Light from Darkness

Chapter 12- Masks

Back to the dream. It had been so long since her last one that Kara almost forgot what happened. Almost. The same glowing fields of corn, grass and varied colours of flowers. The light breeze upon her cheeks felt just as real as it would in reality, she used to find it hard to tell the difference when they were so regular that she spent a lot of her time in her head.But back she was again and now it seemed creepier than she remembered, pieces were missing and others had been added. Patches of the ground were burnt away till nothing could ever be grown there, sounds came to her of screaming far away beyond the horizon. The sun had not come yet but when it did it would be painful like it used to be. She waited long distressing seconds for something to happen, she would let the fire overwhelm her and the dream would be over. Then from nowhere people stepped up beside her struck by shafts of light from the sky like holy ethereal light sent from the heavens. Rowland, Ella, Aran, Tin man, Angel, Nova and others she didn’t recognize lined up into the distance as one side. Then there across the field another line appeared from deepest shadows gouged into the warm earth so many people. Skeleton and Mathias among them but while some remained clear others were obscured by shadow flitting in and out of thin air. Taking a glance around her side she found the same was happening with those on her side. The indecisive pieces in the war. The two sets of humans noticed each other, looked intently towards those they knew, some cried tears of weeping blue crystal and others ignited with bright fury carved within their hearts. Skin crawled, eyes watered, fists clenched but the sides held. Kara felt sad too, she didn’t want her friends to die; no tiny wings would survive this war. The war of flames burned within everyone though.

Two figures trudged to meet in the centre a boy older than her but younger than Rowland who knew and a woman of mischief, slyness stalking her every step as if it could learn something from her movements itself. Their eyes met, the boy’s with understanding and the woman’s with acidic threat. No words needed to be said, the boy was truth and the woman a champion of lies. They signalled their soldiers and the sides clashed. Everything was burned.

“Surely there must be more, some more control you could exert on your power or something of that sort.” Ren said, his patience wearing thin.

Christell grunted a reply flexing her muscles to try and do as he said. The spikes of lightly tinged blue crystals from her forearm remained the same as usual for a few seconds and she could sense the annoyed huffing from Ren growing again, then the spikes liquefied slightly allowing her to mould them at her own control. She did so matting them into more solid crystal armour plates that covered her whole arm in a haphazard sort of way. They were still unorganised but she had managed to make proper protection rather than the raw simple creations of armour she had produced earlier. She even left slight blades at the end of each section so that she would be able to use them as offensive weapons. While it left her impressed Ren was still pushing her.

“It’s good but the spikes are pointless if you can just make knives out of the stuff.”

She had to admit she had learnt a lot more about her powers since Ren started training her a few days ago but she had her limits. Ren had a talent at not realising what they were.

“Look don’t lecture me about combat pretty boy, I bet you’ve never even been in a school fight.” Christell said letting the crystals create sparkling shapes on top her skin, contorting stretching and falling in on itself like the fluid in lava lamps that she remembered from being little.