Awakening

I was sitting in history class. The teacher was blabbing on about Medieval Europe and monarchs and all that stuff. I was absolutely bored. The clocked seemed as if it ticked too slow and that each second were an hour. I carelessly twirled my long dark hair around my fingers. The sound of a tapping pencil brought my attention to my best friend who sat in front of me, clearly bored too. The teacher’s voice sounded far away and the words on the board looked blurry.

Then, there was a bright flash, a blinding light exploding from nowhere. I jolted upright. Then it was gone. I looked around the class. No one seemed to have noticed it. They sat there as if nothing had happened. I sat back in my seat, frazzled. I was seeing things. My mind flashed back to what my mom had told me long ago.

“Honey, if you ever think you’re seeing things, just take deep breaths and calm yourself down.” She had told me this when I was six and thought I had seen a big monster, which turned out to be a shadow.

This was no shadow. I sucked in deep breaths. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale. I started to relax and decided to focus on the teacher. His voice seemed to echo off the walls as if the classroom were a tunnel.

Then another blinding flash exploded and this time I literally leapt out of my seat. My teacher looked at me, “What are you doing, Charlotte?”

I wiped my long hair out of my face. “Sorry, Mr. H, I just-“

Another flash exploded. Its pure white light was brighter than the sun. I fell backwards. The light faded. My ears rang.

Mr. H. and the rest of the class seemed unaffected. Instead, they were gaping down at where I lay on the floor. I got back up, shaking.

More bright lights flashed in a great display of blinding fireworks. I tried to shield my eyes, but the light bore right through my hands and eyelids. It faded away and I found myself huddling down, covering my face.

Mr. H’s eyes were wide. “Alexa, please take Charlotte to the nurse.”

My friend scrambled up from her seat and slowly walked me out of the class.

“What was that, Charlie?” She whispered. “You put up quite a show.”

I was confused. My head was spinning. “Uhh… I wasn’t faking that. There were these…lights.”

“Lights?” she said curiously.

I shook my head, “I’ll tell you later.”

---

The nurse told me to sit down and take a couple of deep breaths. “So what happened?”

She was looking at me right in the eye, which bugged me because it was like someone was trying to take control of your mind. “I...um…was sitting and then there were these bright flashes of light. Like, poof.” I said gesturing with my hands. “There were about 6 or 7 of them. I thought was seeing things at first, but I don’t think I was. They were too bright to be fake.”

“Lights,” The nurse said scratching her chin. “Describe a little more.”

I could tell she didn’t believe me. “They were just short…bursts of pure white light. I dunno, I was trying not to look. “I smiled sheepishly.

She nodded, cocking her eyebrow. “Hmm. You know what, go back to class and come back if more happen.” She clearly thought I was trying to get out of class.

I nodded and walked out into the hallway, “It’s okay. “ I whispered to myself. “Sixth period. Only fifteen minutes left of school.”

I was reaching the 300-wing where my class was when I started hearing whispers, a low voice that hissed like a snake. “We summon you, Mirror Mind… Your new life has opened. You will learn to use it. You will learn to control it.” I shook my head trying to clear my mind, but the voice kept whispering. “You are chosen for this. You are the only one. And you will save us all…”

I walked straight into the wall. “Uuugghhh...”

I massaged my head. This day was not going so well. First, a boring history class, then…lights… then lastly, some stupid whispering. What I needed was a good nap. I smiled at the thought. A nice nap….a nice long nap….a nice long….

Then my mind swirled into darkness.

I was dreaming. I was standing in front of a mirror in my bedroom. In my reflection, I was in some dark colored clothes, and my hands were glowing. My hair was in a ponytail and on my waist there was a dagger hanging on a belt. Suddenly, the mirror expanded and I was sucked into it. I was falling down through the clouds. The ground was approaching, a great expanse of forest. Directly below me, there was a…glowing pit? I blinked, there were dark figures standing around it. One was staring straight up at me with a relieved expression. Which bothered me, because why would anyone be relieved to see someone falling to their death? I was plummeting down so fast that before I knew it, I was brushing against a tree, and was about to hit the bottom of the glowing pit. I closed my eyes in fear…

I woke up to the sound of someone calling my name, “Charlotte, Charlie. Wake up. Charlotte, wake up.”

I sat up dizzily; it took me a few moments to remember where I was. I blinked and looked up at the person who was calling my name. Alexa was standing over me and shaking my shoulders. “Come on, Charlie…”

I pushed her away, “Stop shaking me.”

She stopped, “Sorry. I was just worried. You blacked out…just for a minute. Thank god no teacher saw you.”

I nodded, “Yeah.”

I paused as a thought hit me. “Hey, how did you know I blacked out? I mean, you can’t have been roaming in the hallway without anyone knowing and just happen to stumble upon me. What were you doing?”

A grin flashed on her pale face, “Oh, I really had to use the restroom and left the classroom. Actually, Mr. H. believed me. It’s real easy to fool teachers now days. They believe everything you say.”

I smirked, “Yeah, except the nurse didn’t believe me. She thought I was joking, which I wasn’t.”

“Well, that’s okay. We only have five minutes of school left. Let’s get back to class before Mr. H. starts suspecting we’re up to no good. Then, we would be in real trouble.”

She helped me up and looked around to make sure no one saw us. By the time we got back to class, the bell had already rung and kids were charging out the door. I grabbed my backpack and waited for Alexa to get hers.

The moment we got off school campus, Alexa started asking questions, like I was her favorite movie star. “What happened back there? What were the lights you saw? What happened before you blacked out? What did the nurse say?”

I tried my best to explain, which was kind of difficult because the moment I said something, Alexa would interrupt and ask another question. I finally cut into one of her questions and spoke firmly, “Long story short, I saw lights, heard voices, blacked out.” I didn’t tell her about the dream I had because I figured it was just one of those things you got when you fainted.

By the time we got home (we were also neighbors), the conversation of what happened to me had died and we walked in total silence. We said our goodbyes and walked into our houses.

---

That night at dinner, my parents asked me how my day was. Of course I said it was good, and I didn’t include the part of me fainting, or seeing lights, or even hearing whispers in your head. I attempted to keep a straight face and eat like nothing had happened. Of course, I am bad at lying, and my dad started getting suspicious.

“Honey, are you okay? You don’t look so good,” He said slurping up spaghetti.

I nodded, “I’m fine. I just didn’t get a lot of sleep last night…this week is going by really slow.”

He raised an eyebrow, and exchanged a quick glance with my mom before looking back at me, “Charlie, its Monday.”

Oops. I wanted to squirm in my chair, but stayed as still as possible. I twisted my fork into the spaghetti, “I know. It’s kinda been a long day and I didn’t get that much sleep last night…”

The phone rang. My mom put down her fork and got up from the table. She picked up the phone, “Hello?”

I slumped down in my chair, not paying attention to my mom or my dad. I ate a couple more bites of spaghetti and looked at my dad.

My dad was a tall guy with long legs and thick brown eyebrows. He was a marathoner and had a sturdy build with big leg muscles. He always wore a grin on his face, unless something was bothering him, and loved to laugh. You could basically call him a big teddy bear with a big heart. I found it ironic because his name was Ted. My mom would joke around, calling him “My Ted Bear” and my little brother, Peter, would call him “Bear”.

My mom on the other hand, was smart (smart as in you can never fool her) and beautiful. In fact, I called her the most beautiful person on Earth. Even though she wasn’t a young dashing princess in the movies, her joyous face and personality radiated a certain kind of beauty that is rare amongst most people. Her eyes were a light blue that sparkled wherever she went, and her golden hair always fell in the right spots. I looked up to her as my idol and my hero.

I was probably more like my dad in a few ways. I had dark chocolaty hair and a body of an athletic person. I was often told that my smile could melt the polar ice caps and that my laugh could make anybody smile. However, my eyes were blue like my moms and sparkled just the same way. At least, that’s what I’ve been told. Personally, I thought that they looked like a piece of blue paper, nothing was special or pretty. Just plain blue. But, honestly, I didn’t care because I figured that looks got you nowhere in life and that your attitude was the main thing.

I sat back up and slurped up some more spaghetti, thinking about the dream I had when I fainted. I knew it was just a dream, but somehow it felt different. As if what had happened in it was real and that somehow my soul flew to that place. I chuckled at the thought, knowing it was silly.

“Honey,” My mom called to me. “Do you want to go to Alexa’s house this Friday for a sleep over?”

I perked up and nodded, “Sure, right after school or do you drop me off around dinner?”

“After school,” My mom said quickly moving the microphone away, only to bring it back to her mouth. She went back to talking to Alexa’s mom and I turned back to my plate.

Peter sat playing with his spaghetti. His forked pushed the noodles around and an occasional stab at a meatball would fail and almost fly off his plate. My dad reached over and messed with Peter’s hair, “Peter, don’t play with your food. It’s not polite.”

Peter frowned, “But, I’m not hungry anymore. My stomach is full…”

My dad cocked his eyebrows, grinning, “Really?”

Peter innocently nodded his head. “Yeah, my stomach full.”

My dad shrugged his shoulders, “I guess you don’t have to have a smoothie for dessert with us since you’re not hungry. Which is fine with me…”

“No.” Peter said instantly, a hungry look in his eyes. “I want smoothie.” He instantly began shoveling food down his tiny mouth. I chuckled and began slurping down my food too.

I felt good again and forgot about what had happened earlier that day, dismissing it as a one-of-those-things thing. My mind calmed down and I fell into a normal rhythm again. Life was good.

---

That night, I got into bed and turned on my lamp. My room was dimly lit and you could barely see the outline of my dresser at the other end. On the wall hung pictures of friends and family, and some posters of famous movie stars. My bed was covered with fluffy green and pink sheets and underneath it were some bins with books and extra blankets.

I considered staying up and reading Harry Potter, but decided to get some sleep. I got comfortable under my covers and switched off the lamp.

As I stared off into the darkness, slowly dozing off into a deep sleep, I started to feel different. Like my mind was slowly leaving my body and going somewhere else. I closed my eyes and began to drift into a sleep. I wasn’t aware that everything that had happened that day was just the beginning of something.

Something, that would change my life.