That Day

“I need you to be my ride.”

Her brother's voice behind her seemed to come out of nowhere. Mirella, who'd been intently been typing out a post for a discussion forum, was greatly startled. She was just in time to catch her cup of coffee before it spilled all over the touchscreen under her fingers. “Hell Seamon,” she said, raking her blond hair out of her face as she leaned back in her chair. “I didn't hear you coming.”

“That's because you're playing that crap you call music again,” her little brother grinned insolently. He was leaning casually in the door opening with a sportsbag slung over her shoulder. It was obvious what he needed her for, and Mirella didn't feel like it at all.

She turned to her screen again. “Can't mom or dad bring you to that ice hockey game?”

“Nope, they're too busy. Again.” He sat down next to her on the couch, dropping his sportsbag with a loud crash on the floor as his ice skates made contact with the fake marble tiles. Mirella cringed a bit at the sound, but didn't comment on it, because her brother continued his tirade: “And if they would have cancelled a bit earlier, I would have taken the tube, but they didn't even think to inform me.”

Mirella could very much imagine the scene. She had been there at breakfast too, when her mom had promised to take Seamon to his ice hockey match that afternoon. She and dad would work from home today in the lab, so she'd be here all day. All he had to do was shout, their mother had said.
But naturally, when the time for departure came, mom and dad had been so caught up in their work that they said they couldn't take him. Mirella could already hear them mumble excuses like “I can't leave now...” and “this is such a delicate stage of the research...” or “I have to finish this manipulation first...” or, always a winner:“I'll be with you in a tic...”

“The Lentagon research again, huh?” Mirella commiserated.

Seamon smirked. “I wish dad had never even built that bloody thing. All they live and breathe and talk about is that stupid crystal ball. And ever since Sirka joined the research it's even worse. It's like you and I don't exist anymore. It's just the three of them and that blasted thing. I'm getting sick of it.”

“So I suppose I'm the one who has to fix their bloody mistake?”

Her little brother sighed and gave her a puppy-eyed look. “If you would?”

“Okay,” she said, getting up from the couch and laying her lapscreen in a safe spot. Her online discussion on environmental issues would have to wait, then. How could she ever refuse her little brother anything, if he was asking that nicely? These days they were both outsiders in the house, where previously she had always been the odd one out. Since she was the only non-adept in the house, all discussion on manipulations and energy research were things her family wouldn't really involve her in. It didn't matter that she knew about as much on the theoretics as any professor at an university simply because of exposure to discussions and a sharp mind; she was not talented and thus her opinion didn't count, not really. Her parents were good people. They were brilliant researchers and counted among the strongest and most talented adepts alive, but they were lousy in recognizing that they were selling their eldest daughter short.

While Sirka and Seamon were both the golden children with immense adept potential, Mirella was always the one left behind. They were proud of her, of the things she excelled in... but she would always be alone in a family of five because she simply had not the same talents as they did. She'd had a hard time with it, especially during puberty. These days she simply sought most of her attention and appreciation elsewhere, and ignored what happened in the house.

But then her father had worked out the concepts of the crystal ball that they'd jokingly called the Lentagon, after their last name Lentan (it sounded prestigious, they'd figured during dinner one night. The media would love such a name, and thus it had stuck). And once the designs were worked out and the concept had been worked into a prototype (a very simple crystal ball, but so full of compartments and tweaks that it was actually /amplifying/ energy that would be channelled into it), the Lentagon had stolen all of the attention from their parents. This had been going on for the better part of a year now; and three months ago Sirka had started her University studies and they'd invited their second child to join them on their research. It would help her gather study credits, as well as offer them the brunt of her strength and her mind to support them. Sirka was bloody intelligent, but she also was the strongest female adept in the past three hundred years. She was only surpassed in strength by her little brother Seamon, who was a bloody talented adept in his own right.

But Johann and Manon Lentan refused to let him take part in any research. He was too young, Manon had said. They didn't trust him with the amplifier, just like they wouldn't trust him with their car.

That was the official reason. The unofficial reason was that there /was/ something with that crystal ball. There was something about that amplifier that it made Mirella wake up in the middle of the night sometimes, sneak through the house, override the alarm codes to the lab... just to sit there, with the amplifier in her lap. If she would lay her hands on it, she could feel potential pulsing – the potential to do... well... /anything/. She hadn't done anything with it, though. Most of the time she was confident just to hold it, just to feel like /home/, to feel the possibilities and the potential... the urge to use it was growing, though. She would sit there in the dead of the night, wondering if she'd be able to create a Port by herself with this thing in her hands. Would she? She knew all the theoretics...

She could only imagine what it would be like for someone like Sirka or her brother to touch that thing. If /she/ already felt that urge to use it... how would it be for them, who were so much more sensitive to those possibilities? Through the crystal, for a talented adept the possibilities were endless.

So the fact that they kept Seamon – a moody and conflicted teenager – away from such a potential danger was for the best. They tried to exclude him from their rants about the subjects, away from the theoretics and most importantly, perhaps they were even trying to make him disgusted with the object so he wouldn't pick it up. Her parents were shrewd enough to try such a tactic on their youngest child, Mirella was sure of that. Or perhaps it was just a by-product of just thoughtlessness, of wanting to share only with Sirka, because Sirka was with them, she /understood/.

And so for the first time in her life, she was not the only excluded person in this household anymore. Suddenly there was also Seamon who was shut out of everything, and naturally he gravitated towards Mirella. They were actually taking time for each other these days, stepping over their natural sibling rivalry and their spats – because for the first time in her life, there was someone on Mirella's side. There was someone with her that was going through the same thing that she was. And yes, Mirella was beginning to like it.

That was the reason why Mirella couldn't refuse Seamon anything. She knew what it was like to be wronged by their parents, and she needed an ally in the house as much as he did. Mirella grabbed her keys from the table and they walked outside together, into the bright and sunny afternoon. It was early summer in Delgado, a beautiful day. Birds were singing, people were sitting and puttering about in their gardens, a few neighbour kids were having a waterfight with balloons, and the day was as bright as it ever could be. Later this summer, the country would dry out and there would be dust everywhere, but the weather had not yet reached this point – it was only warm and pleasant outside today.

“Weird that you have to take a warm winter coat to your match,” Mirella commented, as they got in the car. She ignited the car with her key, allowing it to gorge on air energy before it puttered into life and the car started driving, leaving shimmers in the air behind them. “It's such a pretty day.”

Seamon grinned and fiddled with the controls of the car that opened the roof. The car whirred and suddenly the roof above them smoothly folded in upon itself, allowing the sun to shine on their heads. “Yeah, I have to admit I don't feel like going at all. In the winter it's all cool to play ice hockey, but in summer I'd rather laze at the pool.” He shrugged. “Can't let my team-mates down, though. They can't help that I'm a lazy fucker that would rather doze in the sun than score goals at a match.”

Mirella looked at him for a moment before she turned back to the road again. Her brother looked tired. There were shadows under his dark eyes. “Are you that tired then? Didn't you sleep well?”

He shrugged again, leaning his head against the window. “Weird dreams. I'm just a bit out of it today I guess. I don't feel at all like slamming people. I'd rather go home.”

“Well, we're only halfway,” Mirella offered. There would be a turn left in a few minutes that she could take, if she wanted to. “We could go home if you want. Just text your friends that you're cancelling.”

“Naw, I promised.”

“You sure?”

He nodded. “Team mates don't let each other down. I shouldn't be a whiney bitch about it and just go for it. All for the glory, right?” he quoted his team slogan. Delgado went for glory, alright. They had been the running champion of the nation for the past three years in the youth division. Of course Seamon didn't play on the highest level yet because of his age, but club pride went deep.

Mirella smirked. “Like mom and dad and Sirka. Eyes on the goal, all for the glory, and let the rest of the world go to hell.” She hit the brake for a traffic light, perhaps a bit sharper than she initially intended. Her seatbelt strained painfully against her bare shoulders. She sighed. “Sorry, I shouldn't have said that.”

“You're just saying what we both think.” Seamon stared out the window for a moment and then suddenly asked: “Has it always been like this for you?”

Her fingers clenched around the steering wheel. “Yes.” She didn't look at him, but just stared at the traffic light as if she could make it flash green with just her mind power.

“I'm sorry.”

“Yeah, me too.” What was there to say? Perhaps it was better if some things were never spoken out loud. Even though she was absurdly grateful that he understood, that he was there with her – to have it been said was not something she liked to hear. As if hearing it out loud suddenly made it more real, as if it made the neglect so much sharper. She felt betrayed by her parents all of a sudden.

She was so lost in thought that it took Seamons gentle suggestion to realize that the light was indeed already green. The rest of the trip was silent. She didn't want to talk about it and Seamon obviously felt that it might be better not to talk to her right now. Perhaps that was for the best. Her eyes were constantly misting over with the beginning of a sob fest she really didn't want to indulge in right now.

That feeling only increased, until by the time she'd parked the car she felt as if she'd /lost/ something, as if there was something terribly /wrong/ ...

Seamon scrambled for the door and jumped out, leaning heavily on the car, panting deeply. He shook his head, as if to get rid of nausea. He was as pale as a ghost. His dark eyes were feverish and he was just saying: “Mirella, I feel something-...”

In that one split second, she felt it too. It was a horrible, terrible feeling.
It felt like /overload/, that was the only way she was able to describe it later.

In that one split second the world lit up in a sickening violet hue and her world changed forever.

By the time she opened her eyes again, she was lying on the pavement and the world was spinning, nauseating. The violet light and that overpowering horrid sound that had drowned out every other sound in the world – a non-sound almost – was gone. She must have blacked out for a moment there, but she had no idea for how long. She blinked, once, twice, staring at the pavement that shimmered in the afternoon sunlight. So ordinary looking... yet things felt wrong. She felt wrong.

/Reality/ felt wrong. Reality?

Despite her dizziness and nausea, she still got up and ran over to the other side of the car. She fell down on her knees next to her brother, who was sprawled over the pavement, holding his head and silently crying. Tears were streaming over his face. He gasped for breath, irregular between sobs, as if he had nowhere to crawl, nowhere to go. He seemed in agony, so Mirella reached out and held him, muttering that it would be alright as a blinding headache descended on her.

Around them, there were car alarms screaming through the air. People were shouting, yelling, panicking. Something about bombs, about Jediah, about war. But all Mirella did was hold her little brother as he was battling waves of nausea and something that looked like sheer agony. “What happened?” she muttered. She felt so sick, so out of sorts – as if a part of her had been burnt or torn away. “Oh heavens, what just happened?”

Seamon's hands clenched in her skin all of a sudden, squeezing painfully. “They're dead. All dead. All that death, and Reality... oh God...” he snottered, hysterically burying his face in his sisters shoulder as if she could offer him salvation. “It's the Lentagon,” he choked out. “The Lentagon blew up. They're dead. All of them...”

And he had been right. It had not been Jediah or any secret army weapon, no terrorism.

It had been a fuck-up.

Later, years later, she would relive that day again, sitting at the memorial site of the four blocks of houses that had been destroyed in the blast. She would sit there and lay flowers for the lost lives of her parents, for her neighbours. She would sit there and weep for her brother and sister, survivors of the blast and yet their lives had still been utterly destroyed by the Lentagon.

Yes, Sirka had survived the blast. She would later recount of the Portal experiment that her parents were conducting, and how they'd all felt it go wrong but it had been too late to do anything. Once the chain reaction had started, Manon Lentan had swiftly drawn up an energy shield around her daughter, to save her life. It had been all she could do, in the end, before the explosion killed her, her husband, and everybody in half a mile radius.

Her parents had made a mistake, and they'd created a tragedy. A day that would live on in infamy, forever remembered as a nationwide and even a world wide tragedy. It was also the start of mistrust against adepts and channelled energy, because this incident was the first display of its destructive energy on a grand scale. The Lentagon, who had amplified the triggered explosion, would be locked away from people who could abuse it… and then it had gotten stolen, and the whole thing had started.

And what had followed after... that was something she didn't even want to think about.

Mirella sat at the memorial site next to the flowers and listened to bystanders, asking eachother: “Where were you that day, on the day of the Lentagon tragedy?” And she just wanted to shout at them for their ignorance, because the Lentagon tragedy had been just the beginning.

It had all just begun with that one day.

That day. Mirella would hate that day forever.