Opposites: The Staff of Light [Book One]

23. The Dark Figure

Annabeth

Walking down the pavement, I carried my journal in my hands. My pen had found its place on my ear. I've only finished the day's extra make-up class and I let Colton go elsewhere rather wait for me. I passed the forest where I knew something had been hidden in that place. I just haven't found it yet, but my senses tingled in that serene area. I felt the misty background: it could leave me something good... or perhaps just nothing.

I ignored my thoughts and paced my way back to the cohort.

As I climbed up the ladder, I felt a tug on my stomach. Something told me that I'd been very guilty of what would happen on that very night, only a few hours from where I stood, I only hoped my plan would go on so well. After that strategy... yes, that felt safe. Alice and Alex would be fine. And I'll be free from a world of misunderstanding. I knew my plan perfectly from one gaze of those woods and I knew I had to get out of there.

Nothing goes wrong with the laws of curiosity, I thought to myself.

Alice

"I'm—" Annabeth's voice was cut off when she locked eyes with me. Her hair had grown longer over the month and grew incredibly wavier. Her eyes were amber yet tired on the day's work in the school—I mean—cafeteria library. When she found me with an ice bag pressed on my neck, which I found well mixed with me, she looked almost shocked. "Oh, my gods, Alice, what happened to you?" she demanded, her bag made a THUG noise on the floor as she rushed to me. She scanned my injured body, fearlessly taking my hands (man, her eyes were as keen as a falcon's), forgetting I was ice. She didn't care. "Who did this to you?"

Having the words who and you in one question gave me a massive headache. If I didn't have ice on my neck I could have surrendered to migraine. Tyler glanced at me skeptically, as if to say: I think we shouldn't say. I looked back at Annabeth, who then realized everyone in the room was looking at her the same way I did. She looked back at me with her amber eyes catching fire around the rim of her irises like she did when she outraged inside. "Annabeth..." I croaked softly, trying my best to calm down her nerves.

"It was Rebecca, wasn't it?" she snapped, half scowling. The place where she stood caught fire, like the entrance of a demon, and died down. "She'll pay for this. I'll make her scream like a freaking goblin and..." she didn't even finish, but she turned and stormed off. To her rage, I don't know what happened, but she bumped into Colton. "Why do you always stand like a wall?" she demanded half-yelling as she stood from the ground. "Get out of my way, Colton!"

"Annabeth, you're going to die out there," Raven chided. "Just think this through for one second. You've been under her shadow since the day school started. And just this once, Annabeth, please, be warned and threatened that she's water. You'll kill yourself by challenging her."

The room fell into murmuring agreements. Annabeth looked disgraced, the flames in her eyes died down. Colton nodded glumly and Annabeth's eyes turned dark as coal. The thought of water must have made her look shaken. "Fine," she muttered lowly, her lower lip trembling. "Then I won't kill her. I won't die either. But that won't mean I won't avenge my sister." She dissolved into fire which eventually faded in mid air, taking my sister along with it—a trick she mastered over the make-up classes with Professor Frank.

What have I started? I met everyone's eyes. Of course, no one wanted to make Annabeth feel rejected—mostly Colton. His day had been windy enough. It was obvious he came from the Camp Gift Shop since he was wearing a shirt that said: HELL YEAH, I WORK HERE! He crossed his arms, sighed in misery and threw himself on his bed—from twenty feet away with the help of wind. He groaned so loud he buried his face into his pillow. "Colt, is there something up?" Mitch asked, looking up from his car magazine. "You know you could always ask for advice. I'm not too bad, if I do say so myself."

A white teddy bear went flying into the air and squeaked once it touched Mitch's head. He grunted. "Oh, speak for yourself, hot shot," Alex said. "The last time someone asked for your advice fell off a cliff. The one before that got smacked in the face with a pole. You have absolute bad sense in giving advice."

"It was an accident!" Mitch protested, throwing down his car magazine showing off a Honda on the cover. He couldn't resist smiling. "Okay, the last one had been pushed off by yours truly—"

"Mitch, you are malicious," Colton noted, his voice a bit muffled to the pillow.

"The guy survived! He's—"

Colton looked at him as if he were an idiot. "Mitch, you dolt, I'm right here."

"Yeah, I know!"

He rolled his eyes away. "Of course I survived after falling off a cliff! What do you expect me to do? What, die?"

"Hey, I barely said anything."

Alex chimed in. "Hold on, what about the guy before that, the dude that smacked into a pole?"

Tyler sighed, shook his head and raised a hand miserably. "That was not a good experience."

I laid myself back, as weird thoughts flooded my head. Would Annabeth still come back? I was afraid something like that would happen. Annabeth would run from anyone who dared to judge her—even such a simple death warning scarred worse than knives. What if she killed herself on the way? Perhaps I'd been too melodramatic, but any death signal could come from Annabeth's dark side.

I closed my eyes and instead of only opening them, my body disobeyed me. I fell asleep, and I've never realized how tired I was before that. A couple of seconds later, my eyes fluttered open and I saw Annabeth's frightened look from a distance—except we weren't in the cabin anymore. We seemed to be in a forest, only her and me. Her eyes shone with fear as she backed away from a black figure of darkness that moved towards her like a very slow ghost. "Annabeth...!" I tried to yell, but my mouth felt like I ate a handful of sand. "Use your powers!"

But Annabeth didn't seem to notice me. "Light up your arm!" I instructed again, but it was worthless. I tried to move—nothing changed. I waved my arms, but clearly couldn't. I was as non-locomotive as a tree. "Annabeth, do something! Kill that thing with your flames!"

Annabeth grabbed a stick from the ground and waved it towards the dark figure. The branch only passed through his bodiless soul and upon seeing her failure, her foot stumbled over a rock. The ghost hovered over her, prepared to swallow and Annabeth protected her face with her forearms she formed an X with.

I jumped, and the scene vanished.