The Necromancer - Watty Awards 2012

The Necromancer: Chapter One
Written By: Ekanta Delgado
Edited By: Various
Ilustrated By: Shin Babbitt

Chapter One: Nightmares

I can’t remember a thing past five. It’s not that I don’t want to… Trust me I do. No matter how hard I try to I just can’t.

All I remember is, that according to my adoption papers I was born in some city in Japan, and my father raised me in Minnesota. What’s strange is, I go to sleep with no recollection, then when I wake up, I wake up with a piece of a memory I never knew I had. My sister, Emery, could remember a few things I couldn’t like what our mom looked like… and I could remember things that she couldn’t too.

I was in that nightmare again. I was sure of it. I tried to force my eyes open multiple times, but I couldn’t so I just let the memories soak in my brain like a sponge as I repeated the same nightmare I had been having for multiple nights and relive the memories of my childhood I wish I could forget. Or… at least remember.

"Ekanta," A smooth, sweet voice called to me. It was a familiar voice, one I had heard a million times and yet, I couldn't quite think of whose it was.

"Ekanta," the voice said again. I looked around, still trying to recall the familiar voice. I could feel the presence of someone in the room. It too felt... somehow familiar. I enjoyed that feeling; that feeling of familiarity; that warm, safe feeling. I never felt this feeling in reality; only in my dreams when I’m asleep. This was almost similar to the other dreams, except, it wasn’t dark. There was a bright light surrounding me, creating a surprisingly peaceful nightmare.

Slowly, a pool of crystal, clear water appeared in front of me. I looked down at my reflection but a young woman appeared and replaced my own image. How strange, I thought. How’d that get there? The woman's light blonde hair was picked up perfectly with a plain yellow rubber band; her bright, blue-green eyes spoke to me. No smile was necessary to show that elated light, those eyes held it naturally. Her long, black drape wisped in the wind along with her beautiful hair.

"Amazing," I mused aloud, staring at her rosy cheeks. "Who are you?"

Not a crater on her face, no flaw to be seen. She almost looked somewhat familiar too. Almost as if I had seen her before, smelled the sweet scent of her skin, and felt her soft, warm touch. It was then that I realized who was calling my name; why it was so familiar, why it made me feel so safe.

“You’re my mom,” I choked on my words. My eyes were watering and red, and I could feel that my face was pale. Although I knew I was sobbing I could hardly hear myself. I felt breathless, and I had a hard time trying to regain control of my emotions. She was so beautiful… she looks just like my sister, Emery too…

I learned in school that nightmares were often triggered by memories or things to come but never to take them too seriously. I didn’t take it seriously for long, until I figured out it wasn’t normal for every single dream I had to play out exactly the way I had it in reality.

My father told me that at nine months, I already started walking and talking. At three, I could differentiate between different colors and symbols and even my alphabet. At five years old, I was already working with Geometry problems. At ten, I figured out that the dreams I was having were actually visions of the past and even a few from the future. Almost as if my memories as a child were returning to me. At twelve, I was taken out of school and being put into homeschooling while at the same time discovering I had been placed in gifted homeschooling, where my father would be teaching me. The program was for prodigy children that were born with minds far from regular age intellect. Which means, while a twelve-year-old thought like a twelve-year-old, I was thinking like a sixteen-year-old.

I begged my dad to let me stop homeschooling so I could go to school with normal kids. As always, he said no. While other kids were out in playgrounds having fun with their siblings, my brother and I was always stuck at home doing math homework and reciting how many elements there are in the Periodic Table. If I had to do one more periodic table and recite it to him, I swore I would’ve ripped my own hair out.

“Daddy,” I said in my sweet voice. I don’t know how my sister had convinced me to do this, but I took the risk. She knew I was ‘Daddy’s Little Girl’ so I knew she had to take the opportunity. I turned around and noticed Emery’s head peeking out from her bedroom door. She gave me a thumbs-up making a pouty face and pointing at my dad.