Dreams or Reality?

Chapter 24: Training, Sort Of

CHAPTER 24: Training, Sort Of

My clock said it was 6:57 by the time I finished drawing. I had been drawing all night instead of reading, like I normally do. I looked at the images I'd drawn since the first nightmare to stick had happened. The two fighting guys, I'd forgotten about this one and the inexperience of one vs the clearly trained one. As I flipped through the pictures the dreams resurfaced and replayed in my mind gruesomely.

I turned the page, going past Demetri and Serquin. The rest of the pictures I'd drawn last night. The page revealed a memory I'd rather not dredge up. The girl, her head thrown all the way back as she let out that ghostly scream that made my skin crawl. Behind her was a desert, unforgiving but strangely it didn't look hot. A castle, barely visible behind her because it was pushed so far off to the side. In the dream my attention had always been on Anna, but that was the background that haunted the memory.

Following that, was Katrina's dead body lying mostly in the water. It was one of the few pictures I'd decided to color in, shading it in the unreal blues and greens in the meadow I saw. Only Katrina's body and clothing was natural color, causing her to stand out. Even in my drawing, she was obviously dead.

The next image consisted of a close-up of a girl whose hair blew across her face and masked her features. All you could see were bits of her eyes. I knew, unquestionably so, that she was the girl from the phone call. Even now, it was infuriating and frustrating that I couldn't tell who she was. As the saying goes, so close, yet so far.

Scaring the hell out of me, Demetri chose that moment to walk through one of his magical doorways into my room. "Would it kill you to give me some advanced notice?" I asked irritably. I went to move my hand through my hair, only to find that it was in the ponytail from last night, one less thing to think about right now. Demetri smiled.

"Up you get Sunshine, time for training!"

"You are aware it's seven am, right? And that most people would still be asleep because it's Saturday?" Demetri smiled again.

"Early bird catches the worm. Besides," one side of his mouth went up in a crooked half smile. "I was half hoping you would be asleep."

"A: how cliche. B: I don't even want to know what you mean by that."

"Up and at 'em, I'll be back in ten." Demetri went back through his doorway.

"Lovely," I muttered to myself, swinging my legs out of bed.

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Ten minutes on the dot later, Demetri reappeared. "I said ten minutes, ready?" he asked, leaning against the wall. I hadn't the faintest idea what training might entail so I was now dressed in skinny jeans and a light green t-shirt with a tree on it and 'Keep It Green!' written across the top from a school fundraiser last year. I had also fixed my ponytail so that my hair was completely out of the way and a headband pushed back any stray hairs. On my feet were a pair of black converse.

I had been sitting on my bed with a small over-the-shoulder bag containing my phone, sketchbook and my car keys because I'd realized I had left my car parked in the graveyard last night. I had a pencil in my hand that I'd been playing with out of boredom. "So, what exactly does 'training' include?" I asked, following Demetri through the doorway.

I hadn't known what to expect but whatever it was, it wasn't where Demetri took me.

The doorway closed behind us as I took in the enormous room in front of me. Vaulted ceiling, probably two stories high with wooden beams criss-crossing half way up, at about the one story mark. A bench ran the length of one wall and another wall was completely made of glass, all the way up. On another wall, was a few cabinets with who knows what in them and a neat row of human-sized dummies made out of straw or wood on wheels so they could be moved around.

The shock must've shown on my face because Demetri was holding the pencil I'd dropped and smirking at me in that arrogant and annoyingly handsome way of his. "What you were expecting?" he asked, fake naivete in his voice. I grabbed my pencil out of his hand and hit his arm with it.

"Shut up." Demetri smirked some more as he led me through a glass door I hadn't seen in the wall of windows and into a garden-like area full of grass and surrounded by trees, fencing us in. I dropped my bag and the pencil I had been holding into the grass under a tree. I looked back at the building we'd just exited and was shocked to see it was part of a medieval style castle. Demetri didn't offer an explanation so I didn't ask for one but it still struck me as strange.

"What now?" I asked.

"We eat cake, what else?" I rolled my eyes and Demetri grabbed my wrist and pulled me to the center of the circle.

"Wait!" I said, stopping him. "You should know, I've figured out a few things."

"Like?" He asked, arching an eyebrow.

"Watch." I retorted, grinning. I let my necklace flare up and pointed my hand carefully at the pencil in the grass, willing it to rise. I let my necklace continue to light up and moved the pencil through the air. I held everything like that for a full minute and a half before dropping the pencil and letting the pendant's light die. I turned back to Demetri.

"Impressive." he grinned. "For a beginner."

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We spent the next few hours practicing magic and the basics. Apparently most of it was just about willpower, the stronger the blood, mind and knowledge, the better the... magician? Wizard? Whatever you want to call it. According to my watch it was almost one o'clock when we finally took a break. We sat in the shade of the trees, Demetri lay on his back with his eyes closed in the grass. I was sketching the ring of trees in front of us.

Eventually, I got bored sketching, I was almost done anyway and I have to admit, it didn't look bad. It occurred to me that Demetri was sleeping as we had been taking a break for nearly a half hour now. I decided to test it, no harm in trying, right?

I took a handful of grass and lightly dumped it in Demetri's hair and face. He immediately opened his eyes. Ok, so maybe not asleep then. He sat up and looked at me quizzically. "I'm going to get you." he said, I dropped my sketchbook and ran as fast as I could towards the doors. I got, MAYBE, a meter.

Demetri grabbed me around the waist and turned me to face him. I laughed and brushed grass out of his hair. We were both smiling. "Told you." he whispered, the smile not leaving his face.

"Told you." I mimicked and lifted my face to his.

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-Jodi