Secrets of the Sword

PART ONE: Jack ~ Amber?

Crash! Jack slams through the flimsy, dry, flaming wood.

"Jopaq!" his partner, Amber, who'd been showing up in his dreams often lately, speaks.

Chasing the flame towards his opponent's wall of liquids he had conjured up is her own conjured wall, this one of stone.  It's Jack's turn. He screams, "Ändöli!"

As our opponent stares at me in shock, ändöli, lightning, strikes the liquids. Amber thrusts her hands upwards three times before bringing them full circle. Th opponent starts copying Amber. He thrusts his own hands into his liquid wall, an screams in shock as he is electrifyed.

"Ändölöm!" The opponent speaks. I couldn't have dodged the word for death if it weren't for my skilled companion.

"Itele!" the opponent is blown aside by the movement word, making the death avoidable.

Amber looks into Jack's eyes."My name is Amber Oraniis. I am a waqcsyæth speaker."

§ § §

I fall out of the hammock that I made to replace my bed which I sold and instinctively roll onto Aaron's skateboard, roll on it down the stairs and land on my feet. I'm getting good at that!

'Waqcsyæth?'

What did Amber mean by that? I had started to understand this magic concept, but waqcsyæth?

I stumble into the kitchen groggily. Aaron, cooking breakfast, frowns.

I've been having these dreams constantly. I started telling Aaron about the weeks ago, and he's developed a nice system on Google Translate that translates the foreign words into something that isn't complete gibberish.  

He hands me my breakfast and walks to the computer, enters in some code along with the foreign word waqcsyæth, and says, "It means 'fourth controller.'"

"ELDYÄÄÄÄÄN!!!!" I hear someone scream.

That was a word that came up in a dream a few days ago. this one means....

BARRRRRRRRRRRIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIAAAAAAARRRRRRIIIIIIIIAAAAAARRRRR!!!!

"'FIRE!'"

The fire alarm! I sprint to Ryan and tell him to get out of the house. He looks up, confused. "Why? I'm eating breakf---"

I pick him up, but he starts to thrash and strikes my face with his foot. I punch him in the gut.

"Ouch!" He finally obeys, but it's too late. The flames have consumed the walls and the house is starting to collapse.

I hear Aaron talking to a fireman outside: "They're  you're not gonna be able toget Jack and Ryan in time for the house to collapse! I'm goin' in!"

Aaron crashes in through the burning wood. But that's not what I focus on. The fire went out. Then the house collapses around us. When we've made our way out of the wreckage, we walk into the woods as we'd done so many times before.

§ § §

I turn around to crack a cynical inside joke only to find that Aaron and Ryan are gone.

"Guys?"

When I look down, I see two things: a moving vine that bites me, and Aaron's hand sinking into the ground. Both make me panic.

"AARON!?!"

I feel the pain in my foot grow. As I slip away, I wonder, not the first time, if this is how my parents felt when they died.

§ § §

When I come to, I'm in a cute little adobe house with an even cuter girl who has let down her bright red hair that matches her amber eyes, and who is wearing a army cap, a faded gray t-shirt under a leather aviator hoodie, and blue jeans standing above me. She's  putting a cold wet rag on my forehead.

As I catch my bearings, I realize that the girl is, well, the only girl I know or dream about! Amber?

"What?"

I realize that I'm staring at her.  What should I say? "What are waqcsyæthes?" Ugh! Why am I so -- wait! She's talking to me!

"Why do you ask?"

"Well, I -- that is I just thought -- and uh, intelligent words...?"

"If you know that word, then you are a  waqcsyæthe."