The Destined

Chapter 18: Avani

    Avani    

"Melissa!" I yell, but as soon as I get to her, I realize she is already asleep and in the safety of the real world. I leave her side and walk over to Anna, who is my biggest concern. I find her lying unconscious next to the limp body of the dead white wolf. My knees buckle and I slump down next to her.

"N-no..." my voice trembles as I whisper this. She has four long gashes on her knees, the clothes wrapped around them already soaked with blood. I am too scared to remove them, and I have nothing else to tie around her.

I glance back at Melissa. I realize I can't just leave her out in the open. For all I know, there could be more of them, but so far, none have attacked. I grab her arms and drag her into a secluded area surrounded by bushes.

I go back to Anna, pressing my ear against her chest. I expect to hear emptiness, but instead I hear the slow even heartbeat of her heart. So she's alive. My arms slowly position themselves at her back, and I lift her up off the ground. I carry her downhill to the stream, where the icy water rushes.

Even though I heard her heartbeat, she is cold. I stare at her unmoving body, her chest barely rising up and down. I am clueless, which hurts me on the inside. I have no idea what to do. The cloth around her legs is red and soaking. Slowly I untie it, closing my eyes. I could feel the liquid roll down my skin, and I wince. I dare myself to peek, and I regret it. I quickly turn away to the water. Her legs are...they are...just...she's going to die. I know she will. My stomach twists inside of me. My tears are already streaming down my cheeks. For a whole minute, I stand there, sobbing. It is stupid, but doing anything else feels painful. My hands plunge into the cold water. I feel it swirling and rushing around my skin, the way the water moves. My tears fall into the water, blending in with it, and traveling with it down the stream. I know I can't let Anna die.

I start feeling this tugging on my hands. I frown, trying to take them out of the water, but they don't budge. Instead, the water around them stops. It stops. It's almost like it freezes, except it turns warmer. Right above my hands, the water starts swirling.

"What the heck," I mumble. The water above my hands collects itself into a ball, slowly floating up, above my head. My hands are finally free, and I take them out. The ball of water follows them, splitting in two so it can go after each hand. They float barely above my fingers. Suddenly, I am speechless. I turn to Anna, moving my hands above her exposed leg. I ball my hands into fists and the water drops on top of the wounds. Slowly, it seeps into them, all of the blood that was on her skin dissolving. Her skin patches up quickly, all the gashes disappearing. I am no longer crying. Instead, I am shocked. I remove the fabric off of the other leg and stick my hands into the water again. I wait for it to freeze and form and into a ball again, but nothing happens.

Nothing.

I try to concentrate, thinking of what I did previously to make it happen. Really, I wasn't thinking about using my powers at all.

Anna groans. Her eyes are still shut, but I can tell she is regaining consciousness. I grab her feet, trying not to press on her wounds, as I plunge her legs into the water. Her eyes immediately open, but they soon begin to relax as the water does its magic. It heals.

I help her out, her legs even better than before they were hurt. She's shivering from the cold, but she is also smiling.

And then her expression turns grave.

"Where is Melissa? Did the wolves get her? Is she alive?" Anna explodes into questions.

"She's fine. She's asleep," I say. Anna breathes a sigh of relief. "Thank god," she says.

"Do you feel ok?" I ask. Anna nods. She runs her hands over her legs. Her skin is perfect, but her legs are wobbly as I help her up. We go up the slope again, pausing at the top so I can go to Melissa. I take out the water bottle and run down the slope to fill it up. When I get back up, I give it to Anna so she can drink from it.

"How did you know the stream could heal my legs?" Anna asks. "I figured that's what you were doing."

"I didn't. I..." Suddenly, I remember. "I got my first ability!" I say excitedly.

"Really? Oh my gosh, show me!" Anna says.

"I can't, though," I say. "It kind of happened by accident. The water formed into a ball, split into, and followed my hands wherever they went. When I squeezed them into fists, the water dropped."

"Oh," Anna says, disappointed. "It's ok. At least you got your ability, right?"

I smile. "Yeah, that's right."

☾☾☾  

After drinking the water from stream, our hunger is subdued, but not for long. We decide that tomorrow morning, we are going to follow it upwards to its source, which might be high up, and go north from there. I figured the higher we go, the more of the forest we can see, and the easier we can find the lake we are supposed to reach. I go to pick up Melissa. Despite looking as skinny as a stick, she is heavier than Anna, and it is a struggle carrying her down to the stream. In her pocket, I find the small pouch Lotso gave her.

"Is the clue in there?" Anna asks as I set Melissa down and show it to her.

"Yeah," I say. I pull on the string and the words pour out, almost like music, in the form of Lotso's voice:

There'll be a forest. Go through the densest part. Follow north below the stars. Use your mind to kill the evil. Use your hands to kill the living. Never turn, keep going. Reach the lake, then drink and you'll be saved.

"Use your mind to kill the evil. Use your hands to kill the living," I repeat. "What does it mean?"

Anna shrugs. "To use your mind, is like using your power, right? I mean, all I have to do is concentrate and bam, I'm glowing."

"I guess so. And to use your hands to kill the living could be like using a weapon. So all the creatures that aren't evil and are living, we kill with weapons," I say thoughtfully.

"And to kill evil like Merola...we use our powers!" Anna exclaims. I remember all it took for her to defeat the banshee was her light.

"We got half the clue deciphered already," I say, smiling. Melissa gives out a snore and we both laugh.

Nighttime falls quickly. The stars here are plenty, shining brightly above our heads. We decide to sleep by the stream. I like the sound of the rushing water, and occasionally, I will let my hands submerge under the surface to see if my powers will come back. They don't.

"Do you think Melissa will get her powers soon?" I hear Anna say this. I thought she was asleep.

"She's pretty smart. She'll figure them out," I say. Before going to bed, I healed her arm and other scratches she had on her body. "We should try to sleep. We have all day tomorrow."

"If we don't get attacked, you mean?" Anna asks jokingly. I understand what she means though. Even during the night, the sounds of the creatures in the maze don't reside. Instead, they sometimes get louder, roaring or growling in the distance.

"Someof them don't even come after us," I say quietly. I could hear Anna turning inher spot. I take out the pocket knife from the pack and play with it. It alsohas several secret slots, from which I pull out a dagger and a pair ofscissors. I take a mental note of it before I go to sleep so I can remember it.What happens next, I guess, is I fall asleep.n