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edited: 26/01/2018
There was only one other person on the beach today: a man, and a tall one at that. Remy couldn't make out much else of him, though his dress sense was rather peculiar. From a distance, she almost thought he was wearing some kind of robe, though it was far too cold for that. Besides, it wouldn't have been the strangest thing she had ever seen in this silly little town where people often paraded to the shops in just their pyjamas, and middle-aged women sported bright pink legwarmers and mini skirts in the summer months. Not the strangest thing at all.
The harsh winter had kept most people away from the seafront for months, and when exposed to the icy breeze that cut through her lilac sweater like a knife, Remy could understand why. Even she was tempted to escape back to the warmth of her home, but she couldn't seem to abandon the beach just yet. It was her favourite place, and the only place she had where she could be alone. Only somebody who lived in an overcrowded house understood just how valuable that was.
She felt a sudden jolt against her sternum and reached for the source, pulling out the black key that had now been strung on a plain silver necklace. She had convinced herself that she was simply waiting until the owner began to look for it at first. Then, when nobody had mentioned it around town, she hooked it onto a simple chain and created a new home for it against her chest. There was something captivating about owning a key and not knowing what it could unlock. She always had loved mystery, and this was perhaps the closest she had ever gotten to one.
Now, the key was hot against her numb fingers, and a buzz vibrated through her fingertips, sending a tingle down her arm. She let it go, allowing it to dangle against the wool of her sweater. She was sure that she was imagining it. Inanimate objects, no matter how strange and mysterious, didn't heat up all on their own.
Her head snapped up at the sound of muffled shouts, and she noticed that the boy on the beach now had company. He was surrounded by three other men, all dressed in black, and bright sparks that flashed black and white seemed to be springing from them like fireworks. She rolled her eyes, wondering what on earth they were doing with fireworks in mid-February, particularly when the sun, though hidden behind an array of grey clouds, was still out.
She was prepared to leave the beach, having no desire to stay and watch a group of teenagers do something that was no doubt a stupid idea, but just as she stood up and brushed the sand from her jeans, she realised that the tall boy was being cornered, and the fireworks weren't fireworks at all—more like sparks of electricity that seemed to fly from the men's fingers.
She shook her head, clutching her necklace again before flinching when one of the men punched the boy.
Without thinking, she ran towards them, ignoring the ringing in her ears that overpowered the sound of the waves washing against the sand.
"Hey!" she shouted, ready to jump between them, but before she could, they were gone, the only evidence that they had even been there at all being the footprints where their shoes had dug into the wet sand. That, and the slight trickle of blood that Remy would not have noticed at all if the boy hadn't swiftly wiped it from the corner of his mouth with his sleeve.
She shuffled awkwardly, her heart racing as she watched the boy with wide eyes. He pulled himself up from the sand and brushed his clothes down angrily, his lips pinched into a hard line. He couldn't have been much older than her, though his angular face and icy blue eyes said he was at least past adolescence.
"What the hell just happened? Where did they go?"
The boy rolled his eyes and walked in the direction of the promenade before them. She couldn't help but narrow her eyes at his gait—it wasn't often that people walked with their chin lifted and their back straight in a town like hers, though his shoulders were still squared with tension. In fact, most people walked quite the opposite, usually hunched over with their phone in one hand and a cigarette in the other.
"Wait!" she yelled, running to keep up with him. "I asked you a question."
"And I decided not to answer," the boy responded in a bored tone, and his voice was rough, as though he had just woken up. Remy doubted that was the case.
"People don't just vanish from thin air." She intercepted his path, forcing him to stop in front of her. Only then did she realise how strange he looked. His light blue eyes were flecked with silver as though his irises were the ocean behind him and somebody had thrown a bag of pearls into its depths. His black hair was dark enough to match the key on her necklace, though some strands seemed to hold a red tint when the sunlight, now emerging from the clouds, danced against them. It wasn't everyday that Remy found a boy who wore contact lenses and dyed his hair, but it was not the strangest thing about the situation, so she did not question it too much.
"No, you are right. People don't." He seemed angry, his brows furrowed and his swollen mouth pressed into a hard line. "But they did, and now you are going to go back to your pointless little life and forget all about what you just saw, yes?"
He shoved past her without waiting for her response, causing Remy to scoff, half in confusion and half in shock that a stranger would talk to her with such disgust in his voice. "What is your problem?"
They were on the path now, heading towards a street that Remy often tried to avoid due to the brainless hooligans that lingered on it. It seemed to make sense that he would be going in that direction, what with his sour attitude. Still, Remy couldn't deny that he was attractive—far more attractive than what she was used to, at least—with his sharp cheekbones and pale complexion. He obviously didn't belong in this town, where she was lucky to find a boy who washed on a regular basis.
"Currently, my problem is you," he spat back at her, barely even looking as they crossed the road. It was a good job that the roads were quiet today, though it might not have been the worst thing in the world if the boy was to experience a minor incident involving a speeding car.
"If it wasn't for me, those guys would still be on your back. You're welcome, by the way."
"Thank you so very much for interrupting something that had absolutely nothing to do with you." He turned swiftly down an alleyway and began to shift a ridiculously large pile of garbage that had been positioned against the brick wall, his muscles straining beneath the sleeves of his coat.
Remy stumbled backwards slightly as the wall seemed to disintegrate into a pool of colours, streaks of purple and blue swirling around like a whirlpool and causing the alley to glow eerily.
"What is that?" The anger in her voice was gone, replaced with a disconcerted wonder.
"Something that does not concern you," he murmured, though Remy barely heard him over the whirring of whatever it was that was in front of him. "Are you going to continue to irritate me?"
"Are you going to answer any of my questions?" she asked, her eyes never moving from the whirl of colours. She couldn't help but stare, as though something had locked her eyes, her whole body, in place.
"Perhaps." He turned around to face her again, his head cocked to the side. "Though probably not."
Remy sighed, shaking herself out of her trance to glare at the boy, all the while convincing herself that this was either one of her strange dreams or some sort of prank, though neither option made all that much sense to her. "Are you always this sarcastic?"
"It is both a blessing and a curse." He smirked in a way that must have made girls swoon over him, but it had no real effect on her—beside the slight flush in her cheeks, that was, though she convinced herself that was from walking so fast to catch up with him. "Have you finished interrogating me now?"
"Perhaps," she mimicked, though her panic at the swirl of colours behind him was beginning to return, and she couldn't help but gawk dazedly at it again. Looking into it felt like looking into a black hole; she was drawn to it, becoming more sucked into it every second, but it left her feeling strangely hollow the more she did so. She stepped forward without remembering why, only to be pushed back by the boy.
"That is not a good idea," he warned, glancing at her and then the whirlpool, and it was the first time she had seen him without his stony expression. She looked down to where his hand still rested on her stomach and he dropped it quickly, his hostility returning just as soon as it had gone.
"Why not?" She raised an eyebrow curiously, moving to take another step only to be pushed back again. "What is this, some sort of prank? Who are you?"
He exhaled, looking with a bored expression at what Remy could only assume to be a watch, though it was unlike any watch that she had ever seen. It was a thick band of silver with strange markings etched into it along with a language that looked slightly familiar, but not so much so that she recognised where she had seen it before.
"It does not matter who I am. I am telling you to leave."
"Yeah, well I don't take orders from some strange guy wearing cosplay."
The glow of purple reflected against his blue eyes, darkening them to a deeper, murkier colour. They were sparkling with curiosity, and he tilted his head as though in an unspoken question. Her stomach fluttered with something foreign in response.
"You're not from around here, are you?" She eyed his long, dark green coat that was scuffed slightly around the sleeves and now dotted with beads of blood, and the silk white shirt beneath it, covered in golden patterns that shined against the sunlight above them. She had never seen clothes like his before, not even in fancy dress shops. He was completely out of place against the faded grey wall and rubble that consumed the alleyway.
"What gave it away?" He glowered at the meow of a black cat, which had pounced from the roof of the shed behind Remy and landed in a garbage bag, scattering its contents onto the floor. "Perhaps the magical portal behind me? Or the rather expensive clothes? Maybe the fact that I was just attacked by three other warlocks?"
"Or maybe it's just that you have absolutely no manners," she snapped, though her head was spinning from what he had just said. Definitely a dream, she confirmed to herself, or perhaps you're going mad and this is all a delusion. It was bound to happen eventually.
He glared at her before turning back around to the 'portal'. "If I were you, I would cover your eyes for a few moments."
Remy didn't get the chance to question him further. He disappeared into the whirlpool, leaving a flash of blinding light behind him. She squinted, but it was of no use. The boy was gone, but the portal was not. The churning colour tempted her, as though it was begging her to go through it and question the boy further, but she didn't dare go near it. Her hands shook, and she wiped them on her jeans to get rid of their clamminess.
Feeling her foot hit something, she looked down to find a shiny piece of metal. It was a ring, she realised as she bent down to retrieve it, a simple silver ring with more of the foreign language that had been on his watch, and one single green gem inside.
She shoved it into her pocket with trembling fingers, looking around to make sure that this wasn't some sort of practical joke. She half expected to find a bunch of students laughing at her with cameras in their hands.
Instead, there was no one. No one but the black cat, who had witnessed everything that Remy had. She bent down to pet it, her eyes glazed over in wonder, but before she could run her fingers through its fur, the cat was gone. The last thing Remy saw of it was its black tail as it was sucked into the portal, leaving another flash of bright light in its place.
* * *
Maksim winced as he fell onto the crisp grass beneath him, but recovered and stood up quickly. He was used to falling from portals now; it was one of the many drawbacks of being a warlock.
He squinted against the mid-afternoon sun, orange and bleeding into a wonderful pink sky, and paused. The portal was still open, swirling and effervescent against the crumbling grey rock of the Old Ruins. Something had disturbed it. It wasn't supposed to look like that, not unless something was wrong; portals were supposed to close once used, and Maksim knew after many years of studying at the Foundation that it was dangerous to have one left open, particularly since the Mortal World—and even worse, a certain curious mortal girl who may or may not have saved his life—was on the other side of it.
He motioned his hands towards it and cursed when the bright sparks did not appear. He had used all of his magic fighting his brother's minions, just as he had feared, and now he could not close the portal.
He cocked his head to the side as the portal sputtered and a black heap fell from it, making the strangest sound he had ever heard—even stranger than the one his mother made when she drank one too many spirits and sang to him—a sound that Maksim could only describe as a high-pitched wail. He hopped back when the heap moved, four legs defining themselves under a mass of fur. It took Maksim a moment to realise that it was the strange animal from the alleyway, and he sighed solemnly. He believed it to be a 'rat,' though he couldn't be sure; he thought that was what the witches called them. They were known to keep pets from the Mortal World, and often took a liking to black rats. Maksim thought it was all rather cliché, but gathered the rat into his arms with a roll of his eyes.
"Please do not soil my coat. It would cost rather a lot to replace, and I fear I would have to turn you into a toad," he muttered as he took off walking.
His mother had always babbled on about how she had wanted a pet of her own, and thought that perhaps if he brought one home for her, she might forgive him for leaving a portal to the Mortal World open. Then again, his mother was always one to overreact, and he was sure it would not be as easy as giving her a rat in exchange for her peace.
He anticipated that things were about to get much, much worse.
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