When Mercury Met Mars (#1 Serendipity Series)

one • mercury

song of the day: "chin up" by yoke lore

Every breathing person on earth had dreamed of this, every kid since they could walk knew the name, speaking the dream into existence over and over again till you were lucky enough to be blessed. This was the place where heroes were born, the place where history books found your name. A place where destinies are made, both crushed and conquered. 

Before me was Sacred Academy. 

I couldn't recall the last time I was this nervous. The years prior to this moment drifted behind me like oil spilling into water, droplets of warped memories that refused to find their place.

Yet the life before me was not gone, not even Sacred could offer an escape. Because these walls would not be a sanctuary, but rather a fortress ready to fall. 

The iron gates thrummed with secrets as they loomed above me, casting shadows over the bustling street before the academy. I muttered an apology as a man in a suit scuttled frantically around me.  

My eyes were trained on the metal bars. My feet were plastered to the spider webbed cracked concrete.  I could feel my heart hammering in my chest so hard that it was difficult to hear over the blood rushing through my ears.

The crawling vines that I observed snaking up the wall as fellow students filed in around me were branching out painting their canvas, making an artwork of green gripping the stone.

Students filed in before me their conversations drifting past. Only exclamations of excitement and disbelief filled the air around me. I felt the knot in my stomach grow, bubbling up with my nerves as I pushed bitten nails into my sticky palms.

Still my heavy boots wouldn't move as I looked at the moss and leaves that revealed magnificent carvings surrounding the wall outside of the extravagant building.  The very same building that I would soon be attending.

The carvings just made my heart ache more, like a hand gripping my insides giving a tight squeeze as I was reminded of what could be my future in a different life.

My ability to use my lungs also seemed to escape me as I struggled to take in a shaky breath as I wrung my hands in front of me. 

Come on, come on, move your feet, Mercury.

Trying to relax my muscles and move my feet, I took another shaky breath.

My limbs were as stiff as boards as my locked knees ever so slightly moved a couple of inches forward. 

Progress. This is good.

Huffing loudly as I stepped beyond the gate; it was as if time slowed and not just because of my nerves. Stepping into the threshold of the academy changed the very dimension I was in. It was like bursting through a soap bubble into fresh clear air. My nerves were singing as energy coursed through my body, I felt awake. I felt alive. Beyond the barrier everything was more vibrant, bursting with activity and saturation. The scents became intense, dancing with each other in crescendos of grace and elegance. Lavenders, gardenias, roses drifting from the courtyard. Even the breeze felt different, it bended between trees, running aside the birds as it dipped to breath into the curve of my ear, whispering sweet nothings before it rushed off in distant and echoing laughter. 

Sacred was a new world.

One that was too close to be real. After months of dreaming I would be on the other side of it, this had to be another figment of my imagination. Yet, my clammy palms told me otherwise. 

Every sense was awake as my feet were crossing unknown and uncharted territory. Looking back to the gate it truly was as if I had crossed into another realm, the busy street that I had just been on was no where to be found, instead a clearing full of runes, rolling hills, and tall evergreens lay beyond.