#BattleTheBeast Entry: FIREWORKS

FIREWORKS

Do you ever have a dream that feels too real? You wake up and you really have to think: Was I dreaming or did that actually happen?

Last night I took a placement test for a special school. Even in my dreams I cannot seem to escape schoolwork. Only this wasn't a normal written test. The questions kept changing. The images on the page kept moving and just when I started to answer one it would switch to something completely different.

They told me I failed. I did not pass their test. They said I have no magic in me. I am a failure. And then I woke up.

I woke up thinking it was real. That maybe there is a magical school and I actually failed the entrance exam. I know it was a dream. It had to be. But I have this nagging feeling, this nagging thought, that maybe it was real. Which scares me. Isn't that the definition of crazy? Imagining things and insisting it's part of reality and not just in your dreams?

**

Julia is hiding something from me. I told her about my dream. I remembered the name: Brakebills. They say you don't remember words from your dreams but I remember the name written on the front cover of the entrance exam.

I told Julia about Brakebills. She got angry. She told me I should stop obsessing over my dreams and focus on the real world. Doesn't she know—doesn't she remember— the only thing that makes reality bearable are your dreams?

**

Dad is sick. But he won't come to see me. And he won't let me go to see him. He told me I need to focus on getting better and he'll wait for me. He says there will be time. But I don't think cancer waits for anyone.

**

Julia visited me today. She's in a better mood than the last time I saw her. She brought a friend. She says he goes to her school. "Eliot," he said. The guy was dressed like royalty.

"You go to Brakebills?" I asked when Julia went to get some water.

"So Julia told you about Brakebills. Huh," he said.

Then Julia came back with three paper cups filled with water and handed one to each of us. Julia is a liar. Brakebills is real. Magic is real.

**

Julia came again today. Alone this time. We sat in silence for a while. I have nothing to say to a liar. Finally, she spoke. 

"I'm sorry," she said.

"Teach me," I told her.

"I can't," she said.

"Then I don't accept your apology."

**

I did magic today! Real magic! I made fireworks shoot out of my fingertips. Colors exploded on the ceiling. They were wrong. I am not a failure. I have magic inside me.

**

Eliot came to visit me today. He brought someone new. A girl with straight brown hair. Margo.

"So I hear you can do magic," he said with a twinkle in his eye. He turned to his friend. "This guy here fancies himself a magician."

"Is he any good?" she asked.

"No," said Eliot after a moment's thought. "But he's cute."

I didn't let his comment bother me. Because I knew what he did not know. Julia will teach me. She'll teach me everything she's learned. Then I'll be a good magician. As good a magician as any of them.

**

I woke up with this angry guy standing over me.

"Who the hell are you?" he asked. Like he wasn't the one who showed up in my room unannounced and uninvited.

So I told him my name. "...Who are you?"

He ignored me. "Why the hell am I here?" he asked. It took me a moment to remember where 'here' was.

"You're sick and the nice people here are going to help you get better," I told him, repeating the lie I so often hear. I'm not sick, I'm special. Brakebills was wrong about me. I have magic coursing through me. I am a magician.

"What kind of bullshit is that? Is that why you're here?" he asked. "And you need to be rescued or some shit? You're not exactly screaming damsel-in-distress to me."

"Are you one of them?" I asked.

"One of what?"

"The magicians?" I made fireworks shoot up into the air from my fingertips. To show him I am one of them too.

"Please," I said. "Take me to Fillory."

"Isn't that a children's book?"

"Magic is real, isn't it?"

**

I woke up to a loud thud. And Julia, Margo, Eliot, a blond girl I didn't recognize and the pissed off guy from before were all in front of my bed.

"I thought we were supposed to go to Fillory," Margo said.

"Yeah, I thought so too." The pissed off guy was no less pissed off than the first time I'd met him.

But Fillory. They'd said Fillory. They were going to Fillory!

"You have to take me with you," I said. It was like hearing my voice broke some kind of spell. Four pairs of eyes focused on me.

"Quentin, no," Julia said. "You can't go."

"I know Fillory better than anyone," I said. And she knew I was right. And the thing about Julia is sometimes she lies. She lied about Brakebills. And she's lying now. I will go to Fillory.

**

Fillory is darker than I expected. And cold. It has a sense of impending doom that's hard to shake. But Fillory is real. And knowing that, seeing that with my own eyes, is everything.

**

I said I wouldn't get in the way. I said I could help them. I said I knew Fillory better than anyone. I didn't mean to but I lied. I got in the way. I couldn't help them. I didn't know the real Fillory. Margo, the blond, and Eliot are dead. Julia is bleeding out. The angry guy is bleeding out. And I tried—I tried to stop the blood but there's too much and it's coming out too fast.

All I could do was shoot fireworks from my fingertips into the sky, praying someone would see. It was a cry for help. A white flag of surrender. A tribute to the fallen.

No one saw and no one came. Brakebills was right. I am a failure. I am no magician.

When you're living in a dream, where are you supposed to go to escape your reality?