She Forgets to Bring Her Clothes Along

Quietude fell around them, washing over them in a dawdling second, like an explosion slowing down. Their eyes were closed, unable to open, unable to feel. They were floating somewhere, not sure what the place was. It was dark but a few hopeful stars twinkled here and there.

Little purple clouds and huge dark orange ones floated past them like spirits taking an evening walk. One thing was for certain, they weren't on Earth.

Brooklyn's hair floated above her face and tickled her nose slightly, then,

Like a baby waking from deep slumber, she gently opened her eyes. Light didn't enter her eyes because there was none. But strangely, she could see, like the night-vision camera her grandfather used to have in his room. The one he had been looking through…

Before he passed away like the snuff of a candle tired of burning for too long, twisting into transparent smoke and winking out of existence.

She slowly turned her head around and saw three other boys and a man in a construction suit floating just like her, like they were in the center of the earth, at zero gravity.

"Isaiah!" she tried to scream at the boy farthest from her. But no sound escaped her lips. She screamed again but there was only a deep deafening silence. So she floated towards her lifetime best friend excruciatingly until she could see his face clearly. His eyes were shut tight and his short military cropped hair looked almost brown, but Brooklyn new better. When it was long enough, it was a bright blonde, the color of the morning sun on the first days of spring.

She lifted her finger to check his breath, little tufts of air fell on her finger tips, thank Zyka, he was alive. She shook him slightly and slowly his eyes opened. His right one first, then his left. "Brooklyn?" he tried to say but only his mouth moved.

"Where are we?" he asked looking around then realizing that he was floating. Brooklyn shrugged and they went to wake the others up. She tried her magic and unlike their voices, it worked and small balls of light formed on each of her fingertips.

Kayden gasped, and pointed at Brooklyn, "Your eyes!" he mouthed then pointed at his own eyes so that she understood. Isaiah caught her shoulder and turned her towards him before tightly biting the inside of his cheeks.

Brooklyn blinked, having no idea how her contact lenses fell off to unmask her purple irises. Sam tried to smirk and eyed Kayden, "It looks good on her. She almost looks hot," Sam said through his eyes which made Kayden punch Sam who simply smiled and laughed silently. That's when they all looked at almost invisible Ethan who was staring at Brooklyn in shock.

"Purple eyes," was what Ethan should have thought, "What pigmentation might be in there to make it that way?" But the delinquent doctor was staring at her hands, at the little balls of light shining from her fingertips.

Right then, they heard a sound from behind them. Brooklyn turned abruptly and threw a beam of light at whatever was behind them in reflex.

The light spread in front of them and for a split second, she thought she saw a huge dark purple wing. It flapped and all went dark. Before anyone else had time to register anything, they felt something under them breaking and just like that,

the zero gravity receded and they were falling. Fast.

For the first few seconds, even though they screamed, it was just silence and dark all around them. It looked like a scene from a muted action film. Then they passed something like a hole and there was light and sound and their screams were echoing at the fullest.

"WHAT THE HELL IS HAPPENINGGGG!" Kayden yelled trying to look down at where they were headed.

Ethan had seen where they were headed. They were in space and he could see the entire Earth in front of his eyes, getting bigger and bigger as they shot past the atmosphere like five tiny comets.

"WHY AREN'T WE BURNING UP?" Ethan screamed, knowing that the high compression of air around their falling bodies would heat them up to such a high level that fire was supposed to burn them all to death. But strangely, like the other strange things he had witnessed, he felt cold.

When their breaths almost ran out, they stopped screaming and just closed their eyes, awaiting whatever will come for them.

They next time they opened their eyes, they were back in the Forbidden Room, strewn everywhere like a vulture's abandoned meal, unconscious but unhurt.

Ryoko was in Sam's room again, which she had opened with the master key when she heard the distant thud. She ran out of the room and saw a deep purple glow from the miraculously locked Forbidden Room. And then the glow receded.

She fumbled for her blue-tooth, "Atlas."

"Yes? What is it? Are you calling because you found them?" A crackled voice replied on the other side, this time, he was more calmed down, the relief of a boy who had finished sketching his plan.

"No. It's the Forbidden Room."

"What about it?" Atlas asked, not really caring. It had been forbidden since the palace was built. No one really knew what was in there. Nor was there any key.

"It's glowing," she said, cautiously stepping closer and placing an ear on the elaborately carved doors.

"What? Is it open?" he questioned. Ryoko heard footsteps and she knew he was making his way to the ground floor right now.

"No, it was glowing. Now it just looks normal," she stated, stepping away then bending down to look through the keyhole, but there it was night around her and the room seemed dark inside.

"Did you find anything?" Atlas's adolescent voice sounded next to her, his breath falling on her hair as he bent down too, to look.

Ryoko shook her head and stood up straight, massaging her neck where his breath had fallen and left tingles on her skin,"I heard a thud coming from inside."

Atlas tried pushing the door but it didn't budge, he shrugged, "Must be a library in there. One of the books must have fallen down."

"It was a really loud thud," Ryoko corrected, "Atlas, look!" she pointed at the ground behind him. He turned around to look at a broken lock stranded next to the nearest pillar.

"This belongs to the room, doesn't it?" he guessed, playing with it in his slender hands. He looked up in realization, "Ryoko, someone is already inside."

Right then they heard a masculine scream from inside, and one more scream, this one a little high pitched. And a third scream.

The prince and his secretary raised their eyebrows in surprise. "Or someones," Atlas added.

........

Ethan had only seen the naked female anatomy in textbooks before. He was more of a researcher than a live case doctor who could work on surgeries and this sudden exposure to the real thing made him do only one thing.

"AAAAHHHHH! By the name of Zyka what is a naked girl doing in the same room as me??!!!" Ethan screamed once he slowly regained consciousness and averted his eyes. Hearing him scream, Kayden's ears twitched and he opened his eyes.

He delivered the same show Ethan was performing and fumbled to stand up. He stood against a wall and waved his hand, "Somebody give her something to wear!"

The dim lights on the ceiling had somehow turned on and illuminated a fragile and young girl curled up in the center of the dome shaped Forbidden Room. She took in slow docile breaths, each breath warming up the cold and abandoned room.

Brooklyn tried to stand up. Her legs felt like they weren't hers and the thrilling sensation of falling in space still lingered on her skin. She wasn't less than surprised to see a a strange naked girl in their midst, but she didn't scream.

Her womanly instincts instantly jolted towards Isaiah who was wearing a jacket and removed it from the still unconscious boy before laying it down over the girl's exposed body.

The tips of Brooklyn's fingers came in contact with the girl's skin for a second and she let out a squeal. Sam was kneeling next to her, completely unfazed, "What's wrong with her?"

"She's...she's burning."

"Is she even alive?" Sam wondered, cocking his head and studying her face. He waved two fingers under her nose and withdrew almost immediately, "Woah, even her breath is hot...and, what just happened to us? Was it a dream? Getting sucked inside this room and falling from space?"

Ethan inched closer now that nothing horrifying was in his sight, "I don't think so. All that felt very real. If it was a dream, we all wouldn't have to same one at exactly the same time."

Ethan shifted his focus towards Isaiah who was still in the half-dead state, "What happened to this one?" he muttered and walked over to the boy. He shook his face slightly. No answer. He shook him violently then, "BOY! WAKE UP!!"

Brooklyn looked back at Ethan with furrowed brows, "His name is Isaiah," then turned back to check on the girl. "Hello?" she whispered, while Sam tried shaking her awake.

Kayden walked over to the trio and stood over them, "I was told that you shouldn't wake sleeping people."

"Who told you that?" Sam giggled and looked up at his boyfriend.

Kayden looked up at the ceiling, "I....don't remember. I just know that someone told me that."

Ethan was tired of shaking him. So he took a deep breath and muttered a short prayer of forgiveness before his right hand came down and slapped Isaiah's face.

Two seconds passed.

"O-o-ow," Isaiah mumbled, trying to feel his face as he sat up and looked at an insanely proud Ethan. "Always wanted to do that," Ethan admitted beaming, "You okay, boy?"

Isaiah nodded, "Are we in the forbidden room? What happened? Was it a dream?"

"No idea, kid," Ethan shrugged and got up, "But we got a strange specimen here," he said, nodding over to the girl.

Isaiah suddenly felt light and he felt his arms to find his jacket missing. He walked over to the girl when he saw his jacket on her otherwise bare body.

"Where did she come from?" he asked Brooklyn, "Uhh," he rubbed his temple, "I feel like my soul is out of my body."

A small cough sounded from the girl and all of their ears perked up in interest. Isaiah and Kayden who were standing, leaned closer.

Kayden saw her long silken hair move with her head as she turned. The jacket almost came off and Brooklyn's hand shot forward to hold it in place, "Take it easy," she whispered comfortingly.

Then, slowly, she finally opened her eyes. Kayden's heart skipped a beat as her eyes directly fell on his first. They held contact for what felt like eternity. He gulped. The girl's stare, it cut right through his soul. Baby blue eyes connected with his brown ones and he felt like...he had seen them before...somewhere in the past, somewhere far away.

He shook those thoughts out of him as they all watched the stranger reach for Brooklyn's hand and place it on her cheek, looking at her expectantly. "What do you want me to do?" She asked. No reply.

Isaiah found himself nudging Brooklyn and she looked at him in confusion, "I think this is related to the Wheel, judging from all the things that happened right now," he whispered, then even more quietly, "Maybe you should use your magic to talk to her."

Sam leaned forward to stare at Brooklyn's eyes, "How did you get those anyway? It's a rare color."

Hearing that Ethan remember what he had seen in that void where they all had been out of the blue, "Yeah and that light on your hands! What was that?"

Kayden suddenly stared off into the void, feeling the same thing Isaiah had felt, like his soul was out of the body, "Imperium translatio," he blurted.

"What?" Sam asked, confounded at Kayden's sudden strange behavior.

Then Kayden blinked like his soul just returned and his vision darted towards Sam, "Power transfer, from the Wheel. Due to lightning." Kayden listed out like a robot knowing where the words were coming from.

Brooklyn's and Isaiah's jaw dropped slightly, "H-how do you know that?" Brooklyn turned towards Isaiah, "Did you tell him?"

Isaiah didn't take his eyes off Kayden, "No, no, I didn't. Who told you that...Kayden?" Isaiah asked, trying to remember his name.

"I don't remember, I don't know. Don't ask me," Kayden said and looked away. Sam's hands tensed and looked at Kayden one last time. He had never been this strange before. What had happened during this short period of time? Or was it...

Sam looked at the girl. Was it her? Who was she? If Kayden knew her, why was he hiding it. Little roots of something dangerous started sprouting in his heart, right over the place where his love for Kayden resided.

Brooklyn let out a breath and tried to transfer cold to her body to balance out her heat. As she did that, wafts of steam rose from her skin. The girl shivered and sighed. She slowly got up but didn't let go of Brooklyn's hand.

Brooklyn kept on supplying cold to her skin until she spoke her first word.

"Cold," she said timidly and Brooklyn retorted her hand quickly, "Oh sorry."

"Who are you?" Isaiah asked without waiting for the girl to adjust to her surroundings, "What do you want from us? Where was that place we just traveled to?"

"Isaiah..."Brooklyn growled through her teeth.

"What?" he sang, "I just wanted to confirm if she was a threat or not!"

"I'm not a threat..." the girl spoke as timidly as before. She looked 16 but spoke like a twelve year old who had just been born.

"Little girl," Doctor Ethan asked, "Which country are you from? How long have you been trapped in here?"

She walked over to the curtain on the wall, the huge jacket just hanging below her butt and she pulled the curtains open while Isaiah whispered into Brooklyn's ear, "Why did you give her my jacket?" He felt weird seeing it draped around a strange girl. "It was the only thing I could cover her with," she shout whispered back.

The girl pointed to the sky, at the twinkling stars that were brighter now as evening came to a close and night spread around the Palace grounds, "I came from there, the star formed after Mars was broken to bits."

Ethan almost laughed but he covered her mouth, "What's your name?" he asked like nothing was absurd about this whole thing.

"I-I don't know...can you give me one?"

Brooklyn looked at Sam, Kayden and Isaiah who were equally as confused as her. A girl from the Mars star who didn't know her name.

"Are you even human?" Sam asked and girl shrugged sitting down on the floor. Then Sam turned to Brooklyn, "And what are you? Are you human too? The Wheel really made you like that?"

Brooklyn sighed and thought that she better tell them the whole story. She didn't care if they were trustworthy or not, like how Isaiah did, she was going to reveal it anyway.

Kayden sighed after she finished her story, "I never believed the Wheel was real," he looked at those purple eyes of hers, "But strangely, it is."

Ethan just stayed silent, not knowing how to comprehend things out of scientific grasp. He still thought there must be some DNA mutation or even an extra rare plasmid in the human cell to make Brooklyn this way.

Kayden nodded at the girl, "Can you do it too? Magic? Since you are from the Mars star where the Wheel came from."

The girl only smiled, then she shook her head sadly "It is not time yet. I have to fulfill the mission I was sent to do. That's the only thing I remember other than what I am."

"What mission?" Kayden asked.

"What are you?" Sam asked at the same time.

Before she could answer, the dust of the abandoned room crept into her nostrils and tickled its insides. Unable to hold it in, she sneezed.

And a little tufts of orange fire escaped her nose and twisted into smoke before snuffing out into the air. She smiled sheepishly at the five pairs of bewildered eyes.

Seven, actually.

Two more pairs were slyly watching from outside the window.

................