Tandar

It came to me in a dream, as it did for the others like me. I saw the beginning of our people; how we were created. There are so few of us now, but that isn't by choice. By the time each of us reached eight years old, we all experienced The Dream. It haunts each of us to this day. Having thoughts and memories that are not your own played out in your subconscious is hard on any child, but it was necessary for our survival.

In the dream we saw through the eyes of a small child who gave us very limited insight. A frilly dress, little hands, and tiny bare feet that did not belong to me were the first recollections. A gray cat jumped into sight and led us around the side of a house to the backyard. The cat was prodding and pouncing on what looked to be a mushroom top. Being in a mind so young, there was no thought to question a mushroom that glowed a pretty pink color. There was no harm in a kitty playing with a pretty plant. Earlier that day there had been a bunch of men taking a trip into the forest. This forest was special because of the plants that lived there, mommy said. Some gazillionaire guy thought he could use the strange plants for medicines, like the nasty cough syrup my mommy makes me take.

One of the plants was dropped by a man who was almost toppled over by all the sample cases he was holding. When I saw him leave, he was wheezing as he came out of the woods. I asked mommy why he brought so much stuff with him on a walk. She said it is his job. Grown-ups do weird things.

I followed the cat around to the back of our home calling to the "kitty" the whole way. One bat of the cat's paw sent the mushroom top thing towards me. When the top touched my foot, it began to glow brighter and flattened like a pancake.

"Wow! A pink pancake!" I clapped and giggled at my new discovery. I reached down to touch it, but it blew away across the grass towards our twisted together tree. I ran after it, trying to beat the kitty to it. When it finally came to a stop it was laying in the gap of the tree stumps, the kitty smelled at it. I poked it a few times, wondering if I could eat it, but someone yelled behind me, scaring my kitty away.

"Get away from that, little Missy! I don't know how you got this, but it's not yours." Another man from the forest trip came up to me and took my pancake. I didn't like this man, he was a meany, for sure. My mommy came waddling up to us when she heard him yelling.

She always waddled now-a-days because of her big belly. She said my brothers are in there. I don't know why she ate them; they made her fat!

"Sir, I'm sorry my daughter is interfering in your research. No harm came to the sample, did it?" Mommy says. Why is she saying sorry? It's my pancake! He should say sorry and give it back. So, I turned to mommy and whined, "But mommy it's mine. Finders Keepers! Make him give it back." I started the sniffles that I knew worked on her, but then daddy came up to us. The sniffles never worked on him, so I stopped and crossed my arms.

"What seems to be the problem here? Honey, you shouldn't be up running around this close to the due date. Go lay down. I'll take care of this," Daddy says to the grown-ups. Mommy kisses his cheek and waddles back toward the house. While they were talking the meany took out some sticky green stuff and poured it on my pancake. I yelled "That's not syrup!" At the same time my daddy yells, "What the hell are you doing?" his eyes wide open like that one time he saw me playing in the road.

The sticky green stuff melted my pink pancake and made this big cloud of red sprinkles that blow away in the wind really fast. The man tries to catch the sprinkles as they flew out of his hand, but they all fly towards the house. My daddy sees where they are going and runs after mommy. I watch as they blow on mommy and disappear. Where did they go? Did mommy eat them too?

Daddy reaches mommy and is touching her all over and asks if she's okay. She says she feels fine. The meany is asking her all kinds of questions about how the "See-rum" made her feel and if she swallowed any. My dad turns to him and starts yelling about how he could have hurt her and that he's going to call his boss and have him fired. The meany begs my daddy to keep this a secret. He says it's his discovery, and he wanted rights to it, and to look into it more before his boss finds out.

Daddy gets really red and angry, and I think he's going to hit the meany, but mommy speaks up and says, "John, we shouldn't call the authorities. They'll have to give me tests and we can't leave Cara here alone. I feel fine and I'm not going to any government facility with my babies about to come. This man will help with any problems, should they arise, right?"

Mommy said this with an eyebrow raised like the look she gives me to make me eat my veggies. He gulps really loud and nods his head. We all go inside so the grown-ups can talk for a while and I learn the meany's name is Brian, who is going to stay in our guestroom until my brothers get here. I don't like it one bit.

Later on that night, I had a nightmare and asked if I could sleep with mommy and daddy. I laid by mommy and hugged her warm tummy. I was almost asleep when a light starts under my cheek. I open my eyes and mommy's tummy is glowing pink! I bet my pancake did that.

I wake up mommy to show her, but she isn't happy. She gets scared and wakes up daddy. They yell for Brian, and he comes in. He mumbles something about being glad he went to med school and feels around mommy's tummy asking if it hurts. She says no. I know that the pink is good because pancakes can't hurt mommy. It was like a nightlight that glowed on and off. I knew mommy would be okay.

That's the end of The Dream. Those pair of brothers were the first of our kind. Our existence was kept a secret by "the meany" who recreated us out of a rash decision to experiment first, ask questions later. When the boys were born healthy and happy, Brian began looking to repeat his work. He found the ingredients easily enough but had a hard time finding willing mothers-to-be. Once the brothers reached ten years old and were healthy the first mother helped convince an entire birthing class to take a chance. This made their babies as strong and physically gifted as her own. This class made 30 more babies born under Brian's care. Shortly after this success, he got sloppy. His boasting about his discovery cost him, he was kidnapped and never seen again. Thankfully, the government were not told about the 30 other children. They found and took the twin brothers, though.

Ten years later these brothers broke out of the facility they were held in after multiple attempts to escape. With their freedom, they could have gone far away and been safe. But they never forgot about the other children, who were like them. They made it their life's work to find us and keep us from going through what they did. I was the first they found after my sixteenth birthday when I went through my first Misting.