~Angel~

    I can practically feel his gaze as he inspected me, long black hair, pale skin, average height, and wait for it, purple eyes. For a few moments we just stared at each other, each weighing the risk of exposure with contact with another human being.

 

Eventually he broke the silence, “Uh, hi... Are you lost?”

 

I ignored his comment and kept analyzing him, no big visible weapons except for a sword that hung from his belt on his left. Which meant he had lightweight, hideable ones. That ruled out strength based Powers. Lightweight cloak that was very gaudy, not a flying or speed type. He seemed to just came out of a fight, meaning he’s not a healing or support type either. That left elementals or physics. We are miles away from a large body of water and water elementals can’t actually make water. The air is too humid for fire and too hot for ice. Clear skies all around, not a weather type and we already ruled out flying/speed so not wind either. Not an elemental then, physic it is. I probed his mind, not open, so not telepathic. He didn’t see me coming so not a precognitive or divination type. That left telekinesis as the only other high end power. By the time I was done, he was getting increasingly uneasy under my gaze.

 

“The rest of your group left already, did you come back for something you left?” He said fidgeting uncomfortably.

 

“No,” my voice came out scratchy from disuse so I coughed to clear it up. “I wasn’t part of that group.”

 

He frowned, “Then why are you here. A girl shouldn’t be walking all alone so deep within the forest.”

 

I tilted my head, “I was looking for you and your friend.”

 

He tensed up almost imperceptibly, anyone other than me probably would’ve missed it, “Why? And how do you know I have a friend with me?”

 

“I sensed you two together,” I stated simply.

 

“Sensed…you’re a Power.” He looked sharply at me. “What do you want?”

 

The tone of his voice was part distrust and part curiosity so I decided to be straightforward. “I want to travel with you two.”

 

He looked surprised, “Why?”

 

“I have nothing left anyway, might as well live the rest of my life with a band of those like myself.” I said evenly.

 

“Those like ‘myself’, huh. What makes you think I’ll say yes?” He challenged.

 

“You’re part of a group and you’re recruiting potent Powers.”

 

He raised his eyebrow, “Do you know that for sure? I didn’t tell you anything about myself yet.”

 

“You didn’t need to, what you wore gave it all away.” He waved his hand gesturing for me to go on. “Clean pressed clothes, a secure place to live; semi-worn jeans with holes where the knees should be and some drawings in ink on the thigh. Adding to that there are stains on the shirt. You share clothes with a number of people all with different habits, seemingly all Powers too, which means you’re part of a group. Groups like those are always looking for new recruits, especially powerful ones.”

 

He looked impressed at my reasoning, “Ok then, say I am part of a bigger group, why should we recruit you?”

 

“Telepathy, Clairvoyance, and Precognition all rolled into one, that’s pretty much me.” I bowed, “I’m Angel, at your service.” I stuck out my hand at the last part.

 

He chuckled a bit at the last part, “Right, we didn’t introduce ourselves yet, nice to meet you Angel, I’m Luhan.” He shook my hand, “That’s a pretty remarkable lineup of powers there Angel.”

 

I tilted my head, “Is that a yes or a no?”

 

“Neither. There’s a certain initiation test you have to take, but first you have to prove to us that you’re trustworthy enough for higher ups to see.”

 

I smiled slightly, “So I was right, you are part of a bigger group.”

 

Luhan grimaced, “Whoops, well now that you know, we have to take you with us for sake of secrecy.”

 

“What do I have to do to prove myself trustworthy?”

 

“It’s a long process, I’ll explain it on the way to our safe house,” He started deeper into the woods.

 

I was surprised at how easily he accepted me, but I didn’t show it, so instead I fall into step besides him. We settled into a tentative silence even as I was bursting with unanswered questions: Who are you? How many of you are there? Why are you here? Only years of being silenced kept my mouth shut.

 

He stopped by a trail that ran through the woods, “Huh, Kris should be here by now…”

 

“Who’s Kris-” I suddenly saw a car plow towards us.

 

The car skidded to a stop and a guy with wind blown, brown hair stepped out, “That was a rush- whoa, who’s this?” The tall guy noticed me almost right away.

 

Luhan gave him a stern look, “Kris, this is Angel. Angel this is Kris, my other consort whom you ‘sensed.’”

 

Kris looked confused, “What’cha mean sensed?”

 

“Angel’s a telepathic Power.”

 

Kris laughed out loud, but when no one joined in he stopped. “You’re kidding right?”

 

Luhan just raised his eyebrows.

 

“Do you know how rare-” He was stopped by a glare from Luhan.

 

I smiled internally, he just gave away their upper hand because now I know that I’m in demand. That’s how the world goes round, supply and demand, like a good game of xiangqi.

 

Luhan continued, “Before we take you to our safe house, you’re going to have to prove yourself trustworthy by swearing an oath.”

 

At this, I immediately stand to attention.

 

“Repeat after me: I swear on my life to be loyal to the Silhouettes.” He paused and waited for me to say it.

 

I dutifully did, “I swear on my life to be loyal to the Silhouettes.”

 

He nodded approvingly and continued, “I will protect the members of the Silhouettes to the best of my ability and never turn on them.”

 

“I will protect the members of the Silhouettes to the best of my ability and never turn on them.”

 

“If I ever break these rules, the Silhouettes have the right to decide my judgement.”

 

“If I ever break these rules,” I hesitated at this part and Luhan smiled encouragingly, “the Silhouettes have the right to decide my judgement.”

 

Kris applauded, “Congrats, you are now an unofficial part of the Silhouettes.”

 

I frowned, “Unofficial?”

 

“You still have to take the initiation test,” Luhan explained patiently.

 

Kris laughed at my annoyed expression, “Don’t worry, I’m sure you’ll make it without a problem.”

 

Luhan looked up to the sky, “It’s already past sunset already, we should probably head back. Everybody get on the car.” Kris moved for the driver’s seat, but Luhan blocked his way, “Nope, I’m driving.”

 

*~* *~* *~* *~* *~* *~* *~* *~*

 

~Luhan~

 

    I was already feeling the cost of using my power even though I didn’t use much of it in the little battle. We called these blowbacks; the smaller Powers have a shorter time between their blowbacks, but their powers were on a much smaller scale than our own. However our curse was that our blowbacks were much, much worse. The blowbacks ranged from the common cold to quite literally blowing up, the severity varied from person to person. We were all ticking time bombs and that made the public scared of us. As if the whole power thing wasn’t already creeping them out, I sighed.

 

I watched the sleeping girl sitting in the passenger seat out of the side of my eye, and tried to guess why she came. We were already halfway to the safe house, but I still wasn’t sure what to think of her. She just appeared out of nowhere and, for some odd reason, I let her in on their biggest secret. This was highly unusual of me as I never did things like this, I was always strict to the people I’m in charge of. Strict, but not mean, that was my policy. But, for some odd reason, the girl, Angel she’d said, disarmed me for a second. Maybe it was the fact that I hadn’t come in contact with a girl who wasn’t afraid of me for some time, the fact that she was beautiful was just a distraction. Maybe it was that she was fearless, coming up to me and revealing so much without so much as a promise of help. Or maybe it was that she seemed haunted by memory too malevolent for words, she didn’t tell me this of course, but I could read it in her every move. She was a puzzle, and I couldn’t resist the urge to figure her out.

 

I was really starting to feel the blowback now and I was tempted to ask Kris to drive even if it was just a headache. I stopped myself because I knew that he was probably feeling just as bad. Instead, I glanced at the girl again and tried again to figure her out, I had so many questions. After almost driving off the road, I gave up decided to focus on driving safely instead, we’ll get to know her eventually anyway.

 

*~* *~* *~* *~* *~* *~* *~* *~*

 

~Angel~

 

I woke up to a completely different scene than what I fell asleep looking at. The empty fields of grain was replaced by a deserted skyline. I surveyed my surroundings, it was rare to find such a preserved city nowadays especially since most of the buildings were destroyed by the fighting that ensued after reckless people realized that the power they possessed were far beyond the capabilities of our current technology. Whole cities were demolished in days and there were many casualties. Because of this incident, most Pures decided to abandon the big cities and instead flock to the bigger, safer cities. Nowadays, only the biggest cities had anything close to the sizes they had before the plague struck. I used to live in a town off the side of Chicago, however, after the plague it was more like a village. My village was an anomaly, as we decided not to join up with another group despite the whole safety with numbers thing. I guess that was fortunate for me, especially since Powers were especially discriminated against in what was left of the cities. I watched as the indistinct shapes in the distance eventually grew closer and morphed into recognizable skyscrapers. It has been a while since I last saw an actual city, nine years to be exact. I was only 10 at the time, and I can’t even remember why I came in the first place. My parents still didn’t know I was special then. I sighed and closed my eyes trying to imagine what life would be like if everything was still normal. What is normal anyway?

 

“We’re almost there.” The Power whom wasn’t driving jerked me out of my thoughts.

I nodded in acknowledgement, not bothering to respond.

 

“The people there are really nice, no one is actually mean… except for Chen maybe. He can seem mean at times, but he’s actually just a prankster,” he continued obviously not picking up my “don’t want to talk” vibe. “I think they’ll like you, and I hope you like them too.”

 

“That’s assuming I pass the initiation test,” I tried to end the conversation.

 

“Yeah…” he awkwardly agreed.

 

Thinking the conversation was over, I wondered how nice the building they chose was. They had the whole city to choose, so I’m guessing-

 

“My name is Kris by the way,” he tried again to make small talk.

 

I turned towards him and stared at him straight on, “I know, I found out the moment you tried to run us over in the forest.”

 

“Oh, haha,” he laughed sheepishly touching his copper colored hair. “Sorry ‘bout that.”

“It’s ok,” I faced the front again.

Only to hear him start talking again, “By the way, how old are you?”

I sighed inwardly, “19.”

“Really?” He sounded excited for some reason.

“Yeah.”

“You’re the same age as Chen and Baekhyun! Maybe you guys can be friends?”

“Huh, interesting,” I replied trying as hard as I can to project from my voice that I found it the opposite of that.

It didn’t work and Kris continued, “Yea, I’m 21 and so is Luhan and Xiumin. Lay is 20 and Tao is the baby at 18 years old.”

I nodded and tried my best to not look interested, jeez, he’s persistent.

Luhan suddenly spoke, “Our safe house is near and to protect our secret, we have to request your permission to blindfold you.”

I felt relieved that the one sided conversation was finally over, “Sure, you know you probably should have done that before you gave away which city it was.”

He shrugged, “I’m confident that you’ll pass the test.”

I didn’t reply and instead just let Kris tie a black bandana over my eyes. Thankfully the last few minutes were filled with peace and silence. Eventually though, I felt the car come to a stop. I fumbled for my self belt and managed to get out of the stuffy car as fast as possible blind. I inhaled deeply and felt the first breath of fresh air in two hours. Too soon, we were walking in some building with Luhan and Kris both guiding me on either side. I felt the luxurious carpet under my feet and I knew immediately that I would approve of the hotel. I could smell the perfume and knew that we have entered the lobby area. I felt myself be guided in front of a door of some sort. It seemed that they have installed a huge security system in the hotel, I heard one of them enter in the code: 1-7-5-3-8-6-4-0-9, no 0-4-9. If I do make it in, I’ll make sure that they get rid of the sound system on the lock. But for now, I’m happy with just knowing the password. Before long, the two guys turned me around 180 degrees and stopped. I held my breath preparing for what was coming next. And finally, the blindfold was taken away.