The portal made my head spin. My mind was filled with blank buzzing and all around me was the dark, the cold dark, like the kind in the cellar at home. I heard screaming, and wasn't sure if it was one of my sister's or mine.
Finally, I felt my feet hit solid ground, and I stumbled to the left and fell. Around me, my sisters were also stumbling, their eyes distant, panicked, and disoriented.
Immediately, Candy started freaking out. "Where the heck are we?"
I looked around and realized that I couldn't answer. It was completely unlike anything I could ever seen before in Lightmare. The ground was covered in a green fuzz of grass, and the sky was gray. The air smelled like rain.
And the space! It seemed like I could run forever and still not come to anything. In Lightmare, if you picked a direction and started running, you would eventually hit the chain-link fence that symbolized the end of the road. Anyone that crossed the borders were hunted down with dogs and executed.
Roxy stood up, brushing off the front of her gray factory uniform. She looked surprisingly calm for someone that had just popped out of nowhere to a place that she didn't even recognize. "A place called Lightning of Dreams, I think."
"Lightning of Dreams?" Rose asked, puzzled. "Why?"
"I think…ugh, this going to be complicated, okay? We're in another dimension, one in which lies between the place where the deceased go, and the real world. Lightning of Dreams is the place where you go when you dream. That's why some people claim to see dead people when they dream- their mother, father, siblings. Sometimes the dead are allowed to Lightning of Dreams to visit their loved ones in the real world when the latter are asleep."
"Roxy? How do you know all this?" I asked, standing up. I wasn't the only one that wanted to know. Carmen, Rose, and Candy also gathered around, frowning their agreement.
"Mom told me." She replied simply. "When I was young. She took me here. It was right after you were born, Nicke. She wanted me to know, and told me to tell you guys were old enough, just in case she wasn't here to tell you herself. She and our dad built the portal in the cellar, just in case we needed a quick escape from the LC. It came in handy, as you can see."
My head felt like it was in the portal again. Spinning, spinning, spinning, reeling with the amount of information it had just been exposed to. My mom knew about this? She and my dad built the portal in the cellar? What the heck?
"I don't know what to say." Candy said faintly. Her hands were shaking, and her face was gray. "All this time, and we never knew… anything."
"I'm sorry I didn't tell you sooner." Roxy said sadly. She looked at the ground in shame. "I didn't think it was the right time."
"The right time for what?"
"For you to learn your powers."
I always had known that I had special powers. It said so in my official records- "Special talents: control over lightning/electricity." But, even though I tried countless times, I could never, not even once, produce a single spark of electricity. That's why I didn't know why the LC had come for us. It's not like we were anything special. We were normal. All my sisters were the same as me.
Candy's record said that she had control over water, but she couldn't do anything.
Carmen's said that she could manipulate fire, but she never produced even an ember.
Rose's said that she could control plants and wildlife. Same as the other's.
I didn't know what Roxy's said. She never told us.
But right now, I felt different. Lightning of Dreams had changed something inside of me, had put a spark of… something in my heart.
I had tried before, but this time I knew it would work. I thrust out my hand.
"Nicke? What are you doing?"
I ignored Candy and closed my eyes, praying, concentrating.
Nothing.
Come on, come on. I can do this!
Still nothing.
"Nicke? What's going on?"
Bam! My hair stood up on end and my eyes flew open as a bolt of lightning zigged from the sky and hit the earth in front of me. A black scorch mark marred the ground where it had struck.
"Nicke! How did you do that?" Carmen exclaimed, her face etched with shock.
And it felt so nice, so beautiful, that I laughed out loud, dancing around the cool landscape of Lightning of Dreams, drunk with euphoria. I could do it! I could do it! After all these years of trying and trying, and I could do it!
Roxy watched me, smiling. "Looks like Nicke figured it out first. Come on, girls, I know you can do it too!"
And they could.
Candy was the first to recover from her shock. She moved her hand in a small spinning motion, and suddenly there was water, wrapped around her arms and following the movement of her hands.
Carmen, not to be outdone, snapped her fingers. A single spark of fire appeared in her palms and ignited, encircling her hands. The reflection of the fire appeared in her eyes. Her hair seemed to match the flames.
And then Rose knelt down and placed her hands palm-down on the earth. A single green shoot sprouted from the ground, growing thicker and taller until it was as tall as her. She smiled, and then laughed, as purple flowers grew from the vine.
"I can't believe that I never knew I could do this!" Candy cried out. She caressed the water lovingly. "How come it's only working now?'
"It's this place." I realized suddenly. "Lightning of Dreams. It's…awakened us."
Then, suddenly, a voice boomed across the landscape. "Very good, Nicke. You always were very clever."
At first it was unrecognizable, and then the memories rushed into my head, coming from the darkest, most intimate corners of my mind. A tender stroke of my hair, a hand on my shoulder, a musical laugh. "Mother!?" I cried out. I didn't realize I was crying.
"Yes. It's me, Nicke."
"Mother?" A ripple of hurt crossed Rose's face. It suddenly dawned on me that however hard it was on me that mom died, it must be so much harder on Rose, the youngest. She probably didn't even recognize her mother's voice.
"I'm so sorry, children. But you must listen to me. Soon, I will be gone. You must keep your powers hidden from the LC."
"But they already know who we are!" Carmen yelled.
"Hide. Change your identities. Change your names, your history, and the way you look. I'm sorry, children, but that's all I can say." Her voice was growing fainter.
"Wait!" I screamed. "Mom!"
"Goodbye." Her voice was only a whisper now, a few words carried on a breath of wind. "Remember, I love you all. You will always be in my heart."