Fourth Birth: The Oakmont Saga, Book 1
Chapter 18

The days continued to be a blur for me. The only things that stuck out in my memory anymore were my training sessions. I analyzed them over and over, pouring over every detail to try and replace something to improve my skills, especially the pyrokinesis.

I had seen that word to describe this new thing I had in some novel I read. It was about a little girl and her father trying to escape the bad government. Sounded eerily familiar, except the father part of it, and the fact that my fire ability definitely wasn’t as strong as hers.

Remembering one of my attacks and the mention of Mrs. Trulin shielding herself, I’d started trying to learn how to shield myself. It’d be nice to learn how to dodge probes, but that required a partner, which I didn’t have.

In thinking over my last attempt during lunchtime, I thought I’d figured out a better way to access the energy once I thought back on what I’d been doing. Every time I got small embers started, and sometimes I could even get the paper to light on fire, but that was all. Every time I used it, I ended up running a very high fever for a while and I was exhausted, in addition to the horrible headaches.

My belief was that I couldn’t properly release the energy afterward and it was causing this reaction in me, but I had an idea that I thought might work to channel the energy differently. Tonight’s session was going to be my test.

Also during that last session, I thought I’d actually managed to put up a shield. Although I couldn’t test it, I was pretty sure I had actually done it. I was going to try and see how fast I could get a shield up and then drop it. I didn’t want them to know that I could, so I needed to keep it hidden, until I absolutely needed it.

These lunch sessions caused me to go to math with a really bad headache every day, because of how hard I was pushing myself. The success I was having was worth it, though. It was the only good thing in my life right then. I would count Aliyah in that, but I was going to end up hurting her and that made her a bad thing. She deserved so much better...than me.

I’d kept sending my probes throughout the school, and I was noticing that I could go further for longer as I continued doing that. No one else seemed to be able to send probes more than a few feet, but I could roam the entire building at that point. I suspected I could go further, but I didn’t try, scared of getting caught as I was.

Another trick I was working on was hiding my probes, and I was pretty sure I was doing it. At least, no one seemed to notice them anymore, even though I wasn’t completely sure how I did it. It was just a feeling that I was doing it, kind of an intuition kind of thing. I thought I might try to see if Mr. Miller could see them. He already knew my strength anyway.

Thanks to my promise to the doctor, I ate breakfast and dinner every day with Aliyah. I still didn’t eat lunch, but now it was because I wanted to train, not because I was avoiding food. I had to get out of here, if for no other reason than to deny them access to what I had.

I still hadn’t figured out what to do about Aliyah. She had the same flaw in her brain that I did, at least I thought that was past tense for me. I knew I’d hurt her feelings by not hanging out with her other than breakfast and dinner and even then I really didn’t talk to her much anymore. There just wasn’t much left in me to talk about, at least nothing she would want to know about. I didn’t want to know about it, but I lived it everyday, all the time.

I needed to push her away from me, somehow. The problem was, I was too weak. Every time a chance came, I couldn’t make myself do it. As with everything else, I was a failure.

After my classes were over, which I was still not allowed to participate in Martial Arts or Mental Preparedness, I headed to the basement for some training before supper. I wasn’t sure why they weren’t letting me do Mental Preparedness, since they knew I wasn’t taking that drug for my brain problem. Maybe they just hadn’t thought about it, and I definitely wasn’t going to remind them.

I didn’t normally go to the basement in the evening, but I was really anxious to see if my idea would work. With the trash can ready, instead of focusing on the paper and trying to force the energy to light the paper, I reached out to the energy pool that I could sense all the time now and drew a very small amount of it into myself. I felt the energy flow into my body, infusing every part of me in a very nice warmth. It felt so good, and that scared me. I wanted it in me always and it was really hard to not take in as much as I could. I was pretty sure that was how addictions worked.

With that tiny trickle of energy, I looked at the paper in the trash can and created an image in my mind of it catching on fire. Once that image was firmly in my mind, I let the energy flow through me into that vision and the piece of paper. The paper instantly lit, just like as if I had put a lighter to it. What really excited me was, I didn’t have a headache and I was pretty sure I didn’t have a fever.

Just to make sure it wasn’t like the other time I managed to get that to happen, I repeated the process and got the same results. Getting really excited at my success, and the fact that I was able to repeat it, I did it several more times, proving my theory, just like a good scientist.

By the time I left for supper, I was so excited at my success I almost didn’t notice Aliyah following me from our room when I passed by. I did manage to notice a little after our room though and let her catch up with me, but as usual now, we didn’t say anything. I wasn’t sure why, but she seemed upset. I was surprised I even noticed, between my new normal and my excitement at the fact that I had actually managed to do something right for a change.

After I got my dinner, I sat down and waited for Aliyah to join me. I didn’t even know what kind of meat I got, or the veggies, either. It was just food that I was required to eat. Aliyah joined me a minute later, with her normal dinner.

I prayed over my food, Aliyah being polite while I did so. I never knew if she prayed or not and I wasn’t going to ask. Once I was done, we both ate, my food seeming better than it had been in a while. I actually enjoyed eating.

All through the meal, I could definitely tell she looked upset but she didn’t say anything. Still excited, though, I left the cafeteria to do my normal routine, at least my new normal routine, not thinking anything else about her. Deciding to change things up a little, I went to the basement to get some extra practice in.

Going through my warmup exercises, I pulled out the trash can, placing a couple of paper balls in it. After repeating what I did earlier, I released the energy and watched the paper ignite, turning to ash within seconds.

Staring at the ash in the bottom of the can, I was completely unprepared for the stairway door opening. It opened with the normal squeak, and I dropped the can with a loud clang, me falling down in the process. I was clumsy and foolish, and paid for it.

Looking at my captor, I was surprised to see Aliyah staring back at me. What really caught my attention, though, was how upset she looked.

“Can we talk?” she asked, then turned and closed the door.

“Okay,” I replied, worried at what she might have seen.

She faced me with tears streaming down her face. This was definitely not what I was expecting, especially since she was always so strong and confident. She never let anything bother her, and I admired her so much for that.

“Why have you abandoned me?” she asked, through her sobs. Her question floored me. I didn’t even know how to answer.

“Aren’t you going to say something, anything?” she pushed, after only a moment of waiting. I still wasn’t sure what to say, my already screwed up emotions suddenly stunned into complete chaos. “I decided to let myself care about you and you quit having anything to do with me, just like all the others. You even forgot my birthday, just like my sister!” Her voice had risen, almost to a shout by the end.

Her pain started reaching into my fog, making me feel pain, but a different pain than what I’d been feeling for a while now. “Don’t you even feel anything anymore!? Don’t you care!? I thought we were friends,” she said, breaking into more tears, and her voice finally getting soft and pleading. Putting her hands over her face, she dropped to her knees, sobbing.

“It’s not you. It’s me,” I said, now fighting my own tears. This was my opportunity to push her away, but now that the time was here, I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t stand seeing her hurting like this. Like always, I was too weak, a complete failure.

“What do you mean, it’s you?” she asked, looking up at me. Unsure how or what to say, the emotions I had been keeping bottled up finally came pouring out in a torrent. I couldn’t stop the flow of emotion that erupted from inside me, but I did manage to stop myself from crying.

“I can’t make the images stop, and my dreams are even worse. I’m screwed up and I’m getting away to try and figure it out or at least keep you away from me. I don’t know what else to do and I’m not going to tell them. I also don’t want you to worry about me,” I told her, just standing there looking stupid.

“What about Mrs. Wilde?”

“She’s one of them,” I replied, although I truly wished she wasn’t. To stop looking down on her, I dropped to my knees in front of her.

“Why didn’t you tell me? I’m your friend, your sister,” she said, moving toward me and wrapping her arms around me.

“Because if I tell you, then they’ll know and I don’t want them to know anything.”

“They won’t know anything anymore. Remember, you showed me how to hide my thoughts and see their probes,” she reminded me. I was so used to not telling anyone anything I couldn’t help it. Not telling was automatic for me. I also forgot I showed her that stuff.

“I forgot about that. Is it working?”

She seemed to think for a moment and then, “Yeah, I think so. Mr. Miller looks weird at me whenever he tries to read me anymore. I’ve gotten to thinking about you a lot, since I really am worried about you, but I add useless junk in there as well when I know he’s going to read me and I think I’ve gotten good at burying the things I don’t want him to replace.”

“When’s your birthday?” I asked, remembering her mentioning that.

“Today.”

“Really? Happy birthday, Aliyah,” I said, trying to sound happy for her. I actually did feel happiness for her, but I wasn’t sure how much it came through in my voice.

“I missed mine’” I realized, trying to keep a happy face, but struggling with it, the good emotions coming to an end now.

“When was yours?”

“November 2nd...three days ago, I guess,” I replied, realizing what day it was.

“Really? We’re only three days apart? That’s incredible!”

“Aliyah, I’m sorry I haven’t trusted you, but I couldn’t. I’m not very good at trusting people anyway, but since I knew they were reading your mind, I couldn’t let you know anything,” I said, beginning to think about how this could change things, my mind actually beginning to work like it used to.

“Since they can’t read you very easy anymore, I think I have a lot to tell you. Some of it isn’t nice,” I said, now that I knew she was safe. At least, she was as safe as I was, which wasn’t necessarily saying much.

She let go of me, sliding back a little to look at me. “What do you mean?”

“In the last attack when I was in that old lab, I found some stuff in there. There was a notebook which talked about the serum that gave us our telepathy. They gave this stuff to our Dads, which is how we got our powers. All of the other kids dads here got one called X3—,” I said, but she interrupted me.

“But ours didn’t,” she finished for me, in something kind of like a question but almost like a statement.

“No. Our dads got one called X5, but it has a flaw, which is why we have that spot in our brains. It will kill both of us—,” she interrupted me again, as I told her that.

“What about my sister?”

“I don’t know, but I’ll bet she’s not that strong, for some reason. The way he wrote about it, it seems to get worse the stronger the telepath is.”

“So, my sister is safe?”

“I don’t know, but I think so.”

“But we’re going to die?” she asked, moving forward.

“Maybe.”

“But you just said we would.”

“He developed another serum after that one that he thought would fix it, but he never tested it.”

“X6?” she asked, and I nodded my head. “You aren’t dead yet, and they thought you’d be dead in a couple days. I guess it worked,” she kind of asked.

“I’m pretty sure it did, but I’m not positive,” I admitted.

“You remember when I hurt you when I thought I was going to die, but told you I’d probably be okay,” I asked, getting a nod from her. “It was after that when I was given the stuff, and I could tell it did something. I could almost feel the bad thing in my head get better, which is why I told you later that I was pretty sure I was going to live. You remember that?” Again, she nodded.

“I need to take it, then,” she said, without any serious thought about what she was saying.

“Aliyah, if they replace out, we’ll become even worse lab rats than we already are.”

“Why? They wouldn’t know.”

“Yes they would, as soon as they do the next brain scan. It makes you a lot stronger and might give you new abilities and I’m pretty sure they’re looking at all of those pictures and seeing how strong we are with them.”

“I can take that chance or die if I don’t.” She broke it down to the simplest possible choices, making her decision easy. The problem was, it wasn’t that simple and I knew it. If they got ahold of her, she might wish she was dead. But I wasn’t ready to tell her about that, not yet.

“During lunch, I haven’t been going to the old lab,” I started.

“Yeah, I know. Have you heard what the kids are saying,” she asked, with an odd expression, as if she wanted to know something but seemed like she didn’t want to say it.

“No.”

“They say you’re letting the older boys do what they want with you during lunch.” Her words paralyzed me, then my stomach muscles began contracting. I sat back on the floor, drawing my knees up to my chin and began rocking back and forth, shaking, like I always did in the old lab, but I was doing it in front of Aliyah. “I’m sorry I told you, but I needed to see if it was true. I didn’t think it was,” she said, moving beside me and wrapping an arm around me, drawing me into a tight hug. Although I had been avoiding people lately, I not only accepted her hug, I leaned into it, soaking up the comfort she was providing. It was the only thing holding me together right then.

When I finally got myself under control, I sat back and looked at my friend. “Aliyah, you said I was the first friend you’ve had in a couple years, right?” I asked, struggling with myself to tell her what I was about to tell her, but feeling I needed to.

“Yeah, why?”

“You’re the first friend I’ve ever had. I might screw up a lot, but please help me do better.” I felt really small, and vulnerable.

“As nice as you are, I’m your first friend?” She was openly amazed at my admission.

“I was always too smart for the other kids to want to play with me and then when I started hearing their thoughts, they thought I was some kind of monster. I guess I am, actually. They teased me and tried to hurt me a lot,” I told her, all of the bad memories coming back to me in a rush, tears rolling out of my eyes.

“When was that?” she said, asking the question that I couldn’t answer the last time she asked it.

“First grade,” I replied, looking at the floor as I did.

“Really, you were that young?” There was no mistaking her surprise.

“Yeah, that’s one of those extra benefits of X5 that we got,” I informed her, looking back up at her.

“Why didn’t I start hearing them that young?” she then asked, with her very cute curious expression.

“I’m not sure. Luck, I guess, but I’ll bet you started hearing them earlier than most,” I replied, which she nodded that she did.

“How were you able to hide it from them?” She obviously meant the teachers here, indicating that with a motion of her head.

“I learned to make it go away. I guess I kind of turned it off.”

“You’re not supposed to be able to do that until I think sixteen.”

“Another benefit of X5, I think. I’ll bet you could do it, if you tried.”

She looked at me for a moment, “You think so?”

“Yeah, I think so, if you want.”

“I’d like to see,” she said, her face lighting up.

Looking at her beaming face, I made a decision I hoped I didn’t regret. “Aliyah, I was going to tell you that I’ve been going to the basement to train. I’ve been trying to get better at my mind skills. I want you to start training with me, if you want,” I shyly asked her, afraid she’d think I was stupid or something. “We’ll do it after dinner. I still need time by myself, so I’ll go to the lab during lunch and do a little bit of training then too. After supper, we can go to the basement to train our skills, if you want to,” I continued, letting the words come out in a rush, before I lost my nerve.

“Want to? Are you kidding? Of course I want to. Besides making myself better, I’ll get my best friend back. Well, my only friend,” she said, reaching out and taking me into a fierce hug. Hugging her back felt really good. I felt freer than I had since all of this started. I knew I was far from good, but I was better than I had been. Maybe there was something to this talking business.

“Are you sure you want to take the X6 serum?” I asked her, returning to her earlier decision.

“I don’t have much choice.”

“Okay, we still have time to go get it.”

I led her through the old section of the building to my lab and to that odd metal door. When I got there, the handle was locked, which I expected. Reaching into it with my mind, I actually remembered what I did. I lifted the tumblers which I now knew also opened the compartment. As it opened, I led her in and to the safe, pushing it out of the way. Sliding it off, I lifted the trap door and grabbed one of the test tubes from each row.

“Aliyah, there are two different serums. You have to decide how you want this to work. The first one works on you, and I think is the one you need to fix your head. The second is like the one our dads took. If you take it, your kids will get these abilities too. I’m not sure they won’t already and that they won’t have the brain problem, but I don’t know.”

“Did you take both?”

I nodded, not really wanting to remember my taking them, but she needed to know, I guess. “James poured them both down my throat. I didn’t really have a choice.”

“I’ll take both. It’s better to be safe than sorry. I’d hate to have kids and then have them die when I could’ve fixed it.”

“Let’s go back to our room, just in case you have some kind of reaction to it. I did...I think.”

We resealed the compartment and left the metal box room. Before we left the lab, I reached under the bookcase I remembered the notebook sliding under and found it still lying there. Apparently, Mrs. Wilde didn’t get it. I’m not sure I told Aliyah about it, though. With the notebook and the two test tubes in my hand, we headed back to our room.

When we got there, she sat on her bed as I removed the stopper on each of the two test tubes, handing them both to her at the same time. “It’s thick and it burned going down.”

“I’m scared, Mel,” she said, looking up at me. I sat down beside her and held her free hand for support. Without any more waiting, she turned both up into her mouth with her other hand, letting the thick stuff pour in.

Watching her, I saw her eyes widen as it slid down her throat, probably burning as it went. It was obvious when it hit her stomach. A small gasp escaped her mouth and her eyes closed very tightly. She sat rigidly on her bed for a minute and then collapsed. I barely managed to keep her from falling on the floor, as her back arched.

Thankfully, she relaxed shortly after the initial reaction. I had no idea what to expect, so I just watched her, making sure she was breathing and seemed to be more or less alright. She breathed steadily, with no obvious problems, the entire time I watched her. As much as I tried not to, I fell asleep beside her.

“Mel, wake up,” I heard, intruding on my restless dreams.

“I’m up, Momma,” I replied, turning over to go back to sleep. When I rolled over, someone started shaking me.

“Wake up!” I heard again.

Then it hit me. I’d been watching Aliyah to make sure she was okay. Opening my eyes, she was standing in front of me, bright eyed and energetic.

“Mel, I can feel the strength. It’s incredible. It’s like there’s a big pool of it out there.” I’d envisioned that pool for a while now, so I knew exactly what she was talking about.

“If Mr. Miller senses the change he’s going to wonder how you jumped in strength so much, not to mention the brain scans like I told you,” I informed her, making her excitement drop a little.

“I hadn’t thought of that.”

“That’s why I’m around. To think of those horrible evil plots that’ll get you in trouble,” I said, with a half-smile.

Watching Aliyah’s excitement made me feel a little bit of happiness. At least someone got some enjoyment from this curse. Looking over at the clock, I saw it was almost 7:00. “You missed morning exercise.” She scrunched up her face. She definitely wasn’t a big fan of exercising in the morning.

“No, I told Mr. Hammond I was going with you for your checkup.”

“You lied to him?”

“No. I am going with you. I just didn’t have to. I guess he assumed I did,” she said, smiling a rather innocent smile. I almost smiled back, almost.

“Well, let’s get ready then,” I told her, brushing my hair and quickly getting dressed. The hair brushing took longer than anything else, since it seemed like I hadn’t brushed it in a while and it was a rats nest. Even with that, we were both ready in only a few minutes, with a couple more minutes for morning hygiene stuff. I’d get a shower later.

When we got to the hospital, one of the nurses walked up as soon as we entered. “Good morning, Melanie, Aliyah,” she said, looking at each of us as she said our names.

“Good morning,” we both replied together.

“It’s kinda scary that they know us by name now,” Aliyah whispered as we followed her to an exam room.

“That’s what happens when you visit them all the time.”

“We need to get some blood samples from both of you, as well as some pictures in the radiology lab.”

“Why does Aliyah need to have that done?” I asked, a little curious, but with my warning flags going up in my mind.

“I just do what I’m told,” the nurse replied, smiling at us. “Go and see John and then come back out here and I’ll get the blood and then we’ll let the doctor take a look at you.”

“That’s what you get for coming with me,” I told her, with a small, ironic smile of my own as we walked to the Radiology lab. She stuck her tongue out at me, but I could tell she was curious too. Why did they need this stuff from her?

Once done with the pictures, Aliyah and I returned to the small exam room where the nurse already had two trays with blood drawing stuff waiting. I wasn’t sure why they needed blood samples from us. My injuries were broken bones, and Aliyah was a total mystery.

That was when I remembered the vision I had, which I wondered if it was a dream or something real. They wanted all of this from both of us and Aliyah’s sister too. My stomach suddenly felt like it was about to rebel again, but I forced it down with an effort.

When the nurse was finally done drawing our blood and giving me my normal injections, the doctor came and told me that my chest was healing pretty good. He wanted me to continue taking it easy for another three weeks, but I could start therapy and stretching exercises. After that we went to breakfast and class. We were going to be late, but the nurse gave us a pass to take care of that.

“John, what’s the status with the energy spec?” the doctor asked after the girls were gone.

“Doc, it’s the strangest thing, but it’s shrunk a lot,” John replied.

“What do you mean, it’s shrunk? It can’t shrink. Those things don’t simply go away, according to what I’ve been reading. At least I don’t think they do.”

“Doc, I agree with you, but the images don’t lie. It’s much smaller. Not only is it smaller in Melanie, but the microscopic one in Aliyah is gone.”

“You recently took images of the older Draper girl, as well?”

“Yeah, doc, but Abby didn’t have it to begin with.”

“It hasn’t miraculously appeared, has it?”

“Nope.”

“Forward the images to the head docs, as instructed.”

“Yes, sir.”

As the doctor left, John picked up the phone. “Hey, Doc. You need to look at the new images,” he said into the phone. “Both,” he added, after a short pause.

A few minutes later, Rebecca was in his lab, staring at the images. “How is this possible?” she asked, staring at the young man.

“Doc, I can’t begin to guess. From everything I know about this from what I’ve read of the X4 trials, this doesn’t get better, only worse.”

“I know. I’ve been studying them since you first discovered this,” she said, beginning to think.

He saw it in her eyes, and was curious. “Doc, you’re thinking about something.”

“Yeah, during her last attack by James, she said he poured something into her mouth and made her swallow it. Aliyah told me about it and we recovered two test tubes from the attack scene which were labelled X6-I and X6-D.”

“What is X6?” he asked, although he already knew. She did give him confirmation of what he’d kind of heard, though.

“I don’t know, but I think I need to.”

“Doc, there’s something else you need to take a look at,” he said, eliciting a raised eyebrow from her.

“Both girls have a very noticeable increase in energy levels in the telepathic areas, as well as the surrounding regions. Melanie had it since the last attack, but Aliyah has it now as well. As odd as their energy patterns already were, they’re even weirder now.”

He started showing her the images, her studying them as he moved along. She then took over his computer, flipping between the girls, noticing similar patterns between them. She then brought up older images, noticing similarities from prior and then brought up the images from right after the last attack. Melanie’s energy patterns started diverging from Aliyah’s very noticeably, until these latest ones.

Staring at these, she noticed they were somewhere between the earlier and the later pictures, as if whatever happened was in the process of happening when these images were taken. She could almost see the metamorphosis taking place in Melanie over the time period since the attack. Melanie had a lot of images taken in a short time, which clearly showed something changing in her. Aliyah’s change, although not as advanced as Melanie’s was taking the same form, but started very recently.

“John, the head docs are going to come for her when they see this,” she said, certain of it.

“Doc, anybody can see the change taking place in these images. Is it the X6 doing it?”

“I’m not sure, but it’s the only explanation I have right now. What concerns me is that if it is, then Aliyah has also taken it.”

“Doc that means that Melanie knew there was more,” he said, making her realize the implication. Melanie found it, not James. Did she know where more was? Rebecca had a sudden sinking feeling.

“John, I want to ask a hypothetical question...actually two.”

“Shoot Doc,” he said, but looked suspiciously curious.

“First, would it be possible to send older images as new images? Second, if it were possible, what are the chances of getting caught?”

“Well Doc, if someone were to want to do such a thing, which I can’t think of why they would, it could be done. If the right person were to do it, it’d be almost impossible to figure it out, for at least a few months, maybe longer, unless they were looking for it.”

“I would never ask someone to do that, but if it were to happen, I would be more grateful than you could ever imagine. Thanks John,” she replied with a smile and walked out.

“Rudie, you won’t believe it!” John exclaimed, his excitement overwhelming him.

“Calm down John. What’s happened?”

“They’ve both taken X6. I wasn’t sure at first, but I got confirmation of Melanie today, and with the latest images of Aliyah, she has too.”

“Are you certain?” Rudie asked, with an odd tone.

“As certain as I can be.”

“What’s Melanie’s status?” Rudie then asked.

“The energy burst is dissipating, although it’s not completely gone yet. Aliyah’s is totally gone.”

“That’s definitely good news. However, it does pose a potential problem. If my simulations are anywhere near accurate, the energy increase will be incredible, and will definitely catch the eye of the head docs.”

“Did you arrange for her to get it?” John asked, curious at Rudie’s apparent lack of surprise.

“I made it possible, but I’m still surprised she found it, and even more that Aliyah also took it. I left my journal there, as well,” he admitted.

“I should’ve known,” John said, laughing loudly, and ignoring the last admission. “There’s another interesting bit of news. Dr. Wilde indirectly asked me to send old images as new ones. Of course, I’ve already been doing that with Melanie,” he informed Rudie, once he finally recovered himself.

“Excellent work, John. Remind me to give you a raise, if I ever pay you,” Rudie said.