Some say that curiosity is the beginning, the spark, of all great discoveries. But I believe discovery is begun by chance, mistake.

In my village, mistakes are made often. That is one of the trials associated with a new colony, I have heard. It is a new world, a new community; there is much to learn.

The day that fate arrived was a particularly cloudy one.  It was early in the afternoon, near luncheon. Persephone, one of my students at the school I teach at, was shaking me.

“What? Was I sleeping?” I asked, shaking my head, trying to right my equilibrium.

Persephone giggled in a cute, childish manner. “Yes, miss Chastity. We’re done with the assignment.”

“You’re done for now then, I’ll see you in an hour.”

I watched her skip off, and the other children followed. I sighed and my head began to bob again, but my descend back into slumber was once more halted by a shaking.

“What now?” I mumbled in exasperation.

“Sorry.” It was Lithiana; she was grinning amusedly in a rather annoying manner. “I just thought you would like to know something.”

“Can it wait? I wasn’t able to sleep at ALL last night.”

She frowned sympathetically. “Troubling dreams again?”

“Yes…about-”

“THEM.” Lithiana said knowingly, crossing her arms. “Like usual. And that’s what I came to talk to you about.”

“Oh?” My head perked up.

“I was discussing something the Council had said at the last meeting, with Armand and Ilana. Really, they’re getting quite out of hand.”

“Ilana and Armand?”

“No, silly, the COUNCIL. They are so petrified of THEM-”

I feel I need to add an explanation here. We never addressed the D’lanthia directly, only as ‘them,’ ‘they,’ or some other pronoun. Anyways…

“-That they’ve been taking CRAZY precautions. I mean, you can hardly relax with the threat of a code red looming over you...” Her tone was slightly sarcastic. “Even when they SUSPECT that they’re coming, it’s a sudden blaring of mechanical lights and loud sirens; scares the living daylights out of you for no reason!”

“Lithiana, please remember that they do actually come…there have only been forty-six false alarms in the past year, and fifty-one actual visitations, not to mention-”

She interrupted me. “You are SO strange. You have kept track?”

“Yes.” I sniffed. This is one thing that really annoys me, people always think I’m mad for the meticulous way I organize and remember things.

“I wonder if they’re as bad as the Council makes them out to be.”

There, she said it, what was on nearly everyone’s mind but what nobody had the gull to say out loud.

Her expression turned guarded as her eyes shifted around the small room. “Uh, actually, I don’t think we’re even supposed to be talking about them…”

“Nobody is going to hear you, Lithiana.” I attempted to make my own expression as piercing and intense as possible. “What were you saying?”

We both heard the doorway creak as someone stepped across the threshold, and I gritted my teeth when one of the highest Council members (who also happens to run the school) appeared in site. Our conversation ceased.

“Hello, ladies.” He began, expression morose. “May I ask what you are doing here, in the farthest building from the town, alone? What if there was to be an alert, would you make it to a safe chamber in time?”

When she feels threatened, Lithiana has a tendency to fabricate.“There isn’t one in the school?” She asked innocently.

I rolled my eyes.

“No, child, there isn’t. Now, don’t you think you two should go to your family’s homes for the afternoon meal?”

I gritted my teeth again. I didn’t have a family; they died in a freak accident when I was thirteen.

“Oh, dear, please forgive me, Chastity.” The man noted my downcast face with a delayed reaction. “A lapse of memory.”

“It’s fine.” I mumbled, picking at a nail.

“Well…” Lithiana grabbed my arm, pulling me up. “Let’s go home, Chas.”

Since I was only seventeen, I still had to reside with a legal guardian of some sort, so most of the time I lived with Lithiana, her parents, and her two little siblings. “Okay.”

During the long walk to the house, there was a lack of conversation. She was most likely mulling over whatever she had discussed with our friends the day before, but I could only reflect on what she herself had said.

What if they weren’t as bad as we thought?

All throughout lunch, I kept thinking of the same thing…I wish there was a way to find out.