Illusions

z e r o

❝ Know your enemy and know yourself and you will get the strength and courage to fight a hundred battles without disaster. But lose yourself to your surroundings and you will lose the game we all know as life.❞

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Kalen's chestnut eyebrows knit together in sheer concentration, her frail hand gripping the pencil tightly and making it move smoothly across the paper, creating such elegantly shaped letters. Her long, thin fingers loosened their grip once in a while just to tighten again once the mogigraphia had subsided, her teeth piercing the soft flesh of her lower lip continually as the vague memories from her dream replays in her head and oozes out on the paper. Her mornings always started like this, extra spaces or messily written letters scattered sporadically on the page as she, despite her terrible memory, desperately tries to recall her midnight adventures.

She had never really given these weird collection of images a second thought. She had just watched her greatest passions or simple experimental desires drown in the darkness of dawn. She had never questioned the meaning of her dreams; they simply were. Just like the colour of the sky always remained blue no matter how thick the layer of clouds to cover it were. And the taste of water somehow couldn't be defined or described with the simple words in our vocubulary. The concept of dreams was an abstract phenomena that she had never desired to study further. But that was until this right moment as she still laid in bed, simply not having the heart to leave the realm of her safety. Her duvet barely covered her legs and slowly slid of the rest of her body as well. Goosebumps rising on her pale skin, air sneaking up under the oversize t-shirt she had slept in, pressing cold kisses to her hot skin.

A pair of blue eyes watch her curiously from the doorway, watching her every move with huge interest, mind clouded with wonder as to why she had called him over this early. His fingertips gently drum against the wooden door as he look at her, silently admiring the way her skin glows with the light from the weak morning sun, enjoying the view and the somewhat new and vulnerable Kalen.

He had caught glimpses of a more human Kalen the last couple of weeks. The doll that had once spoken with her voice had become a beautiful, natural girl. The obedient puppet who get her strings pulled by far too many people had finally gotten her strength and independence back. Sadly enough it was only around him her walls seemed to fall. They still got a long road ahead of them.

His nose would crinkle ever so slightly as he spotted the teeny hearts in her notebook, all of them circling the name that couldn't roll of his tongue without even the slightest scoff: Kace Tanner.

"You know, I told you to take a seat and feel at home 15 minutes ago, right?", she grinned, shaking her head at the silly Irish boy, continuing her frantic writing for another 5 minutes before switching to careless doodling. The poisonous name now spreading to the rest of the page with the speed of light, reluctance forming in the pit of Niall's stomach.

His lips curved upwards in a small smile, the little fire that had started in him slowly dying out as he dragged his long body to the end of her bed, the springs creaking underneath him. She finally decided to lift her gaze from the now filled out page in the notebook, turning her head to grin cheekily at the blonde boy.

"Did the cat take your tongue or what? You're far too quiet today. No scoffing, no snarky comments about Kace, no pouting?", she smiled, quite content with the change in Niall's behaviour but somehow still curious to as why he had decided to leave his hostile attitude behind. A soft chuckle emitted from her lips, the question still unspoken as Niall scrunched up his face in a hilarious grimace, sticking out his tongue at her.