Another Genesis

This is an original story of mine. Please please review for me, even just to tell me if it is at all interesting. I have more chapters ready, and if i get any reviews, i will post them. Positive and negative reviews welcome. Thanks!

Chapter 1: Genesis

Caleb Lovie was walking to school one Tuesday morning, when he decided to abandon his usual route. The sun was shining down on him, and he felt the need to do something spontaneous. He was tired of walking across the baseball diamond and crossing the bridge over the Lincoln Highway that led to the West Pacifica Academy for Gifted Students. Instead, he decided to take the shorter route, into the Glendale Woods and through the Conononka River. This trail was much rougher, but he had heard from his twin sister Jocelyn that it was a gorgeous route. She told Caleb he’d love the sights, especially when he reached the river, and had to jump on each of the big stones spaced out in the riverbed, in order to cross.
Walking into the Glendale Woods, Caleb immediately relaxed. He heard birds chirping, and leaves rustling crisply, and he couldn’t help but smile to himself. He heard the soft, plip-plopping of the Conononka River as he neared it, and through the trees, he could see white sunlight reflecting off of it.
When Caleb reached the river, he gingerly hopped from stone to stone. Standing on these stones, Caleb could see towering pine trees, and impressive great oaks. There were deer cantering by, and they turned their heads sideways to look at him. Rabbits hopped from tree to tree, peeking at the newcomer. Caleb reveled in all of the sights around him. The trees opened up just for Caleb to see the spectacular sights miles ahead of him.
As he hopped along the stones, he noticed a particularly dewy and glossy one, about three stones from the shoreline. Before he could register that it might be slippery and that he should be careful, he jauntily sauntered onto it. Feet sliding under him, his head crashed down onto a rock behind him, and he rolled sideways into the shallow river, face down.
The blow to his head caused severe pain, and Caleb could feel himself quickly slipping into unconsciousness. Knowing that he would in fact drown if he did not take drastic measures, he turned his shoulders with all the strength he could afford, until he was floating on his back.
He saw patches of light through the canopy of trees above him, just as everything faded to black.
* * *
The canopy was back. As Caleb blinked his eyes, he could see the spots of bright sunlight poking through the thick netting of leaves in the sky. As his vision slowly returned, he realized that it was precisely just his returning vision that he was seeing, and not the sky of leaves at all.
{Come to think of it, I’m not even lying in the river anymore,} he thought, as he felt that he was dry. He was lying on a soft, firm, …something.
He tried to move his head to the left to see where he was, but a sharp pain on the back of his head reminded him of the fall. His head ached anew, and he mentally scolded himself for trying to move.
Suddenly, he heard the scuffling sliding of a wooden chair on a wooden floor, and the swift steps of someone approaching him. A face hovered over his.
{God! She’s an angel.} Caleb thought. {There’s such light around the outline of her beautiful face! Gorgeous.}
He tried to say something, anything, but she raised a finger to his lips, cautioning him not to speak.
Caleb did not know what to do. He had no idea what was going on or where he was. God only knew what time it was.
By reflex, he tried to move his head in search of a window to catch a glimpse of the scene outside, but he was immediately reminded of the torture he had endured the last time he did this.
{Stupid, stupid!} He thought, berating himself once again. {Has a concussion damaged my short-term memory?}
“I was just wondering the same thing,” a female voice said.
Caleb unclenched his grimaced face and looked up with surprise into the bright and smiling, light brown eyes of the Angel. This time, her face was much clearer, no longer illuminated as it had been before. Though the radiant glow outlining her face was gone, she still looked magnificent.
“What did—” Caleb stopped and cleared his throat. “What did you just say?”
“I said that ‘I was wondering the same thing’.” She went on at the sight of his bewildered expression. “I was wondering if your memory had been shot because of your accident. I came over because I saw you painfully try to turn your head. Then, no less than ten seconds later, you tried to do the same thing. I wondered what was so fascinating that you would cause yourself so much pain twice in a row like that.”
“Actually, it was a different reason each time. First, I—wait. How did you even know that I was thinking that? I may have a concussion, but I know that I did not say anything out loud.”
“Oh, um, well, your expression. The confusion, the frustration, the pain, and the foolishness; it was written all over your face.” She finished with an anticipatory look at Caleb, waiting to see if her explanation would suffice.
Caleb didn’t say anything for a moment. He was still trying to contemplate things. “So, where am I? That was the reason for head jerk number one.”
Relieved that she could move on to a new topic, the angelic young woman went on to answer this new query. “You are in the Glendale Woods. My family has a cabin here. It’s about a twenty minute walk from the city.”
“How did I get here? I can only remember walking across the river. Then there are a few moments that I can’t really remember…I saw a sky of leaves, and then I was here.”
“Well, I think you fell into the river. No, actually, I am positive that you fell in. I found you lying on your back in the river, drifting down toward Willow Brook—”
“Willow Brook? But that’s got to be miles away from where I fell. Willow Brook is nowhere near the path I took.”
“Well, the river current is pretty strong during the day, and—“
“How did you know I fell during the day? What time is it now?”
“Ah, the time. Reason for head jerk number two…I bet,” the last words she added after a quick pause. “It’s about 8pm.”
“Oh my God, my family is going to be so worried!”
“No, don’t worry about it. That’s all taken care of. That is, if your family isn\'t on vacation or anything.”
“What? Why? What did you do?”
“Whoa Mr. Frantic! Take it easy. I’ll explain everything. This afternoon, well, maybe more like 10 am,” she chuckled, rolled her eyes at how inaccurate a time she had given. “I was walking and I saw you lying in the river. It was definitely a weird sight,” she chuckled again. “I mean, how often do you see hot guys floating in the river?”
Completely shocked by what she had said, the Angel’s eyes darted to Caleb’s, and seeing that he had indeed registered her comment, she quickly averted her eyes to the window above his head. She tried to continue talking as if she were not severely embarrassed.
“So then, um, hoping you weren’t dead, I um, I came over and uh, pulled you out, and then I um, carried you over to…to—” This obviously was not working.
Sensing her lack of composure, Caleb lifted his hand and put it on top of her own, expressing a sign of comfort and understanding. For this she was very grateful. She let out a deep breath of relief, just as he said, “thank you.”
Slightly startled, she looked her bright brown eyes into his and replied, “no problem. It was my pleasure. Really.”
Almost simultaneously they smiled at one another, then shyly, she looked down. He looked, with just his eyes, to the side. Caleb took a second, then looked back at her.
“What is your name,” {Angel,} he added in his head, for that is what he had temporarily named her. He found it extremely fitting, not only based on her appearance, but because of the circumstances and her demeanor as well.
She smiled stars at him. “My name is Cameron,” she answered, “and I already know yours.”
She continued on, stopping his impending questions with her words. “That can be explained by the rest of my story. You see, I wasn’t alone when I found you.”
{Of course,} Caleb thought. {She was with her boyfriend. How else could she have carried me here all by herself?} Caleb was surprised with himself. He was quite taken aback by the hurt he felt in thinking that she already had a boyfriend.
Cameron continued speaking, interrupting the troubled thoughts running through her patient’s mind. “My friend Gage was with me, and he helped me carry you here.” She put a particularly clear emphasis on the word friend, and Caleb had only a second to think about it before she explained other, more pressing details.
“You had your backpack with you, so, for the purpose of identifying you, I looked through your bag to see if there was any sort of I.D.” She stopped and laughed. “Luckily, you were obviously a boy scout as a kid,” Caleb grinned as she continued. “So I found everything that I needed to call your parents and let them know what happened to you. No one was home, so I left a message.”
“Wow. Thanks, that was really…thorough of you.” They both laughed at his interesting word choice. “You know what I mean. Thanks. It’s really nice to know someone is looking out for me.”
Cameron laughed. “It’s like, I’m your guardian Angel or something.” She winked and gave him a pointed grin.
Caleb peered at her, a single question in his mind. “You know, it’s funny you should say that. I was thinking this whole time that, um, well, how lucky it was that I was in such good care. Like as if you looked, I mean, were an angel watching over me.” He mentally kicked himself for that slip of the tongue. “Of course, it only briefly passed through my mind.”
“Uh huh, sure.” She smiled, revealing that she obviously knew more than she was telling.
All of a sudden, there were loud and rapid knocks on the wooden door of the cabin. Cameron quickly rose from her spot next to Caleb on the bed, and went over to see who was knocking so urgently.
Caleb slowly and gently cocked his head to the side, so that he could watch as she walked over to the door.
Cameron looked through the little window at the side of the door and smiled widely as she recognized the visitor. Opening the door, she spoke happy greetings and moved to let the individual inside. In came a teenage boy, about the same age as Cameron and Caleb.
Cameron took him by the hand and led him over to Caleb’s bed. She introduced him as her friend Gage, the one who had helped her carry an unconscious Caleb from the river.
“It’s nice to meet you,” Caleb said, raising a hand for Gage to shake. “Thanks so much for helping me today. I don’t know what would have happened to me if you both weren’t there.”
“Oh. Hey, it was no problem at all. I’m glad to see you’re all right, and to meet you…awake.” He paused, and looked over to Cameron. “If you’ll excuse us for a minute, I need to have a quick word with Cam.”
“Oh sure. No problem. Go right ahead.”
Cameron was quick on the uptake. “We’ll just be right outside. Yell if you need something.”
“Will do. But, don’t worry about me, take your time.”
Cameron gave Caleb a dazzling grin before she turned and followed Gage to the front door. The two left and went to the side of the cabin, where Gage’s demeanor immediately changed from pleasant and cordial to irritated and disappointed.
“I can’t believe what you’ve been doing. The things you’ve been saying. It’s not right.”
“What are you talking about? You’ve been here for fifteen seconds. In such a short amount of time, what could I possibly have said that was wrong?”
“Well, for starters, it’s what you’ve been saying for the past twenty minutes. And don’t play innocent with me; you know exactly what I am talking about. Playing with that boy’s mind is going to get you into a lot of trouble. I don’t know whether you want him to find out, but if not, you’d better be careful, because from the things you’ve been insinuating, he will most definitely figure you out. All of the excuses you made aren’t enough to hide the fact that you can hear what he’s thinking to himself. As well, if you’re deliberately trying to let him find out about your powers…well, I can imagine no reason why you would. What good could possibly come of it? You don’t know him at all, so you have no way of knowing that he would be loyal and keep your secret.”
“But that’s just the thing. I can hear his thoughts and he adores me right now. And I hear other things, things that he isn’t even consciously aware of. He likes me right now Gage. And I think that we would …be compatible together.” She rolled her eyes. “Awful word, I know, but I feel that we could be totally great together. And I know that sounds weird, me saying that after knowing him for such a short amount of time, but I dunno…I just know that it would be safe to tell him. I can feel it. I can see the future too you know.” Gage raised his eyebrows at her. “Ok, well, not really, but I can at least make really good guesses as to how it would be. You have no idea how much information the mind can reveal.”
“Still, I want you to be careful. I have actually seen the future, and, while nothing completely terrible occurs, you still…this isn’t the right time for him to find out. He needs to meet the others first. That is, if he is even the right one.” He added that last sentence to ward off an overabundance of Cameron’s hopeless optimism, which he knew she was prone to.
He went on. “Basically, Cam, you need to do something about this.”
“Ok, ok! I’ll stop saying revealing stuff.”
“No, I mean you need to DO something about this.” He gave her a pointed, piercing stare.
Cam didn’t have to read his mind to know what he was encouraging. “I can’t believe you would even ask me to do something like that. It’s not even like he poses a threat—”
“Not yet! But you don’t know what could happen!”
“Well why can’t you just tell me?”
“Listen Cam, as I’ve told you and the others numerous times before, there are certain rules that I have to adhere to as a possessor of this power. Seeing the future can be a very dangerous thing. I am not authorized to go around retelling things that I see in my visions. I can’t! It could mess things up. There are rules, and they need to be followed.”
“You told us about seeing Caleb fall into the river. You helped us save his life. Can you tell me how that’s a bad thing?”
“I don’t know what will come of him living on, not yet anyway. Even if I did, the things I see, I see for a reason. If we were meant to save him, there would be a very good reason for it. Now we did, and we just have to wait and see how it plays out. It would be wrong to otherwise tamper with the visions. Just because we saved his life, doesn’t mean we have to risk ours.”
“Gage, I am not going to alter someone’s memories just because you have a vague feeling that bad things could come about from what he might know. Don’t you see how wrong that is?”
“All I see is—” Gage stopped himself…he was getting a vision. He let Cam into his mind so she could see it too.
“Oh shit! Damn it! God, how could we be so careless?” Her voice was low now, in a frantic, upset whisper. Cameron looked behind her, to the window that they were standing in front of. The window placed above Caleb’s bed. The same window that Cameron had opened earlier, to give Caleb air as he lay unconscious. The window that was still wide open.
Now her eyes were wide open, pierced with shock and anger. She was sure their whole conversation had been heard, especially since she could see in Gage’s mind as he got a premonition of Caleb confronting Cameron about what he had just overheard. “So the two of you have some special powers,” she heard him asking, “tell me more about them…”
She grabbed Gage by the sleeve of his shirt and gruffly tried to run with him, far away from the cabin so that their words would no longer be intercepted.
They finally reached a clearing a good distance away from the cabin. Cameron sighed. “I had no idea that would happen. God, now he knows everything. Well, practically.”
Gage stayed quiet. He was never one to verbalize an, “I told you so.”
The two were quiet for many moments. Cameron took a deep breath and exhaled heavily, and sadness filled her voice as she spoke her next words.
“So, can I at least let him remember that he met me?”
* * *
Caleb woke up in the woods. He was resting against a tree trunk. It was late. Probably past nine or ten o’clock at night. He must have fallen asleep on his way back from school. He had the tendency to do that. The lulling sounds of a forest could always rock him to sleep. He shook his head at the irresponsibility of it all.
I need to stop getting so swept up in nature like this. I’m liable to get myself seriously injured one day. My family always worries so much.
Still, even though he had probably missed half the day, and worried his mother half to death, he was happy. He had met a wonderful girl that day at school.
Cameron. Gorgeous name for a gorgeous girl.
There was something about her, something special. He knew it. He got butterflies in his stomach just thinking about when he would get to see her again. Their initial meeting was brief. She was a new girl in one of his classes. They talked a bit about her previous location, but that was all. Class began, and they had to stop talking to one another. After class, she had to stay and speak to the teacher, so he didn’t even get a chance to walk her to her next class.
Despite their fleeting encounter, he could tell that they had left a good impression on one another. He knew he would meet up with her again soon, though. He would make a point of it, anyway.
He was so happy inside; it surprised him. It had been a long time since he had even thought twice about any girl as being more than just a friend. He couldn’t wait to tell his best friend, Logan, about her.
Caleb rose and dusted off his pants and shirt. He picked up his backpack and began to walk home, hoping that his family wasn’t worrying too much. Even though it was very dark out, she could still clearly see his way through the woods. He had really incredible eyesight.
He made a mental note to remember to give Jocelyn a big hug when he got back. He was very glad she had told him about this new path. Very glad.