They heard something. Noises. It was a car approaching them but they didn't know what it was. They'd never seen or heard a car before. It was dark and in seconds they saw lights following them. The only thing going through their minds was "Run! Get away from here!" So they ran down the dusty road. They ran like their lives depended on it, in fact they did. After a couple of minutes they got tired. They were trapped. They hid behind the bushes and waited. Waited to be found.

One of the boys reached for the hand of the girl and she gladly accepted it. He turned towards the other boy and extended his other hand to him. The other boy moved a step forward and looked into his eyes. He almost took his hand. Then he looked at the direction of the girl, as if to memorize both of them, his eyes full of fear and untrusting. And then he hesitantly turned around and left. He wouldn't accept their hands, so he gathered his last strength and ran away from them into the dark. They wanted to follow him, but it was already too late. They had been found. They were blinded by the lights of a car and they covered their eyes protectively, still holding each other's hands tightly.

The door of the car opened and there was a man approaching them.

"Diane! Diane, come quickly. There are two children out here!" His wife hurried out of the car and looked at their finding.

"Oh, My God! What are you two doing here all alone? You must be cold!" She took off her jacket and covered the girl with it. "Here, put this on, sweetie."

The girl took the clothes thankfully and looked into Diane's eyes, frightened. In the meantime her husband Phillip brought a blanket from the back of the car and gave it to the boy. "Here, son, cover yourself with this."

The kids were standing there uncomfortably not knowing what to think of all this. Should they try and run away while they still could? The girl was hugging herself trying not to shake too much. She spotted a stain on the jacket the woman gave her and touched it. When she removed her hand, the stain was gone. She got frightened and began to cry. What had she just done? The boy hugged her and tried to reassure her. In the meantime Diane and Phillip noticed nothing. They had been too busy discussing what to do. Finally they decided to take the kids home with them and let them get some sleep and then in the morning they would decide further.

The kids were reluctant to go with them at first, but since they had no other choice, they entered the car and made themselves comfortable in the back seat. They looked through the back window as the car started moving. They were both thinking the same. "Where is the other boy? Is he watching us leave? What will happen to him out there all by himself? Will we ever see him again? We shouldn't have let him go away!"

They both fell asleep in the car with their eyes wet from the unshed tears for the missing boy. They felt the connection between them. They felt like they had let him down, leaving without him. But they were absolutely helpless.

The next morning they woke up in a place unknown. They looked around frightened and saw the two people who had found them the night before. They told them not to be scared, that they would help them go back to their family.

Diane and Phillip introduced themselves and asked "What are your names?"

The children looked at each other thinking "we don't know."

Diane continued, "Can you talk? Where are your parents?"

The girl thought "The parents, what does that mean?"

The boy looked at her, his eyes saying, "We should try this talking thing. If they can do it, why couldn't we?" The girl looked at him, unsure, and then decided to try and form a sentence.

She said slowly, "Don't know who our parents.." They could barely hear her.

Diane looked worryingly at her husband who asked, "Well, at least tell us your names. Who are you?"

The boy looked at the girl questioningly. What should they say? They couldn't say that they didn't know who they were nor where they were from. So he decided to make something up. While he was desperately trying to find the names for them, he suddenly had this brainstorming of all the names possible. They were written in his program but he didn't know that at that time, of course. So many names. What should he choose?

And then suddenly the realization came and he said, "I'm Maxwell." Then he pointed to the girl standing next to him watching him. "She's Isabel."

They both felt relieved. The elders looked satisfied knowing their names and Max and Isabel were happy that they finally had names. Isabel didn't mind him choosing the name for her. She liked the name he chose and she trusted him.

After that, things proceeded rapidly. Diane and Phillip went to the police station and reported two found children. The only information they could give was their names and their description. They agreed not to send them to an orphanage since Diane and Phillip wanted to take care of them till their real parents came. The sheriff notified the stations all around the country, but no one seemed to be missing them.

After a couple of months Diane and Phillip filed the request for adoption. They didn't want to be just the guardians. They wanted to be parents to them. They had gotten attached to them and loved them deeply. After a year of living in their home the request for adoption was granted. They had become a family. A happy family. Max and Isabel had gotten used to the life with the Evans couple in no time. They eventually started calling them mom and dad. And of course mom and dad were happy to hear that. They could never have children on their own so God must have sent them those two to look after and love. There were times when they tried to ask their children about the life they had before, but since Max and Izzy would not talk about it, they decided to let it go.

Max and Isabel went to school, made a few friends like everybody else, but there was something they both didn't know what to think of. They were different. They were pretty sure that other kids, nor mommy and daddy, could do things like them. For example, change the colour of your Barbie's dress or open the door with no key. Why else would they be needing all those keys if they had known how to open the door without them?

They talked about their specialness at night. After everyone was asleep, Max would come to Isabel's room, they would sit on her bed and talk. There were so many things they simply didn't understand. And there was no one to ask. There wasn't a night that they wouldn't talk about the boy that had left. What was his name? Where was he? Was he alive? He must be! They were trying to figure out what had happened to him. They were hoping that he had found a loving family, like they had found mom and dad. Isabel cried almost every night for him and Max held her and tried to calm her down. Isabel felt guilty for leaving him. She was saying over and over again, "If he hadn't left that day, we would be living together here. The three of us with mom and dad." And then Max said to her to make her feel better, "How could he know? He couldn't have known what would happen to us. We took a chance and he wouldn't. He was probably afraid to trust us." Max felt just as bad as she did, he just didn't want to show her too much. He had to stay strong for her. But she knew. She knew.

In those moments Isabel and Max felt alone. If they hadn't had each other, they would never have made it. They leaned onto one another and fell asleep on Isabel's bed.

*****

Max was right. How could the other boy have known what was to happen? He wandered through the desert, had no idea where he was going or what he should do to survive. He thought about the two he left behind. Or maybe they had left him. Anyway, the fact was that he had been too proud to stay there and just wait. He wanted to be in control.

After walking what seemed like eternity, he reached an unknown road. He was walking and walking and suddenly realized he couldn't walk any more. He was exhausted and he fell and couldn't get up. That was when a car had stopped behind him. He wanted to run away but had no strength left. Strong hands reached for him, lifted him and put him into a car. And then all got fuzzy. He remembered pieces of the puzzle, but not the whole picture. He remembered people asking him questions he didn't know the answers to, he remembered the police officer, several other people and then his first foster family. And another foster family. And three more in only three years. Everyone he knew was looking at him pityingly, "poor child, he has no family, let's take him in for a couple of months." No one really loved him. No one really cared. He was there, but that was all. He got used to not being cared about by anyone, shut himself down and just hoped for the better days that were probably never gonna come.

They called him Michael. And Michael he was. He didn't care what they called him. He didn't give a damn. They could have called him Jesus. He wouldn't care. Every minute he questioned his decision back in the desert. He had lost something when he left. He had lost his hope. "Why were you so stupid? Why did you leave? They were there for a reason," he thought. They probably wouldn't care for him either, he said to himself, they would have forgotten about him a long time ago, he wanted to believe. But deep inside he knew that even though he never spoke a word with them and had been with them for a short period of time, the looks in their eyes had not been the ones of pity or selfishness. They both looked at him with love and the feeling of belonging. He was afraid of that, didn't want to face it, so he lost them forever. He was never gonna forgive himself for that. He should at least try. He should get a second chance. But as low an opinion as he had of himself, he thought that people like him just didn't deserve second chances. He was destined to suffer alone with no one to even try to understand him.

He had just been informed that he would no longer be staying with the same foster family and that he would be moved again. He rolled his eyes. He hated this. Every time the same. New people that didn't care about him, new room crowded with other kids, new school and new classmates looking funnily at him. When would this end? When would everyone stop passing him around like he was a ball you catch and just drop to the ground when you feel like it?

His new foster situation was different. In a way it was worse. No other kids, no woman, just a man who wanted to make a profit off of taking him under his roof. He got his room, if you could call that dirty place that. It was small and it smelled and it was..sad. He was really alone now. Only his foster dad yelling at him from the beginning to do this and do that. He just wanted to go away. What should he do that would make his guardian decide to not want to have him in his place any more? He better not use his powers, he decided. It would be dangerous. "I must never let anyone close enough to know me." That was his decision over and over again. He fell asleep with tears in his eyes, his last thought had been, "Please, let it be better tomorrow!"

*****

It was Monday, a new school day and Max and Isabel ran out of the house to the bus that was waiting to take them to school. It was a few days after New Year's and everyone was in a good mood. The kids were playful and their teacher had a little trouble getting them to be quiet.

"Everyone sit down, please. Class, we've got a new student with us today. Everybody, this is Michael. Michael Guerin."

Michael stepped into the class afraid to even look at all the new people who were staring at him, he was sure. There was this silence and the teacher continued, "Michael has just moved into town so be nice to him and help him get adjusted, OK? Michael, there's an empty seat," she showed him. "Please," indicating for him to sit down, so he willingly went towards his place. His eyes stopped on the way, though. His heart almost stopped as he looked at her. Could it be her? No way. It wasn't possible. He continued on his path but something told him this day was gonna make a difference.