Shielded

Prologue

  Flames licked the lifeless bodies lying in the earth, their familiar faces half-buried in dirt, soon to be joined by the ash that danced towards them from the sky.
  Children who were never accepted now lay around her, their bodies burnt and scarred, their unblinking eyes staring at the blonde-haired girl standing in the middle of all this destruction.
  Behind her, a building of previous grandeur stood crumpled and destroyed, fire overtaking it's many rooms and flowing out of the broken roof. Smoke billowed from every gap, through every crevice.
  The girl's nose upturned at a metallic smell suddenly floating through the air towards her and she instinctively looked for the source. She thought it could be from the burning building, but when she looked down, she saw that her front was wet with the unmistakable crimson liquid.
  Despite the horror that was in front of her, the first thought that entered her mind was that this was someone else's blood, that she had killed all these people, her friends. But it wasn't someone else's blood. The smell was coming from a deep gash scored into her abdomen and reaching the top of her ribcage. There was no pain, but the sight of blood and pus oozing from her body was enough to make her sick.
  Steering her gaze away from the wound, she turned to face the burning building, or what was left of it. The front of the apartment building had crumpled in on itself, trapping anyone upstairs as it took out the staircase. She heard screams of fright, of pain and of anguish all emanating from the once protected home.
  And in that moment, she could do nothing to help.
  Taking a deep breath that she hoped would fill her with confidence, she slowly made her way to the front of the building. It was buried in the city, its true nature unknown to most but treasured by those who lived there. It was a safe haven, a place where everyone could be themselves, without fear of judgement or threat. Now, it was clear that it may not have been as safe as they had once hoped it to be.
  The girl was at the foot of the porch steps, taking in the cracked concrete and shattered glass. She peered through the gaping hole that was once a set of small oak doors and saw a flicker of movement inside: three figures, moving slowly and surely through the wreckage.
  From her position, their features were not visible, silhouetted against the bright flames in between them and the girl, who had expected to see three middle-aged criminals or soldiers perhaps. After all, the girl thought, it would take a lot to cause this much destruction.
  But she was taken aback by what was in front of her.
  They still stood in the shadow of the smoke, but the girl could see that they were not who she thought them to be.
  They were teenagers, children around the same age as her. Each of the figures had a weird kind of aura surrounding them - a shield of some sorts, protecting them from the flames as they continued to destroy everything the girl knew and loved, wielding guns unlike anything she had ever seen before.
  Who were they? Why would people her own age want to cause so much damage?
  Thousands of questions raced through her mind, but before any of them could be answered, a lilting voice pierced the silence behind the girl. She jumped, but soon found comfort in the voice, for it was one that she came to know so well.
  "Alice," The voice said, "I think it's time you woke up now."
  When the girl turned to face the direction of the voice, she felt the familiar lurch in her navel as she sat bolt upright in her bed, not at all surprised to be waking from yet another dream.
  To her left, Miss Nolan sat in the metal chair that was usually tucked under the old desk. Her hand sat clasped around a wet flannel in her lap, which was previously pressed up against the girl's forehead as she lay in bed.
  "Ciara notified me that you were dreaming again." She said calmly, and sure enough, Alice saw her friend Ciara placing a full glass of water on the table beside her. "Tell me everything you saw."
  Alice slowly moved her arm from beneath the covers and moved it over to the rickety nightstand, where the glass of water now sat waiting for her to pick it up. She drank the whole thing before she spoke, tucking her blonde hair behind her ear.
  "There's not much to tell, it was exactly the same." She placed the empty glass back on its coaster and gave Ciara a faint smile before falling back against her pillows.
  "Are you sure nothing was different?" Miss Nolan asked, placing the flannel back in the bowl of water before returning her hands to her lap.
  "Yes." She sighed, "The building, the bodies, the people inside-" Her eyes widened and she sat upright again, a chill washing through her body.
  "What is it?" Nolan asked, shifting her chair a little closer to the bed, a worried look strewn across her kind face.
  "There were three of them this time. There's usually only two, in the lobby. But tonight there were three."
  "Alice, is there any chance you saw their faces this time round?" She had a hand on her knee, supporting her upper body as she leaned forward slightly.
  "No, it was too dark to see anything but their silhouettes. Do you think any of this means anything?"
  Miss Nolan thought to herself for a moment and stole a breath before smiling reassuringly, "Professor Galloway and I have spoken about what these recurring dreams of yours might mean. Of course, you're still relatively new at this, what you keep seeing has a low chance of actually happening. However, I have been recording the differences in these dreams to try and make sense of it all. Don't worry, we'll figure it out." She sat back in the chair and reached for the bowl and flannel, "You should probably get some sleep, you've had a rough night."
  And with that, she stood up and walked confidently out of the door, sliding it closed quietly behind her as to not wake the rest of the students. The two girls were left to slip back under their covers and go to sleep, completely unsure whether or not it would be disturbed by another dream.