I am eight years old and the people are watching again. I told my mother, but she said it’s just my imagination. They tell me they are the Keepers. They say they have been watching since the beginning. They travel through time, looking for Chosen Ones: protectors of the timelines. They never blink. Not even now, while the doctors and nurses do their poking and prodding. They stare and say whiskey man is a wicked creature, deplorable and cruel. It’s all my fault for being a bad little girl. I wish my mother was here.

THE BEGINNING

In the beginning, she was intangible. An eternal concept, floating through timeless space. Then this thought disrupted her peace: “What if I can rise? And what if I can help the others rise?” Momentum spiraled, then we heard the call and transformed her from a wave to particles, to cells, accelerating her transformation. The incarnation of flesh from the infinite.

We the Keepers serve the greater purpose of activating the Chosen Ones. We balance the universe when everything bends toward darkness. And the Chosen Ones are the beacon, the light pointing home for the others who cannot see. A Chosen One does not come for herself. She comes for the others.

The cycle is constant in all realities: The concept becomes form. The form becomes story. The story becomes legend. The legend blooms into light fueling the others. The Chosen Ones protect the Legends. So it has been. So it must be.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Zero days left till midterms. Now the verdict: I have failed my calculus midterm and gotten C’s on all the others. Professor Cartwright calls me into his office and hands me back my test three days later. It is covered in doodles and incomprehensible text. I don’t know what to say. “I’ve been having episodes,” I explain. “Mental health episodes. My roommate told me I was standing in front of Baker Tower for hours, staring, until Dean Harrison came and took me to her house. I don’t remember any of it. I’m sorry. I don’t know what’s happening to me.” Tears well up in my eyes. I try and suck them back in, but they disobey me, like everything else in my life.

Professor Cartwright leans back in his chair. He doesn’t know how to handle this kind of vulnerability. He tries to soften