"Desert (chapter Four)" by Natalie Beth Myers

Natasha just stared at her. “Augments?” she mumbled, “You mean…genetically enhanced humans?”

Kayara gave a weak smile, nodding slightly. Dr. Gates was looking out the window, his dark green eyes deep in thought. Natasha stared at the ground, her eyes wide. This is Earth? They are humans? This desert is Canada? she thought bitterly, What kind of sick, twisted, evil world is this?

“I know it must be a shock for you,” Kayara said gently, “but it is the truth.”

The poor human girl didn’t respond. The fairy stood up from her kneeling position. Dr. Trisan Gates muttered, “They won’t like it, Kayara. They won’t like it that you have brought a human. It is bad enough that you have magic but a human…? You know they won’t stand for it.”

Natasha looked up at the two of them, Who is they?

“I understand that, Trisan, but I know what I saw.”

“You don’t know what you saw, Kayara, you already told me!” he blurted out, “You don’t know the outcome.”

Kayara replied calmly, “She is either our destructor or our savior.”

The elven doctor groaned, walked behind his desk, and sat down. His eyes were hidden behind his brown hair. When he spoke, it was barely in a whisper, “They will try to kill her, Kayara. You know that.”

That was the biggest blow. Natasha’s mouth clamped down so she couldn’t gasp or have all the air escape her lungs. Her dark eyes were even wider than they had been before, almost as large as her mother’s dinner plates.

“Trisan!” Kayara exclaimed, “Don’t…you shouldn’t…not in front of her.”

“Why?” Natasha head shot around to stare at her, “Why not? After all the other stuff you’ve told me, this doesn’t come as a big surprise. Why me?! Why did you chose me?!”

Kayara knelt down, her snow white hands on Natasha’s shoulders, and she said gently, “No, no, no, no. Shhhh. I chose you for what you are. A brave, strong, loving young girl that felt like she could take on the world.”

“Not this world,” she muttered grimly.

“Let me finish. I can see the future, what this world will be. But I can see two lives. Both have war. One has a human. The other does not. One war will be of many battles, the largest this world -Earth and Elinia- has ever seen, while the other is one large, single battle. Now, the ending is difficult to make out. In the end of one, there is a very long lasting peace. And in the other-”

“The world is dead,” Natasha sighed, interrupting the fairy.

She looked at her in surprise, “How did you know?”

Natasha shrugged, “I don’t know. I just…knew.”

Kayara stared at her a moment, and then at Trisan. His green eyes were wide, blinking a few times. He asked, “Have you seen it? Have you actually seen it?”

The human girl closed her eyes, and then muttered, “Um…will the world look like a barren wasteland full of volcanoes, earthquakes, and no water at all?”

“Yes, Natasha,” Kayara breathed, “That is exactly what it looks like.”

* * *

Natasha followed Kayara through the back door of the giant building, which she had learned was called the Blion Shatta. Kayara had said, “That means ‘shining jewel.’ Beautiful name, isn’t it?”

The human girl didn’t say anything. Nothing in it seemed beautiful. It’s full of freaks, she thought, annoyed, Or I’m the freak.

Natasha asked, “Where are we going?”

“To my home.”

The alleyway they were walking down was a little dirty, a piece of trash and, surprisingly, a beer can or two littering the ground. Natasha muttered dryly, “You guys still drink beer?”

Kayara replied, “It is forbidden to drink. It is sold for a high price on the black market.”

Natasha snorted, “You guys even have a black market still? Heh.”

The fairy stopped, and knelt down. Her pure white gown still remained clean against the dirty pavement. She said quietly, “The rest of the way is in the sky. I’ll have to carry you.”

She held her pale arms wide to Natasha. The human girl stared at her blankly, and then slowly walked into her arms. Kayara held her tightly as her graceful wings stretched. With a powerful thrust of her wings and legs, they went up into the sky. Natasha clung to her, closing her dark eyes tightly, realizing she was a little afraid of heights. Kayara gave an understanding chuckle.

After about five minutes, at the top of the highest building in the city, the fairy landed silently on the doorstep of her home. Natasha slowly freed her arms from around Kayara, a little embarrassed, and then looked at the fairy’s home. The outside was painted white, the lawn evenly trimmed in front of it. To her, this house looked like a suburban house from back home. There was only one thing that seemed out of place. All the windows and curtains were closed.

She asked, “Kayara? What’s wrong?”

Kayara shrugged, “My son likes the dark. He closes all the curtains whenever he comes home from school.”

“Your son?”

“Didn’t I tell you?”

Natasha shook her head, “No. You didn’t.”

“Oops,” she said apologetically, “Sorry. I must have forgotten.”

“You don’t have to apologize,” she muttered.

Kayara shrugged, and walked down the paved walkway to the house. She sighed, and followed the fairy.

Opening the large oak door, the two walked in, and Kayara, raising her voice only slightly, said, “Calor! I’m home. There is someone here I’d like you to meet.”

After a moment, a boy came from another room. He looked like a normal fifteen year old human boy…other than the pointed ears and wings. The boy, Calor, looked at Natasha curiously, his dark blue eyes studying her. His hair, unlike Kayara’s beautiful silver hair, was a light brown, going down into his eyes.

“Why have you closed the curtains again?” his mother asked, “I thought I told you not to.”

“Mom…” he groaned, looking down at the carpeted floor.

“Did you use your magic to do it?”

Calor nodded slightly.

“Did you enact the proper procedures to make sure that you were not detected?”

He nodded again.

Kayara gave a sigh of relief, “Well, that’s good. Today is just not the best day to have the officials drop us a visit.”

Calor’s green eyes met Natasha’s, and she looked away quickly. Kayara introduced them, “Calor, this is Natasha. She is the human girl I was talking about the other day. You know…the one from the twenty-first century.”

Calor nodded, and directed the question at Natasha, “What is your name?”

“Natasha,” she replied, “but you can call me Tasha if you want.”

“Tasha,” Calor smiled, apparently liking the sound of it, “Cool name.”

She smiled, “Thanks.”

“How old are you?”

“Fourteen.”

His eyes widened in surprise as he exclaimed, “What?! Only fourteen? That’s-”

Kayara interrupted, “Calor, need I remind you that we are the genetic augments of humans? Our lives have been extended by about six hundred years. Natasha is a young woman among humans, and I don’t want you judging her by our standards. Understood?”

Calor nodded once again, and then looked back down at the floor. His wings, shaped very much like Kayara’s, tightened around him, almost making a cloak. Natasha was fascinated by them. The wing’s colors were sky blue, white, and black, mixing in a beautiful and dreamy way. Natasha wished once more that she had wings.

Kayara noticed the human girl watching her son. She gave a small smile, “Calor, would you please show Natasha around the house? She will, after all, be living with us from now on.”

Calor nodded with a pleased grin on his face, and gestured to Natasha that she follow him. Wanting to know more about this fairy and his home, she followed eagerly. Leading her down a hallway, he asked, “So, how long have you been in Balin?”

“What is that?”

“It’s the name of the city.”

“Oh, that’s right,” Natasha chuckled, embarrassed, “Kayara told me that almost as soon as I got here.”

“Well, how long?”

She shrugged, “Just today. I got here just today.”

Calor gave her a concerned look, “You must be tired then. Come on, I’ll show you your room.”

My room, Natasha thought a little angrily, My room is back on Earth, back in the twenty-first century.

She asked him, “What century is this anyway?”

“It’s the twenty-third.”

“So I have come ahead two centuries.”

“It would seem so.”

He led her down a side hall, and then opened the first door they came to. He stepped aside, letting her go in first. Natasha gasped, her dark hand covering her mouth, tears coming unbidden to her eyes. This room was almost the exact copy of her room from Earth. Everything was in the same position, only there was no longer a bunk bed. No one else is living here except me, Natasha thought sadly, No more Janny… I don’t have a younger sister anymore…

“I didn’t like it either,” Calor muttered, “I think it’s cruel for you to have the same exact room you did back in your time. But my mother thought it might help…”

Natasha didn’t hear him. Tears were streaming down her cheeks, her eye closing tightly to block it out. Everything that had happened was now threatening to overwhelm her with unwanted emotions, about to sweep her away in the tide of anger and fear. She could barely feel Calor lead her to the bed, gently pushed her down onto it, and then wrap a blanket around her. There was a pause, and Natasha could slightly feel her dark hair being pulled out of the tight bun it had been in, and then fall around her shoulders.

Calor put the bobby pins and hair band on the side table beside the bed, saying to her quietly, “Get some sleep, Tasha,” and then left the room, closing the door behind him.

It took her almost twenty minutes to regain control of herself. When she did, Natasha lay down, her head hitting the fluffy pillow softly. Giving a deep sigh, she closed her eyes. A few moments later, Natasha was asleep.