Apples and Snakes

The Boy Who Changed Everything

I'm sitting in a clearing, by where a waterfall is trickling off of some rocks, into a stream, which will eventually feed into the black lake. The rock I'm sitting on is smooth, pale, marble ruins. It was an absolutely picturesque place, in my opinion. Yet that made me panic.

"Where am I?" I demanded, and I stood up. A towel toppled from my shoulders, and I felt chilly. I looked down at myself. I was wearing a plum sundress, absolutely soaked and dripping onto the cool stone beneath my bare feet. My lilac locks clung to my pale shoulders, and little droplets of water slid down my back.

"You're with me." A male voice says. It sounds somewhat familiar, like maybe one of my classmates, but not someone I knew well. It sounds warm, though, and friendly. It was a voice that made me not afraid to turn around, not afraid of what I might see.

I turn and look, to see a boy sitting in the marble, where he would've been next to me. He's got a smile that would make girls melt, and probably butter, too, for that matter. His eyes are a golden color that's quite magical. His dirty-blond hair is in bangs, and isn't too short, and definitely not too long. He seems slender, and somewhat small, although a bit bigger than me, with a bit of muscle. He's wearing a soaked gray muscle shirt, and blue swim trunks, and has his own towel wrapped like a cloak over his shoulders.

"Who are you?" I ask, starting to panic. It all seems so real. "What black magic is this?"

"I'm your friend." The boy says, with a genuine smile. I've seen it before. I can't put my finger on where. Keep talking.

"That still doesn't answer my question." I reply, crossing my arms over my chest. "I want to know your name."

"But you already know it, remember?" The boy says a bit nervously. He looks at me like I'm about to attack him, or something. The look my parents gave me the day it came out in Dueling Club in my second-year when they discovered that I was a Parselmouth.

"GET OUT OF HERE!" I scream, and I pick up stones from the river bank. I begin to chuck them, but the boy ducks. He places an arm to block his face from suffering damage, and before I know it, he has his hands over mine.

"Calm down, Ali." He says, looking at me with those golden eyes, that are really a shade of hazel, I see now. It's like in the movies, and my hair begins to swirl around, and some of the blossoms I see in the background begin to float out of the hedges and into the breeze.

"How do you know my name?" I ask.

"Alice, wake up." He says.

"Alice, wake up!" Tracey urged me, and cold water was in my bed. She looked up to Pansy, Millicent, and Daphne. They all exchanged a glance, and nodded.

I slapped a hand to my forehead. "Thanks." I said curtly, and they returned curt nods back. I pulled an alarm clock out of my trunk, and placed it atop the dresser. I'm near impossible to wake without my special alarm clock. Cold water, like Tracey tried? Nope, my nervous system somehow shuts off completely when I go comatose. A good shake, like Millicent preferred? Doesn't help one bit. Pansy's personal favorite, a slap to the face? Not even that could wake me up. Trust me, all of my roommates have tried just about everything.

I grabbed my uniform, and threw it on, with the addition of my black combat boots, since we were allowed to wear any shoes that were black with our uniforms. I laced them up, and let the bows sag half-heartedly, and placed my fingerless gloves on. I scooped all of my school stuff up, and put it in my Sleeping Beauty-themed schoolbag. I grabbed a quick flyer I'd designed and created over the summer.