Lost Girl

Eight

            My fist slammed into the black sparring dummy, knocking it the ground. This thing was such a piece of shit and I needed to replace it, replace all of them. Honestly, I was surprised it had lasted this long. I was down here abusing it almost every night, although tonight was longer than usual. My uncle had been in a fowl mood today, taking it out on me as usual. Sometimes I think he did that just because he knew I could handle it but then I remembered that my uncle was a douchebag and he wouldn’t spare other’s feelings like that. I moved the dummy aside and moved to the giant red bags that hung against the far wall, choosing to take my anger out on them instead.

            I resumed my practicing; alternating between right and left punches and kicks. When sweat began to drip into my eyes, I stopped and reached down to pick up the towel off the floor. I ran the towel over my face and threw it over my shoulder. When I opened my eyes again, the gym lights were flickering. Not the kind of flickering when someone is flipping the light switch either. The kind of flickering when the light bulb is about to go out, which is wasn’t. These were new bulbs, I knew because I had thrown a fit when they were all blown when I’d gotten back from the trip a couple of weeks ago.

            I looked around the room cautiously, suddenly feeling some sort of power come over me, and not my own power. I wasn’t used to feeling this kind of energy and it scared me. I swept my eyes across the room, looking at the far side of the gym. It seemed that the whole place was bathed in a gold glow, but I couldn’t find its origin anywhere. I blinked, rubbing my eyes to see if I was hallucinating. The clock on the wall ticked slower and slower until it came to a complete stop. That couldn’t be good.

I looked around again, not wanting to be caught off guard by anything. I squinted my eyes, trying to see through the gold haze, there in the shadows was a person. I stopped fidgeting, going into instant alert mode. I hadn’t seen or heard anybody walk in here and that never happened. When the person started to step towards me, my whole body stiffened on instinct, getting ready for what ever was about to happen.

            “Be calm child, I mean you no harm.” I froze. The voice was strong, powerful; it sent an icy blast over my entire body. It was clearly feminine and as she continued to step forward I could see her features more clearly. She was beautiful, with long flowing hair adorned with a braided flower crown. I racked my brain wondering where the hell I had seen her before. 

            “You’ve grown up beautifully.” She smiled at me and that’s when it hit me, this was the woman on the cover of my book. The same book that I had purchased from that random shop in Irondale, the book about the Goddess. The book that had never made it out of the bag that I’d bought it in.

            “What do you mean by that?” I managed to get the question out even though my mind was spinning.

            “I’ve been watching you since you were little. Waiting for the right time to present myself to you. I must say you’ve come very far.” She smiled again, like she was proud of me or something. Her confession was a tad bit creepy. Why the hell was she was watching me? And was I really going to believe that the person standing in front of me was the supposed Goddess? The one that I no longer believed in?

            “If you would stop questioning yourself, you would hear what you’re body is trying to tell you.” She answered simply like she knew exactly what my inner argument was about. My automatic instinct told me she was full of shit but I listened, to my body anyway. Ever cell, every molecule in my body was at peace. Every piece of me called out to her. She was right, everything in me was telling me that I had just met my maker. The one I had stopped believing in when my parents were slaughtered.