War of the Emberstar (Unfinished)

Chapter 2: The Voice

You will prevail, a says a voice in my head. You will learn what makes you unique. I've been having these weird feelings all throughout the day. I thought I was just imagining them, but now, here I am, at school, hearing voices in my head. Sounds weird right? Yep, totally weird.

"Hello Ashlyn," says Mr. Bell.

"Good morning, Mr. Bell," I reply.

"Are you up to having a challenging lesson today?" Mr. Bell asks.

"Um, what kind of challenging do you mean?" I reply uncertainly.

"You'll see," Mr. Bell replies secretly.

Why does there always seem to be more conversations with Mr. Bell than any other teacher that I have? I wonder. He is really awkward. I don't know why. I feel like he's hiding something, but I don't know what.

Just then, my eyes fill with fire, and I am in that place full of fire and smoke again. You will prevail, says the voice in my head. Then I see a picture of a boy. He has blond hair, grey eyes, and is tall and muscular. He looks at me through the smoke, and his eyes narrow to slits. Then he says something unintelligible.

"Are you all right Ashlyn?" asks Mr. Bell.

"What? Oh! Yeah, I'm-I'm fine," I reply in a daze.

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Classes had dragged on and on, but now it is recess. I run out of school a fast as I can, and make my way over to a bench on the playground to enjoy the outside. But I hardy can, because the voice in my head keeps saying things like you will prevail, or unleash your powers. I don't know what's going on, and it scares me. So I just sit on the bench with that weird voice in my head, bossing me around and telling me I will prevail.

I watch some of my classmates play on the playground. I've always felt a little too young to be on the playground, even when I was four years old. I guess that's just something else for you to learn about me, then.

I'm sitting on the bench, but my head is feeling heavy, and my eyes start to close. I drop flat onto the bench, as though I'm sleeping. But I'm not. And the voice is still I my head even though I'm unconscious.

I'm in the sky again, and the sky is blue, and there are only a few clouds, but then the sky turns dark, and thunder crashes. The sky opens up beneath me, but instead of falling into a place with fire, I fall into a place that's cozy. It has brown desks and a fireplace in the front of the room.

The scene changes and I'm back on the bench. But not really. The scene in my head is looking over the bench. Of course, I'm sure that I'm on the bench as well, but that I just look like I'm sleeping. But nothing happens, then I suddenly wake up.

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"Ahh!" I scream, as shooting pain flows through my head.

But I'm only sitting on the bench. I look around. Same playground, same kids, same bench, same clock. Wait, a clock. It's been twenty five minutes, I realize. And we have twenty five minutes of recess. And I put two and two together. Well, at least I think I do. That voice in my head wanted me to skip recess for some reason. But why? No, probably that voice in my head didn't want me to skip recess, it probably just turned out that way.

The recess bell rings and the class flows inside. Thankfully I manage to forget about the voice for a little bit. It definitely helps calm your nerves knowing that a mysterious voice isn't invading your mind. Believe me, you don't want to have gone through what I just did.

I walk brusquely though the maze of hallways to my next class. Math. I really suck at math. By far my worst subject, but also a favorite of mine as well. I like the challenge of it, even if it's a little TOO challenging. But at least I'm entertained.

I make my way toward the classroom and push open the wooden door. Inside, there are only a few students. I must be early, I think. I sit down at a desk right in the middle and wait for the class to start.

After what seems like hours of waiting, eventually everyone is sitting at their desk with today's worksheet on the whiteboard. The fan is blowing and the temperature is perfect. Everything I need to succeed in math. Well, sort of at least.

"Hello everyone," says math teacher (Mrs. Brown).

"Good morning, Mrs. Brown," the class replies back in a chorus.

"Today we'll be learning about order of operations, and how to successfully use it."

At least it's not something really bad like converting Fahrenheit to Celsius. That's absolutely terrible. I'm pretty sure when we were doing that as our unit I got D- on the test. 

"Please fill out your worksheet and make sure to look at the examples of the math problems. You have ten minutes. Go."

I sigh. Ten minutes to fill out something that you're going to fail at. See, ever since I was seven, I've sort of just accepted the fact that I'll always be worse than everyone else at school. That's what happens when you have ADD as well as a learning disability. It just comes naturally to accept it.

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I hop off the bus and burst through the front door.

"I'm home, Mom!" I shout. 

No reply. 

"Mom?"

I roll my eyes. She's on the couch texting to my dad on her phone.

"Mom! I'm home!" I say forcefully.

"Hmm?"

"Oh, welcome back Ashlyn," she says as though nothing happened.

"Yep, I'll just go to my room right now," I say, trying to get rid of her.

I run up the stairs and burst into my room. Instead of pulling out my iPad or reading a book, I reach into my dresser and pull out a few spare changes of clothes. Then I go to my bathroom and get my toothbrush and a few ponytails. I take my pillow out of my pillow case and put my stuff in there. Tomorrow after school, I'm running away. Things will not be the way you think they will, says the voice.