Anathema

II

Nora looked down upon the set of golden keys she had grasped from the lady. The keys read 608; her room was on floor 6 and room 8. By the time Nora ran to the place where the elevator was according to the map it was already late into night, she has been exploring so much she lost track of time. Sadly, the elevator that was needed was broken so she had to take the flight of stairs. All of these questions were running through her mind!

"Oh, I wonder what she's going to be like! Okay. I'm imagining a really short girl, she has blue eyes, has brown hair, her smile could light up a room! She's a little shorter than me, and has a very outgoing personality! Oh, I can just see it now! The tea parties we will share, the sweets, the fun times. We will end up laughing, then crying, then laughing again, it will be amazing!" Nora shouted proudly.

She eventually got to the room where the two of them were staying and looked down at the room key. It was so beautiful in the hall lights, glistening a gold so bright. She was so excited to meet this new friend of hers. She took the shiny key from her nervous palms, put it in the slot and opened the door and shouted,

"Hello? Anyone in here?" When Nora had walked in, she realized that this girl was surrounded by massive piles of whatever junk she had in her bags, completely in a mountain of clothes and toiletries.

"Oh...hello." The girl said in a higher pitched, quiet, soft voice. She shook off all of the excess junk she had on her and stood up. This girl stood about a bit taller than Nora, had pale skin, long jet black hair tied up in a high ponytail with wavy bangs covering her eyebrows, glasses and a hazel-gold eyes. She was nothing like Nora imagined, she was a tall shy girl who had so much going for her.

"Oh! I'm so sorry for the mess, I am the definition of a hoarder," the shy girl uttered breathless as she frantically tried to clean up the mess. "My name is Gabriell Kerswick; it's a pleasure to meet you Nora. Pick any bed you want, please." Nora jumped on the bed closest to the window, their view was stunning, it was right were the delphinium flowers were falling at the entrance. She rolled around a few times and then started to help Gabriell with the pile of mess.

"I am very messy as well dear, don't you worry one bit, take a look in my suitcase if you want to feel better!" Nora exclaimed with a smile.

After the mess of clothes on the floor were cleaned and picked up, Gabriell was putting some personal things around the room. She had the cutest knickknacks, a couple of vintage picture frames filled with memories of her father Nora assumed and her, and the most delightful black cat, it's eyes of a reflective piece of gold. Nora helped Gabriell put up some cute decorative items, sheer white curtains with a little rose belt to hold the curtain to the side, small souvenirs such as an amethyst paperweight or a coffee machine on top of the mini fridge. The room was so quaint and tiny, yet the hospitality made it seem like a castle. Their room was finished and it seemed as if the two of them were in a peaceful and safe environment. Nora plopped down on her side of the bead, looked up at the ceiling and broke up the silence by asking,

"So, why did you want to join the ATC?" Gabriell looked at Nora and made a grunt noise as if she didn't understand the question. "You know, why are you here? What are your goals, dreams, wants at this camp?" Nora repeated trying to correct her last question as she was still staring up. Gabriell moved to the end of her bed looked down at her feet and put her hand on her prominent chin while her red fingers were rubbing her lips.

"Vengeance." Gabriell muttered. She shifted to her back on her bed, put her arms behind her head and closed her eyes. "You know what Nora? People in this world are stupid, idiots. It's just that simple. Anathemas are the worst idiots of all. For some stupid reason they were created, an extent of manmade idiots added to this world by idiots whose curiosity took the best of them. As one says curiosity killed the cat and that's exactly what happened. We are in a world of idiots who need to be stopped and I will use science to create the greatest weapons to defeat those stupid anathemas. I will rid the world of them. You?" Nora was in a state of occhiolism by Gabriell's answer it took her a few seconds to snap out of the spiral of thought.

"Well, mine probably isn't as thoughtful as yours but, we kind of share the same boat here. When I was 7 my family and I were attacked by the new batch of anathemas that were created. They were new; no one knew how to stop them. My household held guns and such for protection but, it was useless. There were so many lives, loved ones lost into a world full of nothing but, darkness and lifeless matter." Nora sat up and lifted a small smile upon her face. "My brother, his name was Theo. He was everything to me; he was the best brother a girl could have. We would always hang out in the forest, climb trees, pick flowers; we would pretend that we ruled the world in this little shack in the middle of the mass of poison ivy and moss. He wasn't just my brother, he was my best friend. I was always the extroverted one in the kingdom, I was the powerful queen who wanted every day to be full of happy celebration, he was the king who wanted solitude and peace. I remembered one day he was telling me how he wanted to have nature powers, to grow flowers for our beautiful kingdom. Instead of magic we just went to the hardware store and bought thousands of roses, ones in various shades of white and yellow. I always was the yellow and he was the white. I remember it so well. It was one of the only days we were in our house. It was an autumn day, about 49 degrees in Fahrenheit. The day was very gloomy, dark clouds were masking the happy sun. The ground had brown grass spread across our yard from it being mistreated from the heavy rain and mud puddles. Theo and I were lying in my room painting some maple leaves that we found in the forest. Mine was a beautiful shade of gold, his was an ocean blue. We were about to head outside and collect some more leaves until we heard the most terrifying bellow of pain and terror. Theo told me to wait upstairs but, I had to resist his command and I accompanied him by his side. It was a pack of wolf anathemas. I had heard of them but, never witnessed one in real life. My father was in front of my mother and was holding a barrel shotgun, both of them drenched in blood and sweat trying to keep calm for the sake of Theo and I. For the first time I witness true fear, not just from me but, within the eyes of my loved ones as well. I'm not going to go into the gory details but, let's just say my father looked unrecognizable and my mom was shaking on the floor next to my father sobbing and clutching his clothes with her blood stained hands. My brother who was trying to protect me got taken away from us by those fiends. Our small kingdom had fallen, the roses over watered by the heavy rain and the palace became an unused building made of falling wood and mold. He was half alive, they took our king without killing him in shock I was surprised. I overheard them talking about how he would be put to great use. I just don't know, after that I just wondered who would do such a thing as to kill a loving father and abduct a 12 year old boy. I promised myself that I would get vengeance on those idiots that hurt my mother and I. Now I'm here and I'll slay anything that's evil, that my goal! My father and Theo will never go to waste once I join the Regal Guard and finish off those brutes"

"Nora, you have guts, I like that about you. I'm just a wimp 17 year old girl who wants to take out idiots of the world" Gabriell admitted as she giggled slightly motioning a punching stance. "When I was in my younger years I was a lot like you. Motivated, headstrong, wore the silliest outfits, giddy as a little girl on her birthday, you're so optimistic and extroverted, how do you do that?" Gabriell jokingly inquired.

"Well my dear, I was the queen at one point remember? Your subjects always have to know what's on your mind, which means babbling nonstop for hours at a time." Nora responded with a smile.

Nora looked at the clock on the desk to the left to her bed, it read 11:00 PM. The time seemed to have flew by as the two were talking. She had to wake up super early in the morning, how had she lost that much time!

"Holy crap, Gabriell! It's eleven at night, how are we going to wake up in the morning! How are we going to sleep, eat, what are we going to-" Nora was cut off by Gabriell.

"Calm down, we will be okay. I'm going to take a quick shower, get some rest. I can tell that you'll need it." Gabriell proclaimed as she tried to calm Nora down. She gathered her towel, washing materials and bed clothes. On her way to the bathroom she grabbed Nora's pajamas and threw it at her face. "Now get dressed and go to bed you idiot. Hey, it was nice talking to you today, let's do that again someday." Nora could tell there was some bittersweetness in her voice. Nora usually was very intuitive but, this time she couldn't tell what was going on. There was something this perplexing confidant wasn't telling her.