Lumen (10 page)

“Are you okay?” Marianne asked, but her voice was a lot louder and deeper to him.

Daniel turned his head to see her. He was not okay, but kept his lips tensed shut to keep from being sick over everything. His eyes clocked her pendant again, swinging back and forth around her neck.

“Oh, Mercury, bless him better,” she said clasping the pendant in her hands.

Daniel squeezed his eyes shut, pulling and slipping away. Pulling and slipping. Pulling and—falling.

White and black blotches flashed before Daniel’s eyes. He pinched himself, and it hurt. He started to gasp at the air, and shuffle around on his feet, but he was covered in darkness.

“I’m blind!” he cried out, flailing his arms around. “Oh, no I’m not,” he chortled, moving his hands to and from his face, noticing how he saw them perfectly fine in the dark.

He sighed and caught a whiff of his breath, a warm stale smell, he tried not to gag on it.

“Shhhh,” a soft voice came, rasping against the hairs on his neck.

Daniel turned and rolled his shoulders at the warmth. The only thing behind him was the same black backdrop.

“Shhhh,” it came again, prickling the other side of his neck.

He turned again, turned to nothing, circling himself, trying to cover every part of the boxed black. Someone standing far away enveloped in with the black caught his eye. Although you had to squint to see the anomaly, but when you did, it was clear. It was a man.

Daniel squinted, and while he couldn’t see the man walking, he was getting closer, and closer, until only a couple of metres separated them. The man stood with a puffed out chest and olive skin, wearing a black shirt and a pair of white linen pants.

“Daniel?” he asked. Daniel nodded, keeping eye contact. “There’s fear. Hate. Pain. And you wish death, you wish ill on people.”

Daniel took a step back, but it didn’t change the distance between the two of them. He shook his head, and his lips trembled as he throat voiced a weak, “no.”

“I don’t believe you,” he said as his pupils ate at his irises, blending them black. “I know 
who
 you want dead,” he said, humming a gruff laugh until his lips pursed into a grin.

“I don’t want anyone killed,” Daniel said, starting to plead.

A groan ran throughout the darkness, rumbling like a fading thunder. And from the corner of Daniel’s eyes, he watched as another stumbled in and fell to his knees before the man.

“Him,” the man said, forcing Daniel to look down.

The boy had a mass of dark blond hair sticking up and wrapped around his head. He looked up to see Daniel, and behind the off-white skin, it was Jasper.  Jasper’s head collapsed back into the light, showing his glossy tear-stained face and a thin layer of grey sticky tape covering his mouth. Silent hums and screams came from behind it, but he only drove himself restless.

“I don’t,” Daniel said.

The man grinned; his white teeth clashing against his olive skin. “He’s the one who gave you that.” He pointed toward Daniel’s eye.

Daniel’s eye started to swell and throb once again as he touched it. “No, I don’t want it.”

“You want them 
both
 gone then?” he laughed.

Daniel’s teeth ached, staring at Jasper in a lump at the man’s feet. Daniel shut his eyes and shook his head. 
It’s a dream, it’s a dream
.

“But, oh. How it’s not a dream,” the man said.

“It is. It is.”

Another whimper came from Jasper and then a cry. Daniel opened his eyes to see the man grabbing a handful of Jasper’s hair and teasing at the corner of the tape against his lips. He then gripped it and ripped it straight from his skin. Jasper tried to cower but his head was held up his hair wrapped around the man’s fingers.

“You want him dead. Don’t act like this doesn’t make you happy. It’s who you are, like you should think any more of scum, there only purpose is to serve you,” he laughed.

“Kill him. Do it,” Daniel said, and every muscle in his body felt a tight rip as if it had all been a test and he would be killed for even thinking of doing it.

The man pulled a small ridged blade from a concealed holder on his belt. Daniel kept eye contact with him, and the man stared, toying with the blade in one hand, and Jasper’s knotted hair in the other.

Jasper groaned, and Daniel took a look at him. One look did it all, the man let go of Jasper’s hair and then thrust the knife into his back, blood squirted up and splashed his face. Slowly, the blood soaked Jasper’s white clothes a nice rosy red.

Daniel shut his eyes tightly and gulped at the trapped air inside his mouth. It lasted a moment of what forever would taste like. Harbouring the image inside to figure out what had just happened.

“No,” Daniel voiced, falling to his hands and knees. A numb sensation rushed through his body and he couldn’t feel himself.

Daniel opened his eyes and shot up. He was in bed, but none the less startled. His breathing slowed and he closed his eyes again, scarred by the emptiness in the black and the camouflage of the man’s eyes. He led back on the pillow, trying not to close his eyes or feel anything but the air around his body.

He shivered beneath his duvet, cuddling up to his arms; he closed his eyes and only got colder.

He was far from his bed; in fact he was far from his room. He stared ahead to see a girl standing on the edge, her wispy night-dress flapping against her legs. She sniffled, rubbing her nose against her arms.

“H—hey,” Daniel said, and the girl turned around.

Chapter Eleven

Daniel wrapped his arms around himself, staring at the girl in her nightdress. She glared back at Daniel, who was only wearing a pair of pyjama bottoms.

She looked away and wiped her eyes. “What do you want?”

“W—where am I?” he asked, hunching his shoulders.

“On the roof of the Lexar Hotel,” she said, jumping from the ledge to the roof and out of the floodlights.

 “Where’s that?”

“New York,” she said, smiling.

“I’m sorry, I don’t know where that is.”

She chuckled. “What’s your name?” she asked walking towards him.

“Daniel, what’s—”

“Hi, Daniel. I’m Mia,” she said, sticking her hand out.

She was a couple of inches shorter than Daniel, but not so much that he had to look down. He shook her hand and glanced around. For all he knew it could’ve been another dream; it was dark, but he knew where he was, he was on the roof of the Lexar Hotel, New York.

“So, where are you 
really
 from?” he asked.

“London, but my dad got a new job here in New York, and we had to move. I hate it, I woulda jumped y’know. He doesn’t think about anyone else, I mean, he didn’t even ask me if I wanted to go, I would 
not
 have agreed. And my stepmom wouldn’t even let me speak up, she’s all like 
but your dad’s been workin’ towards this for ages, you knew it could have happened, so don’t look at me like that
,” she said, gasping for air. She rolled her eyes and looked as though she was about to begin another short rant.

“Oh,” Daniel said in confusion, “I’m from Templar Island, just moved to the Upperlands.”

Mia grinned and started to laugh again. “Oh, well, you’re funny.”

“Yeah,” he said, with an unsure sigh.

“Oh my god, I bet you're freezing,” she said.

“Just a little.”

“You know, I was going to wear my dad’s overcoat—take something sentimental with me,” she said, grinning.

“Hmm,” Daniel nodded.

“Where’s Templar Island?” she asked.

“What do you mean?” and then he suddenly realised that for whatever reason, he was no longer on the island, and of course it made sense, he’d known since he was little that there must be some place off the island. That meant something else, people who tried to sail away from the island or teleport, were often found dead by the next day, there was something about keeping the island a secret that he’d read in a book from the library. “Oh, it’s just a small place like there a chain of them, just, around.”

“Like Hawaii?” she asked raising an eyebrow.

“Hmm,” he nodded, “Hawaii.”

She pursed her lips and eyed him through her squinting eyes. “How come you're so pale?”

Daniel shrugged, glancing from his feet to her. He looked into her eyes; soft, powder blue and bloomed wide. His mouth was half-opened to speak, but stared in awe. “W—well, what are you doing up here?” he asked breaking their quiet bond.

“To jump,” she said her face stern with a smile.

“Would you?” he asked.

She grinned and their gazes met. Daniel didn’t know what to do, he couldn’t smile at the thought of someone taking their own life, no, that was not the Templar way, nature took life. She then shook her head, and sniffled back a sob.

“Don’t cry,” he said, fumbling with his hands, half-wanting to pat her back and the other half not wanting to do something wrong.

“I’m not,” she snapped, shooting him a sharp look. She had black smudges around her eyes and trickles of black running down like her tears were black. “I know, I should get waterproof mascara, right, another thing wrong in my life,” she said, breaking out into a small fit of laughter.

“Do you ever dream about free-falling off a tall building?” Daniel asked.

“You mean skyscraper, a tall building just wouldn’t do. You’d 
splat
,” she said clapping her hands together once in emphasis. Daniel grinned. “Come see the drop.” She grabbed a hold of his hand and pulled him to follow her.

The Lexar Hotel was 40 floors high, and still it would’ve only taken them seconds to hit the ground. Daniel leaned over to see the street below; illuminated with incandescent yellow from the street lamps.

“What are they?” Daniel asked, nodding to the road as cars sped down it.

“Traffic. It’s appalling, I know,” she said.

“No, not that. Those?”

“Cars, taxis?” she asked, turning to him and wrinkling her face.

Daniel met her expression and sucked in a deep breath. “Oh.” 
Of course, I’m not in Templar anymore. And those things, I’d only ever seen them in books about the Upperlands.
 “I’m just a little tired.”

Mia grinned. “You’re strange, you know that.”

Daniel glanced at her coyly. “I’ve seen some heights.”

“None as big as this?” she asked, biting her lip.

He grinned. “Well.”

Mia gripped hold of Daniel’s hand and peered over the edge. Daniel choked back soft breathes as their palms clammed up, letting his arm go limp in her hand.

He turned his head to cough before he spoke, and when he glanced back, her sapphire eyes, globed and glittered against the black night. “H—how often do you come up here?”

“Every day,” she said, turning her head as she blinked to look away, “I usually come up here to watch the sunset. I know, it’s not the best view, but I pretend I can see it.” She pulled her hand out of Daniel’s and wrapped them around herself.

“I’m surprised you can see it with the all the light.”

She shot him a sly glance. “Yeah well, I preferred the view in London, it was amazing.” She broke out in a short abrupt giggle, “I actually get my friends to message me pictures. But, like now, when my friends are in bed, and I’m the only one awake. That’s when I don’t want to be here. I’d just end it.” She turned, and looked up to him, her eyes glossed over.

Daniel could only let himself smile, praying she wouldn’t cry. Although he knew how she felt, he just couldn’t sympathise—she wanted to take her own life because she wasn’t someplace else, but he could go anywhere, he could take
her
 anywhere.

“I have to show you something,” Daniel said, standing with a large smile on his face.

“I’m not that sort of person,” she snickered.

Daniel couldn’t begin to break down what she’d eluded to, but apparently it had been funny. She was laughing and he smiled with her.

Daniel grinned. “Close your eyes,” he said in a whisper.

She raised an eye brow and repressed her lips from smiling. “Okay.” She closed her eyes.

Daniel walked behind her. He turned, and took his t-shirt off and flung it beside a metal air vent. 
Just show her already
, he thought, already shaking. He rolled his shoulder blades and his back cracked. He closed his eyes, and felt a heated sweat prickle over him. Everything become warm and blanketed him inside the heat.

Daniel opened his eyes. He was lying deep within his duvet. He struggled at first, fumbling his way out, falling into a heap at the side of his bed. 
Another dream
, he gritted his teeth and butted his lips white.

“She was just a dream.”
 I want more of it
, he sighed.

He stood and threw himself on his bed. It felt more like home without the duvet, colder, but the air was still different. He fell to sleep pushing scenarios of being great in his first attacking and defence class.

Chapter Twelve

The next morning Daniel had gone for a run, showered, dressed and knocked on Taner’s door before people had even  been kicked by their caffeine spikes.

“Are you going to tell me what happened then?” Taner asked, handing Daniel a tray at the canteen and then taking one himself.

“I just fainted. There really isn’t that much to say. And I’m not up for breakfast,” Daniel replied, trying to give him the tray back.

“You have to eat. Or you’ll faint again, and because it’s our first class on how to use energy, like 
really
 use it, you need it!”

“And this class is the only one where you can 
test
 your power, and show the rest of the school what 
you
 can do,” Daniel said and moved down the aisle, taking back his tray. “Y’know, people like Jasper, that’s how they get their reputation.”

“Yeah, and –”

“No, they showed people what they could do. Hell, I felt it first hand, didn’t I?” Daniel grinned and picked up a plate with a toasted bun and put it on his tray.

“S’pose so, and I heard that the class is integrated with the second and third years, and they even match us up against ‘em,” Taner said, moving along to an empty table.