CHAPTER THREE

"Fear will want to be your friend. Let it."

– The Pure 8:11, The Bible of the New World

I'm being paranoid.

Or at least, that's what I tell myself the second I get inside the lighted dorm and have shut off the dark hallway with a resonant slam of the door. In here, where there's light and warmth, everything that happened in the hallway feels like a very realistic bad dream. But I'm still shaking, and there's no denying the lingering fear in my gut and the fading shouts telling me to run. It probably wasn't Lucifer, but there was something there, and whatever it was, it wasn't good.

I move away from the door and venture further into my dorm, afraid that whatever presence haunted me outside might seep through the thick wood. There's a tall staircase up against the wall to my left, leading up to the second floor balcony. And all the way up the wall are pictures of the dorm's occupants. I'm in a few, but not many, mainly because I have this annoying habit of sticking to myself – a habit that I've had since I started high school. Once upon a time, my motto was don't make friends. Now, after meeting Lexa and Kal, it's don't make any more friends. Don't talk to too many people.

Keep to yourself.

I pass the fireplace, the flickering fire in its hearth coating everything in a warm glow, and barely spare a glance at the large six-seater couch next to it, its leather faded and worn. There's a long hallway that extends in both directions at the back of the dorm which lies directly beneath the second floor balcony. I used to have a room in that first floor corridor – a room being four short walls and two small beds squished into the back corner, along with a desk, wardrobe, mirror and chair. There were only two bathrooms, and they were communal.

But then I reached my senior years and as is customary, I was bumped up to the top floor where privacy is abundant, the rooms are bigger, everyone gets their own bathroom, and it's easier to keep to yourself.

I ascend the stairs now, walking closer and closer to that dark soaked second floor, feeling strange walking around a place that's usually filled with so much noise and movement. Everything seems so still – so silent – that if I were to just step in the wrong place or make a sudden sound, the whole world would come crashing down on top of me. There's a pressure in the air, pushing against my skin, forcing me into silence – a pressure that has me believing I wouldn't like the sound of my voice if I were to speak.

At the top of the staircase, I turn left into the darkness of the second floor corridor. We were allowed to pick our rooms when we reached fifth year. The rooms closest to the staircase went first, shortly followed by all the ones that weren't swallowed by darkness at night. I got the one nobody wanted – the one at the very end of the hallway, situated in the blackest pit in the entire dorm. But I suppose 'got' is the wrong word – I chose that room. Because of my motto. And because of the reason behind it.

Not once have I ever regretted my choice. If you're looking for privacy – for quiet – then my room is ideal. But suddenly, walking the length of the darkened hallway doesn't look so appealing. I can feel whispers reaching out to me from the beckoning void, ones similar to those I encountered in the hallway where the night was just as thick and just as heavy, a threatening weight on your shoulders pushing you down into the fiery pits of hell.

Come, the dark whispers to me, and for that very reason, I want to turn away. To return to the dining hall where my friends are probably sill eating their rainbow mash and chatting about exams. But the only way to get back there is to pass through the large, empty hallways that are filled with the night and other things. Like an unexplainable presence that left a cold touch on my back.

And from an outside perspective, all this would probably seem quite funny. Because I'm the girl who has never been afraid of the dark, who rolled her eyes at people who feared things that went bump in the night. I would remind them, "Save your fear for something worthwhile." And now here I am, fearing the one thing I never thought I would.

Taking my own advice, I step into the darkness and walk quickly towards my room. The further I go, the less light I have to see where I'm going, and the pit of black before me grows and expands until I feel like I can't breath – like I'm choking on something thick and dark and scarily tangible. Soon, goose bumps rise on my arms and the skin on the back on my neck starts to tingle and itch. I imagine a pair of soulless eyes watching me from within the darkness – following me – and my pulse increases, thumping out a rapid beat throughout my body.

But I'm being stupid. There is nothing dangerous in the blackness that's unfolded before me. The only "dangerous" thing in this school is the goddam food – and that's only because our cook doesn't know how to do his job.

Yet, even after the internal berating, the sensation of being watched doesn't diminish, and the bad feeling in the pit of my stomach screams at me to pick a direction and run. A deeper part of my mind knows that nothing good can come of my venture into this unlighted hallway – that I should have brought a flashlight, or a candle, or something. Because even I know that sometimes the darkness is too dark and the silence too silent – that sometimes, fear is warranted.

It's at that moment that I hear a whisper of sound in the hallway behind me and my body goes rigid, freezing mid-step. There's someone here, I think shakily to myself, rendered a statue by fear. For a terrifying minute, my heart beat is the loudest sound in the universe, pumping copious amounts of blood around my body as if that will keep me alive if someone decides to slit my throat. A draft slides past my ankles, tickling the back of my knees, and the hair on my arms stands on end as the cold air washes over it. After what feels like eons of waiting for something bad to happen, I decide to just make a run for my room.

But at precisely the moment I take my first step, a cold hand clamps down on my shoulder. With a cry of fright, I pull myself free and start running, not caring that I'm running towards a dead end or that I'm only venturing further from the light. The night suddenly feels alive with danger, almost writhing in its place amongst the ether. Dark hands seem to caress my skin as I make it the last few metres to my room, hoping that whatever is out there will just leave me alone.

It's not until I'm at my door and fumbling for the doorknob that I hear it: loud, hysterical laughter. For a split-second, I deduce that my follower is an escapee from the Asylum who's somehow found themselves at my school and is haunting me just for kicks. But then I recognise the voice – the deep, smooth qualities that I ascribe to one person and one person only.

"Kal?" I ask, and the laughing only grows. Antagonised, I stomp back over and punch him in the shoulder. "God, Kal, you scared me to death!"

"Ow!" he cries, his laughter dying abruptly. "That hurt."

"Sorry, but you should know better, sneaking up on me in the darkness like that!"

"I thought you said you weren't afraid of the dark?" he challenges.

"I'm not," I reply defensively. "I just had this bad feeling. Like there was something evil following me. Do you ever get that? That feeling?"

"Feeling?" he asks with a laugh. "You sound crazy, you know that right?"

I shrug, knowing he can't see it and not caring. I change the topic. "Why are you so laughy all of a sudden?"

"What are you talking about? I'm always laughy," but now he's dead serious, not even the slightest hint of a smile in his voice.

I roll my eyes. "And magic isn't banned on school grounds."

"What?"

"Oh, I'm sorry, I thought we were listing things that weren't true," I say sarcastically. "The grass is purple, people live forever, and Kal, the incarnation of worry, is always laughy. Yeah right."

"Hey, I'm allowed to have a joke every once in a while!"

"Of course, I'm just saying that I haven't heard you laugh in years. What's changed?"

"Nothing – I felt like laughing. Don't you ever feel like laughing?"

I look down at my feet, but in the darkness, all I can see is black. I want to tell him that yes, I do, but the sad truth is that I never feel like laughing. Not here, in this school – this city – where I am defined by the colour of my clothes and my devotion to the Lord. Laughing is expensive here. It subtracts and distracts – subtracts time and distracts you from the ultimate goal. Spend too much time laughing and you might forget to study and end up failing a test, or the Test, and then God-knows where you'll end up.

With a silent sigh, I consider how to reply to his question. But no matter how hard I try, I can't find it in me to come up with a witty comeback. I won't ruin his short reprieve from this miserable reality, even if I myself cannot join in.

Changing the topic, I start walking, hoping for him to follow. He does. "So, how did you get here so fast?"

"I left just after you," he replies, either choosing to ignore that I didn't answer his question or not caring. "You're not exactly a fast walker, especially when you're jumping at every sound."

"There was something there, I swear. I could feel something watching me."

"Yeah. Me."

"No. I felt it earlier too, you know, just after the big lightning strike. I felt something cold brush my back and there all these whispers."

"Whoa, looks like someone's been eating too much rainbow mash."

"Kal, seriously. Just hear me out."

There's a pause. "Okay."

"Okay?" I test.

"Okay," he confirms. "Someone's been watching you and you think something bad is going to happen."

"Yes, exactly."

"Have you tried performing a ritual to ward off bad spirits?"

I groan. "Oh my God, Kal."

He chuckles. "Sorry, I can't help myself."

We reach my room and I push open the door. "This is seriously not like you, you know that?"

"Sure."

"What happened to the Kal who worried about everything, everywhere, all the time?" I ask as I fumble for the light switch and flick it on. Instantly, I'm greeted by bright artificial light, and I have to shield my eyes as I close the door behind us. After so much time in the dark, my usually dull bedroom lamp is blinding.

"I put him in a box. He was annoying the hell outta me."

"Amen."

I set my eyes on my room, enjoying the familiarity and comfort of these four walls. To my right is my wardrobe and ensuite, the wall between the two decorated by a simple rectangular mirror, and by the back wall sits a plain wooden desk, my school books piled high in the centre. To my left, my bed is pressed up against the wall, the bed-head resting beneath the window, which is actually a perk of this room – it's the only one in the dorm to have a window, and therefore, a view. From it, I can overlook all of West Eden, all the way from the looming city library and cement suburban houses to the Land of Wandering beyond our city's borders, an endless stretch of dry, sun-baked land and dusty air.

I sit myself down in my desk chair while Kal plonks onto my bed, his eyes caught on the window. It's night out and the thousands of lights illuminating the city remind me of fallen stars, sending out their last rays of light in the hope that someone will rescue them. Absently, I wonder what Kal sees when he lays his eyes on the city and whether if to him, it's just one blurry artificial glow. No mystery or magic – nothing wondrous about it at all. The thought makes me sad.

"How are you doing, Avalon?" he asks me suddenly, his voice piercing the silence like a razor cutting away all thought.

"What do you mean?" I reply softly, forcing myself to look away from the city's golden lights.

"I just mean that you're always kind of...distant, more afraid than most, but in secret. Secretly afraid, like it's a private thing for you. And now suddenly you're getting angry over the Nephilim's taunts and jumping at noises in the dark."

It takes me a minute to reply, unsure of how much to tell him or whether to tell him at all. The truth is I've been having these memories... But I can't tell him that – I can't tell him about the flashes of a silver weapon, the blood on the stark white suit of a faceless man, the frightened tears of a young girl. Nor can I explain why suddenly it's all changed. Why just minutes earlier my memories were of something different, something that makes me doubt they're memories at all.

And then there's the presence in the hallway, the cold touch on my back, the whispers. I already tried to tell him about that and he just laughed it away. No matter what I tell him, he won't believe me, and my persistence will only come across as insanity.

The truth is... The truth is irrelevant. He won't believe it, and so in order to tell the truth, I must lie.

With a sigh, I say, "I've just been really stressed with the up-coming exams and I haven't been doing too well in school lately. I've never been the best studier, plus, I'm losing sleep worrying over it. To be honest, I'm just really tired."

He stares at me for a long while, his silver eyes searching. Something about his gaze suggests he doesn't believe my lie, but I can't tell whether he's going to point it out until he starts to speak. "Avalon, you can trust me. I promise, whatever you say, it's safe with me. I promise."

Trust isn't the problem, I think. But I decide to tell him anyway. I can only hold my secrets in for so long before I spill them like an overflowing sink, water lapping over the edges and pooling at my feet. And when someone persistently asks me to tell them, my reservations about keeping it all in are lost down the drain. With hardly a thought, I spill.

"I've been having these memories," I tell him. "They've come to me for as long as I remember and they're always the same, flashes of the same images again and again and again, and I can't control when they appear to me. They just pop into my head, in class, in the shower, during dinner. I can't help it. But just earlier, when the lightening hit, they came to me again and they've...changed. I've never seen these images before, like never. And now I think they might not be memories but visions of some sort and I'm scared about what that might mean."

I take a deep breath, glad to have got it all off my chest but filled with instant regret that I did. Kal just sits there, absorbing the information with a cool expression. Eventually he asks, "What were the visions about?"

My eyes go wide. "Seriously?"

"What?"

"I just thought you would've been a bit more weird about it. Like I just told you that I get visions. Visions, for Chrissake, and I don't even have any magic in me. It's weird, okay? I know. It's weird. It's weird a lot."

Kal laughs. "It's not weird – just unusual. It's like dreaming about something and then experiencing it the next day, or getting déjà vu. That happens to lots of people, and sure, it's a bit unusual. But not weird. Plus, maybe you do have some magic in your blood."

I shake my head. "Uh-uh. Not likely."

"So what's in the visions?"

"Well..." I say, but what I really want to say is, Why do you care? Why are you being so persistent? It's not like him at all. Kal never cares too much about other people's worries – he has enough of his own.

"Well?"

"They used to be about a girl and she was frightened and there was this man in a white suit. He had this knife and..." and a splash of blood on his sleeve. But I don't tell him that. I can't. "And he looked dangerous."

He just nods, as if we're discussing something as mundane as what we did on the weekend. "And now?"

"Now..." I let out a breath, "now there's a clock and a man in a black coat and a cross. But the weird thing is, the setting for all the images is the school. Like the clock is the one in room B13 and the man was standing at the front gates just as a flash of lightning – the big one from earlier – illuminated his face."

"And what about the cross?"

I frown, cocking my head to one side. "Why do you care so much? Does it really matter where I saw it? It's not like it'll actually be there. They're just visions – products of my subconscious mind or whatever."

"There's never anything 'just' about visions," he replies.

I raise an eyebrow. "And you would know from personal experience?"

"I'm just saying – it's logical. If you're blacking out and seeing memories or images, then they must have some sort of meaning."

"So...what? Do you think the cross might be where I saw it?"

"Maybe."

"Maybe?"

He shrugs. "I don't know. But what's the harm in checking?"

"None, I suppose," I say quietly.

"So where is it? I can come with you to have a look."

I sigh. "It's at the base of the large oak tree on the school's east side. You know, the big one."

He nods. "We can check it out now if you want."

Now it's my turn to laugh, but it's more of a short sardonic bark that anything else. "No way. I'm not going back out there. No way."

"Suit yourself," he says. "I'll go by myself." He stands and heads for the door.

"Wait, what? No. We can both check it out tomorrow, but until then – leave it. It's my vision – I want to be the first one to see it."

He nods, a smile toying with his face. "Tomorrow then."

"Tomorrow," I confirm. "Now get out, I need to sleep."

He laughs, and then he slips out the door and is gone.