(14) CAPABILITY OF THE MIND

Chen had always been able to predict the weather. That is, ever since he could remember. Memory wiped clean from his arrival in the new world, there was really only one thing that stuck to him beside his name: his pure instinct.

Getting picked up in the middle of the road on a stormy day wasn’t at all what he expected when he woke up again. Neither was losing his memory, but so many things happened that day that he had just decided to go with the flow.

He meets Jaehwan and Hakyeon that day, and he notices how they’re not exactly human. Sure, they pretty much looked exactly like how a human should look like, but Chen notices their strange body features in little details. Like how they look normal, but so normal that they look better than that. Or, how sometimes their eyes would flicker with a bright light, or how their voices seemed to shift in pitches as if they had transistors lodged in their throats. Sometimes, he would experience a few moments where they would pause their movements to the point where it looked like they couldn’t move, and when they do move again, it’s a little robotic.

Chen finds out that they’re not human, but instead are androids- once human before the government picked a team of young men to test out their newest technology. Various body parts were replaced with chunks of metal and wires until they were practically more robot than animal. The conversation never went on longer than that. Sometimes he would try to ask just a little more to find out more, but they’d always cut it before he learned anything new. The fact that an android existed made Chen amazed, but still a little scared. He never thought that anything like that could have existed.

Right away from when he was found, he was forced to live in a society where strict policies morphed the behaviors of the people. Like that, he was put to work where he would help put together anything that was asked of him, make anything that was asked of him, and even dismantle anything that was asked of him. Jaehwan and Hakyeon were his supervisors, and they made sure that he knew how everything worked.

A few months later, Jaehwan and Hakyeon came knocking on Chen’s door with a boy limp on Hakyeon’s back. They set him onto the sofa in the living room and watched as he stirred awake. He introduces himself as Luhan, and just as he’s about to say more, he doesn’t. When he confesses that he doesn’t remember anything with a terrified look etched on his face, Chen realizes that he isn’t the only one. Here he was, a possible clue to getting what he had lost back, and he decides that he’s going to try his best to get his memory back, along with Luhan’s.

Yet, a little over a year later, he still has just as much information as he did back then.

“Honestly, you need to get out of the house more.” Chen spun around to find another person now in the room with him, rolling his eyes before concentrating on the piece of metal in his hand. The person speaking should take his own advice.

“At least I have somewhat of a tan. You’re like, cinderella compared to me, Luhan.”

It was the latter’s turn to be irked by his snide comment, reaching over to tug on a patch of Chen’s hair playfully before plopping down next to him. “Still looking at that bracelet?”

“Yeah, it’s just...” Chen sighed, letting the metal slip from his fingers and clank against the wooden table.

He didn’t really understand why he was so attached to it. It was plain and dull, as if whoever made it never really put any thought into the design process. The only thing that really bugged him was how he ended up getting it in the first place, or rather, how it was delivered.

Walking around faction C with nowhere really in mind, he was enjoying the empty streets as droplets of water rained down on his skin, and although they soaked his clothes until they added a good few pounds, he didn’t really mind. The thunderous storms that kept people in was something that always piqued his interest, and he found it calming to feel his entire core reverberate each time the sky rumbled. Before he had knew it, something whizzed past his ear and sailed right into his temple, a little bit of pain searing from the spot.

Now here he was, messing around with a piece of scrap metal that had hit him out of nowhere. “How do you know that it’s a bracelet?”

“Well, it’s curved and I have one similar to that? Kinda, anyways.”

“It’s a wonder why we’re here... like this, I mean.” Both Chen and Luhan agreed to that wholeheartedly from the first day they met. The two of them both washed up in faction C after awakening from what seemed to be a very long dream, not remembering anything about themselves or where they were. It had to be something important though, seeing that they clinked so well, and especially because of the bracelets. It obviously wasn’t a trend here in faction C, but Luhan had appeared with his while Chen had waited a few days before it was roughly delivered to him.

“Luhan, darling! Can’t you stop bothering Chen and help us, please? We need a few extra hands for this hover engine commission...” Luhan cringed as Jaehwan’s shrill voice made it’s way into the laboratory he and Chen were currently in.

Chen waved with a small smirk on his face as Luhan trudged out the door to help, leaving him alone with the bracelet. The longer he waited, the more it seemed to heat up in his hands, probably due to the fact that he kept fiddling around with it. It was nice though, enjoying how warm it felt despite how cold it was getting outside. The storm was getting pretty bad, and although he wasn’t outside, he could just picture the flashes of lighting decorating the sky.

Letting his eyes close for a bit, he just listened as he could make out Luhan and the others’ voices arguing in the other room, waiting until they were drowned out by the thunder. With each roar of the sky, he could feel his adrenaline pump until something crackled in the room, snapping him out of his trance as the loud crash made him jump in his seat. There behind him was a fallen android with its face first into the concrete ground. He laughed a little knowing that something so small had scared him, but shrugged off the tingling sensation in his gut before wandering over to prop it up into its standing position again. There were a few small scratches along the pale surface, but it wasn’t anything that couldn’t be fixed. He then returned to his seat to find an astonishing discovery.

The bracelet was now glowing, revealing a small pink arrow pointing upwards. He would have probably looked up to see what the thing was trying to signal at, but the arrow wasn’t the finished product and the glares from the lights above had it glowing brighter than before. A square formed below it, followed by what seemed to be legs, the light pink pulsating until the image finalized and then there were, pincers?  

The closer he got to the table, the more the symbol seemed to flash, light growing brighter as the pinkish hue reflected on his skin and the whites of his eyes. Anybody would have thought that such a mysterious occurrence was anything but good, but Chen was drawn in by how his heartbeat and the constant fluctuation on the bracelet matched down to the beat. Letting his hand reach forward just enough to graze against the metal, he found himself startled when a small spark formed between it and his fingertip, bringing forth a flash of colors that almost blinded him.

Chen was in a daze as millions of clips passed through his mind, many flashing all at once until it focused on a group of kids. They all looked close, almost like brothers even, revealing the mayhem that they all caused around the town. He was shocked when his eyes locked on to a certain boy with electricity sparking from his fingertips as he terrorized the other kids, all either running away or trying their best to defend with their own unique powers. One boy was flying about while tossing small stones and sticks down on the others, wreaking havoc while he was safe in the skies. Another boy waved his arms around frantically as the falling objects froze in place, hovering a bit before flying right back up at the one in the sky. All three of them were stopped in their tracks when a wave of water drenched them, revealing another boy who was fuming at the entire situation.    

He wanted to see what would happen next, but then the scene changed, back to the dreaded day when he last saw them. Those were his friends back there and he couldn’t do anything as he was swallowed up by a certain one’s golden light, becoming lost in the darkness until waking up to feeling like he just got dunked into a pool.

His eyes finally flashed open as he shot up from the floor, not realizing he was lying on the cold ground until his back began to ache. Hobbling back onto his feet, he got back into his chair and saw his bracelet lying there just as he left it, no bright lights or weird symbols anywhere in sight. Was that a dream? Huffing tiredly, Chen figured that he should get some rest to calm himself after having such a weird dream, getting back onto his feet and heading back to his room.

Just as he was about to pocket his bracelet, the entire thing lit up with the pink symbol from his dreams and electricity crackled under his palm, pushing a startled scream from his throat. His breaths were choppy as he stared down at his own hands in horror, trying to keep his lunch down as his stomach churned. The adrenaline was pumping through his system and he kept his hands outstretched in case something else had surprised him. Doing something so, supernatural made him worried. But it didn’t stop his curiosity to try it again. He never liked to go against his own intuition anyways.

Flaring open his hands, he waited for something to happen when all he saw was his fingers bending as if they were holding a large ball. This infuriated him and he tried anything that he could think of to bring forth the sudden surge of power, shaking his hands and even stomping his feet to no avail.

His last resort wasn’t really planned, and it was just getting frustrated and letting out an irritated groan before it happened again. The small sparks went back and forth between his fingers until reaching his palm before shooting out and hitting a nearby light. It swayed dangerously above his head, but Chen didn’t see anything due to how amazed he was by his own power. Playing around with the new power he possessed, he almost forgot about the flashbacks he had earlier and remembered everything, including that Luhan was one of his long lost best friends.

He stopped playing around and was about to head back outside when Luhan came rushing downstairs with a worried expression plastered on his face. “Holy Chen, I heard you scream and rushed down here- Wait, what happened?” He asked, confused at the smile on Chen’s face as tears ran down his cheeks.

“Luhan, I... We need to get your memories back right now!” Chen wiped away the tears and grabbed his wrist to see that he was also wearing his bracelet to his benefit. Now they didn’t have to go back to his room to get it.

“What? Chen, are you okay?” Luhan was worried by how antsy Chen was acting, but it didn’t stop him from being curious.

“I just got all of my memories back and you would not believe the we had to go through. Oh my god, the others... We need you to remember so we can look for them.”

“Others? What do you mean we?” Luhan was still very lost, but Chen didn’t bother as he pushed Luhan into a seat, taking a couple of steps back before holding his hands out to his sides.

“Just, watch me and don’t freak out. Focus on trying to remember.” Chen grumbled, already having closed his eyes to concentrate. He didn’t spare Luhan the details as he tried to envision having the electricity pour out from his body, feeling his stomach tighten until he opened his eyes to reveal them shining its signature plasma color.

The sudden eye color change alarmed Luhan, but he was not expecting Chen to turn into a human lightning rod. He jumped in his seat and rolled back a bit when Chen’s hands zapped with quick bright lights. His hands buzzed and buzzed, small jolts of lightning appearing out of thin air around his body until there was another loud boom.

The ceiling light above them shook violently, and the other lights in the room flickered and sputtered. Sparks began to fly out of any electronic device within the room, and Chen has to force himself to stop.

It doesn’t work. No matter how much he tries to calm the powers awoken in him, it doesn’t stop until he’s fumbling for the bracelet on the table. Forcing it onto his wrist, it shines a pink hue once more before it disappears, and the lightning stops. His body feels the tired and he’s already huffing as he tries keeping himself standing.

Now engraved in the chunk of metal on his arm is an odd design- a scorpion, he concludes. He touches it a little, and it sparks again, but not as violently as before. When he looks up to Luhan once again, he slumps his shoulders because Luhan doesn’t look like he remembers anything. If anything, he looks downright terrified. Chen decides that it would be best not to try and get any closer, just in case Luhan suddenly decided to freak out. It was a lot to take in and nobody was supposed to be able to do anything like that.

He looks to his own wrist, staring intensely at the bracelet. He squints carefully, not seeing much besides the light that clares off the metal, but at the last second, there’s a purple flash on the surface.

From above, there’s a snap, and the dangling light above them begins to fall almost in slow motion. In that split second, the bracelet begins to burn against his skin, and it comes to him in an instant.

Much like Chen, his memories begin to flood into his head and flash before his eyes.

He was there, and so was Chen, the both of them playing in the snow as a bunch of other kids around their age laughed while throwing snowballs at one another. Luhan was having the time of his life as he scooped up small handfuls of snow and packed it in his small hands, whipping it as punishment for anybody that wasn’t paying attention. After a while, a bunch of others tried ganging up on him, but the pull in his stomach was faster and he waved his hands out in front of him before all of the snowballs hit an invisible wall, dropping to the floor with defeat.

Their discouraged expressions grew wary as he pulled his arms up again, chunks of snow rising up into the air as he pointed a single finger at all of them. He let out an excited cheer as they raced forward and pelted the others, falling down onto his back as his stomach hurt, not from his power, but from the amount of laughter that bubbled out from his mouth.

His body went cold seeing Chen only having eyes for him as he anxiously waited for Luhan to remember, unable to see the lights above plummeting down above him. A familiar memory resurfaced into his head, but this time, it wasn’t a pleasant one.

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