Chapter 3: A rather strange secret.
One day in the last year of high school, during recess, my friends took me away from the inopportune ears of the rest of my classmates. I was taken to a small, glassed-in school room with a piano and keyboard placed opposite each other on the walls perpendicular to the picture window. The green curtains were drawn and so little light came in that it was difficult for me to distinguish their figures among so many chairs. That room was next to the school chapel. I bumped into several chairs before reaching the keyboard chair. They sat me down there while they took two of the chair-desks and brought them closer to me. Lydia crossed her hands, as her best friend had done a few seconds before. Then, they sat down, something that gave me a chill at that moment because it all seemed so predetermined.
When my eyes adapted to the darkness of the place, I looked for alternative exits in case something bad happened, how to attack them if they thought of attacking me and even checked with some calculations the weight of the keyboard. I even felt the knife under my jumper sleeve to make sure it was still in place. At that time and to this day I still detect exits and forms of attack whenever I enter a new place, but now I know why I do it, not at that time. I have always been upset by being alone with few people in a small room. It's a trauma from when my parents were murdered.
"Lydia has been analyzing you, just like me," started the brunette, I put my hands on my knees, they were making me too nervous and I needed to calm down. "Lydia has drawn conclusions, so have I."
I looked at them without knowing where they were going. I narrowed my eyes and raised an eyebrow. The two of them did not look at each other to see who was continuing, I drew two conclusions: Either they knew each other well enough to know what they were thinking or they had planned it. Later I would realize that it was the former and something else.
"You are quite reserved, you know how to keep secrets and I am 100% sure that if you were tortured you would not let go of your word" I took my hand to my left shoulder without thinking. she turned to the brunette, then she looked at me again. "You can be trusted."
The only thing that crossed my mind was: Two years of being friends and now you tell me I can be trusted? I chuckled underneath.
"We trust you" the brunette nodded. "A lot, with our life" Lydia nodded happily. "It is time for us to trust you with our secret."
I leaned back in the chair, it creaked slightly at the change of weight in one of its corners. I prepared the rope that was attached to the diamond knife and wound it around my thumb without them noticing. My stress levels started to increase without them even considering it. If they wanted to make me nervous, they succeeded.
Lydia smiled sweetly at me and turned to Hypatia. She expelled all the air she had in her lungs to calm down. She wasn't the only one who was going to burst with tension.
"My name is Hypatia" she bit her lip and closed her eyes waiting for my reaction.
I couldn't react. I was speechless. The tension that we both had was released and went far, far away. I burst out laughing. Lydia turned her head slightly trying to understand my reaction.
"I thought you were going to murder me" I untied the cord and kept it under my sleeve. " I really did. "
Hypatia laughed with me and Lydia ended up joining in too. The three of us were very quiet at that moment. After we all got out of the confusion, we joined in a hug.
"I like the name," I said. "What is it? Egyptian?"
She nodded slightly.
"I have studied and asked about its meaning. It turns out that I was named by my parents after the last of the last Pharaoh's heirs" Hypatia placed her hands just like the drawings on the pyramids. "They say they wanted it to symbolise my great future."
I nodded.
"I think they even put me in classes of Ancient Egyptian for that, otherwise I don't know where I learned to speak and write it" she pointed her head. "I don't remember the classes, but I know that I can speak it perfectly."
I opened my mouth slightly.
"Where are your parents from?"
"Mom is Russian, that's why I can speak and write Russian. Dad is from here. He is a very famous writer and loves ancient history. But he didn't name me, he said that I only answered to the name of Hypatia when I was a baby".
"Awesome"
Lydia nodded several times in a row, smiling a lot.
"Is your name Lydia or is it like Hypatia?"
"My name is Lydia. My mother named me after the Persian city. She is a historian. She is so interested in Hypatia's father's work. They are best friends, he is my godfather."
Hypatia nudged Lydia back to the main theme. She cleared her throat to indicate that she didn't need that elbow to do so and they got up from the desk chairs, pushed them aside and sat down on the floor. To be at the same height, I did the same.
"Well," whispered Lydia, "we've been watching you. How you study, the sports you play, how you talk back to other kids when they mess with you, how you stand up for your friends and how you ignore people when it suits you."
I shook my head in the affirmative. I had lost myself again in the change of conversation.
"What for?"
"We use different names for a job we have. My name is Dep," said Hypatia, changing the subject again. I was really lost. "Her name is Hony."
"And your name will be Lea!" applauded Lydia repeatedly, jumping with excitement. "You'll be another member!"
I frowned and put my hand to my mouth. I didn't understand a word they were talking about and I needed to know. I wanted to know so badly.
"I do not understand."
Hypatia leaned over to me, as if she didn't want anyone else to hear it, and looked into my eyes.
"It's another secret and we can't tell you here. We will be discovered. And it is very important that you know that, because you are one of us. We don't choose people at random. You are special, like Lydia and like me, Lea. You are the last member of this group. We need your help and you need ours. We are humanity's only hope, Lea."
Humanity's only hope. It sounded so good. It sounded like a hero. But something inside me was screaming at me that I wasn't one, I was the terror of children, the monster of their nightmares. My past and the books I had read said that. However, I decided to ignore that part of my brain that was dying to stab the first person I saw and follow them to do what I thought they were going to do at that moment, something good for others. Right?
Gifts
-- Gift
received Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone