“Yeah, alright shut up, Jaden. You and your big English,” I muttered.
“Don’t worry. Nature doesn’t have glitches. I’m sure this is all a little science fiction from you boys,” mum said with a grin. We really hoped it was.
Before we knew it, we were at home; still underneath a blanket of sheer dark clouds in a bleak sky. It was getting hard to tell whether it was night or if the sky was still gloomy. Mum parked the car outside our house. All of a sudden the sound of the raindrops stopped. We stepped out of the car and observed the skies. Thunder roared but was muffled by the thick layers of clouds and gases and what seemed to be lightning flashing every so often to lighten the sky to grey. But suddenly, as if dissolving into the atmosphere, the clouds were clearing up and the sun was peeking behind them. In no time, the sky was a stunning azure again.
“Well, what do you know,” said mum with her hands over eyes, looking at the sky observantly. The colour of the sky merely seemed to be reflected from mum’s Antarctic-coloured eyes. She brought her head down to look at us and threw Jade the keys.
“Go open the door. I’ll catch up,” she ordered.
“Wait! Where are you going?” Jade asked.
“I’m going up to Tantrus and Anne’s. I need to speak to them very quickly,” she answered. “Just…go home and eat some snacks and watch television or something,” she said hurriedly as she rushed away.
“Couldn’t you just use the telephone?” Jade yelled back, but sighed hopelessly as mum continued to march on into the distance.
“In a way, she’s saying we can do anything you know,” I said blithely.
“Funny!” Jaden responded sarcastically, showing no emotions. Jade turned the keys twice and flung the door open. Jaden entered after I left Jade to lock the door, which she did so savagely with two forceful jolts of her wrist behind us. Jaden and Jade rushed upstairs, stomping on the staircase as they did.
I stopped myself from following them and turned to face the wide mirror hanging on the wall. I advanced towards it and pulled the skin from underneath my eyes lower. An almost unnoticeable, thin ring of red was wrapped around my hazel iris. I exhaled deeply and blinked. This day was not being good to me – but hey, who knew; maybe I had died in my sleep and this was just some awkward illusion of stuff that should have happened in my life. Ergh, see? I’m so distraught I can’t even seem to be making coherent sense. At that point, all I wanted was to lose myself in the arms of Morpheus and, dare I say it, have some sanity back in the world. I might’ve just started hating jokes now. I sprinted upstairs and invited myself into Jaden’s room.
“You could knock!”
“Erm, ye– no. First sunburn without sun and now this,” I snapped, scratching the back of my frizzy hair. He shook his head at me.
“What are you talking about?” Jaden pondered. I merely stood in front of him and showed him my eye.
“Is that…red? What, did you put on colour contacts?” he continued.
“No, I just noticed it downstairs in the mirror.” Jaden yawned. I twitched for a split second and touched the back of my neck. I quickly flinched with a sharp sting.
“Aww, no!”
“What? What’s wrong?”
“The heat, it’s back again. I feel like I’m in an oven!” I said uncomfortably. I couldn’t stay still and glistening balls of sweat slid down my porcelain white forehead. I quickly took off my blazer and lifted up my shirt to see my back in front of Jaden’s mirror. Jaden winced and I exhaled out of exasperation.
“Come on, the sunburn thing again?!” I exclaimed. Jaden stifled another yawn.
“Aden, buddy, I’m really sorry about your situation, but I’m really tired. So if you’ll excuse me – wait, what am I saying this is my room – Aden, get out! I’m going to sleep!” Jaden commanded.
“Wha –” My sentence was instantly cut short as the door slammed in my face. I walked to Jade’s room. I knocked gently and let myself in, but she was fast asleep as well. I sighed hopelessly. Was nobody active in this household? I twitched and almost fell to the floor as the heat began to sieve into my pores. The problem wasn’t that it was painful – it was just that I felt hot. Too hot. Unbearably sweltering. Thus preventing me from reasonable judgement and proper movement. Not that my judgement had ever been fair anyway, but my hand-eye coordination had gone off. Red was green and blue was yellow, colours combined and I felt like my mind was crashing.
I trudged to the bathroom and ran a bath with only cold water. As soon as the tub was full, I impatiently turned off the tap and slowly entered the tub with my clothes on. The heat was distracting and it made it very hard for me to concentrate – but I then found tranquillity in the water. I sighed and breathed out profoundly, falling into slumber in the cold, relaxing and soothing liquid.
It was more realistic than ever before. I seemed to be in a corridor with two long aisles on both sides – each with hanging light bulbs that seemed to work perfectly. I came to a stop at a big wooden arch door. I opened it only to reveal a very large room, which I casually walked into. But I wasn’t exactly myself. I looked at my hands and noticed they weren’t mine. I must’ve been someone else because my skin complexion was darker. But I was still conscious. It was like being in a body that was a jumpsuit which took control of all my acts and movements.
Everything seemed to be indistinct. I was in a small compact room and the heat that tortured me was no more a bother. Suddenly, I felt something cold touch my shoulder. It was her hand – Tammy’s. Robbie stood in the doorway observing the room silently and rather shyly.
“You okay?” asked Tammy.
“I think. I hope the Blues are okay. I can feel a slight tremor in my head telling me something will go wrong,” Robbie mumbled.
“No, not wrong, but as it should. Trust me nothing’s going wrong.”
“But what about Jojo? Do you think they will mind about her not telling them the things her and her family can do?” Robbie quizzed out of paranoia.
“Well, we can’t afford disapprovals with the situation that I know is going on.”
“What situation?” Robbie asked.
Tammy closed the door and looked around just to prevent any living soul hearing them. She drew herself closer to him and whispered.
“The void, it’s expanding. Only the king and the Supremacy know at the moment.”
“Their prison?” he asked, baffled by the words Tammy spoke.
“Yes.” Tammy fiddled with her pendant.
“I can’t get the adults worried, but I think the void is large enough for the Lurkers to pass through. If they can, then they’ll be able to call the minor demons,” concluded Tammy.
“Wait, how do you know all of this again?” Robbie asked. Tammy threw him a look of blatancy. Robbie all of a sudden looked down to see her holding her pendant.
“Oh, right, yeah. Sorry, forgot about that,” Robbie spoke ignorantly.
“What are you talking about? I’ve had this ability for centuries!” she snapped undertone.
“Yes, which gives me more reason to forget,” Robbie chuckled to himself. Tammy sniggered.
“No, you idiot – it would give you more reason to remember since you’re alive and you’re fourteen – well, allegedly of course,” she finished off with a light giggle. Suddenly, Tammy’s mood changed. The then happiness that could easily be read on her face was robbed as she turned pale and morose. She looked around twice before looking at the door fearfully.
“What? What is it, Tams? Is something wrong?” Robbie pressurised.
“Shh!” she urged Robbie to remain silent, almost covering his mouth with her hand.
She marched to the door and opened it with caution. Tammy looked at both sides. The flickering lights drew her attention almost instantaneously; her head turned sharply to look towards them. She was panicked and frightened. She looked up at the staircase in the tunnel and could hear the entrance-bell ringing, followed by sudden, slow and intimidating footsteps.
Tammy wa
lked back into the room and gripped her pendant as tightly as possible. She closed her eyes and whispered something which I could not seem to hear. She opened her eyes fiercely and looked at Robbie as if she were looking at me. Her eyes were now a bright amethyst pink that was so intense, the light from her iris seemed as if it could waft out and billow like smoke. They also gave off a strong incandescent feeling. The sound of the footsteps grew louder and louder.
“That’s impossible! Lock it!” Tammy shouted to Robbie.
“Why? What’s wrong?”
“Just hurry up and do it!” she retorted.
The footsteps grew even louder and Tammy’s heart pounded against her chest.
“Step aside,” Robbie told Tammy calmly.
He barged into Tammy’s way and gently pressed his palm against the weak, rusty lock. Suddenly his veins began to emit a strong radiant glow and with one heartbeat, his hand lit to luminescent white whilst his eyes lightened to shimmering, flickering gold.
The lock clicked and grew bigger and the core of the door began to develop into polished silver. The silver spread through as if it were a virus. Robbie had changed the existing door into a dense, silver, metal one. With a set of loud clinks, the door locked and secured itself. The sound of the steps were too loud now. Robbie stepped backwards in front of Tammy, protecting her. As he distanced himself from the noise of the steps, he became some sort of shield in front of Tammy, pushing her closer to the wall as she peered to the door from over his shoulders whilst Robbie reared backwards cautiously. The sound of the footsteps seemed to have stopped. Tammy breathed heavily behind Robbie’s protective stance.
BANG! They flinched whilst staring at the large metallic door as fists embedded themselves in it. Although I wasn’t myself, I could feel the heated tension of what was happening. But as real as this felt, I only considered this a lucid dream. It couldn’t have been real.
Then, just when the suspense was at its peak, everything closed in. My vision became blindness as water enclosed on everything in front of me. I couldn’t tell if I was finally awake – everything I could see was blurred, wavy and couldn’t keep still.
I inhaled. With a horrible rush, the unbearable feeling of water surging through my nose and into my brain was imposed on me. I quickly sat upright. I think I’ve lost track of the number of times I’ve been confused today. I had fallen asleep under water – but my primary concern was why I didn’t drown. I was gasping for air as water spewed out of my mouth. The shower curtain was pulled around me. Suddenly, my eyes paid attention to one single thing alone as it fogged everything out. Something blue was dangling over my eyes. I lifted it out of view and tried to pull it off. But it wouldn’t budge. I yanked on it harder but ended up with a sore scalp which caused me to exclaim in pain quite loudly.
I gave up. Subsequently, just when I was about to pull open the shower curtain, a surge of Goosebumps ran all over my body spine-chillingly and I fell back in the water with a sore body. At that moment, I wasn’t bothered to do anything. It felt as if I had been working out strenuously and therefore, every muscle and tissue in my body couldn’t give a flying poodle about what my brain was saying and so decided to stay paralysed.
I put my mouth in the water and I automatically tasted a familiar, yet odd, flavour. I stretched two fingers in my mouth and realised that both my top canines from my left and my right were loose. Without thinking, I pulled them out and I exclaimed in pain after a brief two seconds of acknowledging my stupid mistake. Then, my bottom lip began to sting.
I slowly touched it, feeling scared of the consequences. Something – and I wasn’t sure what – had cut my lip. There were two big slashes which slightly crept to my chin. On the brighter side, my sunburn wasn’t a problem anymore. Then again, that’s what I thought earlier and it surprised me once more. I reached for the shower curtain when it was suddenly pulled open by mum.
“My goodness; Aden! What happened? Are you okay? I hope this isn’t another attention seeking scheme?” she panicked. I felt too much pain to be bothered to talk.
“Oh dear. Here, let’s get you out of the water.” Mum supported me as I unsteadily stepped out of the bathtub. I attempted to speak softly, sounding like mumbles, in order not to affect the slashes on my lower lip and chin.
“Mum, what were you doing in here?” I asked drowsily. My marble skin was paler from being submerged underwater.
“I was cleaning the mirror.”
I observed the mirrors clean, smooth and reflective surface.
“Why do you ask?” she continued.
“Because I was just wondering how you were here all of a sudden,” I replied.
I looked out of the window above the tub, only to witness the pale moonlight shining down on me through the gloomy mist and clouds. The night seemed still and no stars were in sight. The night was an eerie mist of accumulated blackness above us. It didn’t feel like a usual nocturnal setting. All I could feel from looking outside was a backbiting cold that seeped into my bones and ruptured my nervous system. Something about England’s night this evening was…off. I quickly turned to mum, flabbergasted.
“I couldn’t have taken a nap that long could I?” I asked mum.
“What?” she replied. She wasn’t even paying attention to me, she was practically cleaning up the place as if her dishevelled son (who had just had a God-awful day, I must add) was not standing in front of her.
“Mum, what year are we in?” I asked in hesitation.
“2016, why?” mum replied.
“Two years?! This ridiculous joke advanced by two years?!” I flustered.
Mum stared at me and before I knew it, broke down in unnecessary laughter.
“Mum, I’m serious,” I said out of annoyance.
“Okay, it’s apparently 2014 – according to you, Jaden and Jade. You went to school today at, what, seven fifty-five? But apparently it was ten fifteen. Is that your point?” asked mum, still finding this entire topic humorous.
I felt partly relieved that she at least was still mentally healthy but still shocked at how long I had slept underwater. How could I have not died? I was starting to lose hope that things would start making sense again; this couldn’t have been my imagination – the chances of this being a joke were as likely as a T-Rex taking me to the land of Skittles and rainbows.
“Mum, how could I have slept that long? From around five past eight when you picked us up this morning to – what time is it?”
“Eight thirty,” mum answered plainly, brushing her long flaxen coils out of her face. My face practically dropped; I was faceless. Things had just gotten serious; I had slept from approximately eight in the morning to eight thirty in the evening? This small rest I took felt like it was only ten, maybe even fifteen minutes long – but not twelve hours.
“Oh. Great,” I mumbled sarcastically.
“When did you arrive home?” I continued.
“I think a couple of minutes ago. I had to discuss some matters with Tantrus – your maths teacher.”
“Just call him Jojo’s dad. It’s easier,” I mumbled. Mum scoffed.
“Besides, he’s like obsessed with the fourth dimension –”
“Fourth dimension?” mum interrupted.
“Time,” I hastily replied.
“Yes, well, Jojo doesn’t seem at least one bit embarrassed by the fact that he’s always going on about time management and don’t misuse time and blah, blah, blah,”
“Aden!” mum exclaimed.
“What?” I ignorantly answered.
“That’s not very nice. You know better than to insult your friend’s father,”
“Well, mum, it’s not technically insulting, it’s just stating facts. But c’mon, Tantrus is awesome – I’m not badmouthing him,” I adjusted. At that moment I couldn’t help but wonder where Jaden and Jade were; if they had fallen asleep for as long as I had.
“Come on, sweetheart.”
“I’ll just be a minute,” I mumbled back languidly as mum left the bathr
oom. Given the fact that my frizzy hair was probably a mess and that my long elastic body was too weak for me to support, I am one hundred percent sure I looked like a sloth. All that was left was to invite the discovery channel to come and see me in my natural pigsty of a habitat. What a disastrous day!
The blue thing dangled over my hair again. I turned around and looked at my wet self in the mirror. I held my hair and ran my fingers through it again and again, still looking in the mirror as I grew even more flabbergasted.
My hand seemed to be touching something which felt like hair, but in the mirror, I seemed to be running my fingers through the air; through nothing. I looked much more tired. I was about to leave when I looked back at the mirror noticing something odd.
“That’s funny,” I thought aloud. “The mirror wasn’t cracked before.”
I reached out slowly to the crack in the mirror; the reflection of my finger growing nearer and nearer. The very utmost tip of my finger touched it. But out of the ordinary, when I thought nothing would happen, the crack spread like a series of elaborate intricate diagrams. First with one loud shatter as the crooked lines lengthened, and then with tiny shattering sounds as it spread to the entire mirror; deserting its beauty and making my reflection look crooked and ugly towards it.
“Snap! Seven years bad luck!” I said to myself.
The elaborate mirror pieces were shattered into fragments in the sink. As they fell into it, my eyes followed them, staring at the many reflective pieces. The reflection of light against the broken mirror pieces shone onto my eyes. I looked up at the empty frame, but surprisingly, another mirror stood in the place of the one that had fallen. My bug-eyes enlarged and I screamed at the top of my lungs, not afraid if I disturbed the whole neighbourhood. I think I tore my vocal cords in the process.
“WHAT THE BLOODY HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU?! DO YOU KNOW WHAT TIME IT IS?” Jade barged in. I turned and looked at her. She melodramatically closed her eyes and exhaled, as if doing yoga to relax herself. She seemed to be adjusting and composing herself as she tried to breathe soothingly, regaining her ‘balance’.
Preternatural (Worlds & Secrets) Page 7