A/N: Kudos and comments are greatly appreciated and will also keep me motivated to post more. Even if you don't have anything to say about it besides "great story," I'm totally okay with that. It'd at least let me know you're enjoying the story.
Chapter 1: The Glow That Changed Everything
Even though Nova Song was my real name, it was not always my name. Throughout my life on Earth, I went by a different name, which I had believed to be my real name—Sydney Elise. My biological parents wanted my guardians, Jim and Josie Elise, to use a different name for me to better hide me from their enemies, but I wasn't going to know any of this until much later in my life, same for my true name or any other secrets of my strange, complicated life. As most well know, this is to be expected when one is too young to discover and understand such knowledge—which is stupid, I know.
My toddler years were pretty uneventful; in other words, nothing related to aliens and time-travel happened during that time, at least near where my parents and I lived. I had heard of the strange alien invasions happening all over the world, but none close to my hometown of Stilwell, Kansas. I always thought these so-called 'alien invasions' were elaborate hoaxes, just weird events that people ran to be noticed on camera because they had nothing better to do, but when people started talking about how serious the events actually were—like, when they started talking about people getting killed—I rethought things and started taking the events more seriously. I noticed that most of the invasions happened in the city of London, England, which was a city my parents and I had longed to visit. At the time, I never really understood why London seemed like a major hotspot for alien activity. I figured it had something to do with my real parents, but, again, I wasn't going to find that out for a long time.
Because there was nothing eventful during my toddler years, my story does not begin there. It actually begins with something called Regeneration. It happened when I was four years old; although, needless to say, despite my actual age, my parents believed I had the mind of an eight-year-old, because I had the intellect of an eight-year-old (this was another ability I possessed that defined me as not human). At the time this happened, I was having massive pains from my adult teeth growing in. Because I wasn't human, this allowed me to lose my baby teeth at a much earlier age. My parents gave me aspirin to help soothe the pain, but this ended up being the worst mistake they had ever made. Instead of healing me, the aspirin made me sick and gave me a severe allergic reaction that I would rather not describe. My family and I experienced a long night with me feeling like I was physically dying from the effects of the aspirin, which was actually happening, in a way.
Because I was severely allergic to aspirin, the med was physically killing every cell in my four-year-old body, but luckily I was able to survive the incident. My body suddenly began to glow an unearthly gold color and began bursting, like a firework, out of me in all directions. I remembered it being seriously painful, because I felt like I was being dipped in molten lava, that I was literally being burnt alive. This lasted about thirty seconds, according to my parents, but to me it seemed to last forever.
I thought for sure I was going to die, until the energy finally died down, and I felt a strange feeling I could not describe. It wasn't just the feeling of being alive, although I could not believe how I actually could still be alive after that terrifying ordeal. Eventually, I described the feeling as being "renewed," because that was what physically happened. That strange phenomenon was what my parents described as "regenerating," meaning that my previous sick body had been recreated into a healthier new one, but one that still belonged to me. I no longer felt the effects of the aspirin, but I felt physically different somehow.
Despite my parents freaking out over the fact that their daughter had physically changed bodies—which was impossible for a regular human to do—right in front of them, I ignored them and immediately ran to my mirror on the opposite side of my bedroom to see what physical changes were made during my regeneration. I discovered that my body looked like one of a six-year-old, but otherwise looked—surprisingly—the same, just slightly older, and taller. I also noticed that all my adult teeth had grown in, and that my eyes looked a lot greener than they were before. I was born with green eyes and had always wondered why I came out with that eye color when neither of my parents had green eyes. Throughout my life, I often received comments about my unusual eyes and how they seemed much older than they should've been, which was a trait I shared with my biological father, which was, again, something I wouldn't know for a while.
Even though it was not a change I could physically see, there was an even stranger thing that was different from my previous body: I now had two hearts. Right after the glow faded from my new body, I immediately felt a queasy feeling in my chest. My heart was beating in a very irregular way, almost as if I somehow had more than one heart, which was exactly the case. Somehow during my regeneration, my body had grown in a second heart, and it was now something that was permanently a part of me, because it was something I was going to need to survive. What I had yet to find out was that this was the moment when I officially became a Time Lord…well, physically, anyway.
Because the second heart felt so strange to me, I begged my parents to take me to the hospital to have the extra heart removed, as I felt like it was some kind of virus, or contamination, or something that wasn't supposed to be there and could end up making me sicker than the aspirin—or worse, end up killing me—if not removed soon. My parents' response was quite the surprise to my (new) ears, as they said it was perfectly normal for me to grow in a second heart toward the end of my first regeneration, and that if they had the extra heart removed from my chest, it could kill me, even though I thought the exact opposite—that possessing the second heart would kill me over not possessing it. Apparently I needed this extra heart to stay alive, although I had no idea how, since humans needed only one heart to survive. It was like I turned into some kind of superhuman, and somehow possessing only one heart was no longer enough for me to stay alive, so now I needed two. After a few days, I got used to having the second heart, and it eventually felt like I had always possessed the extra heart since birth.
Another fact I would learn about regeneration was that, apparently, it can have strange after-effects on people, such as hallucinations; although, what I saw I believed was not a hallucination. I remembered seeing a figure I had not noticed before standing in the opposite corner of my bedroom while the regeneration was still taking place. The figure was a tall woman with massive curly hair and wore dark clothing. She was just standing there, still as a statue, and appeared ghostlike. The woman appeared right before the glow appeared from my body. She stood there the entire time, silently watching my life force burst out of me, although she seemed to have a sympathetic look on her face, like a mother would for her sick child. I tried pointing the woman out to my parents, but I was in so much pain from the energy that I could not get a word out. Once the energy stopped, and my mother rushed to me to check on me, the woman stood there for a few extra seconds before she lifted her wrist and started interacting with a leather strap that was fastened there. I managed to lift a finger to point to where the woman was standing, and my parents glanced to where I was pointing, but they both shook their heads and said there was nobody there, even when I could physically see there was someone standing there. A second later, the woman vanished from the spot, leaving no trace of ever being in the room.
Shortly after my parents and I had calmed down from the terrifying regeneration, and after I was finally able to speak, I mentioned there being a woman standing in the corner of the room where I was pointing and described what she looked like, but my parents convinced me there was nobody else in the room and that I must have been hallucinating after the effects of the regeneration. Even though I was fairly certain I was not hallucinating, they still did not believe me and instead told me to get some rest. Needless to say, I did not get a minute of sleep for the rest of the night. How could I after I had literally changed bodies and now had two hearts beating irregularly in my chest? I honestly did not feel human anymore after that moment, which was true, because this was how my odd life started, and little did I know it was only going to become stranger down the road.
The next day, my parents and I had hardly spoken about the events of the previous night. My guess was that they were still in shock from the results, which I could not blame them for, because I honestly felt the same way. Because I was physically a different person, they may not have seen me as the same daughter they raised; they may have seen me as a complete stranger that had replaced their daughter with someone else that wasn't their daughter. This was not true, obviously, because I still possessed the same memories as their daughter; therefore, I was still their daughter, but maybe not physically anymore. I proved it to them by telling them to ask me something only their daughter would know, and I answered it correctly. This continued for another few questions until they were finally convinced that I was the same person they raised and loved as their own.
Eventually, we were brave enough to discuss the regeneration. The conversation was something like this:
"What happened to me last night?" I asked, still feeling concerned about my health after what had happened. Was it going to happen again at some point? And if so, when? "Why do I look so different?"
After I had asked this question, I was not sure if it was the right time to ask, since both my parents glanced at each other uncertainly, like they were afraid I would ask for answers eventually, and they hoped I would forget after a while. Obviously, I did not forget; otherwise, I would not have asked.
My mother decided to answer. "When we gave you the aspirin, you apparently got a severe allergic reaction to it," she explained. "The golden glow was your body's way of reacting to the aspirin, but instead of making you better, it decided to change your physical appearance entirely."
"Well…sort of," my father added. "You actually don't look that much different; just physically older…and more beautiful." I had to raise an eyebrow at his words, because I honestly did not consider my new appearance as beautiful. If anything, I felt like an outcast—an alien, if you will.
"We knew you were allergic to aspirin, but we forgot about it and gave it to you anyway," Mom confessed with tears in her eyes. "The aspirin killed your younger body, so it forced you to regenerate into a new body."
At an older age, I would have viewed these words as saying that she did not see me as her daughter anymore, which probably would have hurt more than the actual regeneration, but me being a four-year-old kid not knowing how to react to her words, I asked instead, "Regenerate? What does that mean?"
"Regeneration is what allows you to heal and regrow new limbs; or, in your case, your entire body," Mom explained. "Lizards can do this. You ever see someone on TV chop off a lizard's tail and watch the lizard regrow a new tail? That is what regeneration is. Starfish do it too."
I then thought, if lizards and starfish are able to regenerate, surely humans could do it too. I mean, I did it. So I asked, "What about humans?"
After I asked my question, I saw my parents glance at each other anxiously, like they were hoping I would never ask this question and were seemingly disappointed that I had. It was like they knew something that I didn't, and they were not ready to share the information with me; but since I had asked, they seemed to feel as if they were now obligated to tell me the truth, or at least something that was close to the truth.
Mom decided to answer for Dad. "Humans can't completely generate new bodies for themselves, but they can heal themselves," she said. "That's how your skin repairs itself after you scrape a knee. The human skeleton completely regenerates every seven years, but it doesn't emit a golden glow like yours can. That's what makes you so unique in the world."
Feeling like this did not answer my question fully, I asked, "But how can my body glow if no one else can glow like me? I've never seen anyone glow on TV, except for superheroes. Superman's eyes can glow and shoot lasers. Could I be like him?" Because of my abilities, I was hoping they would be something of a benefit rather than a burden. Maybe if people found out about my abilities, they might see them as superpowers and would think of me as a superhero instead of a foreigner.
My parents laughed. "Quite possibly. But Superman is a fictional character; he's not real."
"But he's an alien," I pointed out. "He's from Krypton." So what if he were fictional? Superman and I had something in common, possibly more.
My mother nodded. "Yes, that's true; but he doesn't exist in the real world." She then continued, "As for why your body can glow if no one else's can, and that you somehow grew in a second heart, those are hard questions to answer. We don't really know why you have this ability; we just know this is an unusual ability you have."
One thing I did not know at the time this was said was that this was actually a lie. They knew exactly why I could regenerate and nobody else could, but they decided to keep this secret from me, and not just because I was too young. They seemed to also know that much like Superman, I was an alien too, but most likely one that was not from Krypton.
"Like a superpower?" I asked excitedly. At the time, my young mind—or rather, my new young mind—was thinking, how cool would it be to have superpowers to show off to the world? I would be the most popular girl in the world.
Mom laughed again. "Yes, I guess you could call it that."
Hearing these words was music to my ears. In my young mind, my parents were saying I had permission to show off my powers to the world. I was so happy, I could feel my grin touching my ears, but when I noticed my parents' serious looks on their faces, my grin immediately slipped off my face, suddenly realizing that this was not, in fact, the case.
"You are very special, Sydney," Dad said, "and very rare. Our neighbors say you seem a lot smarter than the average boy and girl of your age, which is amazing. You have abilities that no one would begin to imagine, but it can cause a lot of questions to come up—questions we don't really know how to answer."
"And because of this," Mom added just as seriously, "we want you to never speak of these abilities, or even about what happened last night, to anyone, Sydney. This is very important. You can never tell anyone."
I frowned. "Why not?"
Shaking his head, my father said, "We can't say, not yet. We just need you to promise us that you will never tell anyone outside the house about your superpowers. Don't tell anyone, not even your best friends. Promise us, Sydney. Please."
I could not believe them. Why were they doing this? This was going to be like a dream come true, and now they were seemingly taking that away from me. At the time, I did not know what it was I did wrong to deserve this, but the truth was that I did nothing wrong, and that was the worst thing about the situation.
Since I did not have a valid argument or logical way to explain the emotions going through my head, I reluctantly did the only thing I could. I agreed, sighing, "Okay, I promise. But why can't you say anything yet about why I can't tell anyone?"
"Because you're not yet old enough," Mom answered, although I was not sure if this was an honest answer. "You'll understand someday, just not today. Just keep our promise, and you won't have to worry about a thing."
Even though I agreed to keep the secret, I still believed my parents were hiding other secrets of my abilities' origins. I decided that if they were not going to share their secrets with me, then I was going to find them out for myself. I was never a patient person (and it was only going to become much worse as I got older), so I was going to take matters into my own hands, and I was not going to let anyone stop me from getting the answers I wanted.
A/N: TO BE CONTINUED!