CHAPTER 1: THE REVELATION

I've never been normal, well what even is normal anyways? In this dystopian world is it even a thing anymore? The wars had scarred the world everywhere, even in places like here in the middle of nothing and nowhere the evidence was clear. Humans did not take it nicely to finding out that all those ghost stories were real, and it was even worse when the subs (subnaturals) didn't ask to come out of hiding. Hundreds of thousands of lives have been lost over this never-ending war, leaving people who grew up like me, alone.

I stare at my reflection in the cracked bathroom mirror of my studio apartment. Same dull eyes, same untamable hair, same unremarkable face that's carried me through eighteen years of existence. Nothing special about Lena Hargrove, just another war orphan trying to survive another day.

I've been a ward of the state, technically, since I was 12. I have been on my own. I have a studio apartment in a decent enough area and my bills have always been covered, a compensation for the loss of both parents in service to the war. Honestly, I can't really remember them now, they were barely around when they were alive anyway. You know, war.

Despite their absence, from what I'm told they were big parts of war efforts, considered heroes. Some heroes left their kid to live like some forgotten problem. There and handled but never really taken care of.

The government check arrives like clockwork on the first of every month. Just enough to keep me alive, not enough to make anything of myself. I suppose I should be grateful. Most orphans end up in the camps—overcrowded, underfunded facilities where kids are more likely to learn how to fight or steal than read or write. At least I have walls and a door that locks.

My life hasn't been easy, being their child made things harder, well because people did not think I matched up to them. How could this tiny thing match such great warriors? Not to mention growing up with questions about whether I was adopted or was a love child and not from my mother, or if my dad wasn't actually my dad. I had heard everything. But nothing really hurt worse than when they died. I was left alone and told by everyone it was somehow my fault.

I was 12. I was kidnapped. I... I didn't mean for it to happen. It was the only time I had ever dared to not listen and follow the rules they had given me and it ended in disaster. They died fighting to save the daughter they ignored any other day. Ironic. Their death solidifying them as perfect parents sacrificing themselves to save me.

What I didn't get is why. Why was I kidnapped? They were never around, it's not like they really cared. Then why all of a sudden did they run to save me? For what? Just to lose their lives and me to live exactly as I had before?

It's been six years, and I still get the looks and whispers as I walk by. The daughter of the great Hargroves. The reason they're dead. The disappointment.

I don't care. Or at least, that's what I tell myself as I pull on my worn jacket and head out into the gray morning. The rain falls in a fine mist, coating everything in a slick sheen that reflects the dim light of dawn. The streets are mostly empty this early, just a few workers heading to their shifts at the processing plants, heads down, shoulders hunched against the perpetual damp.

I make my way to the community college on the edge of the district. It's not much, but it's something to do, somewhere to be that isn't my four walls. Plus, education is still technically free, one of the few things the government got right after the Emergence War started.

Professor Winters is already setting up when I arrive at the history classroom. He's one of the few teachers who doesn't look at me with either pity or contempt. He just sees another student, which is refreshing.

"Morning, Lena," he says without looking up from his notes. "You're early again."

"Nothing better to do," I shrug, dropping into my usual seat at the back.

He glances up, his eyes—an unusual amber color—studying me for a moment. "You look tired. More nightmares?"

I'm surprised he remembered. I'd mentioned them once, weeks ago, when he'd caught me dozing in class. "Always the same one. Fire, screaming, and... something else. Something I can't quite remember when I wake up."

He nods, a strange expression crossing his face. "The mind has ways of protecting itself from trauma."

"It wasn't trauma," I say automatically. "I barely knew them."

"I wasn't talking about your parents," he says quietly, then turns away as other students begin to file in.

The class passes in a blur. We're studying the Emergence—when the subnaturals first revealed themselves to the world. Official history says it was a coordinated attack, that the subs had been planning for centuries to overthrow humanity. But Professor Winters always hints there's more to the story, though he's careful never to say anything that could be considered sympathetic to their cause. That would be career suicide at best, imprisonment at worst.

After class, I'm gathering my few belongings when Professor Winters approaches my desk.

"Lena, could you stay a moment? I'd like to discuss your last paper."

I nod, though I'm confused. My paper on human-sub diplomatic relations before the war was thorough, well-researched. I'd been certain it was some of my best work.

Once the room empties, Professor Winters doesn't mention my paper at all. Instead, he hands me a small, worn book.

"This belonged to your mother," he says simply.

I stare at him, then at the book, my fingers going numb. "You... knew my mother?"

"We were colleagues, before I taught here. Before the war changed everything." He hesitates. "There are things you don't know, Lena. Things about your parents, about yourself."

My heart pounds in my chest. "What things?"

He glances at the door, then lowers his voice. "It's not safe to talk here. Read the book. Start with the entry dated the day you were born. And Lena—" His eyes fix on mine, intense, urgent. "Trust no one. Not until you understand what you are."

"What I am? What are you talking about?"

But he's already moving away. "Read the book. And be careful. Your parents didn't die because they were heroes, Lena. They died because of what they knew. What they were protecting."

I clutch the book to my chest, questions bubbling up, but the next class is already filing in. Professor Winters gives me one last meaningful look.

"The world isn't what you think it is," he says. "And neither are you."

I stumble out of the classroom, my mind reeling. In a daze, I make my way to a quiet corner of the campus, beneath the skeletal branches of what used to be an oak tree before acid rain killed most of the vegetation in the district.

With trembling fingers, I open the book. It's a journal, the pages filled with my mother's neat, precise handwriting. I flip to the entry Professor Winters mentioned—the day I was born.

May 15, 2214

She's perfect. Ten fingers, ten toes, and already showing signs. J is worried it's too soon, that we won't be able to hide it, but I've seen how the others do it. We can keep her safe. We must. The humans would never understand, not yet. Their fear runs too deep, their prejudice too ingrained. But she will be different. She will bridge worlds. Our beautiful daughter, born between realms, belonging to both and neither.

The glamour holds well—she looks entirely human now. The mark is hidden, though I know it's there, a perfect crescent at the base of her spine, just like mine, just like my mother's before me. J says we should tell her nothing, that ignorance will protect her. I disagree. Knowledge is power, and she will need all the power she can get in this divided world.

But for now, she is simply our Lena, our miracle, our hope. And if the prophecy is true, perhaps one day, she will be so much more.

I close the book, my hands shaking so badly I nearly drop it. The world seems to tilt beneath me, reality shifting and rearranging itself around this new, impossible information.

What I didn't know is that I was about to find out some incredibly important details my parents probably should have mentioned... I am a sub.

And according to my mother's journal, I'm not just any sub.

I'm something more.