The Wise Ones {IC}

[Aslee]

Alan's toe nudged the metal box warily. It looked normal enough... but it had ruined his life. What else could've put these words in his head? He'd walked halfway across the nation for this stupid thing, and... And here he was again. With the help of a plane ticket this time- Thank God -but still. Was he insane? After what had happened, he didn't doubt it.

First, there had been the books. They were his father's, over a hundred leather-bound books that had been sitting in Alan's study for three years. He'd never even touched them before, but three weeks ago, when he couldn't get the words out of his head long enough to fall asleep, he picked one up at two in the morning.

He had read them all before he even had to get ready for work that morning.

Then, a few days ago, Alan and his 'group leader' had gotten into an arguement. Chadwick had never liked Alan's too-tough facade, and therefore took great pleasure in telling him that his career as a mathmetician was soon to be over... if it had ever really begun. That's why Alan took great pleasure in telling him to jump off a roof.

He hadn't expected him to do it.

And the words were echoing around his head, until he had memorized every nuance of every word he'd ever heard, and then they started spilling out of his mouth, before he could even stop them. Life sucked for Alan O'Brian.

And it was this that had drove him to the desperation. His entire life savings had gone into advertising this meeting. Websites, billboards, newspaper ads in every state he could think of... A meeting of him and the other five shadowy figures that had been here that night.

It was getting dark now, and he wondered if any of this had been real at all...

[Dea m Smith]

post removed.

[Lemon Poppyseed]

She was an idiot.

That much was obvious, sure, but lately, Piper Lore had been a bigger idiot than usual lately. What had she been thinking: getting out of her car to follow this indigo-coloured streak that zoomed across the night sky? She had walked for so long, the journey had been wiped of her memory, and then, when she had opened the box… Well, her head hadn’t been the same. And something told Piper that her mind would never be the same as it had been again.

Wars, treaties, rebellions, insurrections, and an endless surplus of dates and years spun in her head, and she couldn’t control when the knowledge would spring up, unknowingly, and when it did, the knowledge almost hurt. She could feel history in the making – could feel the rebellious hearts of American soldiers fighting back against the British, and then she was in the shoes of a Japanese soldier, on a suicide mission, knowing he was going to die, and sometimes she was in recent times – sometimes she was a woman in Iraq, getting stoned to death, with no hope left in her heart.

Make it stop, she pleaded to her mind, but when the Knowledge was repressed, her mind felt empty, as if an elephant had been sitting in the depths of her psyche and finally left, freeing up so much space. She couldn’t concentrate – couldn’t interview people or write news articles when she knew that, at any moment, her mind would become a living, breathing history book. Her boss approached her, suggested that she take a two week break and come back, ready and rearing to write again. She grudgingly accepted the offer – she hadn’t taken a break since she had first started writing articles…

She spent her time lighting peppermint cigarettes and looking for any over-the-counter medicine that could stop illusions – because maybe that’s what they were. Maybe they were repressed memories, seeking a way out of her shell? No, that made no sense – because this had never happened before, and this only happened after she had opened that goddamn box… She popped Tylenol and Advil like they were candy, hoping ‘pain-reliever’ could work for mental pains as well, but still, no dice. Piper was on the edge of her rope.

That was, until, she logged on to her herbal medications website, hoping to order more peppermint cigarettes, when she saw an advertisement on the bottom of the page, calling for those who had meant in Virginia to meet once again – to discover the answers they all so desperately craved. Piper almost let the cigarette fall out of her mouth – was this advertisement for real? It even had an address of the place where the streak had led to and everything.

At the time, she thought she had nothing to lose, but as she was driving there, doubts sprung up in her head again. What if this was a setup? What if the guy who was calling us there was some creepy stalker, or predator? What if this only made the knowledge that sat in her head even worse than before? She knew that doubting her decision would get her nowhere, however, and stepped out of her car, into the darkness where there had been other five shadowy figures that she had blatantly ignored.

One figure stood in the darkness.

“Are you the one?” She had practiced rehearsing that question ever since she had found out about this meeting. Realizing that her hands were shaking, she crossed her arms across her chest, shifting her weight to the left, attempting to look edgy, mysterious, when really, fear was pouring out of every pour in her body. It was dark, too dark, and she could barely see his face – but still, she raced her head towards his, chocolate brown eyes attempting to make eye contact in this palpable darkness. “Are you the one who called us back?”

[Mr.Natas]

David loved the feeling. The feeling of creating art, making masterpieces, craving, cutting, everything about it made him shake with excitement and pleasure. He laughed aloud and his laughter where mixed with his canvas's screams. He never grew tried of their symphony of screams, that why he never gaged them. His canvas looked at him and begged "Please stop. Please." Tears rolled down its face and David smiled and shook his head. "Not now." Then he looked at his art and decided it was done. "Actually we are done. I have a three o'clock." David turned and left, his work to be admired and headed out double doors of his warehouse studio. He still shook at the feeling.

He looked around and found the beat-up ninety eight Oldsmobile he used to get around. David got in the car drove to river bank where his raft he made was hidden. but he was sure someone knew where it was, but he could drive all the way to where his freedom was give to him. Ever since the light was smeared across the sky he had more good luck then anyone and he thanked Pandora for it. He parked and unveiled his make-shift raft and jumped on it to his destination two miles down stream.

It was dark when nearing his dock. There where two figures in the gloom of the night already there. David was glad, he hated being first, first meaning having to wait. He could hear one talking, a woman. David couldn't tell what was said but he was soon upon them and shouted "Ahoy." he shouted. He paddled the raft to the side then jumped out. David looked back at the raft then pushed it away from the side to let it flout down the river into the unknown, that way the critics will have on way to find him. He turned back to the two other and waited for what would happen next.

[tinyartist18]

Curiosity would be her end, this much was established at the least. It was the curiosity that led her to follow a violet light across states. The light was burning a scar in the sky, a faint, yet powerful, beacon that ended with a Pandora's Box. Sophie had found it, driven deep into the dirt around it by the power of its descent. And, further propelled by curiosity, she opened the box. It was empty, but on the instant that the box's lid shifted, she felt a sharp pain in her skull. Searing, debilitating, absolutely crushing, and it stopped.
She coughed, and threw up. Never one with a strong pain tolerance, Sophie had been reduced by the intense pains. As she returned to an erect posture, she noticed a few people around, dotting the landscape, either returning or leaving. Scrambling to her feet, she brushed herself off - there was far too much dirt on the ground - and walked back to her car.
It hadn't been until later that she fully understood the change that had gripped her. She first had an inkling when she was sitting in a late-night diner on the way back to her house. The waitress was frustrated, that much was apparent. And that man in the corner, he was secretly depressed. The way he slouched ever so slightly, the way his mouth curled when he took a sip of the crappy coffee they were serving, it was just so painfully obvious. It continued.
Whenever she was around people, she couldn't think, couldn't breathe. It had developed into such an extenuating circumstance that she took off of work and school for a few days, and holed herself up in her room. Cleaning, reading, anything that allowed her to avoid all human contact. But she couldn't forever, and she soon returned to the world around her. The hospital welcomed her back, so did her classmates, but she could feel herself wasting away from human contact. She could see people, but not just see, she could see into a person. One look and she would know their feelings, their thoughts and relationships to others.
It scared her.
And so she read, and continued to read, and isolated herself from contact. When perusing a newspaper, she came across an ad. Just a small, two-by-two advertisement, that asked that anyone who saw a colored streak in the sky meet where they opened a box. She scoffed at first, imagining any person who did not see it would be thoroughly confused. Think it was a prank, or something. But she was intrigued, and took another day off of her responsibilities - under the guise of being sick, of course. It wasn't too difficult to do with her recent condition.
And so she drove down to Virginia, again. Retracing the road that she had followed, messily at best. With her eyes trained on the sky, the way there had been only an afterthought. But, after a few roundabout drives, she made it there. She parked where she vaguely remembered parking, slammed the door, and picked her way out to the refuse-strewn ground. A woman was standing close to her, and beyond, another figure. She could not see the other person clearly, but the woman was tense. Closed off, and defensive. She was probably as uneasy as Sophie was, but likely braver.
Sophie found her voice, and tripped over the words. "You saw it, too, then?"

[Aslee]

Alan's eyes searched for the people who belonged to the voices in the night. He was strange... he knew what they would look like, he'd seen them before, but their voices were a whole new version of mystery. A woman's voice called out, asking him if he was the man who had called her there. He could see her shadowy figure against the trees. Alan's heart soared at the thought that he was not alone.

"Yes, yes I am... I'm sorry to drag you away from... whatever you were doing, but I had to ask you questions." A million words bounced around in his head, forming sentences. He just didn't know the right ones... "When you got home.. I mean, my name is... What I mean to say, is..."

Thankfully, Alan's disturbed ramblings were cut off by a shouted sailor's greeting. Alan's sharp blue eyes turned towards the river, another figure simply waiting. "Oh, another one..." Alan's brain fired up more words. "Listen... I'm Alan O'Brian, and..."

A whispered question floated to his ears, and the other woman's voice- the third figure -calmed his mind. "Yes... Yes, I saw it. That's what I called you here for. I... There are others of us, I know. Maybe they didn't have the same calling as we did. But I know, without a doubt, it did the same things to you it did to me. You wouldn't be here. The question is..."

"What is it? What do you know that you didn't before? That one thing you never thought possible? How did it..." For the first time, Alan's words dissapeared. Oh, not for good, they were still there in the back of his mind, but the echoes stopped filling his brain. He'd never felt so empty.

"How did it hurt you?"

[Writing-Otaku]

Juliana was multi-tasking. She was stroking her cat, Felix, and hacking several sites to learn more about them. Before last night, the night of the colored streak in the sky, she hadn't much cared for technology. Now she couldn't know enough. It was like a drug. She hated the feeling of needing to know more. She was satisfied with what she knew. She was happy being a not-too-well-known writer.

She was just trying to figure out how to shake this craving when she saw a peculiar ad. It was for 'anyone who saw the colored streak lding to Virginia'. Juliana's fingers froze over the keyboard as she fell into though. Could this be from one of the four other people I saw there last night? Or is it just someone playing a prank? Curious, she clicked the ad, which led her to another site with more information.

Juliana gasped sharply when she read the address. This is no prank, this is for real! She pushed her roller chair away from the desk and ran to the kitchen. She quickie fed her pets. Who knew how long she'd be gone? She also made herself a sandwich for the trip and bottled water before sprinting out to her beetle and pulling out the driveway. With one hand, she typed the address into her new and state-of-the-art GPS.

It took her a long time to drive back to the spot, and when she arrived, she noticed there was already another car there. Quietly, she parked and got out of the car. Looking into the woods, she sae four other figures. She couldn't tell if any were men, and couldn't re,ember from last night. She hadn't stayed to find out.

Juliana heard one of them ask 'How did it hurt you?' and sucked in her breath when she realized it was a guy. Calm down, she scolded herself. I doubt he's going to hurt you. He even sounded a little nervous himself.

"I learned about Technology, even though I've never needed it. I've spent more time hacking and buying than on my novel. How do you make the cravings stop?" Her voice was shakier than it would have been if the voice had been a woman's. She hoped he was the only guy in their small group of five.

[Mr.Natas]

At the question, David laughed and started to jump around. "Hurt?" He questioned, "How did it hurt me?" He couldn't even think more than he was. It was hilarious, this more then person being sadden but that thought and the power that they all had. "No, pain isn't the feeling I have." David stopped jumping and looked at the quizzer. He then ran at him and jumped and flipped over him. Whispering in his ear David said, "I feel like a demi-god, and this is my playground." David then went over to the other person that answered. "The cravings? That's easy you have to fix." David didn't say anymore, he was going to take over this little meeting. He didn't like the way the others where treating their gifts plus if he wasn't in control he would get turned in by one of these more then people.

He walked into the middle of the small semi-circle of people that where gathered here. "I think introduction are need before we get anywhere else. I'm David Edwin Willson, artist, and receiver of the gift of being a human weapon."

[Writing-Otaku]

Juliana stiffened at the sound of another guy, and this one sounded a little... Crazy. When he appeared by her she tried not to scream, but a small whimper did escape her lips. This man, David, terrified her. He sounded proud at receiving the Human Weapon gift. She didn't want to think about what his 'art' was.

She opened her mouth to say her name, but no words came out. She was too terrified to do anything except keep herself from hyperventilating. How can he be so proud to be a Human Weapon? What was his childhood like? What kind of twisted life does he lead? Mentally she shook herself. Don't go down that road, Juliana.

[tinyartist18]

"How has it hurt me?" she mused for a moment, "have you ever seen the inside of someone's soul?"
It was an exaggeration, sure. But the bottled up agony she felt spilled out in the presence of these other people: they had been touched, as she had been, although, judging by the boisterous man in the center of the area, not quite in the same way. Whereas she had shrunken into herself, this man had exploded, and the others seem to have learned their way differently. She listened to him speak, watched his self-fulfilled attitude eek from his pores. "And what exactly did you receive, then, Human Weapon?"

[Lemon Poppyseed]

“How did it hurt you?”

The better question here was: how didn’t it hurt you? This innocent question was a feather falling gracefully onto the massive heap that was the torment she had faced ever since she’d opened that accursed box and had the Knowledge poured into her depths – her very soul itself. She had stayed awake, burdened by the blasts of rockets and flares, a soundtrack to war buzzing in her ears. She had blanked out and stared at ceilings while watching soldiers dive into foxholes while praying to their wives, their children, and every close friend they’d ever had to get out of this war, to get out of this war alive. She had seen emperors and dictators come into power, she could watch the turmoil they spread with open eyes at any time – and not of her own free will. History was a disobedient child rolling movie clips in her head whenever it wanted while throwing its head back and laughing, while she was powerless to stop him. She could do nothing but sit and watch, weep and damn the bloodlust of the history of men.

She assumed the others here were like her, or maybe, she assumed so because she needed to believe that this ‘power’ had not been an easy thing to experience or attempt to control, either. The man, the gatherer – the one dubbed Alan O’Brien – he did not seem pleased nor purposed to have his power (should he have one – these were just more assumptions), nor did anyone else in the group, at first. Piper, her arms still folded across her chest, as if to defend herself, looked toward another girl in the group, claimed to have developed an addiction to hacking, and another asked if anyone had ever seen inside someone else’s soul. She could not say she had – but she had felt souls die, through reliving history, and felt multitudes of them all die at once. Was her power the only one that seemed to have complete dominance over her mind, or were the others just being modest about their powers’ effect over them?

Piper hoped they were just being modest.

The other man, he seemed to find such a question hilarious, and openly laughed, claiming to be a demi-god, and a human weapon. Piper felt no jealousy towards David – but perhaps, a smidgeon of sympathy. Did his Knowledge take over his mind fully? Or maybe he was just that sort of person – dripping with arrogance and contempt who viewed this world as nothing else but his toy, a playground to amuse himself with.

She scoffed at his contempt, placing a hand on her hip (for all her carefully styled bravado) and, shook her head disapprovingly. “Demi-god my ass,” she laughed, a wry smirk on her face, speaking up for the second time this meeting. She had been feeling vulnerable before – to be with other people, and to confess of her Knowledge wasn’t really anything she was looking forward to, but she was a journalist goddamnit, she wasn’t some timid wallflower who was going to just watch this man do backflips and talk about how awesome he was.

“Did the Knowledge give you a huge ego too, or were you already like that before you opened the box?” she bantered, smirking a little – not necessarily at him, but at herself, glad to be out of her self-pitying state. She wasn’t really sure if she approved or disapproved of him yet – it was too early to tell, but strangely enough, seeing him so animated about his Knowledge gave her a smidgeon of hope for the future.

With her right hand, she brushed a stray lock of her auburn red hair out of her face, and was a little inspired not to let her powers get the better of her either. How the hell someone as contemptible as Mr. Human Weapon had inspired her… she wasn’t sure. “As for me, well, I gained the Knowledge of history… unfortunately.” She shook her head, and despite her best wishes, a tinge of regret painted her tone. “I see assassinations, insurrections and rebellion after rebellion play in my head whenever I want. I can’t speak for the rest of you, but I sure as hell despise not having full control of my mind.” It was the truth – she hated it. But she wouldn’t appear weak – not in front of strangers. And definitely not in front of a human weapon.