Journey

Elijah

I was sitting, waiting for Lorelei, when Leopold walks up to me.

"Would you be open to fighting today?" He asks.

"Not particularly." I tell him.

"Wonderful. We will set up your match for ten minutes from now."

"Well crap."

That's how I ended up wearing fighting gear and chilling in the unusually white arena. These things get bloody. I don't know how they get them so clean.

"Don't worry. I'll go easier on you since you haven't been here." My opponent told me.

"Don't worry. I'll go easy on you since I am a trained soldier." I told him.

He raises his eyebrow. If you count my one day of battle training trained. Then we get ready for the fight. The doors open and we step out into the arena surrounded by a sea of blue and white. I focus on my opponent so I don't get dizzy.

He is confident in himself. I'm going to change that. We start circling each other. Out of nowhere he comes sprinting at me. I dodge easily. I start to feel a power in me that I've never felt before. He comes back with a punch and I dodge that too but not quick enough and it hits my shoulder. I turn around and punch him. He stumbles back a few steps.

I don't even feel the next punch. His face turns bloody and my fists are covered with his blood. With the next punch he is on the floor. The crowd is cheering me on. I pin him to the floor and I punch again. I can kill him. I look up at the sea of roaring Brights. Then someone catches my eye. She stands out against the crowd of blue.

"No" She mouths.

Suddenly I come to my senses. I am disgusted with myself.

"Yield!" I shout at him.

"No" He gurgles.

"Yield!" I shout louder.

"Kill me." He tells me.

"Yield man. You only have one life don't waste it. Yield!" I scream.

He taps the floor three times. The fight is over. I get off of him and run out of the arena. I can't face Lorelei right now. I almost killed him. I run to the showers. I scrub at my skin for the second time today. The blood doesn't seem to come off.

"Elijah!" Someone yells for me.

It's Lorelei. She steps into the shower. I am kind of embarrassed of my boxers. She grabs my arm. I pull away.

"Elijah." She sighs.

"No please Lorelei get away. I don't want to hurt you."

"Elijah you won't hurt me."

"No that's the thing. I didn't want to kill him. But suddenly I wanted him to die. I wasn't going to let him yield."

"But you stopped."

"That's not always going to happen."

She pulls me so I face her. She pulls my face down to hers.

"You would never hurt me. If I didn't believe that 100% I wouldn't be talking to you in your shower."

"You are amazing." I tell her.

She smiles at me, soaking wet.

"I have an extra set of clothes in my bag if you want to wear them." I tell her.

"Thank you." She says as she steps out of my shower.

I laugh to myself. Only Lorelei would do that. I finish my shower and get dressed. I enter our room and see Lorelei with her hair wet and framing her face. She looks up at me and smiles.

"You feeling better?" She asks me.

"Yes." I tell her.

"Congratulations on your first win." Lorelei tells me.

"Thank you."

"Let's go teach the cooks how to make cake."

I smile and get up off the bed. We race down to the kitchen and interrupt dinner making.

"What do you two want?" The head cook asks exasperated.

"We want to teach you how to make cake." I tell her.

Some of the other cooks look up, interested.

"Chocolate cake?" I ask.

"Is that even a question?"

We get started making the cake. Eventually we get it into the oven.

"We need frosting." Lorelei tells me.

"Again that is given."

We get started making the frosting and it doesn't go so well. I think we ended up with more ingredients on us than in the bowl.

"Is this really how you make frosting?" One of the cooks asks us.

"Not generally but I guess this is how we make it." I respond.

I ended up with the top of our cake frosted and nothing else. We cut into it and gave everyone slices. It wasn't amazing but the cooks were extremely impressed.

The cooks pour us some sort of drink. I take a little sip. It is bubbly and sweet. It tastes like lemons.

"To our gorgeous cake that tastes a lot better than it looks." Lorelei laughs.

"Cheers." I laugh.

"What day is it?" I ask.

"It's tuesday." Lorelei responds.

"No. of the month."

"It's the 8th of july."

"Oh my stars!"

"What is it?" Lorelei asks.

"It's my birthday!" I exclaim.

"Are you serious?" She asks.

"Yeah."

"Happy 16th birthday!" Lorelei exclaims.

"Thank you Lorelei." I smile.

"Oh geez. I'm dating an old man." Lorelei exclaims.

I laugh at her.

"I'm not that much older than you." I exclaim.

Lorelei laughs. And hugs me.