Chapter 2
"She's seen you in her dreams?" Liz whispered back.
Isabel lowered her head further and said "Yeah, and not only me, but Max and Michael too."
This was too much information for Liz to handle. She closed her mouth, which had been hanging open, and looked away briefly trying to collect her thoughts.
Given the pause in the conversation, Maria broke in "Are you pulling our leg? If this is a joke, I'm not laughing."
Isabel pulled Maria's arm so she came could look her directly in the eyes "No Maria, I'm not joking, I'm dead serious."
After hearing Izzy's first statement of Tess seeing her in her dreams, Alex had been holding his breath, and he didn't even realize it! He let it out then, and touched Izzy's arm. "You have to tell Max and Michael."
Isabel agreed and they all planned to meet later at the Crashdown, the restaurant Liz's parent's owned. Isabel, her mind still giddy with future possibilities, hurried down the hallway and let herself into the eraser room. After quietly closing the door, she moved to the side and slowly slid down the wall until she was sitting on the floor. She knew she was unlikely to be disturbed here since lunch would be over in five minutes and no one would go in during class. She let her thoughts drift back to the beginning of her memories, turning over facts in her head.
Up until this point Max, Michael, and her knew their dreams held serious weight. Since they were children, their dreams have been the key to who they are. They all knew they were different, from the moment of their first memory, they just had the feeling that they were not supposed to be here. They were supposed to be somewhere else, far away. In their dreams, they had slowly began to understand more about where they were from, but they still had no idea why they were on Earth and not there….wherever that other place was.
As they developed, instinctively they kept their growing abilities a secret. Max could heal, Michael could cause objects to be destroyed, and Isabel could enter other's dreams at night. All three of them had the ability to manipulate molecular structure as well and could turn things like notebook paper into money, and Ketchup into Mustard.
Max and Isabel were adopted as young children into a loving home by Mr. and Mrs. Evans. They were found wandering along the side of the road when they were around 5, but they had no memory of anything before that. Since the Evans found them, they decided to adopt them; and the Roswell Adoption Agency was grateful, as it was very hard to place children above the age of 3 into permanent homes. Collectively, when all three were picked up, they couldn't even speak yet.
Michael was found wandering as well by a kind sheriff; Jim Valenti was his name. He took him to the Roswell Child Protective Services, and since he could not speak to tell him where he was from, he went straight into foster care. The day the Sheriff took Michael over to his new foster dad Hank and his foster mom Harriet, Michael had a death grip on his hand. The Sheriff had done a background investigation on them though and was satisfied that this would be a good home for him. Michael was happy there, and Hank was a good dad for about 6 months of Michael's life. After Hank's wife died after having a Stroke though, Hank started to drink, and pretty much stayed drunk the next ten years of Michael's life. His temper would flare at the slightest detail and Michael took the brunt of his anger a lot of the time. Hence, Michael's difficult personality at times. He'd been through a lot.
They progressed in academics at much the same pace, and had no difficulty learning to speak. Much to their teachers surprise, they graduated from Kindergarten to 1st grade with no problems along with the rest of their class. When they were in the 2nd grade, all three happened to be in the same art class. That day the teacher had asked the class to draw a picture of their favorite dream, using as many colors as they could, and making it as life like as possible. For a seven year old, this was a magnificent feat. The three of them worked on opposite ends of the room, a slight independent streak running through them all. When the teacher gathered all the drawings up, they were posted on the classroom wall for all to see. Strangely, three pictures looked almost identical. They were simply beautiful pictures of a place with blue grass, and flowing hills. Magnificent Brown and Green trees, or what looked like trees, and clear yellow lakes. A slightly purple sky with two burnt red suns, shined down from the top of the picture. There were slight variations between the pictures, but the resemblance was uncanny. The teacher had the three students come forward who had drawn the pictures and asked them who had drawn the first, and why had two of them copied. They insisted that they had not copied, but since they were only seven, the teacher assumed they were lying.
The three of them were separated from the rest of the class that day, and sat in a corner by themselves to "think about why it was not ok to lie." Instead, Isabel and Max spoke in hushed tones with Michael, discussing their common dream. They found that they had had many similar dreams, each not seeing each other in them. They always saw themselves in their dreams though, as if remembering another life. Even at that tender age of seven, they seemed to have a wisdom beyond their years; and that's when they agreed they were from that other world, and became inseparable from that day forward.
Isabel recapped all of this in her mind, and could not believe that there was someone else! Someone else from their world! There dreams were similar, but every dream from a separate person revealed something new. Would this new person show them more into their past? They had never let anyone come into their group, to protect their secret, until last year. The year her brother finally got a chance to prove his love to a girl. A girl that he had never talked to, but had wished he could. Even though the three of them had always agreed not to ever let anyone in on their secret, understanding the danger it would bring, Max had to do this. Later she and Michael understood, and things progressed from there.
In a booth the three of them sat at the Crashdown Café. Max was staring at Liz, a waitress in her parent's restaurant. Suddenly, an argument broke out in the front of the café. Someone pulled a gun and before anyone knew what was happening, it went off. Liz was standing right by the counter talking to the Sheriff's son Kyle and had just turned her back to him. When the bullet hit Liz in the stomach, it went through her like a knife, and struck Kyle in the same place it struck her. Liz fell back and landed on him. Just at that moment, the Sheriff ran into the café having seen Liz fall on top of Kyle. Max did not see him, however, he only saw the love of his life on the ground bleeding. Before he thought another coherent though, he was up and out of his seat, and down on his knees beside them both. He put his hand on her stomach and asked her to look at him. She did, and Max connected with her. Quickly healing her he eased her off of Kyle. Kyle was fading fast, and Max broke a bottle of Ketchup and handed it to Liz. She held it in dumfounded silence for the next 3 seconds it took to heal Kyle. Snapping out of her daze, and automatically understanding what she wanted him to do, she poured some of the bottle on Kyle and the rest on herself. The next moment the Sheriff was on them. He grabbed Max by the shoulder and herded the three of them to the back alley outside of the restaurant. Max told Isabel later exactly what had happened. After the sheriff closed the door behind them, he leaned against it and had his right hand pressed to his forehead. He whispered to Max if he had just witnessed what he though he had. Max simply stated, to please not tell anyone what he had seen. The next instant the Sheriff was hugging his son like there was no tomorrow and stumbling through a thank you for saving his son, and Liz from certain death, and told Max he had nothing to fear from him…ever. They had no idea of how the were going to explain their sudden disappearance, but walked back in the way they had left. It turned out, they never even needed to worry.
As soon as Max had left our booth, Isabel had quickly gave a big moan/scream and made a dramatic swoop out of the booth as well. Drawing all attention to herself, she fell to the ground; slightly to the left, and in front, of where Max, Liz, and Kyle were. She doubled over, as if in great pain, and curled into a fetal position. A crowd quickly gathered around her, and by that time the Sheriff had already herded everyone else out. Someone yelled for a doctor, thinking she had been shot. A man ran in from the sidewalk, claiming he was a doctor, and made his way over to her. As soon as she felt his hands on her, trying to pry her out of the position she was curled up in, she straightened out and began coughing. She tried her best to look like she was about to throw up, and got up and ran for the bathroom. Everyone was so dumbfounded by her act that they were completely distracted. After she came out of the bathroom and told everyone that her stomach had cramped up due to fear and to much greasy food, they knew she had not been shot, and could not figure out where the bullet had landed. As the Sheriff and the others were walking in the back door, she was walking back to them. She hurriedly told Max what she did, and Max told her what the Sheriff said. Kyle and Liz, still dazed from the whole ordeal were standing like zombies. Somehow, the Sheriff convinced them to act like Liz jumped back startled from the gunshot and fell on Kyle, taking the ketchup bottle with her and breaking it; spilling it on herself and then on Kyle when she rolled off of him. Then the Sheriff stated that he had taken them all to the back to get away from the commotion and check for injuries. Miraculously, everyone seemed to buy that story!
From then on things changed between them all. The Sheriff, after a lengthy discussion, became their number one backer, and protector. Kyle didn't really like Max before that, but learned to be his friend. Maria and Alex found out from Liz at different times, and were both sworn to secrecy. Once the two of them found out, there was some ill feelings between Liz, Michael and Isabel. Eventually they relented, as Max trusted Liz, and they trusted Max. Plus Max had seen into Liz's soul before. Liz and Max became inseparable after that, something happening between them when they connected for her healing. They just automatically understood how the other thought and also found out they had both liked each other for a long time with neither of them being brave enough to voice it. The three aliens dreams continued, but much more infrequently. The still worried about someone finding out their secret, but they allowed themselves to lead normal lives, growing closer to their new human friends.
Now…now they had met someone who was like them, and it couldn't help but stir up old feelings and bring up new questions. How many were out their like them? Would this girl reveal to them new information? Could she be the key? So many questions…
All of a sudden, the door swung open to the eraser room and Max was standing in the doorway.