“It’s me, Jack.”

Jack felt a pang of pain in his heart at the sight of his dad staring at him in confusion. He’d seen the look before, what child hadn’t seen it on their parents' faces before. But they had never directed it at him.

“What?!” Jill’s voice called out to their dad. “You don’t recognise your own son old man?”

Gerald’s head snapped sharply towards Jill. “My what?”

Their mother turned to Gerald with a furious expression at her daughter’s words. “YOUR WHAT?”

“Wait- Jacqueline, honey. Let’s not misunderstand things here.” Gerald didn’t have to have a sixth sense to see that his wife was about the blow her lid at the sudden revelation. “He-he looks exactly like Jill.”

“Um.” Jack lifted his hand awkwardly as he sensed the beginnings of a family shitstorm. “You're both my parents?”

He phrased it as a question because he wasn’t sure what was going on. These two were definitely his parents. He was certain about that. But something was different. They weren’t looking at him the way they used to. It was as if they were staring at a stranger.

It was starting to hurt his feelings.

Jill crossed her arms and stared at them furiously. “Yeah. He’s my brother. Why are we even arguing about this?”

Jack couldn’t help but laugh. When Jill was a full-grown woman, that stare would have looked terrifying, but as a child she was as intimidating as an angry goldfish. He wished the group at the complex could see her now. She’d always complained about how they never knew she existed and here she was, stuck in a child’s body.

Jack's reaction seemed to shake something in their parents as well. He could see the tension leaving their bodies as they heard his laughter. There was just something primal about a child's joy that made them stop and think.

Jacqueline shook her head to knock away the oncoming headache. He wasn’t a child that had wandered in from a neighbouring house. He and Jill were just too similar for that to be possible. Not to mention Jill had just gone missing from the bed she’d been in and turned up in their house. Jacqueline had no idea what else Jill could do.

“This has been a strange day. We…” Jacqueline paused as she tried to figure out what was happening. “We need to call Dr. Martin. Right now.”

Jack and Jill looked at each other in confusion.

“Dr. Martin?”

‘Who the heck is that?’

****

“You make sure not to bother your mother too much.” Gerald lifted Jill and Jack and placed them in the car seats. Jack smiled as he went along for the ride. It wasn’t every day that someone wanted to help you with moving. The nurses at the complex had tried their hardest just to avoid working with the patients.

‘He got used to me quickly.’ Jack hadn’t realised his dad was going to be so quick to adapt to the strange situation.

“You’re not coming with us?” Jill shot their dad a puppy-eyed look.

She wanted to spend as much time with her parents as she could, this was the first time they’d been able to talk to her since Jack was born.

Gerald shot their mother a covert look and she nodded to him.

“No, no.” Gerald shook his head and smiled. “I’ve got some things to do. So you two have fun now.”

‘You two aren’t very subtle.’ Jack mused as he saw them exchange glances.

Clearly, they would do a little more than just send them to get a check-up. They couldn’t even remember Jack, but they thought this ‘doctor’ could help them figure out the problem.

‘He must be a great doctor.’ Jack wondered how his mum would explain having an extra child.

“Oh don’t worry.” Jacqueline smiled as they put on their seatbelts. “Dr. Martin is an amazing man, and I’d wager he’s seen quite a few strange things in his life considering he’s part of a big clinic. He’ll probably have all the answers we need.”

“A real doctor?” “A normal doctor?”

Jack and Jill asked at the same time.

Jacqueline smiled. “He’s a real doctor. And as normal as a person can be in his field. Why wouldn’t he be?”

She smirked at the kid’s expressions of surprise. It was nice to know that even if events were going straight into unknown territory, some things stayed the same. Kids would still be kids, and they wouldn’t know too much about the world. She checked one last time that they'd strapped the kids in properly and turned the car on, pulling out of the driveway and making her way onto the roads.

Jack and Jill shot each other a look of exasperation. Their mother had misunderstood the reason for their questions. Her words surprised them because their mother didn’t use ordinary doctors to conduct their tests. Whenever Jack had gotten sick, she had always sent them to the local chapter of the GodSworn to get them checked out by their 'specially trained' doctor. She had always been religious by nature and hadn't trusted the ‘ordinary’ doctors as she’d called them.

“This is weird.” Jack mouthed to Jill and tapped his head. “I can’t hear you.”

He’d grown so used to Jill just speaking into his mind for years that suddenly being devoid of her constant chatter was almost lonely. When she thought that nobody could hear her she wouldn’t shut up, and now that people could hear her she was a lot more reserved.

He couldn’t help but smile at that. She’d still been an incredible chatterbox when she’d been in the house alone with him, it was just the nerves of talking to new people that had caused her to quieten down.

Even if those people were her parents.

Jill took a second to get his point. “Of course you can’t. I’m not in your head.”

It was such an obvious answer, but it caused them both to fall silent. They couldn’t help but wonder what had happened to them that night at the GodSworn complex. Tink had suddenly seen Jill despite never having been able to before, and suddenly Jill was a physical person who everyone could see and interact with. It was such a sudden change after they had told him for years that she didn’t exist.

‘Was it even real?’ Jack rested his head against the edge of the seatbelt. ‘Or did I just imagine it all?’

Could he have made up an entire lifetime?

“That’s too complicated to think about,” Jill said from the side. He looked at her in shock and she stuck her tongue out at him. “No, I can’t read your mind. I’m just amazing.”

‘Oh right.’ Jack and Jill had spent forty-seven years living together every second of the day.

She could read him like a book.

“Okay kids,” Jacqueline called out to them as they drove into the parking lot of a building.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

They’d already reached the clinic.

“That’s it?” Jack couldn’t believe it.

Why had they bothered driving an hour away all those years visiting the GodSworn doctor if their local practitioner was so close by? He’d suffered too many times to count on those long journeys to visit his mother’s old doctor.

‘Thank god mum isn’t with those religious nuts now.’ Jack sighed in relief.

If he never heard from the GodSworn again it would still be too soon.

"Jacqueline!"

A genial looking, white-haired man sprinted out of the clinic entrance, running towards them as quickly as his elderly legs could take him. Jack stared at the man cautiously. He’d definitely never seen him before. But then again he had never been to this clinic before.

"Dr. Martin." Jacqueline helped the kids out of the car as the man reached them. "Sorry to worry you so much."

“No, no. It's wonderful you could make it back so quickly.” Dr. Martin welcomed them with open arms as he rushed out to meet them. “I’m glad Jill is safe. We were quite worried when she suddenly disappeared from the restroom.”

He rushed over to Jill and checked her up and down, trying to spot any irregularities. “Well, you look perfectly healthy to me. Let’s conduct a few tests shall we?” He made sure not to push Jill too far, afraid that his enthusiasm and the sudden change of events would frighten the little girl.

“Tests?” Jill looked at him warily. “What’s wrong with me?”

The doctor chuckled as they walked through the clinic and towards a room marked with the doctor’s name. “Don’t worry Jill, there’s nothing wrong with you. We just need to run some basic tests to see that the collapse won’t happen again. As for your sudden… disappearance.” He paused. “Do you know what an ascended is?”

‘An ascended?’ Jack and Jill stared with wide eyes at their mother and the doctor.

They had no idea what that was.

“An ascended?” Jacqueline was surprised, but for a different reason. “I thought it could be that but… are you sure?”

‘Huh?’ Jack looked at his mother in surprise.

She had a theory why Jill had teleported into her kitchen?

‘But that’s insane.’

This should have been a newsworthy event. A child disappearing out of nowhere, and another appearing into existence out of thin air. He couldn't believe his mother actually had an explanation for it.

“Quite sure.” Dr. Martin nodded his head vigorously and opened the door for all of them to enter the room, shifting his attention to Jack. “Who’s this? You had a son as well?”

“Dr. Martin, we’ve been visiting you for years. Don’t you think you’d know if I had another child the same age as Jill? He popped up at the same time that Jill disappeared. We found them both inside our house when we got there.”

The doctor’s expression turned pensive as he studied Jack intensely. “He has your nose. Gerald’s hair. And even his skin tone. I’d say he’s a perfect match for the two of you.”

“Because I’m their son.” Jack stifled the anger that was bubbling up at his mother’s words. It hurt to hear her claim that he wasn’t her child. It looked like only their dad had accepted it so far. “It’s just that nobody remembers me.”

“Oh?” Dr. Martin gestured to Jack and Jill to sit on the bed that was resting on the corner of the room. One of those beds that looked like a washing board with a blue sheet placed over it. “How curious. I thought I had a great memory. Tell me...”

“Jack.”

“Tell me, Jack.” The doctor grabbed a stethoscope from his desk and put it on, moving the end towards Jill to check her heart rate. “Do you mind if I conduct a couple of tests on you today?”

“I don’t,” Jack confirmed for the doctor’s sake. “Do whatever you need to do.”

He wanted to get to the bottom of this more than anyone.

“All right, well.” The doctor moved the stethoscope to Jack’s chest. “Breath deeply for me, please.”

Jack breathed in and the doctor’s expression didn’t change. “All normal there. Which is good. Young boys should be healthy. How about a blood test? Are you fine with needles?”

‘Moving awfully fast here.’ Jack couldn’t blame the man. ‘And he’s taking all this really calmly.

Jack couldn’t help but think that both his parents and this doctor were being far too nonchalant about the whole situation. They weren’t acting like it was normal for a kid to pop into existence, but they didn’t seem to be panicking about it either.

He could see a tinge of excitement forming in the doctor’s eyes since the moment Jacqueline had said that Jack appeared out of nowhere. It was probably the doctor’s first time encountering anything like it. There was definitely something abnormal happening here and Jack could tell that it only excited the man.

The doctor reminded him of Gregorian and the old patient’s search for knowledge. The two had the same glint in their eyes that meant that they’d found something new and exciting to research.

It was oddly reassuring.

Jack nodded and the doctor immediately brought them to another room, being extra careful around Jack and Jill and allowing their mother to follow them in. He left for a few minutes and when he came back, he was holding two needles and some cotton swabs.

Dr. Martin gazed at Jack kindly as he dabbed something onto Jack’s outstretched arm with a cotton ball. “Now, this won't hurt at all. But let me know if it does and we can stop. I’ll even give you a lollipop after.”

‘He’s treating me like a kid.’ Jack smiled and nodded his head. ‘The lollipop doesn’t sound that bad, actually.’

Jack watched the needle approach his arm and squinted. He’d never had a phobia of needles, but he wasn’t fond of them either. Then he heard a sharp snap and the sound of metal clinking on the floor. He looked down to see a small stick of metal rolling on the floor and raised his head to see the doctor’s face lighting up.

The needle had snapped in two the moment it came into contact with his arm.

“Well now.” The doctor stared at the broken needle. “Isn’t that curious?”

****

Gerald paced from side to side as he took in the information he had found online. Jacqueline had wanted him to stay behind so that he could research what was happening to Jill. Fortunately, the answer was obvious; She had gained some sort of power. He’d always known that there were super-powered beings in the world, extraordinary and different from the moment they were born.

The ascended.

That was what the world called them. But he had never cared about them because as far as he was concerned they weren’t a part of his life.

He had heard tales. A friend of a friend whose cousin had suddenly sprouted wings and decided to fight crime. Or rumors of a child suddenly discovering she could make water out of thin air. But that was for the big cities, not the outer suburbs his family lived in.

Now his daughter had gotten into an accident, and a strange boy had appeared claiming to be his son. Not to mention one of the kitchen tiles had broken during the day. It was a very confusing situation for him, and the Internet didn’t have much concrete information about the ascended on it.

He also couldn’t help but feel like that child was telling the truth.

If Gerald wasn’t one hundred percent certain that he’d only had one kid then he would have sworn that Jack was his. He looked too much like Gerald and Jill to not be and even had his mother’s nose. But that was impossible.

They’d only ever had Jill.

The sound of a person knocking on the front door interrupted his thoughts. Gerald sighed and shuffled over to it. Anyone would be a welcome distraction from this growing headache of a situation. It was probably a neighbour asking about how Jill was. They hadn’t been very subtle when driving her to the clinic after she collapsed onto the floor.

Gerald opened the door. “Hello- Who are you?”

It was a large man that he’d never seen before, sporting a fabulous mustache.

“Good evening.” The man looked at him expectantly and Gerald hesitated.

The man didn’t look threatening.

Gerald kept the door open enough to monitor the man but also at a length where he could slam it shut if he needed to. “Hi. Can I help you?”

“I’m actually looking for a friend. Are-are you-” The man tilted his head in confusion. “No, I’m sorry. I was looking for Jack Fisher. It’s rather urgent.”

‘Jack? The kid?’ Gerald’s expression turned cautious.

He could feel an urge rising inside him to protect Jack. What would a man like this have to do with a little kid?

“He’s around your age, big and lanky, kind of hunched back and he looks similar to…” The man’s words quietened down as he saw Gerald’s expression clear up. “You have no idea who I’m talking about, do you?”

“I do not.” Gerald let out a breath of relief. This man wasn’t looking for the kid at least. Even if they had the same name, Jack was a fairly common one around these parts. “I’m Gerald Fisher. Yeah, you must have gotten the wrong house. Did you find this place through the phonebook?”

“No, he-” The man hesitated again, confused at the sudden turn of events. “He told me this was his address. But it was a long time ago now, and things have changed a lot.”

“I see.” Gerald shrugged and began to close the door. “I’m sorry I couldn’t help you today, but I’m rather busy at the moment so you’ll have to excuse me.”

“No problem.” The man’s expression turned sorrowful but then he blinked and clapped his hands together. “I’m sure I’ll find him eventually-” His body froze and Gerald saw his expression shift. “Tch- They’ve found me.”

The man’s head shot up and his sorrow turned into anger, and something else. Fear. Gerald followed his gaze with surprise, only to see that he was staring into an empty space.

The man turned back to him with a tense smile. “Head back inside and stay there.”

The man waved his hand and suddenly a puff of smoke erupted from his clothes. There wasn't enough to obscure Gerald’s vision, but it was surprising enough to make him blink. When he opened his eyes, he was staring at an empty doorway.

“What?”

Gerald couldn’t believe his eyes.

The man had disappeared into thin air.