The fire crackled.

The smell of burning wood and the sounds of woodland creatures surrounded them. The sky housed the stars and the moon, all of which graced anyone who saw it with a crystal clear view. It was as pleasant as it could get.

“Yeah, so like this dude was out of his mind. He almost blew up the city.” Jason recounted a few stories of their various superhero skirmishes over the summer. The siblings sat around the campfire. Jason roasted at least six marshmallows while Mack enjoyed a mug of what smelled like coffee. Corrine thought that was a good idea and fixed herself a cup. Sam and Dye started with roasting hotdogs instead of marshmallows but they planned on moving to those after the hotdogs were done.

“He kept on saying that he was looking for the gold armored dude,” Jason looked at Dye.

“Who? Me?” Dye spoke up.

“Yeah, dude! You’re the only gold armored dude around here. What did you do to piss this guy off?’

Dye laughed. “Dude I don’t know. I busted a ton of low lifes last year.”

“But this guy had alien tech.”

“I have no idea.” Dye took his hotdog and saw that it was fully roasted. He took a bite of it, forgetting it was still hot and did his best to not spit out the delectable meat; sucking in air to cool it off.

“Not sure where that guy came from, but he did do some pretty intense damage to the city.” Sam spoke, blowing on his hotdog.

“Good thing you guys stopped him.” said Corrine, she sipped her coffee. That must’ve been the only thing she said in the time they sat around the fire, but she wasn’t quiet because she was conflicted or uncomfortable. It was the opposite actually.

She was enjoying herself.

She couldn’t remember the last time she simply felt enjoyment for something.

This was nice. She looked up into the sky and saw the stars and moon.

She wanted to speak, but didn’t have a clear idea on how to start. So she said whatever came to mind.

“I wandered woods like these after the accident. I don’t remember how long it was.”

“Dude, how did you survive?” Jason asked, pulling out the chocolate and graham crackers to make a double stacked smore.

“Oh, Stella took care of me.” Corrine said nonchalantly.

“Who’s Stella?” asked Dye.

“She was my wolf.”

Jason turned towards her immediately. “Wait, you had a pet wolf?”

“Yeah. But I think I was more her pet than she was mine.”

“That’s wild!” Jason said jaw dropped.

“Well, Stella is also the source of my power. She’s the reason why I can wear that armor.”

Sam absorbed what she said and began his calculating eye thing. “Wait, Stella is your Ka?”

“Ka? What’s a Ka?” she asked, never hearing the term before. Just from that, the brother’s realized she didn’t actually know what a Xenton was nor did she know about the Ancient Times that Arayan told them about. Arayan must’ve not told her anything while they were away training.

“Well well Sis, you’re in for quite the story.” Jason bit into his smore.

Each of them took turns telling her everything that Arayan told them when they first met him. The Xenton Order and how one becomes a Xenton to the K’esiah and the two most powerful Xenton, King Owena and Queen Deia. Sam felt it was important to explain how Griflore played into the destruction of the Ancient Times. He realized it would probably bring back bad memories for Corrine so he did so cautiously.

“So, Stella turned into a Ka and turned me into a Xenton?” Corrine questioned curiously. “But why us? If what you said is true then why were new Xenton created?”

“Dunno, Arayan thought because they sensed Griflore.” Dye bit another piece of his hotdog.

“But he’s gone, so will they just up and leave?” Corrine asked.

Sam was about to answer until he realized how good of a question it was. “Arayan never mentioned if a Ka could come and go as they pleased.” he said as his face showed him thinking it all through in his head.

“So my Ka is a wolf. What are yours and when did you get your powers?” Corrine took another swig of her coffee.

“Well, I’m a fox,” answered Dye.

“I’m an eagle,” Sam added.

“I’m a big blue megalodon shark with huge chompers.” Jason playfully said. Corrine eyed him with a fun-loving look of disbelief. “Or just a normal great white, I guess.” He squished his smore together. “Though a megalodon would be super dope. Wonder what kind of armor comes with that?”

“And I got the big black bear!” said Mack. “At least I think it was black when it was alive. Could’ve been a grizzly.” Corrine made an interesting look. “And we became Xenton last year taking this same exact camping trip.”

“Really?” she said with surprise.

“Yep!” said Jason. “We started taking this trip when we were kids. Mom and Dad used to take us, but Mom never really enjoyed it so after a while it was just Dad and us.”

“Remember that one time we came home and saw like four empty bottles of wine?” Mack recalled.

Jason laughed. “Yeah dude, she had a hell of a weekend that year! She was hungover for a week.” Sam and Dye laughed and it was so contagious that Corrine chuckled a little bit at the idea of a hungover Mom. She couldn’t imagine her mother being in such a state considering she was always well put together, but it was fun to think about because it was so outlandish.

The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

“This is the second year we have done this trip on our own,” said Sam. “And now we have you which makes this all the more better.”

Corrine smiled. She sipped her coffee again as it was getting cold.

She wanted to say something else, but was it a good idea? She didn’t want to kill the mood. Nonetheless, she felt her feelings pushing her forward to speak her mind.

“Listen,” she began, “I’m not used to this and I’m sorry if I've been standoffish. All of this is coming at me a thousand miles an hour and I don’t know how to process it.”

All of them wanted to speak to reassure her that it wasn’t a big deal, but something told her she knew how they felt. “So, um — thanks, I guess, for sticking with me as I adjust to all this.” she smiled.

Mack raised his mug. “Welcome home, Sis,” he said with a smile.

Jason held up his half eaten smore; gooey chocolate all over his hands and mouth. “HERE! HERE!”

“HERE! HERE!” said Sam and Dye holding up their nearly gone hot dogs.

For the first time since being reunited, Corrine felt as though she belonged. As though she was wanted. It wasn’t an absolute thing though. There was still some doubt meeting up with the unease in the pit of her stomach, but this was a start.

“Okay, I’m gonna say it, how did you run into Griflore?” asked Jason, his bluntness making his brother’s react. Their responses ranged from, “Dude seriously?” coming from Dye to a “Come on, why would you ask that?” coming from Mack. Sam’s response was the most clear with a “You moron!”

They all reacted at the same time. Jason wasn’t phased by their choice of words.

“What? Come on, we're all thinking about it. I just had the guts to ask the question.”

No one protested his words because as dense as Jason was at times, he was right. They all wondered how Corrine got mixed up with Griflore. She was gone, presumed dead, for sixteen years. What were the odds she would show up again, in the same city as her family, harboring an evil Ka that happened to have a Xentonian form, around the time the Xenton first appeared.

She paused and the brothers waited.

“Corrine, you don’t have to if you don’t want to,” said Mack.

“No it’s — fine,” her unease coming back ever so slightly. It was painful to relive the memories, but all things considered, she felt as though her brothers deserved to know how that encounter happened. Afterall, they’d fought the villain and were responsible for its demise.

“When I turned seventeen I decided to run away. I lived on the streets in so many cities just taking and stealing what I could to survive,” the boys listened. “I don’t know how I got there, but I found myself back in Beach Shores, though I didn’t know it at the time.” Mack listened intently. Sipping on his coffee. “So there I was, in some alley just…ready to give up. I looked up and I saw you.” she looked at Dye.

“Me?” she said.

“Yeah, you were on Sam’s back and he was carrying some guy.”

Sam’s eyebrows rose. “That was TJ. That’s the day he tried to shoot you.”

“Wait! What?” Mack said with an inflection in his voice suggesting surprise. “TJ tried to kill you?”

“Oh don’t act so shocked. It’s not like I haven’t died before.” Dye said carelessly. “Besides, I still had my Ka. I’m sure I would’ve healed.”

“Did you know about this?” Mack turned to Jason. “Or did you conveniently keep this from me too!”

“Dude, this is news to me,” Jason said, not really concerned as he was focused on devouring his smore.

“Clearly.”

Corrine looked at Dye. “Hold on, you died?”

“Uh — yeah,” Dye said with a touch of dismay. “Griflore killed me.”

Corrine was horrified. She had no idea.

“You don’t remember?” Sam asked.

“Honestly, I don’t remember much of him ever possessing me. It was painful whenever he took over but when he did it was like falling asleep which made me think that what happened to me was a dream. I wasn’t aware of his presence at all until he left. I thought what happened that night was all in my head and I was going crazy anyway.”

“What happened that night?” Mack wanted her to continue with her story.

“Well, after seeing you guys in the sky I just wanted to die. Then I heard this voice and this purple misty stuff started to appear. It asked if I wanted to create a hell on Earth and I said yes.”

There was a heavy quietness. The brothers were, in a way, shocked. Was this right?

“I can assure you she enjoyed it. That’s how she let me in. She wanted this.” Dye recalled the words spoken by Griflore that day in the graveyard. Through it all, Griflore claimed that he didn’t lie. At the time, Dye believed him to just be manipulating the situation in order to get what he wanted, but now, even though he was something evil, what he said was true.

About Corrine.

About Owena.

About everything.

“You willingly let him in?” asked Sam.

Corrine’s unease grew into guilt. She nodded her head sadly. “I was in a dark place. I was angry, bitter and if I was forced to suffer all of my life, I didn’t feel as though it was fair that other people weren’t.”

“That’s…pretty dark,” said Jason.

“Dude!” Sam, Dye and Mack said to him.

“Again, just saying what we’re all thinking here.”

“I guess that’s why I haven’t been comfortable around you guys like I should be. I was the cause of everything and even now I don’t know what he used my body to do. I just found out that I killed you,” she looked at Dye. “I can’t even begin to think how many other people he killed using my body.” she clenched her cup. Her eyes began to water. “I’m sorry,” she dropped her head, starting to sob. “I’m so sorry!”

All the brothers exchanged looks as the sound of her weeping took to the air. It was uncomfortable because none of them knew how to console her, that is until Mack took the initiative.

He got up from his seat, his brothers watching him carefully. He approached Corrine and placed his hand on her shoulder. She picked up her head and saw her brother's face. He was smiling at her and through it all she couldn’t understand why.

She sniffed and wiped her face.

“What happened before doesn’t matter anymore. What matters now is that you’re here and you’re alive and you’re home.” he said.

“How can you say that?” she said. “After everything I did.”

“Because we all have times we come up short,” said Jason, finally finished with his smore and licking the chocolate off his fingers. “It’s the human experience.”

“Jason is a moron sometimes but he’s right. Besides, had it not been for Griflore we wouldn’t have found you.” said Sam.

Dye smiled. He looked at Corrine. “I just spent three months with you. You’re not a bad person. Just a product of unfortunate events. Hopefully now, we can move past all that and be a family again.”

Corrine was in disbelief. The level of unconditional love from her brothers was overwhelming.

“Again, you’re home,” said Mack, smiling. She reached for him and hugged him tightly; getting to her feet to do so.

“Thank you,” she said in a mix between a snivel and a whisper. Mack held her for as long as she needed. There were no words to say. No feelings to convey. She knew where she stood in this family and it was good. She still had her issues to work through, but slowly. The main part of her unease was her guilt and now that everyone understood what she had done, she felt somewhat relieved. It would take a bit more time to fully forgive herself, but her brothers forgave her and that was enough for now.

“Alright, enough of this mushiness,” said Jason. He stabbed five more marshmallows onto his stick and began roasting them. “Who wants my famous triple-stacked-double-stuffed-smore?”

“How can it be famous when no one else has tried it?” asked Sam.

“I have one non-believer. Is there another?” Jason announced.

Corrine pulled away from Mack. “I’ll take one,” she said.

“That’s the spirit!” Jason replied. “Coming right up!”