Heron Elion wasn’t exactly born blessed like her brother had been. But she did have his intellect.

That was for darn sure.

And she had payed the price for it. Both her and her son Leo had paid the price.

Only Leo had never known. She had never told him.

She paced the floor of the kitchen upon her return home from visiting Leo at the juvie facility.

Her thoughts raced.

How can they even create such a place?

It essentially is a prison. They just call it juvie to lessen the blow.

Would Leo even get out?

What if they discovered the truth about him somehow? Maybe they would lock him up forever.

Leo’s mother was named after the stargate Heron. The first known portal journey had occurred through the Heron stargate.

It had apparently blown someone’s mind, and then Stargate began being used as a trendy baby name.

In stargate Heron there was the quickness of the journey combined with the sheer terror of hurling through space. And the stars could be seen blurring into one another while evading time.

This was Heron’s legacy. It was her name. And she also would ride through the stargate someday.

But it would not necessarily be her first choice to do so.

Her mind was lightning quick, combined with being ready for action. This was where the meaning of her name came from.

And this was also why her son had become a threat.

The name Heron came from the bird itself. The heron does a beak dive, quick as lightning into water, after making a plan. It swiftly hones in on it’s prey. And it repeats this many times during it’s life, or it would not survive.

The Heron name also came from the word hero. A hero is always ready for action. Heron’s name seemed to suit her well. And she had no complaints. If she had, she would have probably laughed at herself. For she knew not to dwell on petty complaints like this.

She had been called Holly after she left, but her real name had always rang true within her true self.

A shroud of haze came over Holly’s eyes. The colors in the room lost their vibrancy. She felt nauseous. Her legs felt heavy from the pooling blood.

The time had come that she had been dreading.

Ryan would be no help with this. The fool that he was, she thought. No, never ask for real help from him.

Never.

And certainly not now.

She was on her own.

Holly had come from a long line of intellectuals that had peacefully ruled the planet of Rillarok. That is, until the new order came and established themselves in the capital city.

Time moved differently on Rillarok. And for a period it seemed that time stopped there. This was during the time of fear when they had to run for their lives.

The intellectuals could think anything into existence. At least, this is what the new order presumed.

Anyone that had showed signs of high intelligence was a threat because the new order reputed it went hand in hand with harnessing of thoughts. The new order was all about control. And their corrupt regime knew they could not control those that could harness a thought.

Holly’s brother had been reprimanded when he thought not one, but many things into existence. This is where the classification harnessing of thoughts had come from.

And this is what had caused the first wave of jealousy.

Holly’s brother had been questioned by the new order and should have known better than to give an honest answer to the regime that his father had warned him about. 

But, alas, he had. 

And he was sent to the new granite prison to do hard labor in the fruitless fields. Granite was a resource that was in high supply on Rillarok and it suddenly was being used with abandon.

But that was only the beginning of the trials that started with the Elion family.

Holly never felt she had understood the world of punishment. She knew her son had been suffering. She knew the reasons. And it had been torture for her to feel that she could not help him without telling him the reason.

But now the time was upon her. And she knew she had to tell Leo. Ryan was gone. She could just pace the house by herself.

Holly walked down the hallway that led from the kitchen. Her usual light and quick steps, were now out of sync. They were slow. She tried not to think. She understood the answers would not come by thinking.

There was a faint light beam that was more like a filament, and she began to sense it. It was copper in color.

She could see it out of the corner of her right eye. It had come in through the window as she was beginning to walk back into the kitchen.

And it hovered there above the counter by the sink.

She was glad Ryan was not there. He would not have been able to see the filament anyway. But she was just glad he was not there.

She reminded herself that she had never loved Ryan. And that she did not love him now.