Sentry of the Arcane

Chapter 2: Fitz

My father takes his sweet time thinking before saying, "Daniel Grahams."

    I swiftly type the name into the search bar. But before I click 'Enter', I turn my head around to glance over at my father. "Are you sure that this is the correct name?"

    My father frowns at this question. "Why would you think that?"

    "Well," I say as I click the 'Enter'. As I scroll through the websites that match my request, I continue. "Maybe the CSI knew that at least one person would talk about the second corpse and decided to takes some security measures."

    At this, his face scrunches up into a scowl when he realizes how much it makes sense. I can hear him take a sharp breath as he opens his mouth to argue, but then hear him close it at he steps back, defeated.

I glance at my screen again. Sure enough, Daniel Grahams is the second victim, dying near the same time as Michelle.

More silence passes as I'm skimming through Daniel's biography. Apparently, he was the younger sibling and had an older brother who went by the name of Jacob Grahams. Both were born on the same day, but Jacob was older by five years, at the age of 43. So that means that Daniel was 38 years old when he died, I note. I search for anything else about his family, but find nothing else.

Sighing, I quit out of the website and click on 'Images'. I only find pictures of a man with golden-brown hair and hazel eyes. His stubble implies that he didn't shave as often as others.

I don't find anything, so I click on the search bar again to type in something else. Before I can, the doorbell rings, the chimes snapping me out of my train of thought.

I glance over to the door and see no one at the door. I frown when I hear my father mumbling fowl words as he opens the door to its fullest extend. I quickly notice how stresses his expression seems. "Who was it?" I ask, suspicion evident in my voice.

My father shakes his head and turns around, a forced smile plastered across his face. "No one. It must've been some prankster..."

I frown at his excuse. "You're lying."

My father sighs in defeat. "Look forward, Fitz."

Skepticism fills my mind as I hesitantly glance forward. My eyes widen when I find myself staring at a middle aged man dressed in black. I jump out of my seat, my hands curled into fists.

"No need, Fitz," the man says in a gruffy, grumbly kind of voice. I frown and ask myself, How does he know my name? I notice the man holding a grey circlet in his hand, which I can only assume to be made of metal. I frown at the teal crystals adjourning the entire circlet.

"What is that?" I ask, my voice sharp and crisp.

The main officer tenses at my directness. He hesitates to pull the circlet out, but does it after a few seconds. "This..." The man toys with the metal ring. "Is something you won't have to worry about.

    I'm about to hit the circlet away when I feel a knife cutting a horizontal line on my back. I grit my teeth as I turn around to see my father holding a knife dripping with my blood. I narrow my eyes at him, my hands curling into fists. But before I can lunge at him, I feel something metal sliding over my head.

              And when it tightens, my vision blinks into darkness as I bite my tongue to suppress a scream.

    Suddenly, the pain from the circlet combining with my cut is so great that I let out a scream as I crumble to my knees. One hand goes up to the tightening circlet on my head as the other hand struggles to stand myself up.

    "Give in to the pain, Fitz," I hear my father say. Betrayal threatens to break my voice as I open my voice to say something. I then decide that he's not worth it, and just stare forward, my body involuntarily falling to the ground in a heap of pain and throbbing agony.

    I exhale sharply as I stare up at the the man, my vision spotting with black. I feel blood trailing down my back as I wearily ask, "Why do I... Why do I have the feeling that I'll be seeing you again?"

    As I roll onto my back, I hear the man laugh darkly and say, "So you're the smarter Percipient. A special someone could use some advice on that..."

    One word stays in my head as I fall into unconscious;

    Percipient.

...

    I awaken to find myself sitting in a chair. I quickly put a hand to my back and find that my injury was wrapped up in multiple layers of gauze. I feel my cut stinging in pain and notice how it's still bleeding.

My lips tug into a frown as I notice the three girls and two boys in the room other than myself. "An underground office of bunker," I whisper to myself as I quickly stand myself up. The room spins from my blood loss, so I sit down again.

    Suddenly, a female voice groaning snaps me out of my train of thoughts. I gaze up to see a teenage girl with blond hair staring up at me. Her brown eyes widen at the sight of my bandages, and I notice her trying to hide her bandaged wrists. I frown, but I don't ask.

    A very familiar man in a suit rushes into the room. I glare at him as he glances at me and the girl. The other four people still unconscious, the man says, "So the Percipients are awake." He then frowns at the two of us and at our silence.

At this, I realize that the two of us are glaring at him. I wonder whether or not the same man rushed into her house and kidnapped her too. I shake myself out of my thoughts and glare at the man in a suit again.

The man frowns back at us. "Do you know each other?"

We both hesitate, then shake our heads in denial.

"So they haven't been triggered yet." The man shakes his head in disappointment. "Alright then..." He points at the girl with blond hair. "Sophie Elizabeth Foster," he says, causing the girl's eyes to widen considerably. He then points at me, "Fitz Avery Vacker." Like the girl, my eyes widen prominently.

A few seconds pass before my head throbs again. A wave of pain washes over me, causing me to grip the armrests of my chair and clench my teeth. I stare forward to see Sophie's eyes roll into her head as she falls from the chair headfirst.

I quickly realize that she passed out again. Glaring at the man again, I barely manage to ask through my clenched teeth, "What did you do to the two of us?!"

He simply laughs. "Your names were triggers to... something I'll tell you when you wake up again." The man then presses his lips together to signal the end of his explanation.

"...Again?!" I practically spit the word out, my tone bitter. Another wave of pain floods my mind, causing me to fall off my chair and onto my knees. I take a few gulps of air before croaking out, "What was triggered?!"

Once again, the man evades the question. "Something I'll tell you about later." He then walks over to me, his steps smooth and nonchalant. The man bends down to my level before saying, "So now, I need you to drift away again."

Before I can argue again, the man snaps his fingers. A throb of agony hits me so suddenly that my mind decides to take the easy way out-

And I pass out.