The Cardellian Chronicles Book One: Clinging to Reality

Alfia sat in the back right corner of the trolley -as she always did- and looked out the window as the trolley travelled through town, chewing on her thumb as she thought about all the things that had happened in the last few hours. A short amount of time in which many things happened. It seemed strange to think that it didn’t take very long for things to happen. Then again, she knew that more than anyone. One second, she and her parents are on their way home from dinner, the next, they’re flying through the air, the next, she’s upside down and in more pain than she’s ever been in in her entire life and then the world goes black. At least, that was what she told everyone.

Someone sat beside her, lounging back against the seat. When Alfia looked to see who it was, she just stared at him icilly.

“If looks could kill,” Nathan chuckled.

“Go away.” she turned back to the window.

“Sorry, sweetheart. No can do.”

“Don’t call me that,” she snapped.

“Okay,” he laced his fingers behind his head and let out a content sigh, “What do you think about ‘princess’?”

She looked back at him and glared, “Why can’t you just leave me alone?”

“Because you’re the one I downloaded myself to,” he said as though it should have been obvious and wasn’t that big of a deal.

“You did what?!”

“Well I wasn’t about to download to your boyfriend.”

“He’s not my boyfriend,” she corrected.

He smiled lazily, “Oh, but don’t you wish?”

“And how would you know if I did or not?” she asked irritably.

He gave a short chuckle, “I’m in your head, sweetheart. There isn’t a lot that I don’t know about you. Not that I'm digging. If I was, I would know for a fact whether or not you do wish, but your secrets are yours to keep and share at your own discretion. I've only skimmed the surface data, that way I could know if you were the person I should download myself to. Obviously, I deemed you worthy of my magnificent self." Somehow, Alfia thought with annoyance, he managed to keep his cool and confident air even while rambling.

She huffed and rolled her eyes, “What do you want, Nathaniel?”

“I want to talk to you.” he stated simply, bringing his arms back down and looking at her with serious .

“Congratulations, mission accomplished,” she replied sarcastically.

“Not exactly,” he sat up and turned himself towards her.

She leaned against the side of the trolley where it connected to the seat, “So talk.”

“Somewhere private.”

“I’m not opening a Link with you, if that’s what you want,” she scoffed.

Nathan leaned an arm against the top of the seat in front of him, “That’s not what I want.”

“Good, then we’re on the same page.” she stood up as the trolley slowed to a stop for the third time since she had boarded it.

He moved out of her way as she passed him, which she found odd because since he was an A.I. She should have been able to walk right through him. She shrugged it off as a glitch in his personality Programming and exited the trolley, adjusting her bag where it rested on her shoulder.

“Here let me carry that for you,” he offered.

Alfia glared at him again, “Is that supposed to be a joke?”

“It would be if you had laughed. So, where are we going?” he asked.

“You’ve been in my head, you know exactly where we’re going.”

“Ah yes, dance class. You don’t seem the type,” he commented.

Alfia opened the door to a red-brick building, “You’ve known me for all of seven and a half hours, therefore you actually don’t know me,” and walked through it.

She went into the bathroom and changed from her white flats and matching sweater, light grey skirt, and candy-floss pink blouse into a loose fitting dark grey t-shirt and black leggings with black high-top Converse and a flat-billed black hat pulled down over her hair. She watched Nathaniel as he observed the change in costume appreciatively while she exited the restroom. Giving a disgusted look, she walked down the hall with her backpack slung over her shoulder. They got to the dance room and Alfia tossed her bag to the side, walking towards the group of people that had gathered in a group in the middle of the room.

“There she is!” one boy declared, holding his arm towards her as though he were presenting her for some beauty contest.

Alfia struck a silly pose with a goofy smile, “Here I am.”

A few of them laughed and everyone greeted each other for another few minutes before they all dispersed and someone started music. After Alfia, who stood in the up-stage center of the dance floor and group, counted off eight counts, everyone started to move at the exact same time and in the exact same way, with a little room for their own personal style to show through. Alfia watched everyone in the mirror as they did their warm up, enjoying the familiar numbness to all her worries that didn’t involve musicality and technique that came every time she danced. She didn’t have to worry about whether or not people would stare at her or what they would think, because the people around her had all known her since she had started dancing when she was four and all these people had been in her dance class when she began. They were used to all of her strangeness. Maybe her classmates had stared at her like everyone else when they all first met each other and were getting used to one another, but if it happened, it was so long ago that Alfia couldn’t remember them ever doing it. They had all watched each other learn and grow, and not just in dance. There was a diversity when it came to specialties, age, gender, skin tone, and opinion, but something everyone in her class could agree on was how much they loved dancing, not matter the genre. Now that most of the members of her old dance class were graduated and living their lives, everyone who could contribute helped pay for the studio they rented out. All of them had heard about her accident when it happened and they all constantly helped her with her physical therapy that had been required after the car accident that had killed her parents by way of dance physical therapy. It gave her a sense of familiarity in a world that had become so completely foreign to her after everything that had happened. It was her anchor to reality and the only way she was able to make as strong a recovery as she did. Dance was a familiar art to her, even at the age of six, and that familiarity was what kept her going. They were a close group after helping her with her physical therapy. Most of the people in her crew were a few years older than her, the oldest having been fifteen when she was needing all the help they had to offer. They were all at different levels of skill, but their teacher was able to teach so that everyone of them was able to learn what was needed in order to progress, often allowing those with a higher skill level to help those with a lower one. After what happened to Alfia, they called their group “Back to Reality”- a name they all knew the meaning of, but nobody else would.

When the group was invited to go different places across the world to perform as they all grew in age, maturity, and ability, they would make sure everyone in the group was able to go, often spotting each other the money and telling each other they could pay them back later, then refusing to accept repayment when “later” came around. They had traveled to the far reaches of the Earth together and all of the time they spent brought them closer to each other. They all grieved together, laughed together, and cried together, doing whatever was needed to be the support system everyone could always count on. But Alfia didn’t trust them with everything that had happened to her in her life and others did the same. There were just certain things that not everyone needed to know. All they needed to know was that everyone else in the group was there for them when the need arose. That was all that mattered and all that continued to matter.

“Alright, Jacon, you’re group’s up!” the boy who had announced Alfia’s arrival called after they had all finished the warm-up.

Everyone gave off hoots and hollers as the majority of people went to sit against the mirrored wall while five others got into position and waited for the music to start. Alfia’s group was third to go up and she grinned to herself as she and her four group-mates got up and got in position. The music started and six counts into it, everyone moved into a different position before the seven count. The move was sharp and precise. Everyone knew what they were supposed to do and did it perfectly. By the next two-count, everyone was standing and in an arrow, heads down, feet spread apart in what a ballet instructor would call second position with feet turned out, and hands placed behind their backs. They stood there for four counts and then the two outer girls jumped and brought their feet in and back out and swung their torsos around so that their upper bodies made a circle. They got back to their original position before both they and the two boys on the inside did the same thing. Then all five of them did it, Alfia standing at the head of the arrow and waiting for her turn to join patiently. After all five of them had done it, they turned to the side and swung their hips in slow little half circles towards the mirror and back in time to the music. When they swung back towards the mirror, they leaned forward, bending their knees and bringing their arms around and straight down in time with the beat of the song. They leaned back, straightening their legs a little, and then bending them as they went back towards the mirror. When they had done that twice, Alfia stood straight up and pushed her arms straight out to their sides and the two boys on either side of her fell back onto the floor as she did her own thing for an eight-count before the two girls in the back joined her in the fast-paced moves. A couple people cheered at clever choreography. The boys stayed down for five eight-counts before jumping up and pushing the other two girls aside so they could dance with Alfia themselves. The other two girls acted offended as they watched her dance with the boys in fairly close proximity. This part’s tempo was a lot slower and she felt two hands on her hips that had become familiar to her after hours and hours of practice as the boy behind her guided her hips side to side as she moved her head to follow her hips, keeping her knees bent and leaning her back against the boy’s chest and watching the other boy do his own thing in front of her. The boy she leaned against was her usual dance partner, Jax, so she didn't mind that he was the one she needed to get so intimately close too. Someone cat-called loudly and she had to fight the smile that threatened to spread across her face. The boy facing her stopped dancing in front of her and got almost as close to her as Jax was. More people cat-called at seeing Alfia so close to the boys. They were used to her being shy when it came to being close proximity to anyone, let alone a person of the male gender. The boy in front of her put his palm flat against hers and they moved their hands up and out, both watching them. As though snapping out of a trance, Alfia jumped up to stand straight and pushed on the boys’ chests so that they moved away from her and the two girls joined back in the dance as the tempo picked back up and the five of them danced in sync once again. They moved into a different formation, with the other four dancers in a square around Alfia as they did another two eight-counts of movements before the other four dropped down to the floor and looked up at her as she hit her last pose and held it for a few seconds, her chest moving up and down as she panted, smiling widely.

The rest of the class clapped and cheered loudly as the five of them went back to the mirror and sat against it, all of them smiling and panting as the others complimented the dance.

“Carter, take a bow!” someone called.

One of the girls stood up and walked a couple paces in front of the rest of the group as the cheers got louder as the rest of her group added to the noise and bowed dramatically. A few of the guys whistled as she went back to the mirror.

Nathan sat beside Alfia, “Does good ol’ Ben know that you get so close to other guys?”

“I didn’t choreograph it,” she whispered with a mischievous smirk, “I just followed Carter’s choreography.”

He chuckled, “I don’t think I have to tell you that I liked it.”

The smile vanished and was replaced by a look of disgust, “No, you don’t.” She turned back to her friends and continued to talk to them as they gave her feedback on what she did well and what she could have cleaned up a bit to make the next go even better than the last.