her emotions, we all watched silently, none of us daring to utter a single word.

“With the help of a strange man, we managed to escape.” She continued. “Then when we finally reached safety, the man introduced himself as Immortallis, the last living Illustrious. Of course, we didn’t believe him, ‘all the Illustriouses are dead,’ we said. But then he showed us a picture of the entire universe on his arm and we immediately knew he was telling the truth.”

“Immortallis told us that Agroas kept him prisoner for millions of years and used his powers to destroy us, his own people. He said that he felt it when we were all marked and he used all the power left in him to escape and come to us. He said that his job now was to guide us until we were all united.”