The Mantis Variant - Book One - 3. Chapter 3 - Ilya, Part One

Very few of the Shift residents of Teshon City dwelt anywhere other than the community they built for themselves, and all were accepted at the entrance of the old dilapidated stronghold. Gate Town, and the neighborhood of Shifton in particular, was a Shift-friendly shantytown that was the poorest region of the city.

Shifts were often abandoned by their families, who did not possess the capacity to love them. The wretched and rejected youth from all around the region would find their way to this welcoming borough. They formed neofamily groups that were more tight-knit than natural families, and sympathetic humans made up a large portion of their community. For almost 250 years, Shifts and their allies hid and protected their own.

No one knew who the first Shift was, but the initial year of their appearance would later come to be renamed Year Zero in the Advanced Era, and the world was never the same again.

Some experts proposed that Shifts were the next step up the evolutionary ladder. Others considered that they were a new, alternate branch of humanity’s grand family tree. Those first few individuals, who were recognized as evolved, stood out as unique from the rest of their genetically inferior cousins. For the first time in recorded history, humankind was forced to share the planet with a separate species of hominid.

Shifts are humans born with what biologists dubbed the photonova gland, more commonly referred to as the mantis gland. It is a crystalline-organic structure that resides between the two hemispheres of the brain, in the location of the pineal in humans. For the first decade of a Shift’s life, their photonova gland remains in a state of dormancy as it slowly develops. Soon after the onset of puberty, the internal structure of the gland finishes solidifying, and a tiny trigger mechanism activates. Photonova glands connect Shifts to the energies of the cosmos and provide them with otherworldly abilities.

However, the covetous greed that powerful men felt about those first self-powered individuals led to many hateful and jealous people spreading bigoted ideas. One of the most common and dangerous beliefs was that Shifts were some sort of aberration that needed to be eradicated.

Experimentation was inevitable, and it was soon revealed that Shifts’ powers could be stolen. When word got out to the masses, many of the weakest among their early number were tracked down and slain. Groups of hunters sprang up that some people called murderers and cannibals, but they began to refer to themselves as Messiahs.

Humans who consume the photonova gland from a Shift become Messiahs, and they are enhanced with heightened speed, strength, and agility. They are made nigh-invincible and the biological upgrade is permanent. In the same way that some saw an inferiority of humans compared to Shifts, these newly enhanced individuals considered themselves above humankind, and their title of Messiah was used to set them apart as well.

Through the rise and fall of the Oselian Empire, and over the following two centuries, the three distinct groups grew more segregated. Confrontation between Shifts, Messiahs, and humans was a constant threat to Teshon City.

*

At the very edge of Gate Town, outside the old base’s grand entryway, there stood a sun-scorched shack. A group of several Shifts built it, and they made the tiny building their home in the city’s outskirts.

Ilya was 19.

The dry season lasted through the autumn, and the winter rains finally started while she was out collecting supplies. The brief few weeks of wet weather were always a relief to the citizens of Teshon City, but Ilya did not leave that morning dressed for rain, and she returned soaked to the bone. The temperature was dropping, but she was unaffected by the cold.

As Ilya approached the rickety structure with her arms and satchel laden with food and equipment, she scowled at the sight of her home. She and four others built their hovel over two years prior. The shack was hobbled together with driftwood and old rotted planks of decking, and the thing was getting worse for wear by the day. It looked as if it might collapse at any moment; she half-wished it fell while she was gone. Her dilapidated home could barely be considered a hut, yet it housed their group of five Shifts for the time that it stood.

Ilya lifted the tarp that served as her domicile’s makeshift door, and she slipped inside. Two young teenage boys were stretched out together on a pile of blankets. Both were infected by the blood corruption. One and then the other developed the virus a mere week ago. The red sickness was more often than not fatal, and over the course of the previous several days, the boys’ conditions only worsened. Ilya steeled herself against the loss of them. She knew it was imminent. Loss was a familiar feeling.

Early into their second year as a group, the eldest member went out to fish in the harbor like he did countless times before, but he never came home. There was also another girl about Ilya’s age, and she lived with them for almost two years, until she foolishly fell for a human. She loved him, but his affections were deception. Less than a month into what seemed to be a romantic courtship, her corpse was found headless in an alley.

Ilya’s short life was rife with loss. Even her parents abandoned her when it was revealed that their daughter was a Shift. She was only 12 years old at the time.

The cold rain now pattered down on the shanty’s roof above her head, and water seeped in at the failing seams. It dripped from holes in the recycled boards that were not a problem during the long rainless months.

Ilya set everything that she carried into the driest corner, and she knelt on the floor beside the sick boys. Their wheezing breaths and fitful sleep brought a lump to her throat. One of the last symptoms of the blood corruption was described as madness, but for most ill people, the manifestation was more akin to a failure of their cognition.

During the previous night, the two boys woke in the darkness, and Ilya was startled from her sleep by the sound of them talking. Their speech was slowed and slurred, and they mumbled incomplete thoughts and partial sentences, before fading back into fevered unconsciousness.

Kneeling beside their makeshift bed, Ilya covered her mouth and choked back a sob. She knew their end was near. One of the boys was barely breathing. With the falling rain, Ilya’s tears flowed.

The gloomy light from the gray sky barely illuminated the inside of the shack, and Ilya leaned against one of the walls. She stared at the boys in the gloom and did not move, as the younger one started convulsing. He foamed at the mouth and went rigid. His little arms and legs quivered against his sides, and he took a final gasping breath before falling still.

Ilya let out a quiet wail to herself, but then she rose and dragged his little body from the hut. He was small and frail, and outside, she scooped up his corpse. She walked the few blocks to the edge of the Grey Shallows, and there she left his body to sink into those cursed waters that were poisoned by their history. The boy disappeared beneath the surface. Ilya turned and headed back into the neighborhood. The winter drizzle hid her tears.

Once inside her hut again, she looked at the final remaining member of her neofamily. The child lay alone, and Ilya could not recall any moment when the two boys were apart. She stared at his sallow skin, his feeble frame, and she gritted her teeth as fresh tears burned from her eyes.

Ilya peeled her sodden shirt up her torso and over her head. She dropped it to the ground with a wet flub. Her trousers were also soaked, and she slid them down her hips and legs, kicking them from her feet. She removed her bra and panties and abandoned the soggy undergarments as well.

For long minutes Ilya stood naked above the dying boy, watching his labored breaths. She was unmoving and steady, but her mind was twisting and trying to arrive at a conclusion.

The food Ilya purchased while she was out earlier that day was not meant for either of the boys. They both had been rapidly progressing along the course of the disease, and neither imbibed food nor drink over the previous two days. Now alone with him, Ilya watched the boy twitching in his sleep, and she allowed her eyes to close.

After a moment, she turned towards the corner and unwrapped several pieces of dried meat and two carrots. Ilya ate to the sounds of the rain. When she finished, she again knelt down beside where the boy lay. Ilya placed one gentle palm on his chest and bowed her head. He moaned in his restless sleep and his brow furrowed in pain.

Ilya took a steady breath, reached into her satchel, and her fingers wrapped around the hilt of her dagger. It unsheathed with a hushed ring as the steel slid along the velvety interior of the scabbard. She did not say a word, and with one fell thrust, Ilya jabbed the blade into his left side and yanked it back out again.

The boy’s blood did not erupt, it did not spray, but his life flowed out from the wound she inflicted in his heart. The red liquid poured onto the floor where Ilya knelt, and it coated her shins. She stayed beside the boy with her hand on his chest through his brief death throes. His eyes did not open as his life left him.

She sighed and slowly rose as his blood pooled around her feet. Ilya pulled back the flap to the entrance of her home and stepped outside, naked in the rain. She balled her fists above her head, opened her mouth, and screamed her sorrow to the winter sky.

A few people stuck their heads out of neighboring shacks, only to be startled by the sight of her nakedness.

Ilya ignored them. She brought both palms to one of the unsteady exterior walls of her hut, and she gave the thing a hateful shove. The entire tiny structure collapsed with a horrible crash, and Ilya stood above the devastation with the rain gently pelting her skin.

Ilya was a tall woman. She was muscular, an imposing force of nature. Standing bare against the elements and with the sky beginning to darken, Ilya looked like some terrible ancient goddess.

Grief pushed her to be unconcerned in the moment that anyone might see her nudity, and Ilya’s crushing sadness overshadowed her fear that someone would realize she was a Shift. Deciding to use her powers for the first time in seven years, Ilya activated her abilities. Her feet lifted off the ground, and she soared up through the clouded skies above Teshon City. She flew high towards the forested mountains and disappeared into that rugged wilderness.

Even while living in the Shifton neighborhood of Gate Town, she kept her powers hidden. Ilya pretended that she was a human, living secretly among her fellow Shifts. She even kept the fact that she was a Shift from her replacement mother.

Ilya was born in the forest town of Oak Hollow, a half-day journey south of Teshon City. As a youth, she was frail and petite, smaller than the other children. She tended to keep to herself. At 12, Ilya was yet to have a growth spurt, and her parents did not even suspect that she was on the cusp of puberty.

It was revealed that Ilya was a Shift when her parents found her asleep early one morning, but not in her bed. Their daughter was curled up and wrapped in a blanket on the ceiling. She awoke to their startled cries, and little Ilya kicked off from the wall as if swimming through the air, and she sailed towards her frightened parents.

The two people, who until the day before loved Ilya with all their hearts, now accused and questioned their child like she was some sort of criminal. They declared that she must have been poisoned by another Shift, and that their daughter could not possibly be one of them. But as dawn broke, there could be no doubt that Ilya was indeed a Shift, and her parents expelled her from their home.

Her own father pushed his daughter out the front door of their hut, and young Ilya’s mother grabbed her by the arm. The two adults berated and ridiculed their sobbing child, as they dragged her to the edge of town. They shoved Ilya onto the path that led out of Oak Hollow, and her father stopped and loomed over her with his arms crossed over his chest; a wicked scowl was scrawled across his face. Her mother snatched Ilya’s wrist and continued dragging her farther. She flung her arm and Ilya stumbled and fell to her knees.

Ilya wailed as the woman turned her back and returned to her husband’s side. The child’s mind barely comprehended the shocking treatment by the people who had loved her every previous minute of her young life.

Through the tears that streamed from her eyes, Ilya could see that neighbors were joining her parents in the cruelty. Their jeering voices mingled and became an indecipherable cacophony of vile words spat at the pitiful child.

Little Ilya pleaded between her broken breaths not to be sent away, but then her mother picked up a stone. Without hesitation, she threw it at her daughter. The projectile hit the dirt in front of Ilya, bounced, and pelted against her shin. It was neither a strong throw nor a direct hit, but Ilya was injured in her soul. The other adults also began picking up rocks, and with hitherto undreamt fears bubbling up inside of young Ilya, she pushed herself to her feet.

Another rock came sailing through the air but missed the child, and in despair, Ilya began to drag her feet away from the town. She was being exiled from her home, banished by her parents, run off by the ones she loved under the threat of violence.

Ilya could not believe what she was experiencing, as she trudged in the opposite direction of her home. Suddenly a bolt of pain shot through her, and her body was spun halfway around. She screamed and clutched her shoulder.

One of the rocks had hit its target, and the sounds of laughter came ringing out from many folk who were supposed to be her role models.

Ilya stared at them in horror, and ran.

More stones started flying all around her. A small rock collided with the back of her thigh, and she stumbled to the dirt. Another pelted her in the ribs. She cried out and urged herself away from the hateful adults, but before she was out of range, a branch came tumbling end over end through the air. She put her arms in the way, and the thing slammed into her. Ilya staggered but continued to run down the path.

She kept looking back and cried out to her parents continuously, but the growing throng of adults menaced her from a distance. Some brandished logs like clubs and threatened to make their way down the path behind the child. The violence was enough that Ilya turned from the town and fled.

It was not long before the voices of her parents and the other adults could no longer be heard, and alone, 12 year old Ilya made her way north. It took most travelers only about a quarter of a day’s journey to walk the length of the path that wound through the woods, but it was already past noon when little Ilya’s trudging steps brought her to the end of the trail.

She left the forest and stopped to stare at the Great Southtrack and the ocean-side grasses that thrived in the sandier soil and salty air near the coast. Ilya looked east toward the sea, and she could see a blinking light at the edge of the land. She turned her eyes towards the city.

The minor trail from Oak Hollow connected to the Great Southtrack at the edge of the Grey Shallows, and Ilya looked out over those calm waters. Her parents told her stories about the war that happened there, but in the moment, those memories were far from her mind. Ilya’s sorrow kept the feelings of hunger and exhaustion at bay, and she followed the well-trodden thoroughfare toward the urban sprawl. The path ran along the edge of the land and headed straight into Teshon City.

By early evening, Ilya arrived at the outskirts. She was ignored by everyone. At that time in her life, Ilya was very skilled at getting people not to notice her; she was still childish and small. With no money or food or shelter, she wandered the big city, lost and hopeless.

Eventually, Ilya’s hunger forced her to start poking through some garbage for scraps of food, and that was when someone finally paid attention to the child.

“No, girl!” came a voice. “Don’t you be eating that,” and a tall skinny woman with grey-streaked hair stepped into the frame of a doorway.

Light was illuminating from her eyes.

“No, child,” she repeated in a gentle way. “There’s food here, if’n you don’t mind some comp’ny.”

The light in the woman’s eyes faded and went out.

“I could see you through the wall,” she said, and added, “my gift,” by means of explanation. She pointed at her eyes. “You’re most welcome for the evening. We get all sorts here. You can sit back in the kitchen with me,” and she ushered Ilya through the doorway.

Beautiful smells hit the hungry girl right in the nose. Her eyes grew wide and she began to salivate. The woman wiped Ilya’s hands with a soapy rag and handed the child a fresh towel.

“Have a seat and I’ll make you a plate. By the by, I’m Thenorixia, but most folks ‘round here just call me Grandma.” She did not ask Ilya’s name.

Ilya did not offer it.

Grandma gave her a little stool, and Ilya watched the excitement around her. She was amazed by what she saw.

A man who was helping in the kitchen waved his fingers through a cooking flame, and the fire left the place where it was burning and ignited his hand. He moved it to another pot of food that was ready to be heated, and the flames leapt from his fingertips and began burning merrily beneath it.

The man then handed Ilya a clean bright purple carrot with arching greens poking out of one end. He said to her with a smile, “Gnaw on that while Grandma throws summat together for ya.”

Several other people kept going in and out of the dining room from the kitchen, and the galley door swung open and closed each time. Ilya caught brief glimpses of whatever was happening in the main part of the restaurant, and she wished she could see it all.

A performer was entertaining the diners by plucking a stringed instrument, and to Ilya’s amazement, the notes appeared as forms of light in the air that faded as each sound dissipated. They flashed and sparkled in an array of vibrant colors.

Ilya may have been amazed by what she saw, but after her parents’ vicious actions, she was not going to share her powers with anyone. She would keep her abilities a secret; she did not intend to let anyone know that she could fly.

Grandma left the food she was prepping and headed out into the dining room. Ilya heard her voice but was uncertain about the meaning of the woman’s words.

“Don’t make me use me powers on you,” Grandma threatened with a loud laugh, and other voices joined her amusement.

A few minutes later, Grandma entered the kitchen again. She put together a dish of food and stepped up to Ilya. She could not find the carrot tops.

“Where’s the greens?” she asked.

Ilya looked oblivious.

Grandma ventured further. “From the carrot?”

The chef with hands that controlled fire replied to her.

“The wee’n et ‘em,” he said.

Grandma looked impressed, and she ushered the child through the swinging doors into the main dining room. The space was big, and groups of people were seated at many of the booths and the bar. Grandma guided Ilya to a small table in the corner and placed the food in front of her.

There was a stage at one end of the room, and the musician was on it above the audience. He strummed a few chords and multiple lights blinked around his head and shoulders. Ilya stared in wonder, and Grandma headed back to her kitchen.

One table over, a woman was feeding herself without using a knife or fork; she was not even using her hands. The woman was not looking at her plate of food, but with no explanation that Ilya’s young mind could find, she watched one piece of food after another float up from the woman’s plate. She opened her mouth, each bite entered, and she chewed it up before the process repeated with the next hovering morsel.

Ilya’s stomach growled and she looked down at a brothy bowl of soup. There were fat noodles, chunks of vegetables, and medallions of sausage floating in it. She began to eat, and the rest of that first evening was a blur. Ilya stayed at the table, watching the musician and the diners, until only she and Grandma were left in the restaurant.

The chef with fire fingers said something to Grandma that made them both laugh, and she replied to him with a wide smile.

“You’re lucky I don’t use me powers on you!” she scolded through her chuckles.

He gave the older woman a peck on the cheek and walked out the door.

She bolted it behind him and then turned back to Ilya.

“You still hungry?” Grandma asked. She brought her hands to her low back and pushed her hips forward. She rolled her shoulders and let out a sigh. “Whatcha think, girlie, you want summat else to eat?”

Ilya still remained silent, but her eyes were wide and she nodded with enthusiasm to be served more.

Grandma chuckled. “All right, why don’t you come back into the kitchen with me and we’ll see what we can’t find ourselves. I could throw together a curry for you or fry a fish. What do you think?”

Ilya’s eyes were wide.

“And what should I call you, little one?” Grandma asked. “What’s your name?”

Ilya did not reply but her gaze was fixed on the older lady.

“No?” Grandma asked. “I don’t blame you,” she added with a smile, “can never be too careful.” She eyed the child up and down. “What if I just call you Flower for tonight? Would that be all right with you?”

Ilya simply stared.

“Would it be all right if I called you Flower?” Grandma asked again.

Ilya nodded.

“Well, now we’re getting somewhere!” Grandma said with a laugh. “Let’s make some grub.”

She poured quite a lot of oil into a pan and fried two fish in it. They were done in a matter of minutes, and she put them on a plate with a little ramekin of dipping sauce.

“Do you mind if I have a bite?” Grandma asked.

Ilya stared into the woman’s eyes and shook her head.

“Thanks, Flower,” Grandma replied in a singsong voice, and Ilya smiled at being called the nickname.

Grandma snatched one fish and bit its head clean off. She chewed it up with a grin and hummed to herself. This encouraged Ilya to do the same, and she picked up the other crispy snack in her dainty fingers.

“Dip it in the sauce,” Grandma encouraged between chews.

Ilya followed her instructions and enjoyed her first bite. It was crunchy and hot and salty and delicious. She ate the rest of both fish.

After placing the plate into the sink, Grandma opened a side door at the back of the kitchen that led to a narrow set of stairs, and they climbed them. At the top was a cozy single room with a faded beat-up old couch and a bed. There was also a small table and two little wooden chairs.

Through the room’s only window, Ilya could see the night darkening and the stars flickering to life.

Grandma gave her a shirt that was far too large and perfect for sleeping. She helped Ilya change into it, wiped the child’s face with a clean damp cloth, and set her up on the couch with a blanket and a pillow. She then made them each a cup of tea, crawled into her own bed, and the two sipped their warm beverages.

“You’ll be okay, Flower,” Grandma encouraged.

Teshon City was a magnet for the lost, and the woman was well aware of the large population of displaced youth who scraped out a meek survival in the rundown metropolis. Grandma often helped the destitute with leftovers or scraps from her cooking. The sight of children picking through refuse was an all too common one, and she gave to the needy when she could.

“You’ll be okay,” she repeated, and she hoped that her words would turn out to be true.

The cup of tea looked very large in the frail child’s hands. She sipped it until it was gone, and Grandma pointed at a little side table where she could put the empty mug, then she dimmed the lights.

That first night and on many that followed, Ilya thought of her family, but she shed no tears for them. She neither sobbed herself to sleep nor woke up crying in the night. The next morning, Ilya still felt the pain in her body from the stones that hit her, and even more so the pain in her soul from the rejection by her parents.

Her first few days in the city were a whirlwind of new sights and sounds and experiences for Ilya, but she soon began to find her place. Life was hard, but with Grandma it was good. Early on, Ilya learned to fight. She scrapped with the other orphans and runaways who made up the city’s rabble. She learned to defend herself, and on more than a few occasions, Ilya stuck up for those who could not stick up for themselves.

All the while, she kept her ability of flight a secret.

Ilya also went through a major growth spurt that first year and shot up more than a foot. She enjoyed helping Grandma lug huge sacks of sugar or rice or flour back to the restaurant from the industrial district, and Ilya filled out into a muscular young teenager. Her time with Grandma was joyful but cut too short. The two lived together above the restaurant for just over 3 years, until the day Grandma died.

Most mornings, she left Ilya sleeping and attended an early market to pick up ingredients for the meals she served in her restaurant. That day was a particularly beautiful one, with the sun shining and a cool ocean breeze blowing in from the harbor. The market was held on the old wharf and hosted quite a few of Grandma’s favorite vendors. She wove through the crowd toward their stalls.

Beneath the shoppers’ feet, the old wharf extended out into the harbor above the deepest section of the inlet. Over 200 years before, Oselian ships that sat deep below the waterline were still able to load and unload cargo without the danger of running aground, but those massive ocean-faring vessels were a thing of the past. The run-down wooden structure was simply too old, and on such a glorious morning, there were too many people at the market.

With the radiant sun shining above, everyone in attendance was suddenly startled by a terrible creak from the wood below. Then the wharf began to bow, and with splintering devastation, a huge section of the market fell into the harbor.

When Grandma did not return that morning, 15 year old Ilya went looking for her. Word of the disaster reached her before she arrived, and she rushed to see what happened.

On that tragic day, 62 corpses were pulled from the water, and among them was Grandma.

Her lifeless expression kept flashing into Ilya’s mind as the girl made her mournful way back to the restaurant. It was late in the afternoon when she arrived, and what she found distracted her from the sorrow she felt.

Several of the regulars who would visit Grandma’s restaurant multiple times a week showed up earlier that day and found the doors locked. They broke into the place and were helping themselves to whatever they liked.

Young Ilya knew better than to confront them. She was much bigger at 15 than when Grandma first found her picking through the garbage, but Ilya still knew how to not draw attention to herself. She slunk down the alley and kept to the shadows.

The drunkards inside may not have realized yet that there was a set of stairs that led to the upper story, but Ilya knew they would find it eventually. On the outside of the building, she climbed the metal ladder that led to Grandma’s window and snuck inside the little apartment.

Ilya grabbed a few things, looked around the replacement home that gave her three wonderful years, and she exited the way she came. She did not look back.

For the following two years, Ilya lived on the streets of Teshon City. She managed to eke out a life for herself, and eventually even made friends. Four of her closest companions turned out to be other Shifts who were also hiding in plain sight and pretending to be regular humans. The five of them formed a fast bond, and their group would come to build that little shack at the edge of the city limits.

A brief two years later, all of them but Ilya were dead★