The Quest of One

Erkōsa

I wake up in a fit of rage, kicking and screaming at invisible enemies. I try to see the Mogadorians, any way to escape, but my eyes are is still stinging from all the fire and poison in the air. I gasp for breath, trying to cleanse my lungs of all the smoke I've inhaled. Hands grab at my limbs, holding me in place. My Terric kicks in and crashes into the earth, like a tree toppling in the forest. My vision clears enough for me to see a small, lithe figure kneeling beside me.

"One, it's okay," the voice says in a stern but somehow calming voice. "Just breathe."

Hilde.

Acknowledging the nightmare, I manage to calm down enough for the earthquake to lose its strength. I don't have to fight its rage-the energy just flows back into the kelp. Once everything has stopped shaking, I take a look around. I'm in a room, lying across a bed, so I guess that means we made it to Alder. My fingers graze the side of the Chest. Hilde must have had us open it in my sleep, during my nightmare. She stuffs the old kelp back into that plastic bag before slamming the Chest shut again.

"I'm really sorry," I mutter, rolling my sleeves down over my taut arms.

"It's okay," Hilde replies. "Sudden episodes of a Legacy tend to happen shortly after development, especially in your sleep."

"That's kinda shitty. I could knock the whole house down during a bad dream?"

"First off, I won't let that happen. Secondly, these episodes will usually be accompanied by visions that trigger your Legacy. It's called erkōsa."

"Yeah," I mutter, trying to keep my hands from shaking. "I know what it's called."

There's silence for a moment, and I realize as Hilde packs away the Chest, that she probably didn't factor in erkōsa with the development of my Legacies. "We're too far from the source," she'd said a year after I'd developed telekinesis, far long after I should have gotten my next Legacy. "It's likely that, if anything, they'll develop spread out from one another." Yeah, no shit. A yearlong gap between TK and Super Balance, something I didn't even consider a Legacy when it first showed up.

When did I even start getting into surfing?

Two months ago?

No, I'd been getting better at staying upright in combat training long before that. So, that would have been when I started skateboarding in Austin.

A motherfucking two-year gap between that and being able to make shockwaves when I get pissed.

And only now am I going through erkōsa. I'm assuming these next couple years, if it takes that long for the rest to develop, are going to be full of some trippy shit.

"So," Hilde finally asks, "did you have a vision?"

I try to recall the dream, but it's really hazy. "I'm not sure if it was just a bad dream or not. I can't really remember it."

She sighs, annoyed, even though I'm the one who just went through some shit. "Get dressed. We leave for Alder in thirty minutes."

***

The walk from our house to Alder takes about an hour and it's dismal as shit. The sky has grown opaque with clouds that remind me of my creepy dream. I can almost smell the water in the air, waiting to hammer down on the earth with sheets of ice. We follow a commonly used trail along the shoreline. Alder is a small, lakeside town that is part of the Ojibwe First Nations. Most of the buildings are old and rotten. The street running through the town is cracked, icy, with weeds still growing where the cold hasn't reached. Street lines have faded.