When I opened my eyes, everything was purple. So it was true, just like he said it would be.

I was a Powerful.

I had met him at school. On the first day, I had thought he was some odd weird kid that was there because he was there. That is, until he smiled at me, and, with his bright blue eyes twinkling, said hello to me. I was stunned. He had rooted me to the spot with that sole perfect smile. I was unable to speak for a moment. I gulped and said, real quietly, “Hi.”

“What’s your name?” he asked me.

By that time, I felt that it would not be a long time until I passed out. “I, uh… I’m Hanna.”

He smiled again. “I’m Brian.”

And that’s where it all started. We went out together and had fun. We went fishing; we didn’t catch any fish, but we had fun anyway. We did a lot of activities, but hiking was our favourite sport. During the summer after the school year we met, we went to one hiking camp together for a week to climb a few mountains in the Appalachian mountain range. One dark, starry night, we pitched our tent a little ways from the others. I was lying down on my back, observing the full moon.

“A lady is on the moon tonight,” I mumbled softly, mostly to myself. “She is combing her hair.”

Brian lay down next to me. “Looks more like a rabbit to me. See his big ears?”

“Of course not. Your ‘rabbit’ is a lady.” I ran my fingers through my shoulder-length, wavy brown hair. “Anyways, we’ve got to get to bed soon. We have a hike to the next peak tomorrow, and I want to be a perky girl.”

Brian sat up and yawned. His blonde hair looked gray in the dark. “My rabbit is still a rabbit, as far as I can see.”

I stood up and walked away from him. “I don’t have the same eyes as you do.”

I heard a chuckle behind me, and I whipped around. He was wearing a mischievous smile, and I knew what he was going to say before he said it. “You must be the lady on the moon, because she left and the rabbit took her place.”

“Brian!” I wasn’t really mad at him, though; I knew he had just said it to play around.

That hiking trip went well. We went camping many times after that, until school started. We didn’t have the same classes; I was a sophomore and he was a junior. However, we arranged things on weekends.

One Friday afternoon, Brian grabbed me in the hallway. He looked horribly depressed and worried. “Meet me in my driveway at 1:00 AM tomorrow,” he whispered hastily to me, before hurrying back down the hallway.

Once more in my life, I was stunned. I was determined to find out what was wrong with Brian.

On Friday night, I stayed up in bed until my parents’ bedroom lights had turned off, then tiptoed out the door. It was 12:50 AM, and the clock was ticking. I ran to his driveway and heard voices coming from the living room. I cautiously went to a window to listen.

“... can’t wait any longer,” a female voice was saying. “Have to let her know now, before anything else happens.”

Brian tried to protest. “She wouldn’t understand. It wouldn’t be wise to let her know so soon!”

The woman took a deep breath. “We have to. Two kids have already been taken by the Communion, and who knows what they are being forced to do now.”

“Probably forced to kill Mortals,” Brian grumbled.

“Right. So tell, her, before they get a hold of her.”

Brian sighed, relenting.

“Now, she should be here. Go, bring her to me.”

“Yes, Dahlia.” The a door opened a shut softly.

I went back to the driveway, my mind racing through what I had just heard. Brian came outside, feigning surprise. “Oh, you’re here already. Come in.”

I went until the door to the living room, then grabbed him by the arm. “Wait. What is this ‘communion’? Why can’t you wait any longer? Who is the woman in your living room?”

Brian was surprised, but before he could say anything, I cut him off. “I listened at the window. It was open, and I could hear quite clearly.” The air shimmered, and I thought I heard a friendly chuckle nearby. I whipped around, but nobody was there.

“Ah.” Brian gestured vaguely to the air around me. “One of her abilities is to make a portal. Any kind of portal. Dark portals, light portals, mirror portals…”

“So. People like you have a unique ability.” I frowned.

“Not always unique. People can have the same abilities, if they’re quite common. Like, air powers, or element, are relatively common.” Brian explained. “Each category of powers is called an element. A ton of people may only have a few powers of one element, like being able to control wind speed. Fewer people have actual elements, in which they have all the powers that element contains. Some elements have very few powers, and most of those are really common. The more powers a person has, the more dangerous he is. For example, the people with the mind element are very dangerous, and could start extremely big wars. Even the powers from that element are very dangerous, such as Mind-Controller or Hypnosis.”

I interrupted him to say, “Aren’t those the same thing?”

He shook his head. “When you are a Mind-Controller, you get inside one’s head, and put thoughts in one’s mind. But when you hypnotize somebody, you say things that one puts inside one’s own head. So, basically, when you are a Hypnotizer, you get at people from the outside.”

The air shimmered once more, but I hardly noticed it, until the lights turned on. I whipped around to find a young woman with short brown hair leaning against the wall. She wore simple clothes: blue jeans, dark green hooded sweatshirt, and Nike sneakers. A smile spread across her face, and suddenly all my frustrations had been extinguished. “Hi, I’m Dahlia,” she introduced herself.

She explained everything. When I say everything, I mean everything. It turned out that the Communion was a society who had the idea that Mortals, or “normal” humans, have to go extinct. People with powers and elements are called Powerfuls, and many Powerfuls had joined into a worldwide society called Ako, who informed and educated Powerfuls on how to use their powers wisely and safely, and without the Mortals knowing. The opposing side joined into rather disconnected groups, and began connecting with each other at an internet site called Moca Chips, once a company that sold coffee. But these people were serious, and organized attacks to attempt to dismantle Ako. Ako easily crushed them, but the confused Mortals then started a confused war, called World War I. That was the first major war. The second, you all know, was called World War II. They had launched another attack, Ako had won, and the confused Mortals collided. Well, Ako was doing everything it could to prevent World War III, and that involved informing all Powerfuls they were Powerfuls, instead of manipulating them into doing things, like the Communion was doing.

“So,” I muttered, “I’m a Powerful.”

“Yes.” Dahlia smiled gently, and once again my worries slipped away. “And we happen to know what your power is.”

I had the Colour Element; I could breed green oranges and purple apples. I guess I have always had a flair for colour. That night, as I lay in bed thinking of Brian and Dahlia, I thought of the colour purple. It is a seemingly fragrant colour, as well as a relaxing one. I did not see it in the dark, but I had changed the room and everything within it to the colour purple. I was glad when I woke up. I needed the relaxation.