Darkness To The Kore

Chapter 2

Chapter Two

Sometimes I wonder how my life would be if my father were here. I never knew my father. My mother told me he died when I was just a baby but somehow I find that hard to believe. She never talks about him nor does she have any pictures of him and sometimes when I bring him up she gets really upset.

I wonder if he had sandy brown hair or dark brown eyes that sometimes look hazel in the light like mines. I wonder if he laughed at little things, silly things and cried just to cry or danced even when there was no music playing. I wonder if he imagined a world full of magic like I do and wished that he could fly away to the unknown places our grown-up minds refuse to believe in.

I must believe that he wondered all these things because my mother is nothing like me. She's the complete opposite of me. She has light piercing green eyes that intimidate me with every glare, she looks like she could be a runway model despite her age with her long legs and statuesque features. Her nose is the perfect shape, not too pointy and not too angular. Her cheekbones are lean and high, and her body seems to curve in and out at all the right places.

I on the other hand, have baby-like features. My cheeks are round, my nose is awkward and sharp, my posture is terrible, my boobs and curves are nonexistent, and I am unbelievably short. I think it's why she still treats me like a child...well that and the fact that I still believe in magic. She laughs when I tell her my beliefs in other worlds and magical things.

She tells me I need to put childish thoughts away and prepare to be an adult, but I can't help being imaginative. It's just who I am.

Sometimes I get these weird dreams of different places I believe I have visited before. Sometimes it's this bright, colorful field of poppy flowers and I am just lying down in them with fairy creatures prancing all around me. They are beautiful creatures, with their pink and blue wings and colorful auras that shine almost brighter than the sun.

And then in other dreams I am riding a horse in this dark yet bright place near an enchantingly beautiful river. I don't exactly know what to call this place, but I feel like it is my true home. I am unusually drawn to the chocolate brown horse and somehow, I feel like I have known him for a long time.

I come back into reality as Mrs. Roger pops me square on my head.

"Ow," I squeal, rubbing my head.

"Were you listening Kore, I said what does this mean," she asks me, pointing towards the book filled with derivatives. Oh, how I dread Calculus and I am so glad I will be done with it after today.

Tomorrow I will be taking my GED exam and I'm so excited, not only because I will finally be done with school but because I will get to see other people. I haven't seen people besides Mrs. Rogers and my mother in six months. I seldom get to go into town with my mother. She tells me it's for my own good but like everything else she tells me, I've stopped believing that it is true.

I look up at Mrs. Rogers who is waiting on me to give her an answer. She has her arms folded in that motherly pose that she always does. I smile, realizing how much I am going to miss her. She has been more of a mother to me than my own mother and even though she has kids of her own, I have always felt like she feels the same way.

"I'm going to miss you Mrs. Rogers," I say to her and hug her so tightly that she is taken aback for a moment but then wraps her arms around me. I do this partly to distract her and partly because I really am going to miss her.

She is not fooled though and after we finish embracing, she grins at me and shakes her head.

Wiggling her index finger back and forth at me, she laughs, "I'm going to miss you to, but that doesn't mean you're going to get out of this last homework assignment, so finish up."