War Of Millennium

Chapter 5: Out

In the morning, after only managing to get about 3 hours of sleep, I was woken up again. Unfortunately I hadn't quite gotten to sleep like I'd planned, because I was up for hours thinking about what Ivy had said to me.

So, Joey was in my bedroom at five in the morning blasting a literal brass horn in my ears.

Being woken up with a horn is as annoying as it sounds. I sat up and slammed my forehead into the brass. I was feeling groggy and exhausted. I widened my eyes and looked around. I couldn't have been any more disappointed when I saw Joey, not that I thought Ivy had a horn with her.

"Rise 'n shine, kid. You got a long day ahead of you." He said loudly. I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes, and said, without logically thinking, of course—"No, you can forget about that. I do not get woken up by a horn while it's still dark outside."

Apparently that made Joey pretty angry, because he took it the wrong way and yanked me out of my covers by the back of my shirt. It did a great job of jolting me awake.

"You'll do exactly what I tell you, you hear me?" he commanded. "Yep!" I shouted. "Loud and clear." I added. "Yeah, that's what I thought you said. Get dressed. Get in the gym by 5:30. Not one second later."

That said, Joey disappeared, leaving me all shaken up and tired. I stood up and went to go wake myself up with water and make myself presentable. And then I heard the door open again.

"What now?" I snapped, whipping around, expecting to see Joey again. But it was Ivy, looking a little confused and very tired. "Oh. It's just you." I said. She gave me a funny look.

"What are you doing awake?" I stifled a yawn. "Horn? Was there a horn? Because I'm pretty sure the whole castle heard a horn." She replied. "Sorry. That was Joey."

"Since you're awake," she said. "You might want to think about doing something with your bird's nest." She gestured up towards my hair. I bit down hard on my lip and stumbled over to see what she meant.

Sure enough, I didn't look like myself at all. I looked more like a troll that had been hibernating for years.

My hair was sticking up at weird angles, making me look like I was some rare breed of porcupine. My eyes hard dark circles under them. I looked, overall, disheveled and tired. And I definitely was.

Ivy followed me in. I took all of my hair in my hands and tried to flatten it, but it didn't work so well. "I'm sorry you had to see that." I said tiredly. She laughed, so clearly she didn't care too much, which made me feel better.

"I have to do see Joey soon." I told her. "I figured. But hurry up. Learn something, I guess. I'm going back to bed." She waved and sulked away, shutting the door behind her.

I let go of all my hair while I frantically searched for anything to flatten my hair. I just ended up wetting it down and soaking my clothes in the process. But there seemed to be nothing I could really do to make myself look normal again.

Joey had told me I needed more clothes as long as I was being trained by him. He'd set out an outfit for me before he had blared the horn in my ears; but I was kinda glad he'd left them for me, otherwise he would've endlessly criticized my pajamas, and I'd already heard enough about that.

I arrived at the gym around fifteen minutes before I was expected to. I wasn't exactly sure what Joey would've done to me, had I been late. But I wasn't so curious as to figure it out.

That was my first terrible mistake—going early. I wished I'd just thought to lie in bed for the remainder of the half hour he'd given me to situate myself. But I was stupid and went early.