"Avi!" Kevin beamed at him as he bounded towards his astounded friend. "I've been so worried about you!"

"Kevin I–" Avi took in the steaming mug of tea in his friend's hands and the fifty something year old man sitting behind a marble desk with his own drink. Apparently he'd walked in one some sort of delightfully charming tea party. "What's been going on?" he demanded to know.

"You've been asleep for a week, and they told me you were really ill at one point but they didn't let me see you." Kevin put his hands on Avi's shoulders and gave him the once over. "But you look great!" he exclaimed.

He'd been asleep for a week? The thought of being surrounded by these creeps for that amount of time was kind of distressing. Was that why Mitch seemed to know so much about him? He figured the little pest had a least been telling the truth when it came to him being ill.

As his friend was still excitedly babbling away Avi had begun to study Kevin and to his horror realised there was something very odd about him. Apart from the fact he was overly happy for Avi's liking, there was also a difference in physical appearance.

"Kevin..." he took in the boy's skin. "You're a freaking tree."

And it was true. His once perfectly normal looking friend, the one who had perfectly standard dark skin, was now anything but. His skin was the same colour, yet it had now taken on the appearance of something similar to tree bark, rougher and tougher with small ridges and cracks to give him a wood-like texture.

"Yeah, it's incredible, isn't it?" The older boy ran his hands over his arms and Avi also noticed that instead of veins, Kevin's body had now exchanged them for tiny vines that protruded out of his skin for that extra little touch. In other words, it now looked like one of Kevin's parents had been a plant. Avi took small blessings in the fact that his friend didn't have leaves for hair, branches for arms, roots for feet, or a squirrel nesting in his chest. There must be a doctor out there somewhere who could get his friend back to normal from this state. There must be a medical term for whatever disease his friend had contracted.

He gaped as Kevin continued to admire himself. "I think you might want your head checking out too Kevin." Avi tugged at his friend's now extra-sturdy arms. "C'mon, let's just go," he urged.

"What? Right now?" Kevin gave him a confused look and backed away a few steps.

"Tea Avi?" The guy - Lucian he supposed - had got up from his seat and was holding a steaming kettle. Mitch had mentioned something about him being of Italian origin, but unlike Mitch this guy had pale blond, almost white hair and pale skin. His age was hard to place. He could be anywhere between forty and sixty. He was also wearing a really cool brown trench coat which Avi knew Kevin was going to want to buy when they got home.

"No, I don't want your tea, I just want to get out of this place!" He had to get his friend back to normal. "Kevin, come on."

But for once Kevin did not follow. "I'm not leaving until I have all the facts," he told Avi, sitting back down and folding his arms. "And then I will make my decision."

Avi glared at him and Kevin tried to reason: "What harm can it do just to wait a bit? They've been good to me so far, and they looked after you even if you weren't conscious for it."

"For all we know they could have been the ones to do this to you!"

"We didn't," Lucian said, sounding almost bored.

"Please Avi?" Kevin pleaded, giving him a look that nearly always made the younger boy give in. Kevin was the only person who could have that affect on him.

He gave them both a hard look as he sat down. "Make it quick," he nodded towards Lucian.

"As you wish. I will briefly go over what Kevin already knows." The man paused to take a sip of his own tea before spreading his arms in presentation. "You are at Circo Di Freak. We are a travelling freak circus who have been entertaining townsfolk across America for nearly twenty years. You have been here for a week since we rescued you from the side of a cliff. You were both very ill from the trauma of the event. Kevin, here woke up three days ago and has been keeping me great company while we explored his new talent."

The two shared a knowing smile that made Avi feel uncomfortable. "And you, as you know, awoke today and caused a bit of havoc in the living quarters, didn't you?"

Kevin tittered quietly beside him. "Already Avi?"

"He did." The man smirked. "Luckily our Mitch was there to settle things before they got out of hand."

"Oh wow, you're lucky you got to meet someone else. The only person I've seen so far since I've been awake is Lucian, no offence."

"None taken. I would get tired of myself too. Anyway as to how you came to be here...that's a little more complicated."

"Just get it over with." Avi was getting tired with all this strange talk.

"Scott, he's kind of our, let's say seer, had a vision of the two of you."

"Who's Scott?" Kevin queried.

"Someone who's been with me for a very long time..." The man's features softened at some unknown memory. "You'll meet him soon enough, that is if you decide to stay."

Looked like Avi wasn't going to get to meet him then. What a shame.

"So our Scott, he gets these visions when there is a new individual who might wish to join us. As soon as we were informed of the circumstances of your situation we sent aid right away. Our Kirstie, my little angel, a lovely girl who specialises in aerial acrobatics got you down."

The raised some interest in Avi. "We were both rescued by a girl?"

Kevin gave him a quick nudge. "Twenty first century Avi, remember?"

The younger boy seethed in his seat. That was not what he'd meant. It was the idea that a "little angel" had managed to get two fully grown men down safely from a cliff.

"As for what happened on the cliff. Well that I can not answer for," Lucian continued. "What I can say is this: there are certain what you might call "unnatural phenomenons" that occur once in a blue moon, or should I say in your case a lunar moon."

Both boys were silent as the image of that blood red moon returned. Dark and ominous like a vivid nightmare.

"Sometimes these phenomenons occur during pregnancy, or develop in childhood, and sometimes they are the cause of a freak turn of fate. Mother nature works in mysterious ways," Lucian finished quietly.

Avi didn't feel like he had gained any knowledge from that little speech. "What are you saying? What happened to us?" he pressed for more answers. "Why does he," he held up Kevin's arm, "look like this?"

"Not just Kevin, Avi. Have you not noticed anything different about yourself since you woke up?"

"Well I haven't got vines growing out of me if that's what you mean," Avi spat back. "Nor do I suddenly have an urge to run around on my hands, chop off my limbs, and the last time I checked my face is not porcelain and my skin does not have scales."

"No heightened senses perhaps? Increased strength? Stamina?"

Avi's heart skipped a beat as the man somehow listed off exactly what he had been experiencing. He wasn't about to admit it though.

"No," he replied stoically and Lucian just shrugged.

"Oh well Kevin, it looks like it was just you who was the chosen one. That's a shame. If is always better to learn about one's abilities with another in the same situation."

Avi turned to Kevin with a puzzled expression. "What is he talking about?"

Kevin was unsure how to answer so Lucian carried on, reaching down behind his desk to pick something up. "Three days ago I presented Kevin with something similar to this." He held up a jagged rock about the size of a fist. "That object now looks like this, with no one having touched it." The rock he then produced was the exact opposite. Smooth and shiny, the type of result that thousands of years being battered by rain and sea would do to it.

"Three days work," Kevin sighed. "And still I've only been able to shine it."

Avi began to wonder if he'd taken drugs and this whole experience was just in his crazy imagination. He blinked and pinched himself hard to try and get back to his senses but nothing happened.

Lucian gave the boy a kind smile. "Your abilities will take a while to fully develop. Especially for those with earth manipulation."

"Earth what?" Avi felt like every singe thing he'd said so far had been a question. It was like that film Inception. You think you'd sussed out one dream and then you fell into another even more confusing one. "Kevin c'mon man this guy's got into your mind. You're both out of your minds crazy!" he shouted.

"Please lower your voice Avi," Lucian requested, his calmness only irritating Avi more.

"Don't you dare tell me what TO DO!"

Avi brought his fist down hard onto the desk, an act he was well familiar in doing. Except this time his actions didn't just create a loud thud...this time there was a humongous crack, and suddenly there were papers and tea all over the floor.

"No powers huh?" Kevin said quietly, observing the now two desks in front of him.

"Y'know my anger gets the better of me sometimes," he growled back but was unable to stop the quiver creep into his voice.

"You're tough Avi," Kevin whispered. "But not marble breaking tough."

Of course Avi knew that, and what he had just done had majorly freaked him out. He felt Kevin's hand on his shaking arm and suddenly the older boy had placed his hand on the back of his neck, forcing Avi to look him in the eyes.

"I know you're scared and confused. Believe me I am too," he admitted, "and I've had three days to try and process everything. But we can't just walk out of here without hearing Lucian out first."

Avi could see Kevin was desperate to stay a little longer and he couldn't contemplate leaving him behind. Damn it, why did his friend have to have such an unintentional hold over him?

He really didn't want to stay. He just wanted to leave and try and brush all their problems under the carpet. He wanted to go back to his normal life where the creepiest stuff he ever saw was in horror movies. But there was a reason he had remained friends with Kevin for so long. The boy was smart; and he trusted him with his life and he wasn't about to stop trusting his judgement now.

Besides, he supposed Kevin was right. This did seem the best place to get answers for their conditions, mutations, diseases, whatever they were supposed to call them.

Slumping his shoulders in defeat, he gave the older boy a nod. "Fine," he reluctantly muttered and Kevin's face lit up in delight.

Lucian had moved away from the wreckage of his desk - acting as if nothing had happened - to another seating area and gestured for the two to take a seat.

Avi took one last look at the exit before following Kevin over. He took a few deep breaths to calm himself and sat down, now prepared to give this Lucian guy a decent shot. Little did he know he was going to have to make a decision that would change his life forever and kickstart a chain of events that would change the lives of everyone else around him.

Should hopefully have the next chapter up tomorrow!