Chapter 2

    As usual, Graham was late for shift.  He had Kyle drive him to the station so he could take the blame (“That’s what friends are for, right?” Graham had joked).  Kyle still had a few hours before he needed to report for duty so he returned home to work out for a bit.  He practiced some basic martial arts routines for about an hour followed by a rigorous cardio session.  He had always pushed himself to the limit when he exercised.  He felt as though he needed to prepare for something, something far more serious than the day-to-day problems facing a street cop.  It drove him toward some unspecific goal, one that he had felt deep inside all his life.  It was as though he had  left something unfinished.

    Finally feeling satisfied with his workout, Kyle was about to turn on the shower when there was a knock at the front door.  He felt a chill from the strange birthmark on his shoulder.  He considered answering the door, then decided against it.  They weren’t expecting company and he had to go to work soon.  He was about to pull off his t-shirt when he heard a voice from the living room.

    “Um… Hello?”

    Had he left the door unlocked?  Stupid.  He shook his head and turned off the faucet.  Nothing he could do now but see  what was going on.  As he walked into the living room, he saw a blond woman who looked familiar.

    “Can I help you with something?” he asked, trying not to sound irritated.

    “I hope you’ll forgive the intrusion,” she said, “but we have some important things to discuss, and I wanted to do it in private.  This is going to be… awkward, to say the least.”

    Kyle looked puzzled.  “Okay, I think you have the wrong place.”

    “You really don’t remember me, do you?”

    “Wait,” Kyle said.  He did remember something about her.  “You’re the lady from the mall earlier.  But why-”  He stopped, noticing that not only was the door still locked and bolted, but his tennis shoes were still sitting against it, undisturbed.  He eyed the woman suspiciously.  The hair on the back of his neck stood on end and his shoulder was now tingling.  “What’s going on?”

    “It’s okay,” she said.  “I’m a friend.  An old friend.  One who can answer a lot of questions for you.”

    He wanted to take a defensive stance but found that he couldn’t.  There was something in her eyes that made him feel like crying, both with sadness and with joy.  His mind was racing.  What was this feeling?  Why was he shaking?  Something seemed to be just out of reach in his mind.  Something that he wanted to remember, that he needed to remember, but he couldn’t quite.  “I don’t know what your talking about,” he stammered.

    “There are a lot of things you don’t understand yet,” she continued.  “About where you came from, and who you are.  You have yet to discover your true self.”

    “And so you just decide to drop in and tell me,” Kyle replied.  “What can you possibly know about me?”

    She smiled a warm, knowing smile.  “For starters, I can tell you that the symbol on your back is not just some elaborate birthmark, as you no doubt have come to believe.”

    Kyle’s defenses crumbled.  He’d never shown it to anyone but Graham.  “How did you…?”

    “It’s a crest..  It signifies you as heir to the greatest power known to our people.  It is the symbol of the line of Alexandria, the noblest family in our world.  It is the Star of Alexandria.”

    “Our world?” Kyle repeated.  “So now I’m an alien?”

    “Haven’t you ever felt out of place?  Haven’t you felt like something was missing, like you were somehow… different?  Or remembered things that seemed like someone else’s memories?  Have you ever thought of a place that is unlike anywhere in this world?  Or perhaps, dreamt of it?

    Kyle’s eyes widened.  There was a spark of a vision in his mind.  Three people in some dark place.  A man robed in black, someone who was dying, and a third.  A young, blonde-haired woman who was seriously injured.  She looked like she could have been the mysterious visitor’s daughter.  Kyle dropped to his knees, feeling like a gunshot when off in his head.  The vision (or perhaps a memory) was trying to force its way through.  “N…Na…” Kyle muttered.  He found himself lying on a cold stone floor.  The man in black was gone, and the blonde was sitting next to him, crying.  Kyle reached up with a trembling hand.  And then, as quickly as it came, it was gone and he was back in the living room and he recognized the older version of that girl standing before him.  “Narissa?”  he said.  “That’s your name.  But how do I-?  What’s going on?  What the hell are you doing to me?”

    “I’m sorry,” Narissa said.  “I know this is sudden.  I had hoped you could live in peace.  A chain of events that was set in motion 19 years ago is coming to a head, and you are at the heart of it.  It’s a bit of ‘unfinished business,’ if you will.”

    Kyle’s head was spinning.  Nothing made any sense, yet at the same time, he felt like he understood on some level.  “I-I don’t remember…”

    “I know.  But you will, with time.”

    “Tell me who I am,” he asked, trembling.  “Please.”

    “You were our savior.  The last of your bloodline who could end the darkness that threatened to consume the world.  I was about your age at the time, and had traveled with you for quite some time, as a friend and ally.  Though we led an army against our enemy forces, in the end it was you and I who stood against the rogue warlock, Valiniko-”

    Kyle shuddered and felt a chill run down his spine at the name, as if recalling some horrible dream.  He had a brief glimpse in his mind’s eye of a shadowy figure looming over him, then it was gone.

    “I’m afraid I wasn’t much help,” Narissa admitted.  “I was nothing compared to him.  You might have destroyed him, but…”  she closed her eyes and a tear rolled down her cheek, “he tried to finish me off, and you defended me.  As a result, he struck a fatal blow to you.  With the last of your strength, you  sacrificed what was left of your life energy to cast him into a rift between dimensions, sealing him in the depths of time and space.”

    “So, I died?”  Kyle said.  “Some hero.”

    “You saved us all.  You were able to accomplish something that none in your family had ever been able to.  The ultimate power of Alexandria, the power of death and rebirth.  It fell upon my shoulders to  guide your soul to new vessel.  I crossed the dimensions and came here, to a place with no magical energies.  I figured it would be safest for you here, in the event that what was left of our enemies should try to find you.  I found an infant that had died at birth and transferred your essence into it.  Your power would remain dormant in this dimension, since it is, mystically speaking, a dead realm.”

    “Okay,” Kyle remarked after taking it all in, “but now what good am I?”

    “You haven’t lost anything in terms of power,” she explained.  “It’s just ’sleeping,’ in a sense.  But we can awaken that power.”

    “Not that it isn’t tempting, ultimate power and all, but why do we need to do that?” Kyle asked.  “You said something before about something happening now.”

    “Yes.  See, if Valiniko had walked away from that battle, no one could have stopped him from destroying all opposition and taking control of our world.  And phase-shifting in and out of dimensions is relatively simple for those of great power, so he could have conceivably spread his rule across all worlds.  Even though he still lives, you put a stop to that.”

    “But if it’s easy to cross dimensions, why can’t he just get out of this rift you mentioned?”

    “Because,” Narissa said, “he is not in any dimension.  He is in a void between space.  Being cast in there would be a nightmare.  Uncontrollable energies wildly flare about in a hellish onslaught within the void.  He has been trapped there all this time, but the remnants of his forces  have allegedly found a way to free him.”

    “And you think they can do this?” Kyle asked.

    “I wouldn’t be here if we didn’t,” she stated.

    He sat in silence for many long minutes, thinking everything over.  It was insane, but it was too much so to be a hoax.  Too many things made sense or sounded oddly familiar.  And there was the dream.  “Wait,” he said.

    “What is it?”

    “There’s this dream I’ve had for as long as I can remember.  There is a girl who looks like you, only younger.  A dark man, that would be Valiniko.  But I never see myself.  There’s another girl though, what about her?”

    Narissa shifted uncomfortably.  “Ah, that’s the part where this gets complicated.”

    “No offense, but this whole thing has been pretty damned complicated so far,” Kyle said.

    She sighed.  “See, when I put your soul into this body, I was really emotional and kind of in a hurry.  I didn’t really check to see if things were, uh, a perfect match, so to speak.”

    His face paled.  “You don’t mean… No.”

    “Your true name is Celeste Angelique Diamonde-Alexandria.”

    He fell into another long silence, then said, “So I was a girl?  But that was a different time and place, right?  So why does that complicate things for me now?”

    Narissa sighed.  “When your power awakens, your body won’t be able to handle it.  It’s a body from this dimension, remember?  People of this world are not attuned to the mystical energies that flow within us, thus it is useless to them.  You are an anomaly here: a mystic soul in a non-magical body.  So, basically, your current body will be destroyed and you’ll be restored to your original form.”

    “You mean I’m going to turn into a girl,” Kyle said.

    “Well, technically, you’re still a girl,” she replied.

    Kyle fell into a long, brooding silence.  Now he knew why he had been abandoned at birth and why everything felt so… foreign to him.  He knew why his body always felt wrong to him.  He wondered if he would feel “whole” once he changed.  On the other hand, was he really considering this?  It was completely insane!  Other dimensions, magic powers, and he was really a girl?  All this from some random stranger who appeared out of nowhere?

    He sighed.  No matter how much he tried to rationalize it, he knew in his heart that what Narissa said was the truth.  Not that it would be any easier to decide what to do.  “I don’t…” he started, then  looked at her, the internal conflict reflected in his desperate eyes.  “This is all so…’

    “It must be quite shocking,” Narissa said.  “Like I said, I don’t think there would have been any easier way to tell you.”

    “Look,” he pleaded, “my world has been completely shaken.  I know you want me to jump up and go running off to who-knows-where and be some kind of hero, but, I… I need a little time to think about this, okay?”

    The woman closed her eyes.  It had only been a few days ago that she had been sent on this mission.  She had been reluctant to accept it, and there had been a heated argument.  She was still bitter about the outcome.

    “Very well,” she had said.  “I will go.  However, I cannot guarantee her decision.”

    “I see no reason why we shouldn’t expect her cooperation,” the Lord Regent answered.

    “And if she refuses?”

    He had almost smiled.  “She doesn’t have a choice.”

    “No,” Narissa had replied.  “She never did in the first place, did she?”  Tears welled up in her eyes.  “And now, just like then, her fate is being decided for her.”

    “It is for the good of us all.”

    She looked at Kyle.  Yes the eyes were the same as she remembered.  The face was very similar.  But her old friend had a different life now.  “The decision is yours alone to make,” she said at last.  She held out her hand and touched Kyle’s shoulder.  There was a flash, and he felt as though he had been jolted with electricity, though it wasn’t quite the same as being hit with a taser.

    “What was that?” he asked.  His shoulder burned, and he felt something rising within him.  It was powerful, surging through his body and filling him with a heightened sense of awareness.  It was like adrenaline, only… better.  Stronger.  His body started to feel strange.  He felt a tightening of his waist and swelling in his chest and hips.  He glanced over in the full-length mirror on the wall and saw, for a fleeting instant, a very confused-looking young woman standing in the middle of the room wearing his clothes.  Horrified, he looked down at his body, but nothing had changed.  The feeling was starting to subside.

    “I have released the seal on your spiritual energy,” Narissa explained.  “Now you are the only one who can fully unlock it.  If you choose to do so, your true self will awaken.  Simply touch the Star on your shoulder like so,” she stopped to demonstrate a strange hand sign  with her index and middle finger extended and slightly bent,  thumb and ring finger touching on her palm, pinky finger  curled and cocked at a slight angle.  “You will feel it awakening.  It will be stronger than what you just felt.  Then you will be restored as Celeste.  I will sense it, and will come to you at that time.  If you should decide not to awaken the power, then  so be it.  In that case, I will return in 7 days and re-seal it, and will leave you in peace.”  She moved to the door.  “Take care,” she said, and left the house.

Kyle sat in silence for the rest of the afternoon.  He never imagined anything like this.  Nor could he predict that he would be forced to make his choice much sooner than he anticipated, and that his life would be changed forever.