Midgard

The next day was solemn, regretful. Mutants had turned against each other, throwing fiery shards of wood or bits of glass at one another, it was something too vulgar to think about. The whole of Midgard was fighting us and now we were fighting ourselves. Several were injured in The Riot and many more mutants were missing. Teachers, counsellors and any non-mutants had left us during or afterwards. No authority, no rules, just a large group of young adults in a broken building.

Throughout the day many started visiting Jamie to ask for help or guidance. He couldn't deny them, they believed him to be the First Born, so he compiled lists of those missing and arranged injured and young mutants their own designated areas. Co-ordinating thousands of people wasn't something he was used to, all he wanted to do was find his sister, but other duties kept getting in his way. Others from Anundr pitched in and we managed to set up a stable environment. Those involved in The Riot were punished with the task of manually repairing the building, while other mutants were assigned tasks according to their gift. A new normality settled and most felt safe and content in the least.

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I hadn’t noticed I was staring. It was impolite, but the person I was staring at hadn’t noticed. Her skin gleamed in the light radiating from Sol, our sun, filtering through the blinds behind her, strips of gold highlighting the white hairs on her forearm. Long, wavy hair curled and coiled around her face and neck, leaning on the table in front of her. I felt jitters in my stomach as I looked over her face. Thick eyelashes brushed against her brows as she looked up to the person she was talking to. I should have been listening to their conversation, but I couldn’t concentrate, my mind was elsewhere. Her wide eyes looked to me expectantly.

“Jamie?” Rosie’s mouth looked stern, and I began to pay attention. I rubbed my eyes and reviewed the pieces of paper in front of us on the table. I looked up to the other person, Holly, for a second and sighed. I leant on the table with my elbows, cupped my face in my hands and shook my head. I was bemused.

“I don’t know where she is,” I began thinking about my sister, the brutality I had seen her execute, the chaos she caused. I was still in shock. I hadn’t seen her since we were seventeen, she had abruptly left Longleaf, without permission or consent of our parents, and I had missed her. If I had known the path she would take I would have stopped her then and there.

That night I had watched her from my bedroom window, watched her running down the gravel driveway. I could still hear the crunch of her footsteps, the pained look on her face as she turned at the gate, gazing up to me, almost apologetic for leaving me behind. Thinking of if’s and but’s wouldn’t get me anywhere, though. What’s done is done, she was out of control, murdering a man of great influence and power on live tele. I had missed another part of the conversation, and I felt a soothing hand on my shoulder. I’d been staring into an abyss. Rosie pulled me out of it. Her wide brown eyes worried, trying to pry into my mind and future. I tugged my shoulder away from her touch.

“Jamie,” Holly spoke, softly and quietly, “We need something to go on.” She spread out lots of lined paper, notes and ideas written on, and pointed out a few highlighted phrases. “She’s got to be in hiding, her face was on tele.” I looked over the paper, and had no clue where she could be. I shook my head, stood up and sighed heavily once more. I couldn’t read my sister any more, we weren’t as close as we once were, I was going to have to search and scower the streets to find her; to try and talk her out of this damaging path she was storming down.

I rubbed the sides of my head, “I’m going to have to go and look for her,” I looked over the faces of the women in front of me. “I’m sorry, I can’t read her like I used to.” I moved away from the conversation, to sit down and attempt to relax. It didn’t work. I heard them talk of roaming the streets with posters and pictures, Rosie suggested mediation to open her mind, words blurring together around my ears. Another voice wafted into the room, telling of the mountains of people waiting to help, willing to go to the public and ask for help to find her. Their voices eventually became hushed, and a foreign warmth enclosed around me.

I had fallen asleep, tired from the stress, and someone had kindly covered me in wool.

I awoke with a start, my torso throwing itself into a vertical position. My breath was quick and shaky as my eyes darted around the dim room. I was lying on a familiar sofa; the feel of the soft material brought me back into the world and away from my dreams. The door was open, a yellow light shining through, allowing me to see part of the room. I was still in the House Lounge. The tele was off and the room was completely empty. It must have been late.

I removed the wool blanket from myself and stood slowly, my head rushing and my legs out of balance. I moved over to the covered wall, and found one of the wooden pulls to open the blinds. I twisted the circular stick and the blinds moved to the left – displaying a full length window that took up the whole wall. The moons were shining in the light of Sol. I looked at their surfaces, so close to our own world, and wondered if the rumours would become true.

President Bitzego had plans of sending the mutants to the moons in rockets. This caused shock and awe to roll through Midgard, no one had successfully left our world in rockets, we just couldn’t get it right, they would always explode into a fiery mess. And Bitzego would happily send living beings into space just to kill them? Even then, those who could hide their powers would be left behind, the test he asked scientists to create hadn’t come to anything just yet, there was no way he could know who was mutated and who was not. Some of us were safe, for now.

I couldn’t keep my eyes off the Moon of Daviđ, VIII. He was the furthest away; the one that looked the smallest, but he always shone the brightest. It was like the surface glimmered in Sol’s light. I sighed, and shut the blinds, looking away from our moons. I left the House Lounge, and went into my House quarters. A few groups of people were sitting in the main room, around fireplaces reading books or talking quietly in pairs. A few eyes looked up to me, before returning to their business. I was looking for Rosie. Everyone in the room knew this.

I couldn’t see her. I looked up to the wall and saw the time. It was almost tomorrow. By the time I was back to concentrating on the room I was in, I noticed a small figure in front of me. She was from a different house, I didn’t quite recognise her, but she certainly knew me.