Various dates in my life: Some may tell you that comic book superheroes aren’t real, but where did the legends come from? I am an Olympian. No, not an athlete in the Olympic Games, though I could be. An Olympian, or rather, an Immortal as we prefer to call ourselves, is any person on this planet with two copies of a relatively rare gene that gives them magic fitting their personality, telepathy, the ability to become an animal, the ability to project their minds out of their bodies, and the ability to fly via one or more of their powers. Some might call us battlemages, battlefairies, or witches. My Immortal name is Feline Current. I can manipulate electrical energy, I have telekinesis, and I also have superhuman strength. I can also transform into a tabby cat with purple eyes. I can fly via telekinetic levitation and whenever I project my mind out of my body, it takes the form of the animal I can become. We Immortals have a Code, a set of laws that govern our society. The first law is that all Immortals shall only use their magic for the benefit of all living things. The second is that Immortals must not reveal their magical status to mortals wantonly, without serious consideration, and certainly not without the consent of the High Council, so Immortals will not be persecuted. The third is that Immortals must keep their magic hidden in mortal form while in the presence of mortals not intimate (spouse, in-laws, etc.) to said Immortal. The fourth is that Immortals shall not use magic in public unless they take on a warrior form and make hair and eye coloration changes to conceal identity. The fifth is that there is no restriction on whom an Immortal may marry, either based on blood status, race, sexual orientation, or any other protected characteristic. The sixth is that all members of the greater Immortal community, be they full-blood Immortals, Half-bloods, Wise Ones, and mortals who marry into the community, all have equal status in the community. The seventh is that all Immortals must be trained by a family Sentinel. My immortal warrior form is very powerful, and it appears instantly on my body when I summon it. My feet are clad in purple toeless socks, my claws are painted purple yet as hard as diamonds. I have gold armbands with purple and black stones. My chest has platinum plated armor with purple and black stones with a golden lightning bolt on my heart. I also have a gold and black warrior skirt and a silver headband and my hair in that state is waist length, wilder, billowy silver with bright purple streaks, like the border between a storm cloud and the sun it blocks out. My eyes are a fiery purple and are lined with jet black. My face is not covered by a mask, for the magic within us allows us to not be recognized by mortals in our immortal forms unless we wish it so. I take on the ears, nose, and tail of a silver tabby cat. In mortal form, my curly shoulder length hair is brown with blond highlights and is relatively tame and my eyes are medium brown. An Immortal, or “god/goddess” is someone with two Immortal parents and they live in the Physical Realm roughly 2500 years before reaching nirvana, a heaven of sorts, going to live inside a pocket dimension called the Deathless Realm, contained within a mystical diamond, but only if they follow the Immortal Code and are good-hearted. This diamond’s location is currently unknown. Those who willingly do evil will be stripped of their powers by the Immortal Council and cursed to live forever without magic, continually aging and fading until they are so weak, they are merely ghosts, unable to interact with the living, a hell of sorts. A Half-blood, or “demigod/demigoddess” is someone with one Immortal allele and one mortal allele and they are also immortal in that they do not die from old age but can still die if they sustain a lethal injury or if a serious disease comes on quickly, yet they do have magic. A mortal is someone with no magic and who lives barely a century. A Wise One is themselves mortal, but they have the potential to give birth to someone with magic, and they also have access to all the knowledge of the Immortal culture. We all have warrior forms that work in the same way to make us more like forces of nature. My younger brother is a wily one with the power to move inhumanly fast, turn invisible, and control plant growth. His hair and eyes are brown, but in his Green Leopard form, he has gold hair with brown spots, and his eyes are green. As Green Leopard, he wears dark brown leather armor. He has the ears, nose, and tail of a leopard, and a leaf lies on his heart. My mother is quite chilly with the power to manipulate ice and snow, produce hurricane force cold winds, and expand at will. Her claws are painted white yet as cold as frostbite. She has silver armbands with blue and gray stones. Her chest has silver plated armor with blue and gray stones with a white icicle on her heart. She also has a white and blue warrior skirt and a silver headband and her hair in that state is ear length, spiky, ice white, like frost. Her eyes are a glacier blue and are lined with jet black. She takes on the ears, nose, and tail of an arctic fox. In mortal form, her buzz cut is brown and is relatively mundane and her eyes are gray blue. My father is very fiery with the power to manipulate fire, fly on thermals, and see heat energy. His hair is black, and his eyes are brown, but in his immortal Firefly form, his hair is bright orange with white, yellow, black, and red streaks and his eyes are fiery orange. As Firefly, his armor is black and red with orange and yellow gauntlets, and there is a yellow, orange, and red flame on his heart. My grandmother is wise with the power to control air, control wood, see in the dark, and transform into an owl. She has gray hair and eyes, but in her Athena form, her hair and eyes are shiny silver, and she has the wings of an owl. As Athena, she wears the ancient Greek armor with a silver pearl on her heart. My grandfather is crazy with the power to produce force fields, bust through thick barriers, communicate with animals, and turn into a tortoise. He has gray hair and brown eyes, but in his Wrecking Ball form, his hair and eyes are dark green. As Wrecking Ball, he has armor like a tortoise shell, his legs are cobbled stone, and there is a stone on his heart. A very important member of our family is Lyral Llewelyn. She, too, is an Immortal like us, but she is of a very small subset of us known as Sentinels, ones who are gifted with the powers of one of the four elements: fire, water, earth, and air, each of which forms a tribe. Within each tribe there are two clans. Lyral is of the Water Tribe’s Frost Clan, so her powers are mostly ice-based. Her hair is long and snow white, and her eyes are ice blue and everything she wears is like winter. Most of all, a Sentinel is distinguished by their congenital sterility, which is not a source of shame as Immortals do not need to procreate to survive. Mom’s mother, Selma Mason, is also an Immortal known as Frigga and her father, Tyrone Mason, is a half-blood. Her younger sister Constance Ladell is also a half-blood and so was her late husband Refine Ladell and their daughters Tisha, Alana, and Tara. I am 12 years old, and I have Xena and Spock and they are my large feline sidekicks who fight crime by my side. My cats came into the family just after I was born and though I’ve asked them many times where they came from, all they say is that “she” sent them to us. I always ask who “she” is, but they never say. They explain that they were her servants, sent to aid me in fighting the “darkness”. Xena and Spock have the same powers as I do and are well-known to the public. The queen is called Xena because she would sit with me when I used to watch Xena: Warrior Princess when I was younger (I loved doing her battle yell and mine is similar only there is a feline yowl at the end), and the tom is called Spock because he would make the iconic hand sign whenever he was happy. These cats can talk unlike most cats. My brother’s pets are also two cats, but around the house, they look like Abyssinian cats, but when he takes his true form, they turn into actual large leopards and their names are Elegbe, the male and Yara, the female. My mother’s pets are two large arctic foxes who look like malamute dogs around the house, but they become arctic foxes great in size when she turns into her immortal form and their names are Kano and Amina. My father’s pets are large pigs who are the size of our cats and the boar, Winston, can sense when there is a fire and the sow, Truffles, can sense the presence of truffles. Grandma’s pets are two large barn owls who live in the barn and who fight alongside her, and their names are Professor and Minerva. Grandpa’s pets are large chickens who are not afraid of battle, rather ironically, and their names are Tyson and Charlie. I first discovered my powers when I was 4 years old. I was playing outside and there were storm clouds approaching and rather than being scared, I was captivated by the grays and flashes of light and lightning hit the ground very close to me. I was not harmed, however, because I was now holding the raw power of the lightning strike in my hands and my body was then transformed into a tabby-human hybrid. In that moment, I felt fear at first, but a woman’s voice told me I had a great destiny ahead of me and that I would do great things and then I felt powerful, like I could conquer any obstacle and so I ran back into the house and told my mother and Lyral said that since I have discovered my powers, it was time to start my training and declare my powers to the High Council. One summer when I was 8, I saw a man in a pickup harassing a group of black women. He got out and shouted various profanities at them, and I telekinetically snatched away the knife he was holding, confusing him, and allowing the women to get away and he was cuffed by the police. That was my first bust, and the man was known through town as Crazy Charlie, a bigoted hermit. I live in the town of Montpelier in central Virginia, and I attend Liberty Middle School, and we live on a large farm that provides much of Montpelier’s produce. It goes without saying that as an immortal, every bust may yield new enemies, and I certainly made one that day. I hear a loud knocking at my bedroom door and my mother’s agitated voice which wakes me up. “Lindsay! TJ! Get up! I’m not going to tell you two again!”
Thursday: 06/06/2030: “It’s 7:00 am!” I look at my bedside clock, and it is indeed 7am. “We’re coming, Mom!” I jump out of bed and look in the mirror at my bedhead hair and brush it into streaks of caramel and chocolate and head downstairs for breakfast. “Good morning, Lindsay. Happy last day of school, sweetie!” “Good morning, Grandma. Nice pancakes.” “Thank you, Lindsay.” Grandma is pouring the pancake syrup onto the pancakes. “Have some. You’ll need it for the day ahead.” “Thanks, Grandma.” I grab a couple flapjacks and eat them quickly. My little brother TJ comes downstairs, grabs breakfast, and runs back to his room, all at super speed. I just start laughing and I finish my pancakes and go back upstairs to get dressed. I look in my closet, and I am tackled by an invisible little brother, who I swiftly catch, and I put him back in his room and I pick out my Thunder-heart T-Shirt and my favorite jeans and gold sandals. I then put on my makeup and jewelry and look at the time. 7:20. I finish getting dressed and grab my bags, for today is the last day of school. TJ and I go downstairs and go out to the end of the driveway. “Bye, Mom! Bye, Dad! Bye, Grandpa!” “Bye, you two! Have a good last day at school!” His bus comes at 7:25 and mine comes at 7:30 and takes me to school and I greet 龙美雷 and Henry in the hallway on the way to our last exam. It was the science exam, and it takes us 90 minutes to finish and afterwards, the teacher lets us hang out and sign each other’s yearbooks. We practically had a party and at 1:15, the principal comes on the PA and wishes us a good summer vacation and hopes to see us back here in the fall. I rode the first load and me and my friends Henry, Měi Léi, Qatherine, Joshua, and Yona hung out in the front area and talked about what we’re going to do this summer. Yona Pfeiffer is, by all accounts, my first and oldest friend. Our families have known each other since we were toddlers. My earliest memory of Yona was in 2021 when we were 4 years old, and we were in preschool, and I remember she was very shy and wanted to play by herself. Some of the boys would pick on her and when I stood up for her, she came out of her shell a bit and soon, we started playing together more and more and we were officially best friends. We would do absolutely everything together. One unique aspect of our friendship is that we can see past and even embrace our religious differences. Her family is German-Jewish, descendants of refugees who fled Nazi Germany in the early 1930s. On my mother’s side, there are enslaved people on my family tree. My great-great grandparents made their way to freedom on the Underground Railroad. We always share family stories and find understanding through the experiences of our ancestors. Over the course of our childhood, we’ve had many happy memories together, like our two families having a Christmas-Hanukkah joint celebration and opening gifts together. However, we’ve also had some sad memories. Three years ago, Yona’s father Ishmael Pfeiffer, a Staff Sergeant in the Marines, died when he was struck by a drunk driver while walking back to his car in a grocery store parking lot. Yona was devastated, as was her older brother, and her mother, also a Marine. Her father’s funeral was the first I had ever been to. It hit me hard, not just because he was someone I knew, but because as an Immortal, I am incapable of dying and so in a way, I felt guilty, being an immortal force of nature while my friend was mortal, and therefore, vulnerable, which made me resolve to stop at nothing to protect my friends. That was my first experience with death, as close as an Immortal can come to it. But it would not be my only one. Six months later, my Uncle Refine “Reffy” Ladell, a half-blood, was killed in a horrible car accident. This was even more devastating because it was now a member of my family being put into a hole in the ground. Upon hearing of his death, I was so grieved that it began to rain. I saw Yona at the funeral, and I knew she was the truest friend I ever had, because I had first attended her father’s funeral, and this was her reciprocating my support for her. Our experiences with death brought us and our families closer together. When I was seven, in 2024, I met my friend Lóng Měi Léi, or “beautiful thunder dragon”, who moved here from Beijing with her parents, who opened a now-popular restaurant called the Empress Wu. When I first met Měi Léi, she didn’t know any English and I didn’t know any Chinese but the way we connected was through basketball and she began to teach me to write and speak Mandarin and I taught her how to write and speak English in return, and we would also form a strong bond. Many times, we would speak Chinese at lunch and other kids would stare at us, but we didn’t care. She has a pet rabbit named Jet Lee who is very adorable and funny and always hops into our laps when we sit together. She also taught Ziva Chinese and Ziva taught her Hebrew as she taught me. Around the same time as I met Měi Léi, a girl moved to Montpelier from Oaxaca, Mexico. Her name is Qatherine Sanchez, and the reason why her name starts with a Q is a bit complicated. She has synesthesia, so she sees sounds in the form of colors. She told us that her original name was Catherine. She tells us that her name would spell out a sequence of colors: brownish-green, blue, teal, purple, and other cool colors. She thought the C’s brownish green didn’t go well with the other colors, but the Q, which yielded a lovely lavender, did, and so she changed it to look more appealing. She taught me Spanish, and I taught her English and we bonded over the food from her family’s restaurant, La Llorona. When I first met her, some of the other kids in school would bully her for being an immigrant, calling her undocumented. I then told them that I knew their school computer passwords, and they left her alone (the password thing was a bluff). Q has a little Chihuahua named Rascal because he is very mischievous and funny. I remember when he stole a tamale from her mother’s table, and we had to chase him around. Shortly after I met Q, a British family from Yorkshire moved into the British neighborhood in Ashland. That summer, I met Henry and his little sister Alice, and his parents opened a tea shop on Rt. 54 called Tea with the Queen. One bizarre fact about Henry is that from toddlerhood, he would drink very hot tea right from the pot, which freaked me out at first, but he is used to drinking very hot fluids. Another weird thing about Henry is that whenever he’s in the shower, or in the pool, or whenever he’s in water, he always sings in a very cheerful and lively tone. Henry has this cocker spaniel named King Charles and a British shorthair cat named Queenie. He loves the Beatles and sings Beatles songs constantly, to the degree that Alice gets annoyed. His sister Alice loves horror video games, and she is not fazed by scary horror movies like the Conjuring franchise, Steven King classics like The Shining, Carrie, and IT. She loves to scare and prank Henry because he can be jumpy at times. Alice is friends with my little brother, and they play video games all the time. My friend Joshua DiBatista is from Rome, and his parents own the Pizza Basilica on Rt. 54, and he makes pizzas for kids’ birthdays. He has this chinchilla, and it likes to play with the flour. Our bus comes and we get on and sit in the front and check the Internet together, looking for news on the air date of the new series called Midnight Oil, a Lovecraftian-horror-style anthology show that features stories based off the works of H.P. Lovecraft with many elements of the Twilight Zone and Are You Afraid of the Dark? It also has some elements of real-world mysteries such as the Circleville Letters and the disappearance of the Sodder children, cases which have never been solved.
After school, I lay down on my bed and relax with Xena and send my consciousness out into the world in the form of a silver tabby cat, to look for trouble and I find it: a pair of youths are following a young lady with the intent to deprive her of her personal vehicle. They are on Sneed Street in Ashland itself. I retract my soul back into my body. “Xena? Spock? There’s a situation on Sneed Street. A possible carjacking. Let’s go.” The cats and I take on our immortal forms and leap into the air. We appear on Sneed Street just as the masked youths would try to steal the car and I snatch away their weapons. They are thoroughly surprised and immediately surrender while the lady calls the police. “Y’all must be pretty desperate, or stupid, to try to steal a car in broad daylight on a residential street when people are coming home from work.” “We just wanted to get a pizza.” The two young men look and smell jacked up. “You couldn’t have walked? You two are pathetic.” The police come. “Oh, look.” The police take over control of the scene, and I go on to find more who may need my help and I find it in a situation at the 7/11 on England Street. A couple are in the middle of a heated altercation as a young child sits in the back of their car. The male is getting nastier towards his wife by the second. “Next time you take the car without my say-so, she’ll be black-and-blue all over like last time!” He prepares to strike her when the cats pounce on him and I let out my signature battle cry. “What is this?!” I shout to the wife, “Go, get your child to safety and call the police! I can handle him.” The wife gets into the car with the child and drives to the nearby police station and the man gets up. “This is none of your business, kid. She and the girl belong to me! It’s five o’ clock, go fix dinner and leave me be.” He has a go at me, and I catch his left fist and crunch it in my grip. “Ahh!” He has another go and I telekinetically stop his right fist abruptly as though it was striking a brick wall, and he screams again in pain as the cats subdue him. “Hurts, doesn’t it!” The cops pull up and arrest the scum despite his protestations of innocence, the balloons of which are quickly deflated by the 7/11 CCTV and a few other witnesses. “When I get out of jail, I’m coming for all of you!” “That’s if you get out of jail, dirtbag!” “If. If is good.” The man is taken away and the wife and girl come up to me. “Thank you for intervening. I’ve been wanting to leave him for ages, but I could never leave my daughter to face him alone, with how vicious he is. He always threatened to put her in the hospital if I ever left.” The child looks up at me, and I crouch down to her level. She appears to be about six or seven years old with a faded bruise on her cheek. “Did your father hit you?” “Yeah. He did a lot in order to make Mommy obey him.” “Well, I’ll tell you one thing. He will never touch you or your Mommy ever again, not since I’m here. If he tries to hurt you again, he’ll be sorry.” “Are you a goddess? You’re pretty like a goddess.” “Thank you. I’m sort of a goddess, but not the kind that people worship. I’m immortal, but I don’t know everything. Give me a hug.” The girl hugs me tightly. “Oh, you’re so strong.” “So are you.” “Thank you so much. I want to repay you.” “Just take care of yourself and your little angel.” “Goodbye, goddess.” “Goodbye, sweetie.” I turn to the sheriff. “It beats me as to how someone can batter a child, especially their own.” “Yeah. I couldn’t imagine doing that to my own kids. Think you might be busy this summer?” “Who knows?” “You want a coffee, Feline? It’s on me.” “Thank you, Sheriff, but I don’t do caffeine after 3 PM.” Then, a local news crew approaches us, asking about my busts from this afternoon. “So, what happened with you this afternoon?” “The two youths who attempted to steal the woman’s car looked and smelled to be under the influence and claimed they were stealing the car to get themselves a pizza. They must not have been too bright.” “And what about the 7/11 bust?” “I noticed an interaction between a couple which I sensed would have turned violent had I not intervened when I did. I released the cats on him and told the wife to get her child to safety and get the police while I dealt with the man. The cats and I subdued him with minimal effort, and he was taken into custody only moments ago.” “How many of these do you encounter?” “Roughly once every other month, or so. I usually deal with car-jackings, B and E, and the occasional terrorist plot.” “Well, that’s all the time we have for tonight. Thank you for your time.” “You’re very welcome.” “This was Gabrielle Smith with Feline Current on Local 9 News at 7. Now to you, Gordon.” “You did good today. Your people are grateful.” “It is my duty as an immortal to protect the most vulnerable.” I head off back for home, flying with my cats in my arms over the forest as the sun goes down in the west, turning the western horizon wonderful hues of orange, pink, and purple. “We did good today, guys.” “Yeah. We showed those idiots on Sneed Street who was boss.” “And we really nailed that dirtbag from the 7/11 and saved the little girl and her mother from further abuse.” “Isn’t the sunset so beautiful?” “Yeah. I have a feeling that this summer is going to be something else.”
We land in the woods. The cats and I revert to our mortal forms as we approach the house from the back. “Hey, Mom!” “Hey, sweetie! How was work?” “Not as exciting as foiling terrorists, but I did quite a bit of good for the community. What’s for dinner?’ “Grandma’s Chicken and Rice.” “Yes!” I know that my family is not the only family of immortals in the county. There are at least two other families of immortals, though I don’t know them well, because different families of immortals are not required to know each other. Anyway, in my family, we take turns working for the people. Grandpa has Mondays, Dad has Tuesdays, Mom has Wednesdays, I have Thursdays, Grandma has Fridays, Thomas has Saturdays, and Lyral has Sundays. We tend to shake it up during summers when there’s no school. “Lindsay! TJ! Dinner!” “Coming, Mom!” TJ and I come to the dinner table where every plate has Grandma’s Chicken and Rice on it along with green beans and meatloaf. We start dinner. “So, how was the last day of school?” “My day was great. You, TJ?” “Mine was good, too.” “Turn the TV to channel 9 at 7:00.” “You do some work today?” “Yeah. You’ll see it on the 7:00 news.” “So, y’all excited for our camping trip in the woods tomorrow?” “Yes, especially for our trip to VA Beach.” “I really hope it doesn’t rain the whole day like it did last year, Dad.” “Well, TJ. I looked at the weather, and it’s supposed to be in the low 100s the whole time with no precipitation.” “Good. The hotter, the better.” Lyral proceeds to tell us stories about ghosts, such as the story of the Hound of the Baskervilles, the Curse of Tutankhamun, and finally, Lyral tells us of Sleepy Hollow. “Wow. Tell us another one.” “How about your mother telling you this one? It’s real special.” “Yes. It is special. I’m not sure if I’ve ever told you two this before, but your ancestors on my side were of the Yoruba people, indigenous to West Africa, and they have their own unique mythology which not everyone is familiar with outside of Storm from X-Men.” “Who are their gods, Mom?” “Well, I’m going to tell you about one of the orishas, Oya, the goddess of thunder, lightning, tornadoes, winds, rainstorms, and hurricanes and much of her power stems from the natural world and she is the Mother of the Nine, for the nine tributaries of the River Niger. She inspires both love and fear, for she is both a savage warrior and a protective mother, a champion of women and the ideal female leader, and like the natural world, she can go from a caring mother to the wrath of God in an instant. She sweeps away injustice and smites the wicked. She is the epitome of a strong woman, representing the dual nature of women, both as nurturers of life and protectors against the forces of evil.” “Like I am?” “In many ways.” “What time is it?” “About 6:59.” “6:59?!” I rush to turn the TV to channel 9 for the 7:00 news. “Come on, I have something to show you all!” We all gather around the TV just as the 7:00 news comes on with Gordon and Gabrielle Smith. “Tonight, we have for you an example of heroism at work in our community. Local immortal Feline Current foils not one but two crimes in progress earlier this afternoon. First, an attempted carjacking on Sneed Street by two masked youths under the influence and second, a man attempted to beat his wife and daughter in the parking lot of a local 7/11 when the immortal intervened, preventing what could have been a tragedy.” “Here are the images of the men she foiled today and an interview we recorded with her in the parking lot of the 7/11 earlier today.” “So, what happened to you this afternoon?” “The two youths who attempted to steal the woman’s car looked and smelled to be under the influence and claimed they were stealing the car to get themselves a pizza. They must not have been too bright.” “And what about the 7/11 bust?” “I noticed an interaction between a couple which I sensed would have turned violent had I not intervened when I did. I released the cats on him and told the wife to get her child to safety and get the police while I dealt with the man. The cats and I subdued him with minimal effort, and he was taken into custody only moments ago.” “How many of these do you encounter?” “Roughly once every other month, or so. I usually deal with car-jackings, B and E, and the occasional terrorist plot.” “Well, that’s all the time we have for tonight. Thank you for your time.” “You’re very welcome.” “This was Gabrielle Smith with Feline Current on Local 9 News. Now to you, Gordon.” “Wow. Your first two busts of the summer.” “We’re so proud of you, baby girl.” “So, I am like Oya.” “Yes, you are like the great orisha.” “Except I don’t have nine kids.” “But you’re a cat, and cats have nine lives.” “True, Xena.” Xena gets up on my lap and Spock follows her there.
Xena, Spock, and I get into bed and I grab the new book I bought last weekend, The Diary of a Teenage Goddess, a coming-of-age story about a young girl who learns after a near-death experience that she is immortal and is possessed of incredible goddess-like abilities but is forced to conceal her powers to avoid the temptation to misuse them as she navigates the same challenges as the mortals around her, such as bullying, friendship, puberty, dating, in addition to a rough school environment. “I can’t wait to start reading this book, Xena.” “Me, neither, seeing as you saved up your allowance for it.” The cats settle down on either side of my head, purring softly. I open the book and turn to chapter one. The girl’s name is Lysea and she is 12 years old like me. She is waking up in a hospital bed after being struck directly by lightning, which her parents think should have killed her outright. Lysea is covered head-to-toe in lightning flowers, marks left by lightning bolts on the skin as the current sears through the flesh. Other than the lightning marks, there is no other damage to her body, inside or out, and she can go home with her parents. “Wow. She has a similar name to you as well as being hit by lightning and having a lightning flower.” “Yes. I still have that mark over my heart.” Over the following days, Lysea experiences strange events. First, she unwittingly uses telekinesis to save her baby sister from hitting the ground when she rolls off the changing table, their mother having looked away for just a moment. Second, her house is broken into and Lysea drives off the intruders with a glorious light. Third, she heals her father when he spills cooking oil on himself. She can also levitate, become invisible, and shape-shift. Considering her new abilities, her parents tell her to keep them a secret lest someone try to use her for their own gain. They feared that others might treat her differently if they knew she now had magical powers. Her friends and neighbors consider her survival and recovery a miracle. Chapter one ends with Lysea learning that not only does she now have magic, but she is also now immortal, which makes her wonder why her parents and baby sister are not like that. “Wow. That sounds eerily like you.” Yeah. Except everyone in this house has magic and is immortal. I’m sure that her life and mine are just similar by sheer coincidence.” I put my bookmark into my book which I place on my nightstand before turning off my lamp. “Goodnight, Xena. Goodnight, Spock.” “Goodnight, Lindsay.” The cats and I settle down to sleep. I recall some of my past exploits as Feline Current. I started my career in 2027 at age 10 with foiling an attempted murder, in which I used telekinesis to snatch the weapon, a gun, from the would-be-killer’s grasp, then restraining him until the police came, earning me the eternal gratitude of the purple-haired woman whose life I saved, who would go on to be elected President of the United States the following year. In 2028, I foiled the kidnapping of a baby by disabling the getaway car and pulling them out. That same year, I foiled a plot by terrorists to poison the water supply by leaving them crying in a corner for their daddies. I honestly think that the similarities between mine and Lysea’s lives make things a bit meta, but I don’t mind a little overlap occasionally. Lysea has curly black hair and dark brown eyes but since her encounter with lightning, she has gained a shiny silver streak in her hair and increased physical strength and agility. And she also grew an inch overnight. A sudden vision comes to me in which I see a planet orbiting a red star, her skies darkened by smog. A fortress, dark and foreboding yet also beautiful in its own way, juts out of the mountainside making it the tallest structure around for miles, and surrounding lowlands are dotted with small villages marked by firelight. Roughly an hour later, Xena wakes up from her slumber. Quietly as she can, she gets up from the bed and goes downstairs and outside through the back door’s pet door. The female great arctic fox, Amina, the cheetah Yara, and Xena go together through the backyard and fields towards the tree line, drawn there by some inexplicable force. “What is this that wakes us, Amina?” “I do not know, Yara. I just know that it doesn’t belong here.” “We must go back at once!”
High above the treetops of Hanover County’s Forest, gliding through the pleasant summer nighttime air, is a most odd entity. It is not any creature known to humanity in the modern era. It is an apparently sentient black mist that moves like a fog bank. She moves with purpose, doing her best to avoid being seen by any creature, mortal or otherwise. She is about to cross a road, only to be startled by a motorist driving without their headlights, hence she couldn’t see them approaching before she was almost right on top of them. She darts into the trees on the other side of the road, trying to stay away from any light source while the vehicle was just as startled as she was, but they went on their merry way, which is strange considering the time of night and the circumstances. The creature floats by a small house and the motion detector. She is startled by the barking of a dog, and she flees into the trees just as the flood light comes on. She reaches the edge of our property, quietly creeping through the corn. Outside the front door, the black mist lurks. It is 3 in the morning, and a lone vehicle passes by on the road, the headlights startling the creature, who darts into the bushes to hide from the light. Not many people are out driving at 3 am, or in general. She tries the doorknob, but it is locked. She tugs on the door with all her might, but it does not budge, but rather groans and creaks like nothing else, waking up one of Grandma’s owls. She tries to slip in through a gap in the doorframe, but she finds it impassable. She then finds a tiny chip in the door window and after much effort, inserts herself through it and into the house, despite the structure’s best attempts to keep her out. She clings to the walls of the house and makes her way upstairs, just barely missing Elegbe’s ears with her nebulous dark form and he stays asleep on the stairs while the great arctic fox Kano sleeps in the kitchen and Dad’s pigs sleep in the yard. The owls and chickens sleep in the barn but then one of the owls senses the evil presence in the house and flies over to the window at the end of the hallway to screech loudly at the presence, waking everyone in the whole house, scaring the entity into the attic before I open my bedroom door. “Who’s there?!” “Show yourself!” “You’re badly outnumbered!” TJ and I go out and search the living room, kitchen, and the basement for intruders. “What’s going on here?” “I don’t know, let’s just keep looking.” In the living room, there is a thin layer of black crystal on the wall of the stairs and on the railing and all over the walls leading upstairs to the attic entrance where Grandma was brandishing a broom and pounding at the black crystal covering the attic door with the blunt end. “Come out of there, you little coward!” I attempt to telekinetically force open the attic door but whoever’s up there is holding it closed by the same means, leading to a strained fight for the attic door between me and the unseen intruder and I can’t get it open. “Darn it!” “We know you’re in there!” A loud crash comes from inside the attic as various objects are thrown about the room which I use as the chance to force open the door with my telekinesis. As soon as the door flies open, a nebulous black mist darts out into the hall like a bat out of hell, a thin layer of black crystal trailing behind her as she crawls along the walls and ceiling. Mom, Lyral, and I fire bursts of our magic at the creature to drive it away and the cats, cheetahs, foxes, pigs, owls, and chickens rush to us, and all of us take on our true immortal forms, with Amina, Yara, and Xena running into the house and towards the fight wherein Amina charges at the dark creature with all the ferocity of an Arctic winter. “What is your name, Shadow?!” I command the creature to name itself for us, but she says nothing and attacks us, so we and our animal familiars retaliate with magical attacks. Xena and Spock try to bite into its arms, but they just pass right through it like it is fog and I zap her, TJ manipulates the house plants to attack her, Mom tries to freeze her, Dad tries to burn her, Grandma tries to blow her away, Grandpa tries to trap her, and Lyral tries to banish her. We use our powers hoping to weaken the creature to make her take a solid form for the animals to bite and make passes at her. She is quite strong and fires black crystal bits at us which I telekinetically deflect away from our faces and back onto her. She flees downstairs into the kitchen, and I follow close behind, me letting out my battle cry, and my cats and I personally tangle with the Dark entity, her firing black crystal shrapnel at us, me stopping those shards with telekinesis and electrocuting her, which leaves me greatly exhausted. Eventually, Xena and Spock bite her ‘feet’ and with a final bolt of lightning to the chest using what feels like the last of my strength as an immortal, I smite her, and she flees out the back door and into the night, screeching louder than any bird of prey. I step out the door to shout “And stay out!” before almost collapsing from fatigue. The others come running to me. “Lindsay, are you alright?!” “Yeah, just exhausted beyond reason. I have never fought off something that strong before, nothing with that much power in it.” “Come to think of it, me neither.” “That must have taken a lot.” “It did.” After sitting on the ground in my bathrobe for what feels like five minutes, I regain some of my strength enough to stand up and go back inside and make sure all the doors and windows are locked and the outdoor pets go back into the barn, and we go back to bed. “That was something else, Mom.” “Yeah. Just glad that you’re okay.” “Of course, I’m okay. I’m practically a force of nature.” Xena, Spock, and I go back to our mundane forms, and they climb back into bed with me. “I never thought we would be attacked in our own house.” “I did see something strange on the edge of the woods earlier this evening. I, too, never thought we would be intruded upon in our own home.” “What was that thing?” “I don’t know, Spock. I just hope she doesn’t come back.” “Do you think other people in town have seen this creature, Lindsay?” “I don’t know. Let’s just go back to sleep.” The cats curled up beside my head and we fell asleep. Meanwhile, the black mist makes its way through the woods and though it tries to enter a certain area, it is prevented from doing so by strange magic. It screams loudly into the night, and a dark winged form crosses the disk of the moon as the image goes dark.
Previous Episode: Season 1: Dawn of Shadows.
Next Episode: All That Goes Bump in the Night.
