Young Blood (PART ONE OF THREE)

The First Vision

19. The First Vision

 From Vaan’s fingertips burned tiny red flames then danced around his hand. He placed his hand on the shroud and it ignited, the fire burned strong.

“This fire shall represent the burning passion and the raging courage of all those who have died for our cause,” Mr. Sullivan’s voice rang out through the amphitheatre in the back of the school, clear as day.

Vaan watched the sparks fly up in to the night sky and his head began to burn. He knew this feeling, he’d had it once before. The last time he’d had a premonition of his foster parents kicking him out of his home after he revealed what he really was.

The next thing he knew his knees hit the ground and his eyes rolled in to the back of his head as his body collapsed on the stage ground. He could faintly, distantly hear the voices of people crowding around him, screaming his name.

But that was all gone.

Suddenly his mind was filled by the thoughts of another. Last time it had been his foster father, but this time it was that of a girl. Lizzy, he knew. He could tell by the fact that she looked down at her outfit and wondered if Song would like it.

She walked out of her room and into the hallway where she waved at passerby who nodded in return. She was smiling, purely with absolute happiness. Sure Song wasn’t her boyfriend anymore, but they had all the time in the world.

She practically danced her way to the cafeteria and sat down with her sister and her brother. Her brother was quite and he pushed his food around with his fork, but her sister was going on about Selena. Lizzy wasn’t paying attention of course, and Vaan struggled to hear her sister. No, Lizzy was too busy watching the lunch line as it slowly shortened.

“I hope there’s still food by the time the line goes down,” She says quietly, interrupting her sister mid-sentence. “Sorry,” She said and she turned back and pretended to listen to her sister.

Suddenly there was this chill in the air, just something barely noticeable, and Lizzy tried to ignore it. But then her back was filled with pain, this horrible pain that reverberated throughout her body and she shivered and she fell back, forcing whatever had implanted itself next to her spine even further through her body.

Screaming. She was screaming. Everyone else was screaming.

She craned her neck to look at her attacker, but her eyes began to close and all she managed to see was a pair of black boots. And then the world was suddenly warm, the pain gone, Vaan could hear a faint crackle from a fire.

Vaan snapped back into his own body, gasping for air and several arms reached out to him to help him stand. “What happened?” He heard Song say, but he ignored his friend.

He stood with Mr. Sullivan and Song’s help and he looked around at the crowd of people staring at him. What was that?