Twisted Returns

"It started after a sparrow spoke with the voice of a dead king. Never mind who it was, or what it said."

Even though she just said that, I still have the urge to ask her. Isn't it part of the story?

"Demons were attacking planets such as Marigold, my namesake and home planet. They allied to form the Sparrow Allegiance.

"Who won?" Dean asks.

"The Sparrows. But it is not important who; it is how."

"And how would that be?"

"Well, demons are not easily defeated. They are parasites; they feed off of other species. Possess them. If they are there long enough, the demon takes full control. The host dies. That was the case for most people of the Demons."

"How can you kill one?" I ask. It might be important - you never know.

"They are hard to defeat, as I had said. Only certain people can easily get rid of them. They control people by fear - fear of the unknown. So those with the power of knowledge have a better chance. And those with the power of healing could heal the host, killing the demon in the process."

"Doesn't sound that hard," I say.

"But it was. Most of the time, you had to have specialized magic like that. The demons knew, and people with the knowledge and healing powers started dying out."

"So how did the Sparrows win?"

"A special team, known simply as Wisdom. The members specialized in both knowledge and healing."

"So they just defeated them?"

"Not quite. The Demons discovered the existence of this group, and slowly they were being killed off, too." Marigold turns the page. "It was a girl who saved them all."

Me? I think automatically. But I wasn't alive back then. Although, reincarnation is proven to be possible.

"But the story is lost there. No one knows how she did it, just that she did. And in her victory, she received the Blessing of the Legend. It is, as follows, 'A girl of true wisdom and a boy who wanted to escape. Their love will create the ultimate power.'"

"Referring to Diana," Dean says. It's not a question, but a statement.

She nods. "The girl of wisdom refers to me. And your father had run away, so the boy who wanted to escape was him."

"But then why is my legend forbidden?" I ask. "It's just a legend."

"It's because I myself am supposed to be dead."

"What? Why?" Maybe she's a demon, like those in the story. Maybe she's the host body, and she's supposed to be dead already.

"Well, ultimate power can go wrong. Once it's there, no one can stop it. It can cause universal destruction. If the being had destructive intentions, they could not be stopped."

"But it refers to me, and I've never destroyed anything." Immediately, I want to take that back. Because I might have.

"They didn't know that. 'They' referring to the planet of Marigold. When the girl of Wisdom was alive, the legend was a miracle, simply because she was a hero. But she died a year later."

"How? Why?" Dean asks. "Were Demons getting revenge?"

"No. She killed herself. She couldn't take it anymore. Which is why she never knew her legend was deemed forbidden." Marigold sends the book back to its place, deciding that she doesn't need it to tell the story anymore. "The rulers of Marigold knew that things could go terribly wrong. So they made it a law that whenever a girl went through the Dream Phase, her specific power had to be reported to the government. They killed off any girl with the powers of knowledge or healing, fearing the legend. I didn't, of course, know this when I was younger."

"Why?" I ask. "That's just... wrong."

"They wanted no risk of fulfilling the legend. So they secretly murdered young girls, since the other girl was also from Marigold. My parents were somehow knowledgeable of this. They reported my powers to the government, but they didn't give me up. I found out, many years later, that they were killed."

"That's horrible," I say. They would have been my... grandparents. "But you're alive, and so am I. We're here."

"That's the thing. We aren't supposed to be here. You aren't supposed to exist."

My stomach turns. "I'm supposed to be... dead?"

"There is a difference between dead and nonexistent." She looks down at her skirt, avoiding eye contact. "I knew of the legend when I escaped with Christopher. I knew its consequences. I knew that we matched up with the legend. But I did it anyways."

"Did what?"

"I decided to have you. I suspected that the legend would be fulfilled, and I was right."

"I'm glad you made the decision, though," Dean says. "Or I wouldn't have a best friend."

"That may be so, but I still had doubts. My child could have been the destroyer of the universe." She looks back up, but she seems to be looking through us. "When I found out that I was pregnant, I knew. I knew right then, why Marigold was killing those girls. Because if they lived, this would happen. A danger to everyone."

At this moment, I want more than ever to get my memory back. To remember every detail of my past life. To know what I did. If I became everyone's greatest fear.

"It didn't happen, of course. Even with immense power, it have to be tamed. Raw power is not everything, and techniques have to be learned. After you learned them, you still didn't do anything bad."

"How did Marigold react when proven wrong?" Dean asks. "The planet, I mean."

"They weren't happy. They were killing off their own people, all for nothing. The legend was fulfilled anyways. And no harm was done."

"Well, that's good," I say. "Did they ever apologize or anything?"

"No. They weren't happy, and they couldn't do anything about it. They just let it go, for the most part." She looks up at the ceiling. "There were, however, those people. I heard conspiracies. There were people planning to get rid of you. They wanted to dispose of you before you gained too much power, and changed your mind. But they are not a worry anymore."

"Why?" I ask. "Did they finally realize that I wasn't doing anything bad?"

"No."

"Then what happened to them?"

"I killed them."