Altered Reality (AoR #1)

Chapter One

I lifted my gray-blue eyes to meet the confused expression my reflection wore as it stared back at me. I was the same, but somehow different. My light brown hair was in a braid falling over my shoulder, maybe a bit longer than I remembered, and my skin was lighter than before, like a sickly pallid shade had taken over my complexion.

The glass revealed another reflection as someone edged closer to me from behind. I whirled around to see the last person I would consider to be a comforting face approaching me, his bright blue eyes wide with shock and his normally pale and freckled skin even paler, as if he was looking at a ghost.

The sordid and painful history Thomas and I shared went out the window. The same window behind me revealing the charred remains of the city I had grown up in. For the first time in years, I didn't care about how Thomas had toyed with me. I only cared that I wasn't alone.

"Thomas," I said with a gasp. "I don't understand. What happened?"

He jerked in surprise when I spoke. "Madeline... you're awake. How--I mean, when? Are you okay? Can you stand?" He rushed over and took me in his arms like I might topple over at any second.

I gently pushed away from him. "I am standing." I felt the horror wash over me as a thought occurred to me. "How... how long have I been in the hospital?"

The pained look on his face told me I wasn't going to like the answer to this question. "Four years," he finally choked out.

I turned around, looking out at the city with a new understanding. Four years. Somehow, we'd been attacked four years ago. The school must have been hit bad if I'd ended up in the hospital. I gripped his arm tightly, my eyes wide with fear. "Oh god--Brandon! He was in class with me. Where is he?"

Thomas tilted his head, perplexed. "What? No, he wasn't. He was in bootcamp. He's fine." He shrugged stiffly, but the hint of resentment in his tone when he talked about his brother wasn't lost on me.

I didn't dwell on Thomas's typical melodrama because my brain hiccupped on one tiny little detail. "Wait, what? Bootcamp? He's too young for bootcamp." Even if I didn't remember Brandon poking me with his pen right before our exam started--which I did, very vividly--and he hadn't been with me before the blast, I did know enough about the military to know no branch would take a sixteen-year-old boy.

"No, he wasn't. He got recruited two years before by the Lord Commander himself."

I blinked at him, certain I must be missing something. Granted, I wasn't a military brat. In fact, my father was quite the pacifist and would have moved us to a country with things like free healthcare and bans on assault weapons if he could have. But my uncle was a chaplain in the military and told me stories or explained things like the different branches and ranks all the time.

Not once did he mention a Lord Commander.

I watched Thomas carefully, but he wasn't exhibiting any signs of losing his mind. I glanced outside again and wondered if maybe I had. Had the world changed that much in four years? I shook my head. Even if it had, it didn't explain how Brandon was in the military before I got blasted into a coma.

I crossed my arms over my chest, annoyance and confusion fueling my denial. "Your math doesn't add up. I've been in a coma for four years, since the terrorist attack--"

"Terrorists?" He repeated and shook his head.

"Since the attack," I corrected, not giving him the chance to leave me with more questions. "You said four years since then. Four years Brandon has been in the military. Two years before, he was recruited by this Lord Commander, right?" I gave him the chance to nod before I continued. "What military organization in their right mind is going to recruit a fourteen-year-old kid? And what bootcamp takes two years to go through?"