The more time she spent with Noah, the more she saw him as a breath of fresh air. Always happy, always cheerful, friendly, never dull and, above all, he didn’t treat her like a child.
* * *
On the camp, Priyam and Gaia were lying down on the grass looking at the rays of sun gliding through the force field that Edan and the rest had made. It was a strange sensation to be so warm and dry when their surroundings were so cold. It was late February for their neighbors outside of the force field.
“Are we going to talk about it or not?” Priyam asked still looking at the sky.
“About what?”
“The awkward vibes you and Edan are putting out? The hour you go away to ‘meditate’ every day. And how lately you’ve been looking happy and sad at the same time.”
Surprised, Gaia looked at Priyam. She knew her friend had a sixth sense when it came to her, but this time she’d made a special effort to keep this as hidden as possible, or at least that’s what she thought. “How can you tell?”
“Please,” she laughed with sarcasm and pointed at herself. “Best friend, over here. I do give you credit for calling it your ‘meditation time’, since you know they can’t bother you while you’re at it. ”
Gaia looked back at the sky. Saying her feelings about Edan out loud made her feel like it would become real to the world and there would be no way back. Still, as much as she wanted to deny them and pretend nothing ever happened, they were there. “A week ago… I realized… or accepted or whatever you want to call it, that I kinda… like Edan.”
“That was expected.”
“And I made the stupid decision to go and confess to him. I didn’t quite tell him that I liked him but we did get into a fight and I ran away. I ended up in a small town where I met a new guy and I’ve been hanging out in secret with him for the past week.”
“Now that is unexpected.” Priyam sat down abruptly. Her chocolate eyes shone with excitement. “What guy? Where? You like him?”
“His name is Noah. I like him as a friend; he lives a few miles from here.”
“That’s where you go every day?”
“Yes,” she said with guilt for leaving the camp behind everyone’s back.
“Mmmm…” Priyam took a moment to think. “Can you bring me some supplies next time?” Priyam laid down again and it was Gaia who stood up now.
“Why are you being so calm about this?” she asked amazed. She was waiting for a lecture or maybe some friendly advice.
“Why? Because I’m used to this since you continuously do stupid things. Besides, if I ever do something this dumb and reckless, I know you’ll have my back.”
“It’s not that reckless.”
“You do know we are living in a hideout with constant surveillance inside a bubble for you, right? Literally… a bubble! And every day you walk out of that bubble and chill with a strange boy in a lonely town while everyone thinks you’re working on becoming one with Nature. Sure… not so reckless.”
“What supplies do you need?”
“How ya doing, creatures of the wild?!” Floyd stared at them from higher ground. He lifted his hands motioning them to stand up. “Up you go, time to practice some dangerous stuff.”
Gaia stood up and brushed the dirt from her shorts. “Tell me later, ok?” she told Priyam and walked away but Floyd stopped her.
“What, later? She’s coming with us.”
“She is?”
“I am?”
“Yeah! The boss ordered me to include you in training class. He said you couldn’t train elements but this you could do.” Floyd offered his hand and helped Priyam stand up. “Who knows, it might be handy.”
Priyam got excited; this was great news for her. Finally something more than her computer to work on. “I get to throw knives?”
“Throw them, use them, carry them, you name it.”
“This is so exciting!”
“Are you kidding? You, with a knife? That’s completely-” Gaia said but Priyam jumped in.
“Dumb? And reckless?”
“Yes,” Gaia smiled at her clever best friend. “But I have your back.”
“It’s settled, then! Follow me, ladies.”
Floyd took the girls to the training grounds where Pink was already waiting next to a table full of weapons and a wooden wall with circles and dots of various colors.
“In order to stop using the trees as targets, Willow was so kind as to make us a special target wall. Based on the colors you manage to hit, points will be given or taken away,” explained Pink as she pointed at the colors. “The person with more points at the end of the month gets to choose a weapon of her own. Any questions? Alright!” she said without time for them to react. Floyd passed them each a dagger.
“When you throw a knife or any other dangerous object, make sure to stay relaxed and calm, but steady and decisive.”
“Relaxed and calm, but steady and decisive,” Priyam repeated under her breath.
“Once you feel ready, take the dagger by the blade-”
“The blade?” Priyam panicked.
“Yes Priyam, the blade. It all depends on how far the board is and in this case, we hold it by the blade.” Floyd held the blade by pinching it with his index finger and thumb. “This is what we call ‘the pinch grip’. You take the blade and pinch it, leaving your thumb in line with the blade,” Floyd explained while Pink helped the girls to pinch their blades correctly.
“Remember that the knife needs to be held by the opposite hand of the foot you have facing the target.” He placed his left foot slightly forward and took the dagger with his right hand. The girls mimicked him. “Point at your target, bring the dagger backward in a straight line and, once you’re ready, throw it,” he said as he released the dagger hitting the smallest target on the board.
Following his steps, Gaia released the dagger and it hit on the very corner of the wooden board. “Good on ya, little warrior,” Floyd cheered, wrinkling his button nose.
Once it was Priyam’s turn, she threw the dagger. Her speed was too intense and the handle crashed against the board making the blade of the dagger bounce directly at Priyam.
“Ahh!” Priyam and Gaia screamed at the same time. By a mere second, Pink managed to catch the dagger before it hit Priyam’s face.
“Bloody hell!” Floyd ran towards them and looked back at the target. “Maybe we should back off a little, before either of you kick the bucket.”
“Yeah, we should,” Priyam panted with her hand on her chest.
A few steps back, Pink gave Priyam back her dagger and moved out of the way. “There, safe distance; off you go,” she said.
Priyam threw the dagger and this time, the blade managed to stick a foot away from the target.
After an hour of throwing knives, Floyd took away the daggers and asked the girls to stand three feet away from each other.
“This is called a wooden waster,” Pink held a wooden sword. “For safety reasons, it’s used in the training of sword fighting.”
“It is,” Floyd agreed. “But we’re going to use these instead.” He gave each one of them a sword straight out of Camelot. Gaia and Priyam exchanged concerned glances and wished they had stuck to the wooden ones. “What you lasses have there is called a Bohemian Longsword.”
“Fifty-one inches of pure blade.” Pink held her sword high and proud. “What a beauty.”
“Now, hold your sword the same way Pink is, by the handle. When you are ready, lift your sword to the Ochs position, also known as Finestra.” Pink took the handle, drew the weapon up and placed the handle in a horizontal position towards her head. Both of her elbows bent, straight grips and the blade pointed forward. “Now, you ladies give it a go.” Floyd gave them the signal and they both tried to lift the sword.
“Damn, Excalibur is freaking heavy,” cried Priyam while trying her hardest to lift it barely past her chest.
“Of course it’s heavy,” said Pink. “But like our Nana used to say: ‘if you can wield
a sword that heavy darling, you can wield anything’.”
“Their grandma used to say that?” Gaia whispered at Priyam between breaths.
“It would explain a lot of things.”
“And lift! Lift!! Lift!!!” the twins cheered as the two girls barely managed to lift the handle towards their heads.
* * *
Hours after their grueling training session the girls had a chance to wash up and rest their aching muscles. Gaia walked out of her bungalow and ran into Edan. “Gaia… hello,” he said as he moved closer to her.
Oh no, not now… Ever since they had the fight a week ago, Gaia had done everything in her power to avoid Edan. Unfortunately, she still had to train with him but, even then, as soon as Gaia finished her class, she would sneak away as fast as she could to prevent awkward moments alone. After her meals she would team up with Priyam, or anyone who was available for that matter, just to leave the table without being followed by him. She looked around for an exit route but it was useless, she couldn’t move a muscle after the twins’ medieval torture. I wish I had my sword now… Out of options, Gaia turned around and smiled. “Hello.”
“Hello,” he repeated again and quickly fell into stride with Gaia as she strolled past him. “Where are you going?”
“Massage with Shui, I can’t move my arms.”
Edan walked next to her in silence. No, don’t follow me all quiet! Say something!... Agh, this is so awkward. And you look incredibly nice with that jacket… I hate you.
“How was your fighting class?” he finally asked.
“Brutal.” Gaia let go a rather embarrassing grunt as her chest was in way too much pain to properly laugh. “They made us lift heavy swords for an hour and then we had to run five laps around the training grounds while screaming like warriors.”
Edan’s green eyes opened wide; everyone knew the training grounds were a big open space of land. Floyd and Pink were crazy. “How did Priyam handle it?”
“I don’t know, she’s unconscious in our bungalow.”
“I can help… you know… with the massage,” he said and looked away from Gaia, which she was thankful for, since she could feel her face turning as red as a Terrian apple.
Gaia couldn’t help but imagine how amazing yet terrorizing it would be to have Edan help her like last time. The time before, her entire skin felt on fire and melted in his hands, and that was when she thought she hated him. This time, knowing that she liked him, it would be unbearable. “I’ll pass.”
Edan took a step in front of Gaia and stopped her. “Gaia… can we talk?”
“About what?”
“About why you’ve been behaving so odd?” In his eyes Gaia could see that he demanded more questions. Edan freaking Blau is asking me questions? Is this a dream? Did I crave so much to be around him that I’m hallucinating this talk? she thought, but she knew it wasn’t a dream: the pain of the training kept reminding her that this was real.
So then, what was happening? She’d never seen him like this before, wanting to talk, asking questions. It was usually the other way around.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. Every day I go to my classes, every day I practice whatever you give me to practice and I still take care of all my chores. What’s wrong with that?” She walked away but Edan took her by her arm.
“You meditate for an hour who knows where every day, you barely eat, you stopped engaging with anything other than what you have to do. Priyam calls it your ‘searching time.’ I have no idea what that means but-”
“But what?” Using all her willpower, she snatched her arm away.
“Is this because of our talk?” his voice was so low, Gaia missed the hint of pain behind his words.
Yes! she cried on the inside. “What talk?”
“That day, in my room. What I said-”
Gaia lifted her hand to silence Edan. “What you said was the truth, so I don’t see any problem with that.”
“It’s not like that. What I said... it wasn’t…” he stopped himself. “It was rude.”
Hunter appeared out of nowhere and ran up to Edan. His black eyes were wide and anxious. He stared at him looking white as a ghost and Edan understood, something was really wrong. “Where?”
Hunter pointed to the north and they saw a strange cloud of smoke; Dark grey with a menacing aura. “Is there a town in that direction?” Edan asked and Hunter nodded. “Donovan!”
Donovan ran to them. “I saw it. Icarus should be back soon. I sent him to scout the area. Do you think it’s Him?”
Edan took a moment too long to answer. Gaia couldn’t understand why a dark grey cloud would be so scary, not until she remembered… in her nightmare, during the war, the same heavy, dark grey cloud was crawling along the ceiling of the palace. “Edan,” she gasped, her hands were sweaty and her heart was racing. “You think?”
Edan took her by the shoulders to calm her down. “It shouldn’t be. We came from the opposite direction, there’s no reason for the trackers or anything else to follow us here.”
“Should I start the move?” Donovan asked.
“Not yet. It could be man-made.”
Willow ran over to Edan, her face turning sour when she saw him holding Gaia. “What’s going on, Edan?”
“We don’t know yet.”
By a miracle, Icarus flew back to Donovan’s shoulder and squeaked. The poor animal was covered in ashes and dust.
“It’s not man-made,” said Gaia. Thanks to her animal language classes she was beginning to understand Icarus.
“The town is getting destroyed by Darklings and beasts. No sign of Him,” Donovan added.
The town? Gaia looked in the direction of the cloud for a second time. The first time she saw it, the fear of knowing He might be there blinded her to see the reality of what was really in front of her. The town!! Noah! Tara and Molly... Guilt consumed her. “Edan! We need to help!”
“We can’t. There are a dozen Skuggors, Draaks and who knows how many Trackers.” A long, chilling growl was heard over the camp. “They’re close. Donovan, tell the others, we are leaving the camp now!”
Without thinking, Gaia let go of Edan and ran in the direction of the town. She had barely gotten a couple feet into the woods when she heard Edan running behind her. For some reason it took him longer to react and follow her than she expected, otherwise she was sure he would have caught her by now. Edan was fast, faster than anyone in the camp but she knew the way. She knew shortcuts through the bramble, giving her the advantage.
As she broke through the last wall of brush and arrived at the village, Gaia stopped cold. At first glance it looked like the place was covered in swirling gray snow. Gaia’s heart stopped when she realized it was ashes falling from the skies.
Gaia ran to the ice-cream shop to see if she could find Noah or Tara or Molly, but the inside of the place was as scorched as the outside. “Tara? Molly?" She called them, but no one answered.
While walking, Gaia’s foot crashed into something. Looking down, she saw two unrecognizable bodies covered with ashes. Next to a small mountain of ashes, Gaia saw Molly’s pink hair tie. She gasped in horror. She couldn’t breathe. She took the pink ribbon, clenched it to her chest and fell to the ground. Everything around her seemed to be moving faster than usual. She felt like she was sinking and floating at the same time. She was freezing and burning. She looked at the sky through the hole in the ceiling and gasped for air. She couldn’t stop the feeling of suffocating. “Molly!” she cried. Her chest felt like it was being crushed in. “Noah!” she screamed over and over but no one came, no one except a Darkling.
His face was white and full of black symbols, his eyes shone yellow and his teeth were rotten. “Look who’s crying,” he laughed. “King wants to see you.”
“You,” Gaia hissed. “You did this.” She stood up and tied the ribbon on her right wrist. She opened her hands and flames surrounded them until they reached her forearms.
The Darkling ran towards Gaia.
She opened her arms wide and clapped them as hard as she could. The flames on her hands formed a huge ball of fire that projected directly toward the Darkling’s face. He fell down with the blow but he was still alive. The man laughed with his bloody mouth. He took out a black pointy cone made of glass and iron. “Let’s play.” He spat blood and charged towards Gaia.
The Darkling jabbed his weapon on and on while Gaia did her best to evade it, but the ice cream shop was full of ashes and burnt tables, making it hard to move anywhere.
Gaia crashed into a table, the Darkling jabbed his cone and managed to stab Gaia on her left shoulder. She screamed with excruciating pain.
Her hands began to shake. She knew she was in deep trouble and that if she didn’t do something fast, she wouldn’t make it. Think! Think! The Darkling pushed the cone deeper into her shoulder and taking advantage of the proximity, Gaia turned on fire. She grabbed the Darkling’s hand, the one that held the iron cone and with her right hand she punched the Darkling in the chest with her palm open.
The Darkling grinned at her punch. Seeing Molly’s ribbon hanging from her wrist, Gaia closed her eyes and pushed all the fire in her body to exit out the palm that was in contact with his chest.
As the fire from her body moved towards her hand, the Darkling tried to run away but Gaia was holding him steady, and in a flash he burnt to ashes.
Once alone, Gaia gasped in pain and knelt on the floor. She lifted her hand towards the cone and when she was about to take it out, Gaia heard a horrifying hiss in front of her. A Crawler had snuck inside the ice cream shop.
Crawlers were bloodthirsty snakes with large fangs and two poisonous stingers on their tails. Crawlers had a trail of blades from their heads to their tails; they were known for piercing their victims with their tails, drugging them with a hallucinogen and curling around them stabbing their victims with the blades on their back before eating them. The scariest thing about these beasts was that Crawlers grew each time they ate a victim, so the longer the Crawler, the more dangerous it was.
Seasons Within Box Set Page 22