The Fire Guardians

Chapter 10

Chapter 10:

                I woke up to the sound of whispers.

                Slowly opening my eyes, I noticed two people in my room. Who were they? When I saw the plates of food my worries began to dissolve. At least they weren’t thieves or spies. Probably just servants. I pretended to still be asleep so they couldn’t talk to me. But I left one eye cracked to make sure they didn’t do something stupid like explore my room or steal my clothes.

                The one was a guy, and the other a girl. They kept whispering to each other. The whispering grew noticeably louder and harsher, until the girl shushed him.

                “She’s still sleeping,” I heard the girl say. The guy glanced over at me. He whispered something to her, and the girl sighed.

                I watched him slip powder into my orange juice.

                He took a straw and stirred it quickly. What had he put in there? All I knew was that I wasn’t going to drink that orange juice. I didn’t even really like orange juice to begin with.

                The people set the food on my desk and slid out of the room. As soon as I was certain they had gone, I sat up. I walked toward the tray of food. Suddenly, I was scared to eat anything. I went into my bathroom and decided to take a shower. I took out a long sleeved, pale blue shirt, and pair of jeans. As I finished getting around, there was a knock on the door.

                I answered the door, and saw Everett there.

                “Hey,” he said, “Are you ready for training today? We have to be at the Training Center in five minutes.”

                “Yeah, pretty much ready,” I said, brushing my hair with my fingers.

                “Weren’t you hungry?” Everett asked, observing the untouched food on my desk. I was debating whether or not to tell him what I saw. He waltzed toward the food and picked up a piece of bacon.

                “No! Don’t eat that!” I screamed. Everett dropped the bacon on the floor.

                “What’s wrong with it?” He asked, wiping his hands off on his pants. I guess I didn’t have a choice whether or not I was going to tell him now. I mean, I could lie and tell him I wanted to save the food for later, but that didn’t make much sense. Later the food would be all cold.

                “I saw something,” I said.

                “I woke up, and the servants brought in the food. One of them put this powder in the orange juice, but they didn’t see I was awake. They didn’t know I saw them doing this. They left, and I didn’t know if they put the powder on all the other food and-,” all my words were tumbling out at once.

                “-Powder?” Everett asked, interrupting my outburst of rambling.

                “Yeah, it was this powder stuff.”

                Everett picked up the glass filled with orange juice and sniffed it. He cringed, and quickly set the cup down. He mumbled something, and shuttered.

                “What is it?” I asked. My heart began to race.

                “Strychnine.”

                “Huh?”

                “Strychnine. In other words, poison.”