CHAPTER 11
Ilyana:
It’s been two weeks and again I find myself in the same place today that I have been visiting for the last two weeks now. My bursts of power are getting stronger and lasting longer, but not by enough for me to significantly use them. I have noticed that when I really work hard at focusing my efforts upon opening my eyes, the fuzzy colors settle into more of an aura and they settle in around every living thing. Even the grass has its own aura, of course it is just a faint green – but it exists, and I know it! Levi has his own Aura too. When I told him it was a bright neon pink he thought I was joking, at first even I questioned it, but the more I get to know him, the more it fits. He is always happy and excited. Everything he does is vibrant, he doesn’t halfway commit to anything and in spite of his age, he remains so youthful – not like Ephraim. While Ephraim appears young, there is something about his eyes that I find haunting, it is like he has lived a thousand life’s and has known nothing but pain – I am dying to see his aura, but so far I haven’t been able to focus my abilities around him enough to. Not to mention ever since the incident at Levi’s cabin a couple weeks ago, he has really been keeping his distance. At first that bothered me, but I decided to let it go since I have no control over it anyways. I am just grateful I have Levi and his calming consistency. He is my closest friend here and he is kind of an outsider in the same way that I seem to be. If he wasn’t so playful and young acting, I would have to say he feels like the big brother I never had.
For now though, Levi is obviously feeling frustrated. We have been out here for almost two hours and I have not been able to control my abilities at all, he says it is disorienting and keeps complaining about a sickeningly sweet scent – I haven’t asked him, but I believe it is getting more difficult for him to shut off his abilities around me. I pity him, but selfishly I want to keep him around, because as much as I hate to admit it, he is all I have right now.
He is pacing back and forth and looks up at me with a confused look “Are you sure you did it right? You thought of everything and pictured the light switches turning off?” I groan “Yes, Levi. I am sure. Maybe my senses are just fried, or maybe this is all that I am. That could be it. Maybe if we show the counsel how much control I lack they will let you stop training me! They’ll have to realize I am not the Chosen One then!” something in me grows excited at the thought. But Levi doesn’t seem quite ready to buy in “I understand you don’t want to be the Chosen One. I would be the first person to admit that the counsel is shady at best and I think they enjoy feeding us all a lot of lies, but the more I am around you, the more I get the feeling they might be right about this one. I can’t put my finger on it, but there is something different about you, and in spite of you thinking this is the extent of your abilities, you need to realize you haven’t even accessed your abilities yet, you are still just learning to brush the surface. I can sense your power though and I would be lying if I said you were normal or weak.”
I feel slightly disappointed but I trust Levi enough by now to know that he would never lie to me or try to make the counsel look good. He’s not the kind of man to waste time on silly missions and if I am being honest with myself, the more I touch and taste my powers, the more I want to. The process itself is draining, but in the few seconds that I reach the surface of my power – I feel more alive than I ever have in my whole life. It is like a drug, but each time I come back it is stronger instead of weaker.
As I am contemplating my train of thoughts I hear the crunching of dry leafs and look up to see Ephraim heading our way. At first I feel excited, but then all I feel is angry. I haven’t seen him in over 4 days and the last time I did see him, he wouldn’t even look me in the eyes or speak directly to me. It is like I wasn’t there. Per his usual weirdness, he walks passed me over to Levi I hear my name as they are speaking but like a defiant child I try not to listen because I don’t want him to think that I care after how he has treated me.
Before I know it Levi is patting him on the back and heading my way. He reaches down for my hand to help me up and I take it without hesitating. He informs me that he is going to take some time to look into different training methods and Ephraim is going to take over for the rest of the day and work with me on hand to hand combat. As much as I don’t want to work with Ephraim, I am excited to experience a change of pace and as powerful as I know Ephraim is compared to me. I think he will be surprised to find that I am not completely helpless when it comes to combat. I always excelled in sports and fighting. In fact, if I wasn’t already a social outcast in highschool I would’ve gone out for the girls wrestling team, it is the one sport I always longed to do, but never had the courage to.
I walk over towards Ephraim as Levi is fading into the distance and he skips the pleasantries and immediately goes in to punch me in the stomach. I am shocked, but I move in time and he misses me. He looks surprised and suddenly my anger has built into full on fury “What, are you disappointed you couldn’t hit me?” I taunt him. “I wasn’t going to hit you. But I am surprised you reacted at all. That’s good. Let me see how many laps you can run up and down the stairs and then we will work on your fighting.” He gets a look on his face as though he is eager to break me, but little does he know that I spend most of my down time with Levi here running up and down the stairs to get all of my excess energy out. I smile his direction and race for the stairs, taking them one by one as I usually do. After a few laps of not growing tired I look his way to prove a point and he nods his head and commands me to start taking the stairs two by two. Well, that’s new. But I have to show him that I am not as weak as he thinks. I am shocked at the difference in my endurance though, at first I am able to do it without problem, but after about 20 minutes, my thighs are sore and my butt is all but begging me to stop.
He notices the sweat on my face and my struggle to breathe comfortably and takes pity on me. He throws a towel my way and tells me to take a break and go get my water bottle.
I do as he says and almost immediately I feel lighter and more refreshed. He invites me to the middle of the field where he instructs me on how to stand and how to throw a punch, I already know but I allow him to show me because there is something dead sexy about the way he runs his hands across my arms and hips when he shows me what to do. He starts by having me throw punches his way and when he realizes I already know what I am doing, he advances to kicks. I am practically beaming when he is shocked to learn that I am not helpless with my offensive kicks either. Then at the last minute he tells me it is time to start fighting for my life, he grabs my legs and before I know it twists me backwards. I surprise him by going limp like I learned in self-defense class and I quickly spin around and throw a few punches his way, I land one or two and am shocked to see that it really hurts me, I secretly wonder if it even hurts him at all, but I can’t show any weakness.
I know it is a low blow, but I was starting to feel desperate and at the last second I change my methods and go in to kick him where it counts. He knows what I am doing as soon as I realize it and he spins and kicks the back of my other kneecap so I fall backwards – it actually hurt and I can’t believe he did it! I am completely outraged. He extends his hand to pull me up and I refuse to work with him, instead like a child I yell at him “How dare you! This is only our first time training and the first time you even are acting like I exist in two weeks and now you are kicking me and throwing me to the ground? Who does that, Ephraim?” I ask as I get up off the ground and begin to storm off “You can’t go around kissing girls one week and then disappearing and kicking them another. That’s not fair and you know it!” he looks confused and scratches his head while chasing behind me “How is fighting ever fair? I am training you, I wouldn’t have injured you, but you will find when you are fighting the demons that the damsel in distress act doesn’t really do much for them. You knew what you were doing far better than I thought and I wanted to challenge you!”
I stop walking and turn around slowly to face him
and in the calmest voice I can find I address him “Fine, Ephraim. You are right. Fighting is not fair, Life is not fair and men are not fair. But this game playing of yours has to stop. I need some time to be by myself, I’m going to walk away now and you are going to let me.” When I look up, I expect him to be calm, but he is clearly insulted that I talked to him like he is an angry dog “Hell no you aren’t going anywhere! We are just getting started! This isn’t about your childish moods, PMS or your little crushes, when someone is really fighting you it is going to be life or death!” Without so much as hesitating I charge him, I don’t know what I intend to do, but as I am running with the singular goal in mind of hurting him I can feel my powers beginning to overflow, everything is illuminated around me and I see his grayish blue aura, I can’t stop myself, before I ever even reach his chest the force of my anger and my abilities send him flying backwards.
For a moment I am left shocked and feeling guilty, my powers fade and I clumsily run over to him “are you okay? I am so sorry, Ephraim! I don’t know what I was doing – I didn’t mean to do anything like that!” he looks up at me in awe as he slowly begins to get up “I think I am okay.” He stares at his feet confused and looks up at me “I think you can take some time to yourself now though, do you know your way back?” I nod at him and begin to slowly walk backwards, horrified at what I just did. My walk turns to a run and before I know it I am at the edge of the island on a beach that I have never even seen. All I can do is run. I am running to escape Ephraim, running to escape this prophecy and running to try and convince myself that I can still escape, that this is not who I am becoming. I stop myself when I realize that I can’t outrun this, I am becoming a monster and I don’t even have any control over it.
I feel the tears stinging at my eyes and begin to look around for shelter, it is getting late in the afternoon and I can tell the rain is about to set in, the last thing I need is to be crying alone in the rain. I spot a cave facing away from the water, close to the shore and head that way.