Chronicles of the Kiridians

For it is written in the Chronicles of the Kiridians:

To be said before battle:

I am not lead, I lead.

I am not weak, for a warrior is in me.

I am not dead, for the breath in my lungs continues.

I will not lose, for my spirit is too strong.

All my life I had been fairly confident in who I was. I was the daughter of Kyle and Phoebe. I was a straight-A student. I was going to get out of this town even if it killed me. Granted, when I first thought that I never anticipated it to go this far. I was Joey’s best friend and Madison Water’s sworn enemy for some strange reason.

But now none of that seems real.

Now, I’m being taken to an alien spaceship, by guards who wrecked my house and drugged my neighbors, and I’m about to come face to face with King Delmund, who is almost indefinitely going to kill me. And oh, yeah, there’s also that small note that my parents, who aren’t actually my parents killed their only daughter to turn me into a baby because on Kiridia someone tried to murder me!

If I was ever going to take up stress eating, now would be the time.

“We need to think of something,” whispers Brodie to my father. “We cannot get on the Concordia. I promise you we won’t be getting-”

“Quiet back there!” says Brandon from the driver seat.

Ignoring the instruction, my father angels himself to where he can talk to Brodie comfortably. “I think the only thing we can do is get on the ship, and hope to Alpha that you and Raina can remember some way to get out.”

It’s weird hearing him talk how Raina did at the start of all of this. It kind of feels like I was on some television show being punked. Maybe that is what is going on. Maybe I’ve been on Kiridia this whole time, and the show’s producers are going to come out of the ship when we get there and congratulate us on a job well done.

“So you want us to navigate a ship we haven’t seen in sixteen years, and probably has been changed in more ways than you can count?” asks Raina loudly. She rolls her eyes. “That’s it. I’ve tried to be patient, I’ve been the well behaved little princess who has been trying to impress Lena, but since Lena is actually Kara I have no qualms throwing a fit anymore!” says Raina as she stomps her foot on the ground. I haven’t seen that fire in her eyes since she made Joey leave the bedroom when he didn’t knock the morning we were going to the cave. It seems like forever ago.

“Brandon, you will stop this car right now and let us out!” says Raina. “It’s by royal decree or so help me I’ll have your head.”

Brandon smirks from the front seat and continues to drive the car. I hear Raina suck in her cheeks and see tears form in her eyes as I face her. “Excuse me,” she says with her voice starting to shake. “What part of stop this car immediately is confusing to you?”

I face toward her and do my best to comfort her with the limited movement I’ve been allowed to have. She looks at me, face full of sorrow, as the car we are in leaves the main highway out of Sanora and onto a podunk backroad.

I keep my eyes open for anywhere we can hide if they mess up and let us getaway, but all I see is open fields everywhere. Not even a tree in sight. “How do you hide a space ship out here?” I ask.

Brandon turns his eyes to the rearview mirror and scoffs. “You really don’t remember anything, do you, Lena?” he spits that foreign name at me as he turns into one of the gates. In this gate, there is absolutely nothing other than a giant field of grass. He stops the car right at the entrance and mutters something into an earpiece he is wearing. I see the sky look like it’s shaking, a small bubble, big enough for the van to pass through appears for the car to go into it.

“Woah,” says Joey as the altered reality of the field changes.

It was like a veil had been lifted the second we drove through the bubble. We are still in the field, but now there is a colossal sized spaceship, or I wouldn’t really call this a spaceship. More like a castle than can fly. It almost takes up the whole field in size. It has four sections, and by looking at the height, it is several stories high. Each section has a bay window type view at the top, and the entrance has a giant wooden door, almost like a trench bridge in castles you see on the movies.

Men and women are everywhere outside the castle. They busily rush around the field doing various chores and tasks as they get out of the way of cars. There are weird animals that are sitting in fenced-off areas, that I’m not able to get a good look at as the car drives by them quickly. Raina, Brodie, and my parents look unphased as they drive through the area.

The car stops at the drawbridge area of the ship. There’s a loud sound of air that leaks into the air as the bridge slowly drops down to allow us passage inside. I look at my parents with great fear in my eyes as we drive onto the wooden door. My heart starts to beat faster than normal as the draw bridge gets closer and closer. Pressure starts to erupt in my head and I can’t help but let out a shrill scream.

Everyone in the car stops what they’re doing and looks at me as green fireballs begin to fall from the sky. I look at the sky scared, but then realize my hair is floating around my head. Raina gasps as I look at her, but I’m not able to make out the words she’s saying. Brandon cusses under his breath as he jumps back toward the back of the car and injects my thigh with an unknown substance. My body starts to feel weak, and the panic starts to decline as the unknown substance courses through my veins.

“Kara!” screams Joey. “What did you stick her with?!” screams Joey as the world starts to spin around me. I fall backward in the seat and watch as the world slowly turns to black.

I wake up with a pounding headache. Raina, Joey, Brodie, and my parents all sit in the room with me as I begin to wake up. My mom gets up and runs to me when she sees me starting to stir and grabs my face in between her hands. “Are you okay?!” she asks me. “We were so worried!”

“I’m fine,” I say. “I think.”

We are being held in a brown room. There is a glass door that is separating us from the outside hallway. Across the hall is a pod that looks exactly like the one that we found Raina in. I glance over at Raina and Brodie who have yet to acknowledge that I have woken up. They haven’t taken their eyes off of the pod since I’ve stirred. The dim light in the room makes it hard to see with my current state.

“Anya or Edwin?” asks Brodie to Raina.

“No way to tell,” says Raina. “No way to tell how long he’s had them either,”

I quickly get up and run to Raina. She grabs my hand and finally peels her eyes away from the pod. “I’m sorry I got you into all of this,” says Raina. “You were perfectly content and happy here on Earth. I didn’t mean to turn your world upside-”

“Raina, I would do it again and again,” I say interrupting her. “We aren’t done yet. There’s still hope we can get out of here.”

She nods and then looks back at the pod longingly. “I just hope all of us can get out of here,”

We all sit in silence for a few minutes before a guard comes up to the glass and points a blaster at everyone in the room. He pushes a button on the outside, and we can suddenly hear what is going on in the hallway.

“If any of you make a run for it, you’ll regret it,” he says menacingly as he presses the button that opens the door. We flinch as he steps in, and then quickly steps into the room and looks at us with a warning. “Are we going to have any trouble? Can I treat you like civilized people?” he asks me.

We nod confused as he holsters his gun and looks at me. “Earth Girl,” he says to me. “It’s time to go.”

“Where is she going?!” asks my mom as she stands up and runs over to me. She blocks the way of the guard who looks at her with an unamused look.

“She’s going to talk to King Delmund. I’ll be real honest with you, lady. I’m not interested in dealing with all of this, today. You either stop what you’re doing now, or I can turn on my not so charming self real quick.” he says reaching for his holster. My mom shakes her head and sits back down. “That’s what I thought.” says the guard as he walks over to me and sticks his hand out. I reach for it, but then see Brodie’s eyes glaring at me making a subtle movement. I look at him questioningly and he quickly darts his eyes to the gun on his hip.

“Oh my head,” I say bringing my hand to my head suddenly. The guard throws his head back in disgust and lets out a loud groan. “Seriously, kid? I don’t have time for this. Get up or I’ll make you get up,”

While he’s talking I watch Brodie reach up and expertly maneuver the holster, grabbing the gun from the man’s hip. He quickly slides it behind his back and then passes it to Raina who quickly puts it inside her jacket pocket. I look at the man with a pout and then extend my hand. “You know, maybe if you didn’t inject people with random things you wouldn’t be having the problem.”

He rolls his eyes and helps me up as he walks back to the door and presses the button. Totally oblivious that my friends just stole a gun from his holster. I expect them to make a move when he opens the door, but when I look at Brodie confused he just holds a finger to his mouth implying for me to be quiet. I nod and then follow the man out of the cell.

The inside of the castle is elaborate and reminds me of the dream I had where Lena, or I guess I, was running King Delmund as he screamed my name. Chills roll down my spine as I watch the scenery continue to look more and more familiar. The plush red carpets, the pictures of past royalty lining the walls. Delmund is making a statement.

We come up to a door and the guard knocks two times before we hear a stern “Come in,” he takes a deep breath and steps aside as he opens the door and motions for me to walk in. I stand there frozen in fear. In a few moments, I’ll be face to face with the man who changed everything for me.

“Don’t make him wait,” says the guard as he shoves me in.

The room is the most luxurious thing I’ve ever seen. Cakes and pastries line an entire wall of the bedroom. In the very center, there is a bed that is a little bit bigger than a California king-sized mattress. It has silk purple sheets that glow in the light that the room is giving off.

On the right side of the bed is a small fireplace area with a bookshelf full of books. There are two armchairs facing the fire. One is empty, the other one I’m not able to see behind.

My heart beats as I hear movement coming from behind the chair I can’t see. Moments later a man stands up and turns to face me. He looks the exact same as the picture I’ve seen with Raina, but he has aged a bit. He has the same piercing eyes I saw in the portrait of him though.

He walks forward and motions for me to come toward him. “Hello, Lena,” he says with a charming deep voice. “It’s been a long time,”