Final Truth

Chapter 4: The Trait

Julia's point of view:

"What? What is it?" Felicity asks, looking uncomfortable from the look I'm giving her.

I shake my head, angry that I can't comprehend any of this.

"I'm sorry, it's just...your eyes.........why are they green?!" I demand.

Felicity begins to draw away from the conversation, hurt at the brashness of my words. "I don't know...they've always been like that!" She fires back in a timid voice.

I growl in frustration and pound my fist against the steel walls, the full extent of just how messed up my world is finally presenting itself.

How did I get here? How did any and all of this happen? Why does suddenly someone else have green eyes? Why does Henley want me alive? Why can I not reach Peter? Why does everything have to revolve around powers? Why do they even exist?

"If it's any consolation to you...everybody here has green eyes," Felicity whispers.

I turn my head back to her in confusion, my black hair swaying in my face.

"What?" I ask.

"I was the only one with green eyes where I came from, too. I think it's some sort of trait that labels everybody here as a threat of sorts. We all come from different cities, but all of us have the trait and we've all caused some kind of trouble for those in charge," she says.

Before I can answer her, our conversation is interrupted by the metallic sound of my door being unlocked.

I turn and see a young man holding bandages and a small bag of other medical supplies shoved into my cell by a guard.

"You've got 10 minutes to fix her up and then it's back to your cell. Hurry it up," the man says, and then disappears back into the shadows of the hallway.

The young man stumbles his way towards me, a dragging sound following him as he walks.

Glancing down at his feet, I can see that they're chained together to prevent him from running away.

"H-hold out your arm please," he shakily requests, and I lift my broken left wrist up for him.

"This is Steven," Felicity introduces as he bandages my wrist. "He's our doctor around here. Used to be the best healer in the world," she adds.

"Used to be?" I ask.

"I started bringing people back from the dead...ended up getting in a lot of trouble for it. So they took my powers away and brought me here," Steven says, looking at me for the first time.

Underneath a piece of blond hair that falls in his face, I could see that his eyes were green too.

"They don't even let you use your power to heal? They just took it away?" I ask, and he nods.

"Yours too?" I say to Felicity.

"Yeah. I used to be able to reverse time...now I'll be confined here for the rest of my life not being able to change anything," she answers sorrowfully.

Steven finishes bandaging my wrist and moves on to stitching a few cuts on my face that I had long since forgotten about.

"What was your power?" He asks.

"I have...or had...fifteen different kinds," I answer simply, prompting a jaw-drop from both of them.

"Fifteen powers? What kind were they?" Felicity asks.

"Influence over the elements, invisibility, mind reading, infinite knowledge...lots of different things," I say.

"Never heard of such a thing," Steven says, still working on stitching me back together. "How'd you end up in here?" He asks.

But I don't answer. I'm not even sure myself.

"It's a long story," I say instead.

Steven finally finishes up the last of my stitching and begins to put his medical supplies away.

"I'm Julia," I tell him, and he shakes my hand.

"Nice to meet you. Since you're the new experiment around here for Henley to play with, I have a feeling we'll be seeing each other again soon," he says almost apologetically, and then the guard comes to take him back.

I look back over at Felicity, who has already crawled onto her bed of springs to go to sleep for the night.

"You guys know who Henley is?" I ask her.

"Yeah, she's always here. I'm actually surprised she had the time to go off and pick you up," she says.

She didn't just have the time, she made the time...

Sighing to myself, I lay gingerly down on the cold ground and try to make myself comfortable, dreading what tomorrow might bring for me.

I hike my knees up to my chin and wrap my arms around my legs, trying to surround myself in warmth as fatigue finally sets in.

I find my mind drifting back to Peter and his screams coming from down the hall a while ago, and I can't help but wonder what horrible thing they've done to him now.

I think of Adam and Cassia, of Susan and Kyle. Of how I never got to say goodbye. Of how they're probably dead somewhere because of that typhoon of a storm I created in my rage.

Tears spring to my eyes, and I try to swallow down a small cry of grief.

"You okay?" Felicity asks from her cell, her voice thick with sleepiness.

I'll never be okay again.

"I'm fine," I answer.

I slowly close my eyelids and succumb to the darkness of sleep, where I know nightmares and terror are anxiously awaiting my presence.