Metamorphosis: Science Fiction Adventure: Book 1

by Kimberly Smith

  Kyla grabbed her head, falling back onto the grass. Arthur ran to her, dropping to the ground. He supported her head, “Kyla, can you hear me?” She didn’t respond. Arthur checked her pulse. She was breathing, and her pulse was a little fast, but Arthur felt she was okay, though she was unconscious. He slid an arm under her legs and one under her back, lifting her. He needed to get her home where is wife could determine what was wrong with her.

  ***

  Neil was frustrated with his team. They had been in Dallas for several days and they didn’t have any leads on the girl. Very few people in the area around the hotel had seen her. The ones who did remember her, hadn’t seen her since she left the hotel a few days before. Markus had found that the truck was registered to Tony Woods and it hadn’t been seen on the streets in a few days. If it did cross through any of the traffic cameras in the city, Markus would see it and that would give them a lead.

  If they didn’t get a lead soon, Neil and his team would have to return to the facility. His superiors were not happy with his lack of success and they were voicing it to him daily. His men were antsy and not used to having nothing to do. They liked to remain active and so did he. If they didn’t get a new lead by midnight, they would have no choice but to leave.

  “Hey, I think I’ve got something.” Markus had been using his skills scouring social media for anything that might be of interest to them. “Check out this video,” he said pointing to his computer screen.

  Neil and his team moved closer to the monitor. On Facebook, someone had posted a video of what looked to be a storm brewing over a rural area. Under normal circumstances, this wouldn’t raise any flags, but what the man was saying as he filmed, is what made this significant for Neil and his group.

  “It’s just a beautiful day out here on Lake Waxahachie. Me and my boy are just out here chilling and fishing,” one guy was saying as he panned the camera around the lake.

  “Whoa, dude. Check it out,” his friend said as a hand appeared in the screen pointing to the sky.

  As the camera pans up to the sky, the camera operator said, “What the fuck?”

  Neil and his team watched as a cloud formed what looked as though it might be a funnel cloud just off the lake. “This is crazy. It just came from out of nowhere,” the guy holding the camera said. It might not be anything other than what it looked like, but Neil had to admit that it looked suspect since the surrounding sky was clear as a bell and then as quickly as it formed, it disappeared.

  “Markus check with the weather bureau and see what they have to say about it. When was that video posted?”

  “Way ahead of you, boss. They got nothing about it. The video was posted ten minutes ago.”

  Neil watched as Markus used the computer to pinpoint the location. “Lake Waxahachie is about fifty minutes south of us.”

  “Mount up,” Neil said quickly grabbing his things. If they were lucky, this would be the break they needed.

  Chapter Twenty

  Kyla groaned and rolled over. She blinked a few times as she opened her eyes. Kyla raised her head, realizing that she was in her room at Arthur's house. Kyla sat up, trying to remember how she had gotten there. The last thing she remembered was being out in the field with Arthur. She got out of the bed and walked to the door. With her hand on the knob, she listened as she heard Arthur and Sandra talking.

  "I'm telling you what I know." It sounded as if Sandra were on the other side of the kitchen, near the sink.

  "How can that be?" Arthur's voice was close. He must have been sitting at the table.

  "I don't know-how. All I can tell you is that that child is dangerous. Not one of us has ever carried as much power, not even Carro. Elise has created blocks in her mind. She shielded her from things that she doesn't want Kyla to know or remember."

  "Why and how could Elise do that. She was advance in her abilities, but I don't believe she would have been able to do what your suggesting."

  "I don't know-how. I just know that the kind of power Kyla is filled with is going to attract attention, especially if she can't control it. I'm surprised that Elise was able to keep her hidden this long. The way she is now, makes her a danger to us."

  "We are not kicking her out. She's our family."

  "I'm not suggesting that we do that. I just think that we need to get to the bottom of this. I know that you think that I don't care about the child. You're wrong. She is a part of Elise. Of course, I care. I am just the voice of reason. All that happens to us is my responsibility. It's my job to keep us all safe."

  "Mother, you can't keep putting this pressure on yourself," Allison said. From the sound of her voice, Kyla guessed that she was sitting at the table with Arthur.

  "It was my choice to escape our world and our situation. Our landing here, being captured and tortured, is all because all of you listened to me. It was my plan, my fault that we are now stuck on this planet running in fear from a race of beings that are no better than the ones we left to escape from. We came here to get away from enslavement only to be enslaved again. Now, we spend every moment of our lives looking over our shoulders, waiting to be recaptured and enslaved all over again. No matter what you say or think, it's my fault. All of it."

  They were quiet, and then Allison spoke. "Maybe the things that we heard about Elise are true?"

  "No," Arthur said, slapping his hand on the table. "I will never believe any of that nonsense, and we will not talk about it as if it could be true." Kyla listened as his chair scraped the floor. "When she wakes, let's ensure that she is feeling okay, we'll talk to her about what happened in the field." Kyla didn't move from her place by the door as a second chair scraped the floor, followed by footsteps walking away.

  "I know you're awake," Sandra's voice sounded in her head.

  Kyla opened the door and entered the kitchen. Sandra was taking things out of the cabinets to use for cooking dinner. "How did you know I was awake. I didn't use the bathroom."

  Sandra opened the refrigerator, "While you were sleeping, I examined you, mentally. Your energy is strong, and by getting into your head, I guess you could say that some of you leaked onto me. I'll be in tune with you for a while."

  "You can hear my thoughts," Kyla asked, taking a seat at the table.

  Sandra used the cutting board to chop and dice vegetables. "No. I could do that regardless, but that's not what I mean. Each person has an energy signature. Think of it as a frequency that is unique to you only. While I examined you, I got in tune with your frequency. It just means that I can sense your presence easily for a while."

  "You said that I was stronger than Carro. Who is that?"

  Sandra placed the chopped vegetables into a pan on the stove, adding seasoning and some oil. "Carro came to earth with us. We wanted him to join us because of his mental strength and because he had spent a lot of time with our captors. Carro knew how to operate their machines, and he could decipher the symbols of their written language. It was essential that he come with us. He could do things that none of the rest of us could."

  "Like what?"

  "He could protect himself. When the invaders conducted tests on us, it was painful for everyone but Carro. Somehow, he can turn off or block the pain. It's one of the reasons he was used in the experiments more than the rest of us. There are many other things that we saw him doing. He could heal himself. When he returned to our living space with wounds that should have taken weeks to heal, He would concentrate his energy and focus on the wound, healing it in hours or minutes. That's why we wanted him to come with us. We wanted him to teach us how to do those things."

  Kyla waited for Sandra to continue as she added meat to the pan. "Did he?"

  Sandra turned to face Kyla. "No. He told us that it wasn't something that could be taught. You either can do certain things, or you can't. He said that with time, we would evolve and be able to do them, but there was no way of knowing how long it would take before that would happen. It could take generations before we evolved. Some believed him,
and some didn't."

  "What happened to him. Did he escape with you, or was he killed in the experiments?"

  "They came for him one day, and he never returned to our living quarters. That was when we were certain that we had to escape. If they could kill him, there was no way that we had a chance of living through all the awful things they were doing to us."

  Kyla wanted to ask for specifics, but she thought better of it. If she knew what her mother was enduring, she might not be able to handle it. "What did Allison mean when she said that maybe the things you heard were true about my mom?"

  Sandra turned her back to Kyla. Talking about Elise always made her emotional, but this conversation was the most difficult for her. "Allison shouldn't have said anything about that."

  "But it is something she should know," Arthur said, entering the room. He took a seat at the table. "Your mother had a way with the humans. They liked her, particularly the men. She received preferential treatment and that made people think that maybe she was… working with them. She never returned to our living space tired, or with any visible wounds. After a while, she was moved from the rest of us, and we weren't allowed to see her. Once she was returned to us, she never talked about what they did to her during that time. What we know is that during that time, she was able to learn the right passageways to get out of the facility. It was also because of Elise that we had what we needed when we escaped, clothing, money, transportation and a lot more."

  "How many of you escaped?"

  "Nearly twenty-five of us got out of the facility. We stayed together for a day or so, but we knew that we would be caught if we remained together. We separated into smaller groups and to ensure the safety of everyone, we've never spoken since," Sandra said as she turned the burners off and piled food onto plates for them all.

  Allison entered the kitchen, going to the stove and grabbing two of the plates of food, then crossing back to the table, she set one down in front of Kyla and the other, where she was going to sit. Sandra did the same with a plate for Arthur and herself. When they were all seated, Kyla took a moment to pray. When she raised her head, she found the family watching her as they had at every meal. "Okay, will someone tell me what's the big deal with me praying?"

  The three of them eyed each other before Sandra spoke, "We find it odd. We don't believe in God."

  "Why not," Kyla asked as she began to eat her dinner?

  "Because there is no such thing," Sandra said as if that explained everything.

  "How do you know that?"

  "Well, because there is no proof of his existence. Humans pray for various things all the time and…"

  "…and what? Praying is not just about asking for things. My prayer when I eat is to thank God for providing these things and to ask his blessing for you who cooked the food. It's about respecting his grace and goodness."

  "The food you are eating didn't magically appear. We have jobs, we work, we get paid and buy what we want," Allison said with a smile.

  "Yes, but who do you think blessed you to have that job. Look, you don't have to believe, but I'd like you to respect my decision to believe in God and my right to worship him," Kyla said, looking each of them in the eye. "Isn't that what you came here for, after all, the right to live freely and to think and believe what you want without being forced to act or believe what someone tells you to?" The three of them nodded as they listened to Kyla. "Now, can we talk about what happened to me today? How can I get past these mental blocks that caused me to blackout?"

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Kyla listened to Sandra and Arthur through the rest of their meal. “Your mother figured out some way to build walls around some of your memories. I don’t know why. I think that those memories are connected to your abilities. She may have erected these blocks or walls to keep you from being able to use them. I can’t get around them. I think that you are the only one other than your mother, who can,” Sandra explained.

  “How could I do that when every time I try to remember something that is blocked, I get a headache?”

  Arthur wiped his mouth, “What happened today has never happened before, right? You seemed to be in a trance or something. You couldn’t hear me calling you, and you seemed oblivious to what was happening around you. The wind picked up, and the sky grew dark like a storm was brewing. What were you thinking of?”

  Kyla swallowed before answering, “I was thinking of being at home. I was in my room, but I was younger, and my room was filled with toys, and the toys were flying around the room and…”

  Arthur, Sandra, and Allison all took notice that Kyla’s eyes were glowing, and the air crackled around her. “Stop,” Sandra said, not wanting her to go any further.

  Kyla’s head hurt, but she was aware that this was a memory. She refused to let the pain stop her from seeing what had been blocked. Kyla was standing in her room again. Her toys lifting from the ground, moving as if they were caught in the funnel of a tornado. She was afraid she didn’t know how to stop it. Throbbing started in her head. Things began to get darker, but Kyla couldn’t pull herself out this time. The bedroom to her door opened and she saw her father there. She couldn’t hear him, but his mouth was moving, and he was trying to get close to her, but the intense cyclone of air pushed at him. The furniture was shaking and lifting from the floor. Sparks flashed, and her father was still trying to get to her. A bright flash of light arced through the air, striking her father. Kyla screamed, and everything stopped as her father fell to the floor. Kyla could hear her mother’s voice, calling her name.

  “Kyla! Snap out of it,” Sandra said, shaking her by the shoulders.

  Kyla blinked her eyes, looking up into Sandra’s face. She was lying on the kitchen floor. The room was a mess. “Oh God, I did it again?” She looked around the room. Allison and Arthur were on their knees behind Sandra. She hadn’t hurt them. Tears filled her eyes, rushing down her cheeks.

  “It’s okay,” Sandra said, helping her sit up. “You didn’t blackout this time.” As Kyla continued to sob, Sandra held her, looking back at Arthur. A few minutes passed, and then the doorbell sounded.

  “I’ll get it,” Allison said, leaving the room.

  “Help me get her to her room,” Sandra said as Arthur helped her get Kyla to her feet.

  “I’m sorry,” Kyla said as they sat her on her bed. “I couldn’t stop it. I killed him.”

  Sandra sat beside her as Arthur kneeled in front of her. “You didn’t kill anyone, we’re all fine.”

  “No. I killed my father that day in my room. I was having a tantrum. He sent me to my room, and I was mad at him. He came in, and I struck him with a bolt of energy. There was a hole in his shirt, and I could smell his burnt flesh and clothing. I just stood there, screaming. Mom rushed into the room and…

  “But you said that he was shot by the men who entered your house. He couldn’t have died that day in your room,” Arthur said, touching her face.

  “Mom brought him back. She did something to him and brought him back.”

  Sandra stood up, “Try not to think about it. Lay down,” She said, sitting on the side of the bed, caressing Kyla’s face and humming a slow melodic tune.

  Arthur knew what his wife was doing, she was soothing her and putting her to sleep at the same time. They couldn’t have another incident like the one in the kitchen. She could have hurt herself or one of them. Allison appeared in the doorway. Arthur eased out of the room, closing the door behind himself.

  “Who was at the door?”

  “It was just Jerry from next door. He thought we might have been having a party or something. He heard the booming and saw the flashes of light. I took care of it. I told him that you were messing with the cable, and it got a little loud.”

  “That doesn’t explain the lightning.”

  “I told him that I was messing with you by flipping the lights off and on. He laughed and said, that was the most exciting thing we’ve done since we moved into the house. Is she okay?”

 
“She will be.” Arthur looked around the room. “Why don’t we put the kitchen back together while Mom calms her down?”

  “Sure,” Allison said with a smile. “You mend the broken things, and I’ll clean.”

  They worked together, quickly cleaning the food that was no longer in pots on the stove but flung around the room. Arthur repaired the chairs, table and broken dishes. They were nearly finished by the time Sandra came through the door. “She’s sleeping. She broke whatever barrier Elise put in place. I looked into her memory. Tony did die in that room from her striking him, and she was right. Elise … saved him.”

  “How?” Both Arthur and Allison asked at the same time.

  “She used her blood. She cut her finger and put a couple of drops of blood into his chest. She lay her hand over the wound and pushed her energy into him. Within a few minutes, he was healed and breathing.”

  “That’s impossible,” Allison said quietly, “No one has ever been able to do that except the elders of the high council. Our family isn’t related to any elders. It doesn’t make sense.”

  “Whether it makes sense or not, she did it, and then she blocked the memory of it from Kyla’s mind.”

  “I wonder if the other memories that Kyla has a block on are something along those same lines,” Arthur said, looking from his daughter to his wife.

  “It would make sense that they are similar,” Allison said, sitting down. “It makes you wonder, what else could Elise do that she hid from us.”

  “There is no telling, but that isn’t what we have to be concerned about. We must focus on Kyla and how to unblock those memories without alerting others to our presence, or hurting us, or her.”Chapter Twenty-Two

  Kyla’s dream was different. She was on the beach, but the sky was cloudy. She stood and turned at the sound of movement behind her. Again, she wasn’t greeted by her mother as she normally would have been. Instead, she faced a man she had never seen before. He was tall, with dark hair that fell almost to his shoulders. He smiled at her coming closer. He was handsome and looked to be near Kyla’s age. “Who are you?”