As difficult as it was for us to leave Yanara, we were pretty excited to be sent to Surrey. We had heard from our family members how beautiful Surrey Hills was, but we were not prepared for what we saw. The region was stunning. The land and the trees were still green when we arrived in September, but we could already see some patches of orange and yellow announcing autumn’s arrival.
Most Yan children graduated from school at the age of sixteen and started military service for two years. The members of the Ten, however, were sent to Masani boarding schools and only attended military service during the summer, so their military service was extended. This required them to start FIST, our fighting skills training, at the age of fourteen for boys and ten for girls, which was the case for my sister, Amelia, and me. I, Diana Amara Bouba Korsning, was from the sovereign duchy of Yanar, and a member of the Ten, Yanar’s ruling families.
The sovereign duchy of Yanar was born a thousand years ago. It was created by Yans from all over the world who had to flee their countries after being persecuted for having supernatural powers. The Yans acquired their powers thanks to an event that happened in a parallel dimension to Earth. Unbeknown to human beings, a world called Hendu, which was technologically much more advanced than Earth, had become aware of its existence.
The Hendus, in an attempt to cross over to Earth and gain more information about humans, tried to create a breach between their world and Earth that would allow them to cross over. The result was not what they had hoped for. Instead of allowing them to cross over, the experiment created an explosion so strong that it destroyed one of their own neighbouring planets.
The energy deriving from the destroyed planet broke a tiny part of the veil separating Earth from Hendu and infected ten per cent of Earth’s population. The humans infected by the energy deriving from the exploding planet in the parallel universe developed supernatural powers and decided to call themselves Yans.
The tears in the veil separating the two universes appeared in a few parts of the world at the same time. The locals only reported seeing a bright light that came over them, and nothing else. It wasn’t until after they started procreating that they realised that their children were different from other children. They were taller, stronger, smarter and even more beautiful than the others; they stood apart from everyone around them, even their own parents. After some time, they realised that after the girls began their menstruation, they started to develop supernatural abilities.
As time went on, the locals started to fear these extraordinary children more and more, so much so that the families whose dependants were showing any sign of Nephilim-like qualities were relocated to the edge of each village.
Eventually, tension started to erupt between the gifted and the non-gifted, with some non-Yan inhabitants believing that the Yans’ abilities were a gift from the gods and that the villages should be run by them and not the actual lords of the land.
Fearing for their standing in the community, some lords tried to exterminate the Yans and burn their homes, while in other places Yans were simply chased out of their homes with torches and pitchforks. In some places, the Yans and their families managed to flee, but in others, the mobs were met with deadly force and killed. In retaliation for the attempts on their lives, the Yans destroyed the lords’ homes and fields, then left and built their own society.
For fear of being attacked and chased on their way to their new land, they lived as nomads until they could find a place to call their own. They would stop their wandering just long enough to replenish their provisions and sell their skills. Slowly but surely, they started to hear of others like them, searching for a land of their own. They gathered together whenever they could and left signs for others to follow.
They eventually settled on a series of islands in the Pacific Ocean and in time were joined by other Yans. It took us Yans over a hundred years to all be together, but we eventually found our way to our promised land.
At first Yanar was only inhabited by Yans. Years and years of silence and no contact had made the memory of enhanced people nothing but a legend, and people forgot all about their existence until eventually non-gifted individuals started coming to the islands, explorers sent by kings and queens in search of riches and gold for their sovereign. Not wanting to be invaded by non-gifted individuals, the Yans destroyed the explorers’ boats, and the explorers were given a choice: remain in Yanar forever with no contact with the outside world, or death. They chose to remain and protect the secret of Yanar’s inhabitants.
Eventually, they adapted and started families with the Yans. However, after a while, it was discovered that in some families, although one of the parents was Yan, the children were born with no special abilities at all. They could be Masani, the name given to non-gifted individuals. However, these children would still carry the blue genes, the genes from which Yan powers came, and therefore could produce a Yan child with abilities.
Being cut off from the world allowed the Yans to forge a society adapted to their gifts, and unlike the rest of the world, nothing happened to hinder their scientific progress, which allowed them to become very advanced. They advanced so quickly, and their numbers grew so rapidly, that they decided to colonise a large part of the Arctic and named it Yanara, which was my hometown.
The Yan power holders were divided into six groups: water, air, rock, fire, energy and omni. The Yan culture was based on two principles: strength and intellect. The long journey that the Yans had had to make in order to find a home and then later establish their society made them realise that humans were not far from animals when they felt threatened, and threatened was what they felt every time a group of travelling Yans came close to their villages or cities. To avoid being slaughtered and having their children become what their enemies were, the Yans established a code of conduct. No matter where they were or how many enemies they were facing, those rules needed to be lived by.
Although very few boys were born with powers, the Yan males could still receive powers if they were transferred to them by a blood relative. That action was called genetic transfer and was only allowed in cases of extreme necessity, like a war, because genetic transfers could be lethal to the receiver. That power was to be retransferred to a female relative after the war to avoid the power being wasted.
Unlike the girls, the Yan males could not transfer their power over to their descendants, because powers were transferred from mother to child. All powers were pretty common, except for one: fire. The fire power was not only extremely rare but also did not discriminate. When the gene appeared, it could do so in a boy or a girl. It was also considered a sign of danger, because the fire power only revealed itself in cases of great peril for the Yans.
The First World War brought more Masanis to the shores of Yanar than ever before. Generally, it would have been inhabitants of neighbouring islands seeking a better life, or just adventurers, but this time the Yans had soldiers at their doors. The general council knew that with their numbers growing, they couldn’t allow that many aliens to remain with them, and killing all of them was out of the question, so a decision was reached: they would return the captured soldiers to their homeland, and an invisible wall would be built around all Yanar territories to stop all non-Yans from entering.
Just as they finished building Yanara, the city in the Arctic, the council, knowing how evil and greedy Masani governments could be, prepared for war and had to accelerate the move to the Arctic. As it turned out, the war council was right. As soon as the soldiers returned to their homeland, it did not take long for their governments to send boats and planes to Yanar, and the Yans were ready for them.
What happened next was unexpected for both sides. The fight had barely started when the Yans realised how easily they could win over the Masanis. Much to their chagrin, the Masanis were quickly defeated. The Yans had prepared themselves for a possible David versus Goliath scenario, but it was baby David versus Goliath. The Masanis were hundreds of years behind the Yans in technology, not to mention their lack of any supernatural attributes. The council returned the soldiers to their governments and destroyed their planes and boats with a clear warning: come back again, and face the total annihilation of your countries and your inhabitants.
From that moment on, the Masani governments kept trying to get in contact with the Yans. Eventually, the general council realised that the lack of contact with the Masani world was a weakness on the Yans’ part, and they agreed to have diplomatic relations with them, which were delayed by the Second World War.
The horrors that resulted from World War Two convinced the war council that the Masanis were nothing but savages unworthy of their friendship, and the military budget and research for better weapons was tripled in preparation for a war with the Masanis, if it ever came to that. The general council and the council of interior affairs disagreed, so a compromise was reached.
After the war, embassies were opened in many countries, and a small, regulated number of immigrants were allowed to move to Yanar and live among the Yans under strict conditions decided by the council of interior affairs. In return, the same would be allowed for Yan families in all countries where a Yan embassy was located. A few families were sent to the Masani world in order to watch their progression more closely and report on their way of life and culture from a ground-level perspective. The settlers were forbidden from using their supernatural abilities in the Masani world. It was also forbidden to share technology with them.
The news filled many Yans with joy; the desire to go and see their ancestral lands was a call they had wanted to respond to for centuries, and now the opportunity was presenting itself.
The migration was carefully planned to respect the agreements made with the Masani governments, which was fairly easy because the Masanis were so curious about the Yan world, and so hopeful to benefit from their friendship with the Yan government, that the agreements signed were quite relaxed.
Arriving in the Masani world felt like arriving in the Stone Age to the Yans, but it was otherwise agreeable. It went so well that before the Yan general council realised it, they had representatives all over the world. With the Yan culture being very different from other cultures, the immigrants had to open their own schools and live in the same neighbourhoods as each other to preserve their culture and teach the new generation about the Yan way of life, as well as return to Yanar for a visit as much as possible.
The news of the superhumans’ existence spread everywhere. Hordes of people surrounded Yan embassies to get a glimpse of the Yans and tried to get a visa to visit Yanar, but with no visas allowed, the fad passed. It was also impossible to know who was a Yan or not without being told, although many movies were made about Yans.