The Scar (Chapter 3)

A Song in the Woods

Linda followed the singing until she reached a clearing. There she found a group of people singing what sounded like a song of mourning. It was a group of young people about her age along with a couple adults. All with strange colored hair, green and blue and purple and it looked completely natural but the strangest thing about them was not just their hair but also their skin. Each one of the people had a light tint of color in their skin that matched their hair. She watched as they threw flowers over the entire clearing. She watched them curiously for a while as they went through some sort of a ceremony. Then the older ones in the group directed the younger ones back into the woods and disappeared.

“Follow them, Leena; come on follow them.” Gaylin whispered as he watched his daughter watching the Imaginese mourning party. Kohath had told him how important it was that his daughter not only followed but was seen by these young people.
“Today is the day that Leena will choose her destiny. She has a choice to make and depending on the path she chooses depends on how happy of a life she will live.” More then anything Gaylin wanted his daughter to live a happy life and he knew that that was what Kohath wanted as well but he knew that his daughter had to make good choices first. Ultimately she had to believe in Kohath and the first step in that direction was to be seen by these young people.
Gaylin stepped forward and placed his hands on his daughters head. Now it was only up to her as to whether or not she took his advice.

As Linda watched the people disappear into the woods she got the sudden notion to follow them. I can’t follow them she thought what if something happens and I never return. I can’t do that to Mom and Dad. What would they think? How would it affect them? Then another thought entered her head that surprised her. What if somehow this connects me to my past and what happened to my parents. Oh that’s crazy! She chided herself. You need to stop thinking about that Linda you’re never going to find them so stop pretending like you will. She began to turn back toward the farm when a humming filled the air. Her curiosity overcame her good sense as she turned toward the sound as she thought Mom and Dad are always trying to tell me that I’m special and am going to do great things. Well here’s my chance and I’m going to take it. With that she pushed away the branches and slipped into the woods after the strange people.
She followed the trail quietly at first but as she got deeper into the woods the leaves began to get thicker and crunched under her feet with each step. Soon she came to a place deep in the woods and stopped at the sight of spaceship a real live UFO right in front of her face. A boy with blue hair was in the process of clearing leaves and branches away from it. Linda stepped forward slightly trying to get a closer look but stepped on a stick. Then two things happened at once the first thing was that one of young men, who had green hair, turned around and seeing her ran up and grabbed her. The second was that Blue boy turned around and arms came streaming out of all sides of his body and a couple of the arms grabbed large guns from inside the ship and threw a couple at the girls and the girls pointed them in her direction and they looked like they knew how to use them. Linda was brought out into the light.
“Who are you?” one of the girls who had pink hair asked and Linda was stunned slightly at the fact that this girl-who she had now affirmed was an alien-could speak English but she recovered quickly.
“My name is Linda,” she replied carefully determined not to give away too much information with out getting some answers of her own, “I live on the farm not far from here.”
Purple girl said something to Blue boy in another language and suddenly all four of them were babbling away in the foreign language.
Linda glanced around the clearing a bit franticly she would take a run for it but the Green boy still had a fairly strong grip on her arm which was really beginning to hurt but she didn’t dare say a word. She was in a complete panic were these aliens nice or hostile? What were they discussing? Would they let her go or capture her or worse yet would they kill her? She squeezed her eyes closed and although she had never been much of the praying type she shot up a prayer in the hopes that some god-it didn’t matter which one-would hear it and answer her. Almost as soon as she finished she felt a peace came over her and suddenly she knew that somewhere a god had heard her.

Gaylin continued to watch his daughter he was glad that up to this point things were going according to plan. He stepped near her and placed his hand on her shoulder letting the peace of Kohath course through her. “Kohath has heard you daughter.”


“She looks a lot like one of us,” Sira whispered to Adan. Alita watched the girl named Linda as she shifted uncomfortably in Rowel’s grip she looked surprisingly peaceful but she knew that inside the girl was probably mush. “Come on Rowel let her go. We’re not killers for heavens sake.” Rowel nodded and let her go
“What are you doing?” asked Sira.
“Releasing her” said Adan. “Alita just made a good point we’re not killers,”
“So we’re not killers. That doesn’t mean we let her go she is still a human.”
“She doesn’t look human to me.”
“So what do you suggest we do?”
“Take her with us.”
“Brilliant, so she can kill all of us.”
“Not all humans are like that.” Spoke up Alita. “We shouldn’t judge people before we get to know them.” Linda was obviously getting annoyed by the fact that she didn’t know their language. She glanced around the clearing and Alita was afraid that she’d make a run for it if she didn’t do something soon. She took a step toward her. “My name is Alita but you can call me Ali and this is Sira and Adan and behind you is Sira’s brother Rowel.” Linda nodded kind of nervously and glanced around the woods again as if looking for someone. Help probably. She thought
Rowel was talking now from behind Linda “We have to do something with her. We can’t let her tell anyone about what she’s seen. So the safest bet is to take her with us, like Alita said we aren’t killers.” Then he turned to Sira “Unless you have a better suggestion?” Sira sighed.
“No I don’t. You’re right I guess we have no choice but to take her with us. But trust me I don’t like the idea at all. And I refuse to have anything to do with her.” With that she turned and climbed into the front seat of the pod crossing 3 sets of arms in front of her body.

Linda could tell that something serious was going on but they still were talking in the strange language she glanced around halfway expecting to see some god come swooping out of the air, smite her enemies and carry her away and maybe with a little dash of extra luck he or she would make Brenda leave Staton.
As she was thinking this the boy behind her released her and she almost fell over from the sudden release. One of the girls, the one with purple hair, looked slightly upset by this exchange and was yelling at Green hair over her head. She glanced around her again. Maybe she was wrong and it was just a weird fluke that caused her to feel at peace. There was no such thing as God. She hadn’t believed it before there was no reason why she should believe it now.
Pink hair stepped forward unexpectedly and spoke to her in English “My name is Alita but you can call me Ali and this is Sira and Adan and behind you is Sira’s brother Rowel.”
Linda nodded and she looked around once more. This time though it wasn’t for a god the idea had left her head as quickly as it had entered. Now she was only hoping that someone anyone would rescue her from these aliens.
The aliens were fighting again and the one known as Sira looked pretty upset until finally Rowel said something to her that made her shoulders fall in defeat she shot something back and went to the pod and climbed in.
Ali turned to her then and smiled. “I’m sorry but we’re going to have to take you with us. Until we’re sure you’re trustworthy. It shouldn’t be long I’m sure your­­-“
“Enough talk Alita,” Adan snarled, “We don’t need to explain ourselves to a human.” He spat out the name and looked at Linda vehemently. Then he grabbed her by the arm and shoved her into the ship.
“There’s no need to be so rough Adan.” Rowel said coming up behind him.
“There’s no need to be so nice either. Must I remind you why we’re here? To mourn your aunt and uncle who died because people like you let the Martians live on and trade with Imaginess. Now I don’t know about the rest of you but I will not be sitting next to that creature… if you don’t mind I’ll drive.” With that he walked to the other side of the pod and climbed into the driver’s seat fuming the whole while.
Rowel climbed in beside Linda obviously hurt by his friend’s words. He spent the rest of the trip looking out the window not saying a word. Adan and Sira began a conversation in their own language and at first Linda felt very out of place until Ali turned to her. “I’m sorry we had to take you like this.” She whispered, “We just can’t chance it getting back to anybody. And don’t be so upset with them.” She said nodding her head in the direction of the two up front. “Life has been pretty difficult. Our planet was at war for about 10 years and about 12 years ago when I was five the war finally ended. It’s taken about 5 more years for everything to get back under control and there are a lot of people who don’t want anything to do with people of other planets. Those two up there are some of the worst. Adan and Sira are older then all of us. They remember things better then the rest of us. They were about 8 when the war ended and 13 by the time things got back to normal. They remember what it was like to live so horribly. I remember it too but my family didn’t have it as hard as Adan’s family or even the Rowan’s who had it pretty good compared to some. I’m sorry I’ve gotten to rambling. Did you have any questions you wanted to ask?”
“Only one,” Linda said. “How come you speak English?” Ali smiled
“Us aliens have to have some way to communicate with each other so some genius-I don’t who-decided that English would be a good language to choose. Which doesn’t make much sense to me cause every other language I’ve ever heard is much easier. English just has too many rules. I mean really how do you remember them all? If I lived on Earth I’d probably choose one of those non-English speaking places. And that’s another thing why on Imaginess does Earth have so many languages? Doesn’t that make things more difficult? I know someone explained it to me once but she said it was just an earth myth so I obviously don’t believe it and…oh man! I’m sorry. That’s a bit of a bad habit I have: Talking people’s ears off as you Earthlings say. If I start doing that you have permission to shut me up. That is unless you’re actually enjoying what I’m saying then you can just sit there and keep listening. Like one time-“
“Ali you’re doing it again.”
“Oh right sorry. I’ll just be quiet for the rest of the trip how’s that?”
Ali shut up then and Linda was able to think about everything that had gone on. Before long she felt herself falling asleep. She leaned her head back against the chair and closed her eyes letting herself drift off to a place where she felt more safe, a place called Earth