Blinding Light (BLS Book 1)

Mila

I watch him leave. His back towards me and his harsh words still ringing in my ear.

Why does he despise me? I wonder to myself.

Each time my heart beats signifies a crack in my soul. He’s attractive in every way but his personality. I find myself drawn to him anyway.

What’s wrong with me?!

Why me? I wonder to myself. What have I done? I didn’t choose this. I don’t want this.

Tears are streaming freely down my face. I sob before sinking onto the floor. I hug my knees to my chest. My thoughts ring loud inside my mind. No, I’m inside my mind already, I remind myself of Raven’s letter. I look around the cabin room and see that her figure has disappeared.

How long has it been?

How long till I can get out of this nightmare?

I can’t be happy. Not like this. Not when I thought my life was normal, not when I thought I had a goal to achieve in this lifetime. Not when every single of my dreams had just been crushed. I don’t know anymore. I don’t know when I cry myself to sleep. I don’t realize it when I get lifted to the bed. I don’t realize it when someone pulls the covers over my sobbing and trembling figure.

***

My eyes open to nothingness. I groan and sit up. I pray that everything was just a dream, but I knew it wasn’t. Something meows next to me and I say it before my brain could process it.

“Midnight,” I say and he meows at me, cocking his head. I glare at him and his ears fall back. “Are you real, Midnight?”

“Non…” the voice replies. His voice only makes me realize that there’s no way out. The only door I have to open is waiting there for me. If I’m not ready now, I’m not sure if I’ll ever be. Midnight purrs next to me before rubbing his body on my arm. I scratch his head. It feels so real. My body trembles as tears fall again.

I can’t do this.

I stand and bolt out the door. It’s still night. I couldn’t have slept more than three hours. My legs give out before me and I crash to the floor. My hands shoot out before me and land on a rock, slicing the skin open. A deep line of red forms on the middle of my palm. The pain feels real. It stings, hurts as my nerves tell my brain the damage. I clutch my hand into a fist, ignoring the intensified agony.

Letting out a trembling breath, I push myself onto my feet again, my dress now covered with dirt, mud. It’s not long before I find myself by the lake again. I stare into my reflection and it stares back at me. I shake my head.

It’s not real. You’re not actually here.

As if hearing myself properly for the first time, the brown of my eyes fades away. I watch in disbelief as my irises turn green—a bright, forest green. I blink—it blinks.

Have they been green the whole time? I think. I look so much more like Raven like this. My long, straight hair down to my waist. My eyes are just greener than hers. My skin looks paler with the new contrast in color.

“Voice…if you’re there, is this real?” I whisper.

…

“Yes.”

My head is slow to wrap around this.

So, I wasn’t insane after all.

From my eyes to my life, everything was…dead to me, unreal. I feel a determination suddenly swirling inside me. Yes, I have been broken, shattered like glass. But I will never back down—will never stay down on the ground for the people to throw pity at me. I will never be more ready than now.

Lead me to the door.

“...Of course.”

***

I’m sucked into nothingness and back into the hallways of doors. Each door is marked with a different design. But this time, those doors that have been discovered have been opened already, the golden handle disappears. The room is just black with wooden doors around. It’s almost like a hallucination. But I know far too well that it’s nowhere close to that. And there it is—the door missing the red X. I take a deep breath and step towards it. Although all my nerves are hyped, my brain screams at me to turn around, to go back to the happy, innocent life. But I grab the golden handle and it opens with a click.

***

Groups of people stand before me. I don’t recognize any of them. More people come into view. One of them looks like the spitting image of Asher, just the female version. I’m assuming that’s his mother. An older man comes in and I recognize him as the man who told Nolan to bring my brother and me in that vision.

I watch them, stalking them like a predator.

“Here! I’ve found it!” Asher’s mom says. “Come, come!”

Curious, I ease closer to the group—Asher’s mom’s finger point to one particular paragraph in a book that must’ve been thousands of years old, if not more. The pages are worn out and yellow-stained. I read the paragraph that is circled in red. It’s not printed but written. The handwriting I recognize anywhere—Karen’s.

What? Are you crazy, Mila? How in the heavens would Karen’s handwriting be on that?!

But I’m sure that’s Karen’s writing. I’ve seen her address letters to my stepfather, and that’s unmistakably Karen’s.

5/22

There she was, in my arms. I didn’t know what to do with her beautiful eyes that represented her father’s. My dear Mila.

People would have to hide from her. She was such a sweetie though. But there’s a dark secret that I could never bear to tell her. How do you tell your child that she might’ve inherited the power of witchcraft and dark magic—without even trying, give destruction to the world? Three words: you do not.

Another entry lays after that, it must’ve been many years later.

11/7

My beautiful daughter has grown to be a wonderful woman. Now, I’m an old lady, with grandchildren, I think it’s time that I drop the act about her secrets. Is it bad that I didn’t tell her the secret that I wrote about many eons ago in May? Possibly. But I’ve seen no symptoms. She’s good—alive and well, and happy. And that’s all a mother could ask for. As a widowed woman, I couldn’t have been happier, seeing her with her husband and children.

The next entry is more smushed together, clearly written in panic.

12/7

It’s been one month. Her powers showed today. What am I supposed to make of that? I thought I could finally rest down. But life will always throw something in your way. That’s just how it is. How could the universe betray me like this? I was happy. Why couldn’t it stay that way?

I’ve never seen anything like it. It’s different from Wrenzo’s. His was never this powerful. God, I wish you could see how big of a success she is now. Her abilities could heal the sick. It can do so much good in the world—and I know she will, with her kindness, she’ll be the world’s savior.

12/8

She’s dead. Gone from my life, in just a blink of an eye. That’s the result of someone with such drastic abilities, isn’t it? How did I expect so much from her? My dear Mila, I will see you again.

I gawk at the paper. It’s talking about me—I know it is.

“This is it,” the woman’s voice brings me back. I almost forgot they were here.

“We have to find this girl. Thirty-five years did not all go to waste. Let’s go get our time back, and save everyone,” she says.

***

I’m back—to reality. The hallway of doors has been cleared of spiderwebs. I fall onto my knees, thinking back to that scene.

I still don’t understand. If I am to die one day after I’ve gotten my powers, wouldn’t I be dead already?

“No...your powers are not yet ready.”

If my mother wrote that, and I was old by then...then...

“Please...find your way out of here...I will answer all your questions...but I can’t...trapped.” His final answer was more than disappointing.

Something new ignites within me—I feel it building. I feel it climbing.

My fingers intertwine with my palm to form fists. Blood drips down from the cut and runs down my fingertips. I could feel the pain of needles going into my sides as I sigh deeply. I inhale sharply and feel the bones break in my body. But I don’t stumble. These wounds will heal, but the scar left by those people that stabbed my heart never will. It’s so deep that it’s permanent.

I felt Nolan’s betrayal, of Raven in a way that I couldn’t stop myself from having—of my birth mother in a way I couldn’t understand. I knew it wasn’t right to blame it on my family, but I can’t stop it from building. I can’t stop it. I’m so weak and strong at the same time, so I let it devour me like a wave. I feel it rush through me, from the tip of my toes to my fingertips.

I see red for the first time. My senses heighten, like an animal almost. I feel it coming. My so-called abilities, but it feels different. Different from what I just witnessed from the entries. It’s not lightweight and free, but it’s burdened and weighed upon. I feel the pain and the overwhelming sensation that clouds my whole body, trembling me from head to toe.

Anger.

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☆•Yiona•☆