My eyes jerk open, and the first thing I feel is the sting of saltwater on my eyes. I immediately close my eyes again. I hate that sensation. I must be underwater somehow.
The next thing I realize is that I am breathing. Underwater. That shouldn’t be happening; humans don’t breathe underwater. I struggle to logically comprehend how I, Ila, to all appearances an entirely normal girl, am breathing underwater. I instinctively begin to hold my breath before realizing that if I can breathe underwater it would be a shame to waste such an opportunity. I was a good swimmer, and if I could adjust my eyes to the wretched saltwater, I could go on the best underwater exploration trip.
I gently open my eyes, struggling to resist the urge to snap them shut. Soon, my eyes adjust, and I can look around. To my disappointment, it is pitch black; I must be at the bottom of the ocean. So much for exploring. I sit up anyway; I need to find a way back to the surface at least.
I start swimming in the up direction. Up. Up. It is so dark, I expect to be swimming for a while. Yet, my train of though is shattered when I break the surface in a few strokes and hit my head on a very solid piece of glass. Confused, I sink back to the bottom.
Clearly, If I reached the surface and hit my head on glass, then I am not at the bottom of the ocean. The only think this reminds me of is a fish tank, although it must be a very large tank to fit a human being in it. I lay back down, trying very hard to comprehend why on earth I would be in a fish tank.
Suddenly, the tank is illuminated with a blinding light. I wait for my eyes to adjust, then sit back up, hoping to see something that would enlighten me as to where I was. I look out the glass wall right beside me and stare right into a sinister pair of eyes.
Panicked, I look around but all I see are surgical tools and lab equipment. And then, it all comes crashing back.
My name is Ila Lightray. I am not a human. I a Watelrey Alien. The humans are trying to kill me. I think I have a secret they want.
The story of how I ended up here begins several years before I was even born. When human’s planet collapsed several hundred years ago, all the intergalactic peoples rushed to take over. However, the Watelrey Aliens were the most human-like species, so by virtue of being able to navigate the planet the best, they quickly won the planet and sent all the other aliens back to their home planets.
It pains me to say that the Watelrey Aliens from which I am descended were not the best rulers. Granted, they helped reboot life on the planet, aiding the plants in their growth and teaching the humans how to take care of the planet. But they also hurt the people, forcing them to meet all their needs. They oppressed the humans under the guise of helping them rebuild.
Of course, one of the main characteristics of humans is their unwillingness to stand abuse for too long. Eventually, the humans gained enough strength to revolt. They killed hundreds of Watelrey Aliens, and reestablished their human kingdoms and human sciences, wiping out nearly every trace of Watelrey existence. They then proceeded to forget even the good things the Aliens had done.
But the remaining Aliens did not forget. They integrated into the human population, taking care to hide their unnatural abilities from the humans. Thus, no one knew they could breathe underwater or that they healed remarkably fast. No one knew they could walk through fire and not get burned. No one knew that when they bled they could heal anything or that they never got sick. No one knew their weaknesses either.
As time went on, the integration of Aliens among the humans became so strong, the generations eventually forgot that there was any difference. Young Alien children were not taught the history, and humans never taught that period of history either. A few people would still believe in the existence of the Aliens, but they were labeled as crazy fantasy geeks. I was a part of this generation. Even I did not know my heritage.
Of course, by the time I ended up in the fish tank I knew what I was. That is also the fault of the crazy fantasy people. When I was about five years old, an announcement came out that the scientists at a remote university in Kansas would pay the parents of any child $1000 if they would allow their child to be tested for Watelrey Alien characteristics. My parents were fairly well off and did not consider the announcement any further until I was 17.
At 17, someone stole my dad’s identity and with it all of our money. My dad had nothing with which to feed me and my mom. The $1000 offer was still in play, and, with my consent, my dad decided I would go in for testing. There was no way I would test positive, so I could easily go in and come back without trouble and with money to feed us. Or, that’s what we thought.
When I actually went in, they first stuck me underwater and found I could breathe. They sliced my arms and watched the cuts heal. They stuck me in a room that was on fire and watched me walk out alive. They injected me with viruses and diseases of any kind and never saw me get sick. They saw me heal from a paper cut within seconds. With each new test, they became more convinced of my alien identity. With each new test, I became more terrified as I realized I was not as normal as I had once thought.
At the end of the two-week testing period, my parents came to bring me back home and collect the money. But the scientists would not let me go. They told my parents that since I had tested positive they would have to keep me in the lab indefinitely because loose I would be a “threat to society.” They paid my parents, and then ordered them to leave and never come back. When they resisted, I was dragged into another room and forced to watch as they were tazed and dragged away. Screaming and crying, I tried to fight the guards holding me back, but I was unsuccessful. One of them tazed me. Next thing I knew, I was in the fish tank.
The sinister eyes I stared into were the eyes of the head scientist, the one directly responsible for the terror of my last two weeks, the person who—now that my parents had been taken out of the picture—had full control over what would happen in my life. His name was Slatyn. And he knew I was scared of him.
“Good morning, Lightray,” he said. At some point during the experimentation, he had deduced that my real last name was Lightray not Woods like my parents. So, he always called me that. Never by my first name. Always just Lightray.
I didn’t answer him. Why would I answer the man I watched order my parents to be taken away? Still he kept talking.
“Are you ready for some more tests? I hope not. Because we’re done testing you now. We know who you are. And we know you have what we want. Don’t you, Lightray dear?”
I forced myself to answer him. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“But of course, you do. Why do you think we brought you here? Did you think we just wanted to figure out if you were a true Watelrey? What would be the point in that? Oh no. We have much bigger plans than that. You are going to tell us exactly why you are the way that you are. Watelrey Aliens are only slightly different from human beings themselves, supposedly only a small secret keeps humans from possessing all the same powers as a Watelrey. You, my dear Lightray, are going to tell us what that secret is?”
I almost laughed in his face. “You do realize I myself only just realized that I am a Watelrey? I do not know what that secret is any more than you do. Won’t you please just let me go? I want to go home. I can’t help you.”
Slatyn glowered darkly. “You will not go anywhere until I know how to become as powerful as you.” He stormed out of the room, slamming the door behind him so that it shook my whole tank. With the shake came an electric shock, and I passed out at the bottom of the tank again.
Should I have been surprised when I woke up the same way I did that first time? Of course not. Was I? Of course, I was. You imagine waking up to find you are breathing underwater when you thought you were human your whole life. You would probably be surprised too. It was several days—nine to be exact—before I finally woke up without being confused. Every day we had a similar conversation. Slatyn would tell me he needed my secret. I would tell him I did not know what he was talking about. Slatyn would threaten me, and then shock me again. Surprisingly, my body was remarkably resilient to the electric shocks.
On the ninth day, something else changed as well. Not only did I wake up fully aware of where I was, but Slatyn tried a different approach. He brought me out of the tank and had me sit down in a nice office across the hall. A nice lady came in and talked to me for a very long time as she tried to convince me to reveal my secret. The problem was I did not know what the secret was. So, I still could not tell her. She left with a sad look on her face and wished me well.
Slatyn came storming into the room in a rage. “GIVE ME YOUR SECRET!” he roared.
Crying on the floor, I tried to tell him I did not know what he was talking about, that I could not give him what he was asking for. Of course, that only enraged him all the more. Grabbing a knife from his belt, he rushed at me and plunged the knife into my side and quickly pulled it back out. I looked at him in horror as blood poured down my side.
Then, we both watched as the blood stopped pouring, and the wound closed itself up, leaving no evidence that it had been there aside from the blood on the ground and the bloody knife in his hand. He dropped the knife, and it accidentally slit his hand on the way down. He reached down to pick the blade up again, and his hand accidentally landed in a pool of my blood on the ground. When he pulled his hand up, his cut was gone. Again, all that remained was the blood. The cut was gone as if it had never appeared.
A realization quickly dawned on us both. The secret was not something I could give to him because the secret was the unique composition of my blood. My DNA was responsible for these powers I possessed. I was a Watelrey child. Apparently, this came with the package. I could help people with these powers if I chose.
While I was realizing this about myself, Slatyn had broken down on the floor. He had realized that if the power was only because I was a Watelrey and because of my DNA, then he could not transfer it to himself. I guess he just watched his life work and hope get washed away with the blood from the knife wound. I felt badly for him.
Still, I was only seventeen. I wanted to go home. I took advantage of his breakdown and left the room. I walked down the hall. For some reason, no one tried to stop me. Maybe they did not want to mess with the girl who was walking out with blood on her clothes. Either way, I left the building and headed for the nearest pay phone. Time to call my parents. If Slatyn hadn’t killed them. I guess I’d know soon enough.