Crossed Worlds

Chapter 5: What's your Truth?

Once finally up to the present day, the music became suspenseful – aggressive plucks of a violin – as Ben revealed, "We still have a cause for concern."

He explained that the tests the teenagers had experienced were because it is being heavily speculated that Wild Ones want to cross over, and with their powers and apparent instinctive skill of deception and manipulation, they already may be doing so. Jade thought about James, how he had already crossed over, how he had told her that the Wild Ones were, in fact, wanting to come to the Being sector.

"Therefore, we must remember to be diligent. These people could rebel at any moment, they could even be among us. We can never be too safe. Be sure to remind yourself of why they must never mix with us again, of why they are our enemy. They are dangerous troublemakers. We are not. Until next week!"

The video ended abruptly.

The lady flicked on the lights again and smiled her kind, warm smile.

"All right! I hope that wasn't too painful. Any questions before I ramble on for the next ten minutes?"

A boy in the front row raised his hand.

"Did any of the blood tests show negative results? Did they catch any Wild Ones today?"

"Fortunately, no. Everyone was positive, nationally," she nodded kindly.

Luke shifted his weight in his seat, looked to the ceiling, sighed and then raised his hand.

"Why did they test school students? Why would a trespassing Wild One go to a school?" His query had a lot of people who had zoned out entirely suddenly alert again. Jade felt a surge of excitement.

"Well," the woman hesitated. "As Ben Robin said in the video, we can never be too safe."

Jade was smiling, now. It was too vague. This lady, as lovely as she seemed, had no real answer.

"Are you sure it's not because he just wanted to persuade a bunch of impressionable people to come here? Don't you think he could have done it in better ways than traumatising them on a Monday morning?" Luke asked, and upon realising how angry he sounded, cleared his throat. "I'm sorry. I know Wild Ones are something to be scared of, and an enemy, and they probably are plotting against us or something. But what Sir Lawrence did was wrong."

The room sat in silence for a few moments.

"You are justified to be upset at how the tests were handled. Just try to remember that your Head Being is only trying to protect you. To protect all of us. He would never deceive you or do anything he didn't have to. Wild Ones act like that. Not us," she spoke levelly and Luke nodded, folding his arms. He was, unfortunately, satisfied with her answer, it seemed.

There were no more questions after that. The woman rounded up the evening with a small speech which essentially reaffirmed all that had been said already, and then reminded everyone to get more people involved and spread the word. She also finally remembered to tell them her name, Janelle.

Lily went up to thank her personally for an insightful hour, and then they all left together, walking down the street under a dusk's pink sky.

"Luke, what was that? I can't believe you'd make such accusations in front of everyone!" Lily looked entirely appalled.

"They were valid questions, Lily. I was happy with the answers I eventually got, so let's just drop it, all right?" He looked tired.

It was no surprise. The day had been as horrid as it had been confusing, and the morale of the gang was as low as ever.