Young Writers Society

Mel was pleased Nikolai seemed to turn his doubt around and was going to listen to her. She wanted to tell him everything that happened and prove they met, although she wasn't really sure how she could do that besides recount stories... and maybe find their way back in the caves. Maybe that would jog his memory?

Either way, she was glad that he was looking at the map and was willing to hear her out, even if it was a little strange that he required two truths and a lie.

"Oh! Okay, let me think," she mused out loud, with one hand still on the map. She looked away in thought then back at Nikolai, smiling.

"My powers involve manipulating light. I'm a real good sketch artist. And, hmm, oh! I think monkeys are really cute."

Nikolai chuckled when he heard all three of them. No tell that he could see or hear, but he’d be really surprised if the lie wasn’t the second because it seems unlikely there would be two people who were strangers (at least from his point of view) who just happened to both be sketch artists. It’d be really neat if Mel was, but that was the one he ruled out as false. He’d never seen a monkey in his life, barely even heard of them in fact, but he was just going to assume they were cute even though he had no idea what they really looked like.

Which meant the first one must also be true—

Wait. Powers?

Somehow that hadn’t sunk in until now. The word powers was often spoken around this house, but always in hushed whispers. Even when they were sure no one was listening, no one was watching, they had to assume there might be someone just out of sight who could be the witness that would lead to their downfall.

No one in this house had ever said it so freely before.

My powers involve manipulating light.

“Be careful!” Nikolai whispered frantically as he leapt to his feet. He’d dashed towards the curtains, pulling them all shut over the windows. There wasn’t anyone he could see out in the dark and cold, and it was extremely unlikely that there was, but the need to be just a little paranoid about protecting a secret was instinctive, hardwired into him. When something even a little suspicious could lead to someone’s execution, they had to act as if though someone was always watching and listening.

Once he was satisfied— or at least thought they might be safer now— he turned back towards Mel.

“Light manipulation powers?” he whispered. “Which part of the league are you in?”

Mel was pleased with her answers. She liked talking about her powers and showing off what she could do, and she knew Nikolai didn't get to see it since they split off before she took on the role of the walking flashlight of the group. She also did find monkeys oddly very cute for no explainable reason. Even the neanders were adorable, and everyone said they were ugly.

A sketch artist, though? That was Evaline's thing, but Mel sure did spend so many hours posing for her friend as she drew picture after picture to refine her skills. Sometimes Evaline found herself clutching her pencil and sketchbook in case she had the sudden inspiration to draw and learn something new, and Mel noticed that Nikolai did the same. Maybe he liked to randomly draw people, too?

But he suddenly frantically hushed her, and she didn't get a chance to figure out what he thought was the lie. He then leapt to his feet to pull the curtains over the window, even though it was dark outside.

She slowly blinked as he turned towards her again, looking much more anxious and frazzled than before, which she didn't think was possible.

"League..?" she repeated back, ignoring the quietness of his tone and glancing around. Was someone else in the cabin?

"What do you mean?" she asked, shifting her attention back to him again with the map still in her hands. "Do you have a power too?"

She knew that everyone in the caves came from different worlds and time periods, so she fully expected the same treatment from Nikolai. But he seemed to brush off her light manipulation statement without doubt, so maybe he had a power himself. Could they possibly be from the same world and time after all?

The Earth was quite big, after all. And she had only ever stayed in her hometown.

Nikolai frowned, even more confused. How could anyone with powers not know about it? "The league," he repeated, even going so far as to say it in Russian, just in case it wasn't quite clear enough. "Лига. You know, the—"

He'd said too much already.

He felt so foolish. Mel's claim to have powers could be a perfect trap. Someone could have gotten suspicious of his family again and wanted to investigate. She could have been sent in, meant to get a confession of his abilities out of him. And then her testimony could be used against him, and all of them. They'd be hunted down and killed on sight.

On the other hand, if she was telling the truth, then he'd just seem like a jerk for not believing her sooner. He didn't know what to do. Alarm bells were ringing in his mind.

Nikolai buried his face in his hands.

Okay... Okay, so you just need a little more evidence before you can trust her with this, right? he told himself. She'd understand, if it's okay to tell her, because she'll get that you can't risk your life before knowing she's safe. It's absolutely nothing personal.

"I'm sorry," he sighed, looking back up at Mel. There was a strained, anxious look on his face. "I wish I didn't have to, but I have to ask you to prove you can do that first, before I can tell you anything. It's for safety— mine, and yours too, if it's true."

Mel scratched her cheek in thought, trying to figure out what Nikolai meant when he said league. She didn't know of any leagues. Maybe that was what the high-up politic people were organized into? She'd have to ask Evaline because she really had no clue. The context seemed so official sounding, so maybe it wasn't in reference to a team for sports or hobbies.

The thought was buried when he then asked her to display her powers. She grinned and set the map down beside her on the chair, beaming at him. Now that was something she was happy to demonstrate. It was a shame that it was night so she couldn't show him all the fun stuff she could do, but the fire beside them was just enough light to give him a taste.

"Sure!" she piped up, ignoring his anxious and worry. She really had no clue why he seemed so nervous; it seemed that the others in the caves didn't seem surprised, or even cared that much. Why would Nikolai be any different?

Mel turned to the fire and thought over what she could do. In the dark caves, she mostly combined various light sources together so that they could all see better. That was only a small part of what she could do, and frankly, she was now bored of that. She could do so many more fun things...

She flicked a playful finger towards the fire, and it was like a small flame appeared on the tip of her finger. She then turned towards Nikolai, grinning as the small flame danced on top of her index fingertip. It looked like it was fire, but really, it was an illusion; she simply moved the photons of light over from the fire to her finger.

She thought about casting different colors on the fire, but she just knew Nikolai was about to freak out.

And just because she thought it would be funny, she then shooed the illusion flame to float away from her finger and towards his face so it would boop his nose.

Nikolai's eyes widened when he saw the fireplace light travel to the tip of Mel's finger. So she is telling the truth about that! That was good news. What she was doing definitely looked really cool, though he wondered how useful it was. Did she need to use it in her everyday life? He couldn't think of too many situations where he'd need to manipulate light, unless it was really dark, or he just wanted different lighting for something he was drawing or painting.

But he'd never heard of anyone being able to do anything like this. Maybe she was from a faraway part of the league, in a distant country, where the news hadn't reached him—

Suddenly, the flamelike light was no longer hovering over her finger, and it was moving towards him.

Right in front of his face.

Nikolai flinched, leaping backwards to get away from it. He stood back, alarmed, as he tried to put it all together. He'd thought she'd nearly burned him, but he didn't feel any heat on his face. But it looked so much like a fire. Was it dangerous? Very slowly, he stretched out a hand towards it. When he didn't feel any warmer, he took a deep breath and poked it with a finger. It didn't hurt him. In fact, everything felt normal. If he closed his eyes, he was sure it would be like there was nothing there.

Now he felt silly for being freaked out by something so harmless.

"That's... pretty neat," he said quietly, looking at Mel, then the light, then back at her. "From what I've heard, I don't think anyone in the league is able to do that."

Mel giggled when Nikolai jerked back from the false-flame. It had been a while since she was able to fool people who didn't know of her powers. Usually she liked to draw it out and set up pranks, but considering, his unnerving anxiety, it didn't seem appropriate in this given situation.

"Glad you you like," she said with a smile. She dropped the mild concentration as the false-flame then faded away, and out of habit, she started to curl one of her ringlets with her finger.

"What's a league?" she then asked bluntly, deciding to rip the band-aid out.

He kept mentioning it, and she had no idea what he was talking about. Seemed like a legit thing she should know about, though.

Nikolai blinked, still a little surprised she didn’t know. The league was a secret, otherwise it wouldn’t exist, but everyone gifted knew about it. It didn’t make sense that she hadn’t. She was claiming to be from another world, and maybe that explanation was starting to make more sense. But he couldn’t wrap his head around that yet, so that would have to wait.

The water in the kettle was boiling now. Nikolai stood up, taking a deep breath. “Alright. I’ll tell you while I make the tea.”

He headed over to the kitchen. There wasn’t really a selection of teabags to choose from— it was hard to buy them at all where they were, so he took what he saw, hoping Mel didn’t mind black tea. Sugar was even rarer, so he wasn’t going to use what little they had to sweeten it, either. But in all likelihood, she’ll be cold enough that she’ll drink anything, he thought as he poured the water in two mugs and dropped the teabags in.

They’d need a few minutes to steep, so now was as good a time as any to talk.

“The leagues are...” Nikolai paused, thinking. He’d never explained it to anyone before, though other people had explained it to him. “Another English word for it would be an order, I think. It’s really an organization of people, and pretty much all over the world, too...”

He cut himself off with a yawn. He’d forgotten he was so tired.

“It’s secret,” Nikolai added. “It’s meant to be that way, for most people, or otherwise it wouldn’t be allowed to exist. Well, that makes it sound like it’s illicit... which it is in the way that it’s technically illegal, but it’s not bad at all. It helps keep people safe.”

Heaven knows where we’d be without it.

“There are people in this world with abilities. They’re less like superpowers than abilities, but— you’ll see. Unfortunately, sometime in the last few centuries, there was a cultural shift in many places where people decided anything supernatural was inherently evil and needed to be gotten rid of.” Nikolai’s tone had gotten quieter, more serious. He looked down at the tea for a moment, then back up at Mel. “There were ‘witch’ hunts, persecutions, vigilantes tracking anyone who seemed different down. No one’s really sure what event caused that response, but it forced anyone gifted to hide their ability or risk their life. Before, most were already more or less keeping secret what they could do, but now there was no choice in that.”

Did Mel know about this? She hadn’t understood his fear when he closed the curtains. Maybe she didn’t, then— anyone in hiding would’ve known the risks of talking about an ability so openly.

“That’s why the league was formed,” Nikolai said as he took the teabags out. “It’s run by those people with abilities, a union of gifted families to look out for each other, to ensure the survival of anyone who has powers that society doesn’t like.”

He took a deep breath as he carried the mugs over to the small coffee table in between the couch and the fireplace, and handed one of them to Mel.

“People like you and me.”

Mel listened intently, trying to understand. The more Nikolai talked, the more she began to ask herself: why did this all sound so familiar?

She tried to think back on her history classes. She did pay attention, of course, but it was hard sometimes when her friends kept distracting her. Well, Elias and Alistair, mostly. Sitting at the back of the classroom while the professor droned on and on... it was hard to remember and retain sometimes.

But she did remember the timeline. She had always found the events leading up to today's society pretty interesting. The years were all garbled up in her head, but still... She couldn't quite shake the feeling that this had happened before. She just couldn't remember the details, like leagues and witch-hunts.

In the caves, Mel remembered that they all came from different worlds and times.

Was it possible... she was back on Earth, but back in time?

Nikolai returned with the tea, and she took it with an appreciative nod and smile. She stared down at the black liquid, letting the steam warm her face. The aroma was nice, but it looked bitter.

"... What year is it?" she decided to ask.

He laughed, not thinking much of it. “That’s a bit of a strange question, isn’t it?” he said teasingly as he sat down on the couch again, taking a large sip of the tea. The steaming liquid burned his tongue a little, but he didn’t really notice. It was worth it to be warmer. He rubbed his eyes and yawned, waiting for Mel to move on and ask a more relevant question.

Except she didn’t.

The realization that she was actually serious made him slowly turn his head towards her again, giving her a confused, searching look. She was still waiting for an answer. The question wasn’t hard to answer or anything, it was just... odd. He’d just revealed a powerful secret, and her follow-up question was something that everyone knew. Why?

“...You really have no idea?” Nikolai asked uncertainly after the silence lasted a little longer. “Well, then... it’s 1889. December 1889, in fact, so it’s nearly 1890. I’ll admit I’m not sure of the exact day. We’re not far from the Arctic Circle, so this time of year, the days are super short and it can be harder to tell...”

He blinked slowly as he trailed off. He’d been deep in thought as he stared at Mel, but now he looked surprised.

“You didn’t know any of that,” Nikolai said quietly. “Did you?”

Mel's head spun.

"December 1889..." she repeated with a faraway voice, laying back on the chair with the cup still in her hands.

That was hundreds and hundreds of years ago, but this was Nikolai's present. His present was her future. And she knew powers didn't exist that long ago.

She was not of his time or world. Ordinarily, this may have taken her some time to absorb, but this didn't surprise her. She was already used to being around the others from different times and different worlds.

Although, this felt different. This didn't feel like a laid-out dungeon with treasures to explore.

The realization finally fully set in. What was she doing here? And why?

Before answering his question, she brought the cup to her lips and took a sip of the hot tea. It burned her tongue, but she swallowed it anyways, letting the warmth fill her body. It was bitter, but the hotness covered the taste.

"I didn't," she admitted, setting the cup down and gazing over at him. He looked genuinely concerned for her. She sighed.

There were so many questions swirling in her head, but for now, she could only ask one at a time.

"Is this Earth?" she asked, trying to rule out if she was at another planet or not.

The questions were all getting stranger and stranger because they were all so obvious. Did Mel really have no idea where and when she was?

“Have you been living under a rock?” Nikolai asked curiously. “Please don’t take that badly, I’m just really not sure why you wouldn’t know about this. Everyone lives on Earth. Where else?”

I’m not from this world, she’d said. That seemed unlikely, given that he couldn’t think of any other habitable world. He certainly wasn’t skilled at science, but he knew astronomers didn’t seem to be having any luck finding any planets that anyone or anything could live on. There had to be some better explanation for this.

Right?

Suddenly Nikolai wasn’t so sure of anything anymore.

“What would your answers to those questions be, if you were back home?” he asked quietly.

Mel wanted to playfully stick out her tongue when Nikolai asked if she lived under a rock, but his curiosity and following genuine question kept her from doing so. Instead, she took another sip of the tea, letting the liquid warm her insides and burn her tongue again.

When finished, she set the cup on her lap and sighed. It was a satisfied kind of sigh, one out of comfort. It seemed that Nikolai was finally putting the pieces together. She had no idea what she was doing here, but she had a feeling that he would freak out more than she would once he wondered the same thing.

"I'm also on Earth, so no, I'm not an alien," she said casually as if it was something she said everyday. "I'm from the future. Like, hundreds and hundreds of years. Maybe even a thousand? I don't remember exactly, but I'm definitely not from this timeline because, in my world, powers didn't exist until, like... I don't know, hundreds more years in the future, I'm pretty sure."

Mel squinted at him, trying to study his face. "You said you also have a power, though?"

“Hundreds and hundreds of years...”

Nikolai repeated the words, eyes wide as he stared off into the distance. How could that be? He honestly hadn’t thought humanity would make it that far. Sure, they probably had a few centuries left, but possibly a whole other millennia? Did the human race really survive long enough that they didn’t even keep track of the passage of time anymore? That would be mind-blowing. Mel kept talking, and he did his best to follow along.

“Yes,” he said slowly when she asked him about him having a power. “I do have... an ability, but it’s not like the one you have. It’s really best demonstrated before it’s explained... Just a moment.”

He got up to find a piece of paper, but it was also for processing the thoughts in his head. If she was being honest, and didn’t know about the league, did that mean it had managed to stay secret for so long? If the league got revealed, it would be a turning point in the world’s history, and dramatically change future events. Of course, history could be erased from the records, but it was a promising sign that she didn’t know about it. Nikolai found himself relaxing and sighing quietly in relief. When he turned around with a blank sheet of paper, he was smiling faintly, though she wouldn’t have known what it meant.

“Okay,” he announced as he returned to the coffee table (which was a funny name because no one ever drank coffee here). He’d never demonstrated what he could do to anyone besides a family or league member, and even then that happened rarely, so he wasn’t sure what to do. “Here goes nothing.”

I’ll try something small. Nikolai’s gaze scanned the room, looking for something he could draw. Soon, it landed on his mug, which was still half-full. He lifted it up, getting a good look at it on each side, as if calculating the object’s measurements. Satisfied, he set it back down. Time to get drawing.

The tip of his pencil brushed lightly over the paper, leaving only faint lines of the mug’s outline. But once he was pleased with it, he made the lines darker, and added more details to it, like shading. It was a simple sketch— it didn’t need to be elaborate like his other artwork. This would do.

“I’m trying to copy that mug,” Nikolai explained, pointing between the object and the drawing. “However, the actual ones we're drinking out of are a pale grayish blue, but the paper is white. Which means I’m going to take the color.”

Before Mel could ask what he meant, he rested a finger on the rim of the mug. Suddenly, starting where he was touching it, the mug’s color began to fade, paling into blank white. It seemed like it was being drained of its cloudy blue shade— and the color was bleeding into the drawing. It only took a few moments for the drawn mug to have the same color as the original mug, while the one sitting on the table had no color at all.

Nikolai knew that was surprising enough, but he didn't stop there. Next, he tapped the colored drawing, running his finger along the edges. He closed his eyes to remain focused— and for a good fifteen seconds, nothing happened.

Then something started taking form slowly. The drawing seemed to be gaining a third dimension. The pencil lines became sides of another mug, the same size and shape as the first one. The only differences between the two were the color, and the first still held the tea while the second was empty. In addition, the paper he'd drawn on was blank again, as if everything had been erased— or the mug was real now, popped out of the page. His sketch had come to life.

Giving Mel a bright grin, Nikolai took a mug in each hand, and tapped them together to show that they were even made of the same material now.

Clink.

Mel had no idea what Nikolai was doing at first, but she watched with delight as he began to draw. She had always admired artists, and it wasn't very often that she got to see someone drawing random objects, like a mug.

But then the color drained from the original mug, and she gaped. The gape turned even bigger when she saw it get transferred to the paper. And then even bigger when it came out of the paper.

She sat there, wide-eyed with her mouth open, her eyes darting between the two mugs. If she wasn't holding a cup of hot tea herself, she might have flung her arms and reached out to see if they were real.

"Wait! So..."

How was this explainable? She had no idea how this worked, but it was so unique.

"Okay, so you... draw something, take the color out of the original object, transfer it to the paper, and then it comes to life? And the original object is colorless? Like you stole it?"

She then beamed, the shock already starting to fade.

"Can you draw anything? People too? Ooh, clones?"