Chapter 7

Chapter Seven

A my stood in the doorway, staring at one of the smaller rooms off the main silo area. The entire area had been transformed into a makeshift living space for those who remained.

The memories of sneaking into the silo with friends, tagging the walls with spray paint during their rebellious streaks, felt like a lifetime ago. The rawness of her old self, bold and carefree, contrasted so sharply with the quiet desolation she now felt. The soft blue color that the walls had been painted, covering all the old names and art that had once littered the walls, seemed out of place. She was sure that they offered some a sense of comfort, a layer of warmth amidst the bleakness of everything that had happened. All that she had been absent for.

She heard footsteps approaching and turned to see Joe walking in, his face worn and etched with lines she didn't remember on him before. He wasn't the same carefree brother she'd left behind. There was a heaviness in his eyes, one she couldn't place. Behind him, three children shyly shuffled into the room—two identical girls and a boy.

Her heart melted at seeing the mixture of her brother and their mother in their faces.

"This is Luna, Stella, and Orion." His voice was softer than she'd expected, his gaze flicking from her to his three kids. "Kids, this is your aunt Amy."

Luna and Stella, identical with long dirty blonde hair and wide blue eyes, looked up at her with curiosity. They were the spitting image of their mother, Liz—now gone. The sight of them hit her like a punch to the gut. For a moment, Amy couldn't speak, her throat constricting with the memory of Liz, her warmth, her laughter, all lost to the chaos Joe had only begun to hint at.

Had it only been moments since she'd seen the very pregnant Liz standing in the moonlight next to Joe?

Orion stood slightly apart from his sisters, his expression serious, a mirror of Joe's face in his younger years. The boy had Joe's strong jawline, his piercing eyes, and a quiet intensity that unsettled Amy. Seeing the three of them, her brother's kids—Liz's kids—alive in this broken world made everything feel even more surreal.

"Hi," Amy managed, her voice cracking slightly as she crouched slightly to meet them at eye level. "It's so good to meet you."

Luna and Stella smiled shyly, while Orion simply nodded, still sizing her up.

"We've heard a lot about you," Luna said, stepping closer. "Dad told us stories."

Stella piped up, "He said you used to sneak into this room and draw on the walls."

Amy chuckled, glancing at the now pristine walls, a bittersweet smile on her face. "Yeah, I did. I used to get in a lot of trouble for it, too."

Joe's smile widened, though his eyes remained distant. "She was the troublemaker," he added lightly, though the momentary levity couldn't mask the weight of everything else in the room.

"Where have you been?" Orion asked, breaking into the happy silence.

"Son, we've talked about this. Brea sent her here, to her future," Joe said a little firmly.

Amy nodded and gave the boy all of her attention. "Believe it or not, I just left your parents less than an hour ago. Your mother was still this big." She held out her hand to show the kids how large Liz had been. "Carrying the three of you." She glanced at her brother. "Of course, none of us knew at the time that there were three of you."

Joe shrugged. "We wanted it to be a surprise."

For the next hour, Amy spent time with the kids. Luna and Stella stuck close together, talking animatedly about the games they played, the books they read, and how they helped around the underground compound. Orion, however, remained more reserved, his eyes flicking between his sisters and Amy, though he eventually warmed up to her, showing her the small, carved wooden animals he'd made.

The presence of the children, their innocence, was a reminder of the devastation that had torn their world apart. Amy laughed with them, momentarily forgetting the horrors Joe had hinted at, until finally, the questions she'd been avoiding weighed too heavily on her mind.

She looked at Joe, who had been sitting quietly, watching them. "Can we talk? I need to know what happened."

Joe's face tightened. He glanced at the kids, and with a simple request, he sent them out of the room. "Go see if Brea needs help with dinner," he said gently. Luna and Stella obeyed without question, though Orion remained for a moment, his gaze lingering on his father before he finally left, closing the door behind him.

The room fell into a tense silence. Amy leaned back, her pulse quickening as Joe stood up, rubbing his hand across the back of his neck, as if trying to figure out where to begin.

"It all started after the kids were born," he began, his voice raw with emotion. "About a month after their birth, October tenth, everything went to hell." His eyes darkened as he continued. "Moros—one of the primordial gods—led the attack. He wasn't alone. He gathered other gods, demi-gods, and forces we didn't even know existed. Including Thanatos. The two of them led an army. They came with fury, with destruction."

Amy swallowed hard, trying to process his words. Gods? Demi-gods? It sounded like something out of a nightmare, yet here they were, living it. She could see the pain etched in her brother's face as he spoke, his hands balling into fists at his sides.

"We fought back," Joe said, his jaw tightening. "All of us—me, Michael, Jess, Brea—we did everything we could to protect our world. It was decided that Xtina and Liz would bring all the kids here—Xtina and Michael's daughter, Harper; Brea and Ethan's son, Milo; Jacob and Jess's son Reed; and as many of the townspeople who would follow them while we fought them off. But then they shattered the moon. When it broke, the pieces rained down on the planet, causing earthquakes, tidal waves, and fires. The whole world went into chaos. Countries believed others had attacked and shot off nukes in retaliation. Half the population was killed by the other half. Only small pockets of people survived those first few weeks."

Amy's heart sank, her mind flashing to the empty streets, the hollow world she'd walked through on her way to find them. "That's why everything's so... quiet?"

Joe nodded, his eyes distant. "Everything changed after that. There are pockets of survivors, people who've banded together, but most are gone now, disbursed after years of starvation or fighting amongst themselves. More than half of the planet is dead. More than half." He rested his head in his hands.

Amy felt a wave of nausea rise in her throat, her hands shaking slightly as she gripped the edge of the small table. She thought of all the people that she used to know, the families, friends... gone. "And Liz?"

Joe's expression faltered for the first time, his eyes clouding over with grief. "Liz... she didn't make it through the first battle. She died protecting the kids when they came for them." Joe's gaze moved to the door. "If Xtina hadn't been there…" He shook his head. "She's the only reason all of the kids are alive."

The air in the room felt thick and oppressive. Amy's chest tightened as the tears welled up in her eyes, threatening to spill over. She bit her lip, trying to keep herself composed.

"But they survived," Joe continued, his voice barely above a whisper. "Luna, Stella, Orion... they're the last part of her. They survived."

Amy wiped at her eyes, nodding, though her heart ached. She had so many other questions, so much she wanted to understand, but the weight of Joe's story—of everything that had happened—was too much to process all at once. She could tell he was tired. Knew that just retelling how he'd lost everything weighed heavy on him.

"Why didn't you tell me you had powers sooner?" she whispered. "What your group of friends could do?"

Joe looked away, his jaw tight. "I wanted to, but the others felt that we couldn't risk it. Not until now. Not until..." He paused, his voice trailing off as if he were about to say something he wasn't ready to.

Amy stood up, crossing the room to stand beside her brother. "Until what?"

Joe exhaled deeply, meeting her eyes with a mixture of guilt and determination. "Until we knew what you were capable of."

"What I'm capable of?" She shook her head, not understanding his meaning.

"Brea has seen it all. She's gone further into the future, hundreds of years beyond this. She has traveled to different timelines where this didn't happen. Where they used different methods to destroy things or where they never attacked." He motioned to the room. "Each of those times, you're the first key to unlocking what lets us win, you and Dante. That's why…" He shook his head and closed his eyes. "I can't tell you anything more. I'm not…" He sighed and rolled his shoulders, a move she remembered her brother making so many times before. "Before the sun rises, you'll leave us again." His eyes locked with hers. "This time, you will go because of your powers."

She frowned.

"Did you ever wonder why I never left Hidden Creek?" he asked suddenly. The change of subject threw her off.

"N-no."

Her brother smiled slightly for the first time. Then to her utter shock, he flew across the room so fast that his body was nothing but a streak of colors. Before she had a chance to blink, he was back, sitting in the chair across from her with a soda can in his hand, sipping the drink.

She had believed she'd imagined him moving so fast that night she'd left. Imagined that everything she and Dante had witnessed had been faked somehow.

"Oh, my bad, did you want one too?" he said and—zip!—a soda can appeared on the table in front of her.

"Speed." He sighed. "My gift is speed. I spent years trying to escape Hidden Creek. I'd travel far away, but I always ended up back here. Because I was tied to this place. My fate has always been here. Each of us here has powers. Our survival depends on it."

She frowned as she reached out and touched the cold drink to make sure it was there.

"Xtina, well, you've heard all about hers for years. The rumors are very much true. Jess really is a witch. Remember seeing her fly? And, well, there's more to her than the light show." He smirked. "A damned good witch. Brea, well, she can teleport herself and others through time and worlds. You probably caught onto that one." He chuckled.

She nodded slightly, then opened the drink and took a long sip.

"Joleen can control time and space, sort of. Among other things. Tara and Selene are pretty much indestructible and can fly, remember?"

She nodded. "Mia is a djinn," she said in a distant voice as she remembered.

He nodded. "Yes, and Lucas is a shifter."

"The dog?" she asked.

"Cerberus."

"Seriously? The hellhound?" She balked.

He shrugged. "Ethan can heal others, Jacob can control anyone or anything that he locks eyes with, and I have speed."

Her head was spinning with all the details.

"What about Liz?" She had meant to ask if Liz believed all of this but was shocked when Joe replied.

"Liz was our oracle. She'd foreseen all of this ahead of time. She knew the exact moment…" He closed his eyes. "The exact moment she was going to die. She warned me. Tried to prepare me for what was to come. She is the reason you were sent here first instead of into the past along with Dante."

"Where is Dante?" she asked, feeling her heart dip in her chest.

Joe's gaze moved up to hers. "Greece. About three thousand years in the past."

She blinked a few times. "Why there?"

Joe chuckled, a dry sort of helpless sound. "It's where it all starts."

"Where what starts?"

Joe shifted slightly. "Your legend."

"My… what?"

"The story of Pandora… You." Joe took a sip of his drink.

Amy stared at her brother, her mind spinning as the words settled in. "Pandora? Me?"

Joe nodded, his face a mixture of pride and sorrow. "It wasn't just a story, Amy. It was a prophecy, one that stretches back through the centuries. Every world and every timeline has its version of Pandora. But here, in our time, it's you."

She blinked, the weight of everything beginning to press down on her chest. "I don't understand. The story of some goddess with a stupid box that holds…what? Hope or the world's destruction? What does that have to do with me?"

Joe leaned back, running a hand through his disheveled hair. "Pandora was more than just a woman who opened some mythical box. She was the key to unlocking worlds—both creation and destruction. The gods knew it. The box… the legend, it was never about unleashing evil into the world. It was about balance, about tipping the scales between life and death, hope and despair."

Amy's heart raced as she tried to process it all. "And Dante…"

"Dante's fate is tied to yours," Joe said, his voice heavy with responsibility. "He's your balance, your counterpart. He's Epimetheus. It's why Brea sent you on separate paths. You have to find him in Greece, and you will discover your full potential there. But first, you must start the process of awakening here."

She stood, the room suddenly feeling too small, too suffocating. "And these… powers I'm supposed to have. What are they?"

"Who knows? Soon, with Dante's help, you will discover them. You'll remember who you are. Liz saw it all. Besides, Mia has met you in another world." Amy remembered the flashes of memory Mia had shown her. "You told her there that she would help you remember who you are. Liz prepared me for this, even though I wasn't ready to accept it. None of us were. But you were born for this. We all were." Joe's eyes darkened. "Moros and the other gods—they knew what was coming. That's why they attacked, why they shattered the moon. They fear what you can become. They just didn't know that Brea had sent you away before it all began. They fear you. Fear what you can do."

Amy's knees felt weak, her pulse thundering in her ears. "Fear… me?"

Joe nodded, his expression grim. "Because… you're the only one who can undo everything they've put into motion. You're the only one who can save this world."

The enormity of her brother's words settled over her like a cold weight, pressing down on her shoulders until she could hardly breathe. She wasn't just Amy anymore. She wasn't just a girl thrown into a future that she didn't understand.

She was Pandora.