The Equivocal Trilogy: Opaque

Chapter 6

  I wake up, screaming. Zal wakes up to my screams and hugs me tight.

  "Hush," he whispers and I pant slowly, and try to calm myself down.

  "Zal," I rasp and he asks, "What happened?"

  "Nightmares," I say quietly. "The worst two ever."

  "It's not real," Zal says, trying to comfort me. "It's okay."

  "You don't know what happened in there," I say. "It's scary."

  "Then, tell me what happened."

  "You wouldn't want to know the second one," I reply.

  "Well, I would," Zal says as he smiles. "No worries, just tell me."

  "The first, I saw my sister die. She looked really weak. Then, she told me she will be gone. And the next second, she vanished. She's gone," I say as tears roll down my cheeks. 

  "She's not, she's alive, somewhere," Zal whispers as he wipes away my tears. "What's the second nightmare?"

  "The second one?" I ask him as I shiver. "You were about to kill me." 

  "Kill you?" His eyes widen with fear. "I wouldn't do that."

  "It seemed so real! Your hands were on fire and you glared at me, and I couldn't do anything as you came nearer. And you were about to kill me. Me."

  "It's a nightmare," Zal says before repeating. "It's not real."

  "I was so scared!" I cry out.

  "Don't be," Zal says. "You know, I would never do that."

  "Yeah, I know," I mutter quietly as I look around. Kira's gone, probably back to the building to get the machines ready for today. "Let's get going for magic practice?"

  "Sure thing," Zal replies as Taron and Odette get up too. 

  We head to the building together and walk to the same room. Same procedure, everything the same. I eat the tablet and relax my mind. The world vanishes and I am back at the same place, with the Simulated Aura. Her happy face makes me happy too. I smile at her as she approaches me.

  "You did great," Aura whispers. "Sacrifice for others, yeah?"

  "Yeah," I reply quietly as she smiles.

  "You have learnt about force," Aura says. "Now, attacking and defending."

  "That's great," I say and she tells me to watch carefully. Her hands draw out the smoke before she blows at it lightly, letting the smoke spread around the place.

  "Just a warm up," she says lightly before she clench her fist tight. She seems to concentrate for a while before she turns around and grips her fingers together tightly. Suddenly, she stops turning and places her hand towards the wall. She losen the grip and lets go of the magic in her hand. Smoke comes out, but not the normal smoke I see. The smoke is thicker, looks more magical. And it is stronger. The smoke hits the wall hard, causing a deep crack in it. She then clasps her hands together and then she closes her eyes before opening them once more, and pushing the magic out. A little tornado spins above her hand and she grins at me. She flings her hand up into the air and the tornado becomes a cloud. The cloud vanishes as soon as she flies up and cuts across it. She claps her hands once more.

  "Here's a real tornado," she says. She flies up before she draws her hands back, creating a beautiful spinning tornado.

  "Wow," I say as I watch the amazing tornado spin.