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THE DOOR STARTS SHAKING. IT’S A FLIMSY THINGmade of bamboo shoots held together

with tattered lengths of twine. The shake is subtle and stops almost immediately. They lift their heads to

listen, a fourteen-year-old boy and a fifty-year-old man, who everyone thinks is his father but who was

born near a different jungle on a different planet hundreds of lightyears away. They are lying shirtless on

opposite sides of the hut, a mosquito net over each cot. They hear a distant crash, like the sound of an

animal breaking the branch of a tree, but in this case, it sounds like the entire tree has been broken.

“What was that?” the boy asks.

“Shh,” the man replies.

They hear the chirp of insects, nothing more. The man brings his legs over the side of the cot when the

shake starts again. A longer, firmer shake, and another crash, this time closer. The man gets to his feet

and walks slowly to the door. Silence. The man takes a deep breath as he inches his hand to the latch.

The boy sits up.

“No,” the man whispers, and in that instant the blade of a sword, long and gleaming, made of a shining

white metal that is not found on Earth, comes through the door and sinks deeply into the man’s chest. It

protrudes six inches out through his back, and is quickly pulled free. The man grunts. The boy gasps. The

man takes a single breath, and utters one word: “Run.” He falls lifeless to the floor.

The boy leaps from the cot, bursts through the rear wall. He doesn’t bother with the door or a window;

he literally runs through the wall, which breaks apart as if it’s paper, though it’s made of strong, hard

African mahogany. He tears into the Congo night, leaps over trees, sprints at a speed somewhere around

sixty miles per hour. His sight and hearing are beyond human. He dodges trees, rips through snarled

vines, leaps small streams with a single step. Heavy footsteps are close behind him, getting closer every

second. His pursuers also have gifts. And they have something with them. Something he has only heard

hints of, something he never believed he would see on Earth.The crashing nears. The boy hears a low, intense roar. He knows whatever is behind him is picking up

speed. He sees a break in the jungle up ahead. When he reaches it, he sees a huge ravine, three hundredfeet across and three hundred feet down, with a river at the bottom. The river’s bank is covered with

huge boulders. Boulders that would break him apart if he fell on them. His only chance is to get across

the ravine. He’ll have a short running start, and one chance. One chance to save his own life. Even for

him, or for any of the others on Earth like him, it’s a near impossible leap. Going back, or going down, or

trying to fight them means certain death. He has one shot.

There’s a deafening roar behind him. They’re twenty, thirty feet away. He takes five steps back and

runs—and just before the ledge, he takes off and starts flying across the ravine. He’s in the air three or

four seconds. He screams, his arms outstretched in front of him, waiting for either safety or the end. He

hits the ground and tumbles forward, stopping at the base of a mammoth tree. He smiles. He can’t

believe he made it, that he’s going to survive. Not wanting them to see him, and knowing he needs to get

farther away from them, he stands. He’ll have to keep running.

He turns towards the jungle. As he does, a huge hand wraps itself around his throat. He is lifted off the

ground. He struggles, kicks, tries to pull away, but knows it’s futile, that it’s over. He should have

expected that they’d be on both sides, that once they found him, there would be no escape. The

Mogadorian lifts him so that he can see the boy’s chest, see the amulet that is hanging around his neck,

the amulet that only he and his kind can wear. He tears it off and puts it somewhere inside the long black

cloak he is wearing, and when his hand emerges it is holding the gleaming white metal sword. The boy

looks into the Mogadorian’s deep, wide, emotionless black eyes, and he speaks.

“The Legacies live. They will find each other, and when they’re ready, they’re going to destroy you.”

The Mogadarian laughs, a nasty, mocking laugh. It raises the sword, the only weapon in the universe that

can break the charm that until today protected the boy, and still protects the others. The blade ignites in a

silver flame as it points to the sky, as if it’s coming alive, sensing its mission and grimacing in anticipation.

And as it falls, an arc of light speeding through the blackness of the jungle, the boy still believes that some

part of him will survive, and some part of him will make it home. He closes his eyes just before the sword

strikes. And then it is over.

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