The Mantis Continuum - Book Four - 5. Chapter 5 - Ilya, Part One

Ilya often made trips into the forested mountains around Teshon City. “I’ll see you three in a few days,” she said to Dozi, Harakin, and Sumi.

“Have fun!” Harakin replied.

“Yeah,” Sumi agreed, “I hope you have a great time.”

“Be safe,” Dozi added with a warm smile.

Ilya’s feet lifted off the ground, and she soared high into the sky above the city. She always left after nightfall, when the streets were empty and it was unlikely for someone to see her flying.

Every flight felt good to her, as she flexed her powers, speeding through the sky in defiance of gravity. The solitude in the mountains was something she treasured. There were several locations around the area that had become favorite spots, and it took Ilya an hour at most to fly to any of them, but that night, she wanted to explore. She rose higher above the mountains than she usually did, and the forest whipped by far below her as she sailed through the night sky. Exploring may have been the reason she told herself, but Ilya just wanted to fly.

High in the atmosphere, the cold wind whipped, but her body was unaffected by the low temperatures. She loved her gifts, was in love with her gifts, and she embraced her powers, corkscrewing and spiraling and looping in the air with exuberance. There was a time in Ilya’s life that she wished she had been born a human, but those feelings now belonged to a completely different person, the one she used to be. She was ready to unleash her powers.

One hour of flight stretched into two, and still Ilya soared for the sheer joy of it. She was above even the highest mountain peaks, yet there seemed to be no restriction to how high she could fly. Even in the thinning atmosphere, her powers protected her. Ilya could breathe effortlessly, and she climbed until the blue of the sky thinned to the inky blackness of space. She could see the curvature of the earth.

Ilya’s soul felt enraptured in the flight. She was the person who she was always meant to be.

From her extreme altitude, she paused to look back, but she could no longer see the glow of Teshon City. Her eyes were drawn to lights that flickered in a number of distant regions, indicating other human habitations. Then she looked inland, toward the moon that was starting to rise. It was not full, but it was bright, and it illuminated an off-color patch of forest beneath it on the far horizon. Ilya commanded her powers to take her toward it.

The spot slowly drew nearer as she flew, and the moon continued to slide up the sky. It was over an hour later before Ilya could make out what she was seeing. The sight of dead trees was not unusual, but this anomalous grey patch of forest in a perfect circle was strange. She approached and realized that the trees appeared more than simply dead; it was almost as if the very pigment of the wood itself had been sapped. The grey of the spot below her was pale and the trees looked more like enormous dried bones.

Ilya could see a person, and she came in for her landing, but it was as if her powers sputtered and failed. She stumbled, lost her footing, and fell to the grey dirt.

A man came rushing toward her through the trees. He looked to be several years older than she, and he was very distressed.

“Who are you?!” he asked loudly, but there was no anger in his tone.

“Blah…” Ilya groaned. “What’s wrong with me?” She pushed herself upright, but then she staggered and leaned against the trunk of a dead tree. She brought her palm to her forehead.

“You shouldn’t be here!” the man declared urgently. “It isn’t safe for you!” He was wringing his hands together anxiously. “Please,” he implored, “I know you’re a Shift. I’m one too, but my power makes people sick, and it’s much worse for other Shifts. You need to leave!”

Ilya reached out and took one of his hands.

He looked shocked and tried to pull away from her.

“I’m Ilya,” she said. “What… what’s your name?” Her head was starting to spin.

“Please,” he repeated, “you can’t stay here! It’s my power; it sucks the life out of everything. That’s why I have to live alone deep in the forest.”

“That’s so tragic,” Ilya replied in a quavering voice. “You can’t turn it off?”

“No,” he answered, “I was told that it started before I was born and made my entire village sick. It killed my mother, and the town was abandoned. I was raised in isolation, but when I was able to take care of myself, I left and headed out here to live away from anyone I could hurt.”

“I’m so sorry about your mother,” Ilya said. Her legs were getting weak. “But there must be something that someone could do. I have a friend who built a device that made another Shift’s mantis gland invisible. Maybe she could…” her voice got caught in her throat as a wave of nausea rippled through her. “Ugh, I don’t feel good.”

The man looked excited. “Do you think your friend has a way to turn off my mantis gland?”

“I don’t know, maybe; I’ll ask her when I get back to Teshon City, but it’s far.”

“Listen,” the man said, “all I need to do is leave you alone, and you’ll recover immediately. But will you come back? Will you bring your friend? I don’t want to be this thing anymore. Please.”

“What’s your name?” Ilya asked again. She dropped to her knees.

“Unadi,” he replied, “my name’s Unadi.”

“I’ll come back, Unadi, but it’s gonna be a while,” she mumbled. She felt very weak.

“Thank you, and I’m so sorry I made you sick.” Unadi turned his back on Ilya and ran.

A moment later, he was no longer visible through the moonlit trees, and a short time after that, it felt to Ilya like a blanket of illness suddenly lifted off her. She blinked her eyes a few times and stood up as if she had not felt ill at all. Testing her powers, they obeyed her perfectly, and her feet rose off the ground.

“Okay, Unadi,” she said to the dead trees, “let’s see what Olona can do for you,” and with the gibbous moon nearing its zenith in the dark sky, Ilya took off back toward Teshon City.