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The next morning I found myself being woken up by a knock on the door. I had crashed pretty early from both stress about the test and exhaustion from the trip over. I groggily wiped the sleep from my eyes and slumped over to the door where I found Cole behind it.
"Cute," Cole commented on my sleepy appearance. "It's time to go get ready now."
I yawned and rubbed at my eyes some more. "Now?"
Cole nodded once. "Yes, now so come on."
"Let me get dressed first--"
He grabbed my arm and began dragging me through the hall. "No one's up yet and you need to get ready."
I took my arm back and I began waking up more to actually support and walk myself. I followed Cole through and out the dorms to the outside where I was greeted with a blaring sunrise and surprisingly warm weather.
"We're going to the arena," he said. "But first you need to get dressed in your proper attire in the locker room."
I barely remember Cole pointing out the arena but it was pretty far through the trees so we didn't actually get up close. This time, we actually headed there and I found myself face to face with a dome, net covered arena in the ground with bleachers lining around it. I felt like I was in some gladiatorial era.
He didn't bring me in the ring, but rather down some stairs to a nicely lit hallway. He opened up a closet and looked me up and down. "Extra-small?" He asked.
I raised an eyebrow. "For what?"
"Shirt and shorts."
"Medium and small," I mumbled as he tossed me some purple workout gear and white shoes that he had correctly guess the size. I looked up at him in surprise and he shrugged.
"Shoe size was in your information they gave me before I picked you up. Shirt and shorts? Never got. Kind of weird because I got a lot of other sizes."
I nodded, kinda feeling self-conscious that he knew all this information about me. What else could he know? My feelings should have shown on my face because a smirk rested on his lips.
"What other sizes?" I asked, suddenly turning nervous.
"A little of this, a little of that," he snickered.
"Even..."
"First thing I looked up," he winked and I felt myself turning bright red as I self-consciously crossed my arms over my chest.
I didn't say anything else and took the clothes to change in the locker room while Cole stayed in the front. They were both a light purple and comfortable enough to go on a ten mile hike in. Judging by the warmth of early this morning, we were due for a hot day so the clothes were lightweight enough to not cause any unneeded heat.
I stepped back out to the lobby area and Cole nodded in approval. "You'll start your placement test in around twenty minutes. I recommend warming up, stretching your brain, or whatever else you Minds like to do."
"I know about as much as you do about this," I muttered but decided to sit down and start brainstorming what I should be expecting. I wasn't given much information about this and was left in the dark about it all. The only thing I really got was not to worry too much about it.
"Listen," Cole said while sitting down next to me. "I get that this could be stressful to you, but like I said before, you can't do anything wrong out there. Just showcase what you can do and you'll be placed into your appropriate level. Most people get levels one or two but I think you're better than that so you'll be sure to surprise some people. I mean, a person has gone out there and all they could do was lift a pebble off the ground. You can do that, so there's nothing to worry about."
"Thanks..." I trailed off and I could start to hear footsteps and chattering above us.
"You're starting soon," He said and got up, motioning for me to follow him.
We went farther down the hallway until we found another staircase that led up to a rock wall.
"Once that drops, you have to go out there to the arena. That is your queue that the test will start. Remember, you can't really mess up or do wrong. You just need to give it your all and you'll be good. By the end of this, you'll be placed into your level which goes from one through five."
I heard someone start talking above us, presumably on a microphone but their words couldn't be deciphered. Suddenly, the rock wall dropped along with my stomach as people cheered from the outside.
Gaining confidence, I went up the dark stairs to where a door of light was at the end. Before heading out I stopped to take a deep breath to gain my composure before taking the last step to my ultimate doom.
"Hey, Buckley?" I turned around and saw Cole leaning against the wall, just like he was doing when I was giving him the tour of the school and he told me about Supernatural Abilities. "Don't be afraid of hurting anyone. Be offensive, not defensive."
I gave him a little smile and stepped out into the arena. It took a moment for my eyes to be adjusted to the sudden brightness but found myself looking at an unpaved area with rocks, a stream, and a full 360 of people in the bleachers. Directly across from me was a room lined with windows and adults sitting and focusing on me, one I recognized as Galen. Behind me, the rock wall sprung back up, locking me in the arena.
"Taylor Buckley," my name echoed through a now quiet setting. "Your placement test will now begin."
It wasn't even second after the announcement stopped that a rock came flying towards my face. Gasping, I jumped out of the before realizing that I should have used my powers. A flood of energy was coursing through me as a man rose out from out of the ground with his eyes trained on me.
He raised his arms up, making all the rocks in the arena start floating. One by one, they came soaring towards me but the adrenaline in my body gave me an advantage. Using my mind, I began throwing them off course so I wasn't in their line of target.
In the middle of this, Cole's words replaying in my mind.
Be offensive, not defensive.
A big boulder came at me but I braced myself. With my hands out in front of me, I stopped the boulder mid-flight but instead of letting it fall, I lifted it up with an unseen force until it was above my head. Dirt and pebbles fell on top of me as I gritted my teeth in concentration. With a grunt, I let the rock fly forward, straight towards my assailant.
The man held out a fist and the rock split into two, going on either side of him. However, he gave an approving nod and went back down into the ground. I caught my breath as the crowd remained silent all around me. Something inside let me know that this test was just beginning.
Then another person literally flew down from the sky, right in front of me. Her eyes were a very light gray, almost scary looking. Mine were darker, but still weren't anything close to black. Her eyes were almost white, but were eerily still pretty. She gave me a little smirk and blew on me, having the force of a car that blasted me in the wall of the arena.
Grimacing, I slowly got up as she flew up into the sky. The air around me starting picking up, forming a tornado. I found myself stumbling but shot my head up to the sky where the girl was floating and twisting her arms in a circle. I fell down to my knees and gasped onto the grass as the wind picked up. Using one hand, I reached my arm up and focused all my energy on constraining her with my mind. Finally, the air around me slowed and returned to normal as the girl was struggling against my mental grip on her. When I finally had to drop the telekinesis, she looked down at me from the air, winked, and flew away.
At this point, I was beat. My body and mind ached as I struggled to take breaths. If they were going with the same pattern, I still had three types of abilities to go through until I was done.
Then, everything around me was on fire.
This didn't surprise very much considering that I was with Cole for a few days. A man popped down from the stands as fire swirled around him. The air filled up quickly with smoke and I felt it in my lungs as it kept rising and growing closer to me. The man across from me drew his arms together, forming a large ball of fire. A few seconds later, it started flying straight towards me.
It was that moment that I didn't realize what I was doing. Focusing all my thoughts into safety and healing, I watched as the fireball came right for me but as it was supposed to hit me, it acted as if my body was some fireproof barrier, flames bouncing off of me, and I couldn't feel anything.
It wasn't telekinesis. It wasn't time manipulation. It was something new that somehow came out of me in a time of danger and adrenaline. I had learned a new skill.
I know on my records that it only showed those two because that's what I told Cole. I looked up at the windowed room and saw them looking through papers and down at me with confused faces. Even the Fire man across from me looked surprised. He shrugged, jumped up, and climbed out of the arena while I felt this new type of Mind power fade out.
Three down, two to go.
This time, a girl came out of the pond seemingly dry and with the prettiest blue eyes. She wasted no time in drenching me in gallons of water, making me fall to the ground in a wet heap. She began pulling up strings of water that she froze along the way and shot them at me. I dodged each by scrambling out of the way but not doing anything to retaliate in my exhausted state.
She finally rose both arms up, creating dozens of icicles before firing them all at me.
I might have been ready to pass out and wanting nothing more than a nice bath or maybe even a massage, but I somehow was able to pull out enough energy to slow time down. The once menacing and quick frozen water was now traveling at the speed of a slug. In fact, everything around me was, except myself.
I got up and began hitting each and every one, making them slowly shatter with time being half the speed. To those watching, everything seems like real time so I must have been looking like I was some kind of speed runner. Once the last one was broken, I made time go back to normal and the girl looked taken aback. In a brief moment, she, too, disappeared.
The last Supernatural Ability was Mind, the one I obviously am. However, judging from what Cole had said before, the Mind ability has so many dimensions to it so each of us has different powers from one another. The next person is a Mind, guaranteed, but also a complete mystery.
That's when I blinked and found myself back in my old house.
I had no pain and when I looked down, I found a pair of jeans and a t-shirt that I would normally wear. The house wasn't destroyed like it was when I left, but rather cute and clean. It smelled not like booze, but rather chocolate chip cookies.
I followed the smell into the kitchen where a blonde woman was leaning over into the oven. When she got back up, my heart stopped.
"Oh, Taylor!" my mother said with a cheery smile on her face. "I didn't even hear you come home!"
"I-uhh--" I stuttered out while my father came into the kitchen, clean shaven and dressed well to give my mother a kiss on the cheek.
"I'm going to work now, see you two ladies when I get home," he said without the smoker's crack in his voice that I have grown used to.
"What is this?" I asked out loud while my parents looked at me in confusion.
"These are cookies," my mom said while she showed me the sheet I hadn't realized she was holding. "I'll say, they have to start teaching you more in school--"
"You're supposed to be dead," my eyebrows furrowed together.
My mother's mouth dropped to a frown, something I rarely saw during my childhood. "Did you have a nightmare last night, Taylor?"
I shook my head as she advanced towards me. The concerned look in her eyes made me almost forget what I was talking about, but I turned away, formulating my jumbled thoughts into words. "No, I watched you die. You're dead. This isn't real."
"Taylor," my father held out his hand. "Are you okay?"
That's when I noticed that his left arm had a watch on it, usually signifying that he was right handed. However, that wasn't true. My dad's dominant hand was his left, so he would wear it on the opposite side. A common mistake someone could make.
"This isn't real," I repeated and shut my eyes tightly together. "Go away, this isn't real!" I screamed and when I opened my eyes, I was back in the arena.
I didn't even realize I was crying until I blurrily looked out to see a woman with a very surprised look on her face. The arena was completely silent, not one peep out of anyone. The people up in the room all looked down at me in shock, except Galen who looked pleased.
"Taylor Buckley, your test is now over. Please stand by while we configure your results."
The girl in the arena stared at me for a few moments before heading towards the wall where the rocks when up and down once she walked through. I rubbed at my eyes, trying to erase all that remained of my tears while I felt hundreds of eyes on me. My heartbeat threatened to escape my chest as all the adrenaline, power, and energy slowly started escaping my body, leaving me ready to knock out.
"Taylor Buckley," the voice came back again. "You are placed in level five. Congratulations, we will see you in training tomorrow."
I looked out at the crowds and people looked stunned. There were some whispers and opened mouths but once the initial surprise left, the crowd exploded in cheers. It was so loud that I didn't even notice that a rock wall behind me dropped and Cole was helping me up.
"You did amazing," he whispered in my ear so I could hear. He supported some of my weight as we walked back down where I had entered. Behind us, the wall went up once more and we were greeted by a muted applause.
"Nothing to worry about," I took a breath, "my ass."
"Usually they don't go that hard on newbies, they must have known what you could do."
And that, my friends, is when I blacked out.
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It's this chapter that really made me realize how much I missed writing this story. I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I did writing it :)
Sorry this update took longer than usual to get up. I still have many chapters already done but I'm in the middle of pre-finals week and too busy to even sleep. I hope the next one will be up sooner than this one was, but no promises!
As usual, thank you for reading and see you next chapter!