Preternatural (Worlds & Secrets)

by Lloyd Harry-Davis

  Dorian…Dorian…

  “Alright, we’ll be under the canopy,” he pointed to the rustling shade of trees planted in a large circle in the corner of the house’s terrain.

  Dorian wasn’t really like Tobias and he most certainly wasn’t like Vala. Actually, the only thing alike between him and Vala was the fact that they both dressed as if they were still teenagers. He wore a tight fitted plain red t-shirt, outlining his somewhat large biceps; with black baggy black shorts and a pair of ankle-length red Vans. Dorian seemed very restrictive and seemed to keep to himself. He hardly spoke and his face looked like it had seen much sadness. His olive skin seemed a tad sickly – leaning more to grey than light beige – but his arms and forearms seemed closer to a fleshy pink, causing my mind to ponder about how much fire he had probably conjured in his life. Underneath his solid, burgundy red eyes were dark purple rings of fatigue. Despite looking as if he were in his mid-twenties, he looked as if he had been through and seen much in his existence. I kept wondering how old he was. Had he already passed his age-freezing stage? It was very fun to observe people in Vernaesce and guess how old they could be, seeing as lifespans here were different. I could tell he was a tad unsettled as he kept stroking the rough stubble on his chin. But, at the back of my mind, he reminded me of a gentle giant.

  His rough, shoulder-length red hair was tied in a ponytail and I couldn’t help but notice that his eyes were a much faded red than his bright red hair. His face was constantly grim and stern. Dorian was extremely quiet, only speaking when spoken to. He did not even hesitate to walk through the rain. It was increasingly discouraging. He gave the impression that he was the kind of person that one did not want to cross. The sky was still letting out a windless deluge.

  “Well, what are you waiting for, the next millennium? Come on, let’s go,” he said; looking at me shrewdly with his firebrick eyes. Funnily enough, I realised he had a strong Scottish accent.

  My eyes squinted in bewilderment, but I couldn’t shake off this perplexed feeling as he walked through the rain, head up and hands in pockets, in the aisle of oak trees with their branches stretched overhead and dripping rainwater on the stone path leading to the house’s front doors. It wasn’t the fact that he merely swaggered on towards the canopy, but rather the fact that each drop of rain that was meant to fall on him or close to him, at least, didn’t.

  They quickly shone an orange-red and then evaporated as soon as they reached an inch away from his skin. How much heat would you have to emanate to be able to do that? I walked through the rain, shuddering as he seemingly flounced through the angry weather. He stopped at the canopy’s entrance – the many tree trunks that went around in circles – and ever so gently placed his palm in front of the closest one. The slightest spark of red flames flickered in his fire holes, burnt into his palms. Suddenly, a translucent red dome of heat grew over the canopy and foliage of trees. If I wasn’t mistaken, it looked like it had faint flames sweeping over its surface. The shield was behaving like Dorian; evaporating all drops of rain before they landed on it. Surprising to say, the thermal energy didn’t burn anything on the inside. Possibly just make things warmer. Dorian gently walked through this dome with his hands held behind his back still bearing a grim expression on his face. He was outlined in flames and the shield ate him in.

  “Well, do come in,” his voice humbly spoke.

  “But what if –”

  “– you get burnt? You’re part Porto-Pyron. You won’t. Come in,” he bluntly said again. I took a deep breath and walked through the dome. I should be more open to the fact that anything could happen in this world. A brush of heat caressed my body as I entered.

  “Oh,” I replied with a smile at Dorian. He looked at my smile, plain-faced, and merely ignored me. He was quite condescending, probably more so than mum or granddad – and that’s saying something. I became shamed as he looked down at his hands with no emotion apart from his apparent exasperation.

  “Right, do you have these?” He showed me his hands. He had the exact same fire-made holes in his palms; three on the main palm face in the form of a triangle and one at the top face of each finger – just like mine. I nodded timidly at his question.

  “When –”

  “Are you angry at someone?” I interrupted him curiously in my usual cheeky manner.

  Dorian stared at me plainly but with an intensity that burned like raging infernos in his eyes. I thought he was going to incinerate me where I stood. I gulped, my hair flushed to red and my eyes followed. Then, to my surprise, Dorian grew a faint smile.

  “You remind me of me,” I was confused, but I didn’t say anything that would capsize his improving mood. Dorian quickly collapsed himself on the grass with his legs crossed as he plucked out little strands of emerald green grass.

  “When were you born?”

  “August sixteenth,” I replied, less frail as I also sat myself down cross-legged.

  “That’s good then,” he mumbled.

  “What’s good about that?”

  “Well, you’re born under Leo – underneath the fire element.”

  “And, so –?” I asked, getting irritated at the prolonging of required information. Dorian sniggered.

  “So, Pyrokinesis will be the easiest thing you learn – apart from all the reflex changes.” My eyebrows tilted towards each other. I was lost. Why was Dorian so ambiguous? But I didn’t need an answer. My facial expression was enough for him to notice how completely adrift I was.

  “Are you telling me you haven’t had your reflex changes?” he asked again, this time with a slight hint of brashness.

  “Well, evidently not.” I was starting to get annoyed at his attitude. It’s true what they say: people believe that it is easy to get along with those that bear the same traits of characters as them and wish to meet more people like themselves in the process. But unfortunately, it’s the complete opposite. It is impossible to properly see eye to eye with someone that is your exact self character-wise. That was the problem with Dorian: he was me in a few years’ time. He stood up from the ground, his eyes fixed on me like a hawk.

  “So you’re telling me you haven’t had your reflex changes?” he muttered again.

  “Not that I’m aware of,” I said, folding my arms, and letting out a dramatic yawn. He stood there, simply gazing at me. Suddenly, in one second that elapsed, he sent out vicious sharp discs of what looked like compressed fire. I could already hear them cut their way through the air towards me.

  Again, my body reacted before my mind understood what was occurring. My mind was stable, but my body took control – somehow like an act of instinct. I ran up the closest tree as the discs crashed their way into the fire dome. In a split second, I stopped and kicked off the trunk, landing catlike with one leg outstretched and one tucked in.

  “Ah,” I spoke as I stood up, wiping the dirt off of me. “That’s what you meant.”

  “So you’ve obviously had them for some time. They start out as defensive reflexes but if you work on them – which isn’t all that difficult – then they’ll evolve into reflexes of offense. You can develop them into any way you prefer.”

  “Like Robbie, Jojo and Liam,” I suggested.

  “Exactly. They developed theirs into martial arts, but as I said – your birthday is going to help you a lot when it comes to your Pyrokinesis. When you go into your Pyrokinetic’s aura vision, it’s not going to be the same. You’ll just know how to do it.” I flexed the muscles in my mind. My Celt patterns changed to a glowing red, as did my hair and eyes.

  “What do you see?” he asked me. Good question though; what did I see? Everything was normal – not like when I practised my other kinetic abilities. There was always something to work on with those, some sort of mist or other aura that I could combine with or change to manipulate to my advantage. With Pyrokinesis, I didn’t see anything.

  “Well, everything seems the same.”

  “Look at your hands,” he instructed plainly with his arms cro
ssed. I did as he asked and raised them to my face. It was just like when I fought the Demon Grinner: it looked as if the holes in my palms were exuding a gas that rose into the air. It made the air vibrate like heat rays normally did; except that the last time, I didn’t know how to ignite them – I had to use a match! It felt different this time.

  Dorian was right. It was too easy. It was as if a large specific chunk of my brain was taken only for fire; as if there were an extra organ that knew what to do and as if extra nerves had been grown solely for the purpose of my Pyrokinesis.

  With one forceful and direct thought, the veins on my arms surfaced and began to glow an exuberant orange. In a split second – though I hardly felt surprised – my hand curled up in magnificent, attractive flames. The slight, caressing sensation entwining my hands was back again like a few days ago when I arrived in granddad’s office underneath the tunnel and had my uncontrollable outburst.

  “It feels so easy to control,” I said, passing the strings of fire from hand to hand like a rope.

  “Those are the benefits of being born in the sign of your element,” Dorian spoke. “But just remember not to get ahead of yourself.” I wasn’t listening. I was too enchanted by the flames dancing on my palms. I took a step backwards and for the second time, I saw Dorian smile. But this time he sort of chuckled. I think he knew what I was about to attempt. It’s what my body felt like doing and I knew for sure it was going to work.

  “Bend your knees,” he told me. I quickly did as prompted. He walked to me and pushed my legs far apart using his foot.

  “Keep them well separated and be sturdy.” I pointed my flames upwards and with one strong thought of fire and unprecedented excitement, I flexed all new nerves that felt like they had just been wired to my hands uniquely for my ability of fire manipulation.

  Suddenly, as I stayed rooted to the ground, a burning heat exploded in my feet and surged through my body until they reached my hands. The vicious flames curled upwards in a wild thunderous roar that shook my hands as they raged out. I stayed stiff on the ground despite the fact that the fire grew spiteful, nastily wild and almost untameable. I could wager everything I owned that this fire was somehow alive. It had hit the barrier Dorian created. I pushed harder and my fire intensified. With a deafening explosion, the shield tore open and my fire escaped. The malicious fire – still connected to my hands and orange veins – tore through the sky, brightening it up. Dorian was bewildered; his firebrick eyes began to glimmer in a mixture of fear and astonishment. My hair became an even darker shade of red, resembling dark red wine as my eyes promptly followed.

  “How are you –?” Dorian stammered, fixed to where he stood. Suddenly, everybody came running out, even the adults, all amazed. I moved out of the canopy and stood directly underneath the rain. The fire was evaporating all drops as it carried on ripping through the sky.

  “It’s so easy!” I laughed happily. I had finally found something other than being bait for trouble that I was genuinely good at.

  “Yeah, but it can’t be that easy!” Dorian yelled, coming out from underneath the canopy and afraid that the fire was becoming irrepressible. I couldn’t help getting ahead of myself. Liam, Robbie and Jaden marched on to me and looked up in awe.

  “I enforce you, you know,” I heard. I looked down, still shooting up the beam of fire and saw him again; the doppelganger. Reflexes took over my body. I quickly tucked in my arms and shot them out at him where he stood. He didn’t budge. But something happened. It was as if he deflected the fire because I was sent jolting back and crashing against a tree trunk with such impact that I snapped it, however not breaking. I hit it with a forceful thud and slid to the ground. My back ached and my head began to feel as if it were imploding in itself.

  “What was that?!” Jaden asked, rushing over to me. I shook my head and stood up, but he wasn’t there anymore.

  “I – I thought I saw something,” I weakly replied, rolling in severe backache.

  “Aden, you’re brilliant! How did you do that?” Dorian asked, shaking me by the shoulders, suddenly with life in his face. I felt paralysed from the terrible impact that I crashed with.

  “A.J., you’ll be fine, buddy,” Dorian consoled with an enormous cheesy grin on his stubbly face whilst he patted me on the shoulders.

  “Why, what’s wrong?” mum asked as she approached with Tantrus and Anne.

  “He’s…powerful,” Dorian seemed lost for words. “I mean look, he even stopped the rain with the fire.” And it was true – I did. But when I felt relieved of my passing migraine, when I felt I could finally open my eyes, when I finally regained my strength, there they were – the army of ghosts.

  It was twilight and Jaden and Robbie wouldn’t stop questioning me on how it felt like to conjure fire. We were climbing up the stairs as they continued to bug me about it.

  “I’m pretty sure many people can do it too, or perhaps even more,” I would tell them. But as a matter of fact I wasn’t telling them the truth.

  I was enforced with something bigger than myself at that time and it wasn’t the doppelganger. It felt dark even though I felt a strong connection to it. I didn’t want to let go. All thoughts were flown into my head and I felt an unprecedented connection with a power that I couldn’t lay eyes on. A strong feeling that was internally pulling me to it. Possibly the Samhain ghosts, but I had no clue. I was just stringing anything together that could make sense.

  We stopped at the entrance of our bedroom’s door as we saw these odd, yet quite splendid outfits laid out on our beds, all in black and grey. And then I remembered: we had the Samhain ball today. But when time stopped? Now when could that be – in fact I can’t even wonder when, if it was going to be outside of time.

  “These are your outfits for the ball,” Tantrus stood behind us.

  “Why are they all in black and grey?” I asked curiously.

  “It’s the Samhain custom of Vernaesce,” Liam added, advancing on his smart attire.

  Us boys seemed to have slim-fitted, midnight black trousers, a matching black shirt that seemed to press to our torso’s, and what seemed to look like a well-fitted, knee-length overall, which was long sleeved and covered in black and grey Celt patterns, contrasting with its silver-ash nature. It had silver reflective buttons running down its front, its collar stood up and seemed to end with a penguin tail. I could have mistaken the overalls for coats, but they weren’t; they were thinner. They were also covered in what seemed to be reflective silver sequins, so small they looked like glitter. I scoffed at the outfits.

  “You need to get dressed, we’re leaving soon,” Anne quickly mentioned as she strolled by. Tantrus walked out and closed the door behind him.

  “These are so strange.” I spoke, awestruck.

  “Yeah, but they’re quite remarkable, don’t you think?” Jaden added. I looked down and saw a pair of long, mid-shin-length, black medieval boots. They had three silver buckles running down their sides, sturdy soles with thick heels that I’m sure would knock ominously when walking and the rim was folded down like boots so unfashionably worn by pirates. However, these boots looked brand new but had a splash of dirt to give them a stronger medieval effect.

  “Come on, guys, look lively! You heard Anne! We need to get dressed,” Liam hurried. We immediately dispersed, all departing with our clothes and ready to get dressed for the event. Robbie jumped into the bathroom whilst Liam, Jaden and I all rushed outside to occupy one of the four available ones.

  I stood in front of the mirror downstairs looking at myself. I clipped on silver cuffs to my fitted black shirt, then slipping on my boots and gently buttoning up the overalls. At a point, it became hard to tell whether it was my skin or not. When I moved my arm, it didn’t feel like I wore clothes; it felt like air. I flicked my tidy blue hair out of my upright collar and unfastened the top two buttons of the overall just to reveal my black shirt. Finally, I stepped out of the bathroom, looking much too smart than I normally was.

  Everybody see
med ready before I was. All the girls were wearing the same outfits: ash grey strapless dresses. From the waist down they seemed inflated with fabric and exploded with skirts and frills. Their silver trains glided behind them, blending into black. They had to pick up the large fronts of their dresses to ease their walking. Jojo and Tammy displayed a look of beauty that I never bothered to see from them, especially with their long hair so complicatedly done in a style that screamed high fashion. But Jade, to me, seemed picturesque and lovely – which was uncommon, seeing as all she did was torture me. Her brown hair was frilled into mahogany locks that cascaded down her back. The final touch of eyeliner and mascara brought her bright, mystical purple eyes to life as they shone intensely. The guys walked down the stairs and we, boys and girls, looked like an army of ghosts in black and grey.

  Tammy wore her Tartalum pendant, Jade wore a plain, simple, yet graceful silver necklace and Jojo had on a black choker with an onyx stone in the centre. We huddled up in a group.

  “Aden, you look so much smarter than you actually are,” Jade bantered with a light smile.

  “Don’t I?” I replied with a sarcastic smile, followed by my eyes rolling in their sockets out of exasperation. “No, I’m kidding, you look quite dashing,” she spoke again.

  “They actually really do,” Tammy said as she walked to Robbie and straightened his upright collar. Jojo said nothing – she mainly stared us. I could tell she was trying hard to conceal her smile. Liam had on a pair of classy black gloves, in order not to put anyone in a coma during this event. It would be a hilariously unfortunate tragedy that would have people crying; the person’s relative in absolute sorrow and loss and me in unimaginable laughter.

  Tantrus walked through the dining room, wearing an outfit similar to ours but his was much more formal, still following the rule of black and grey. Then, mum and Anne glided down the stairs like queens. They had their arms locked together as they gracefully slid downstairs.