Mind Over Magic

Prologue

Sam was in danger. She knew that. The creature in her room was enough evidence to convince her of that fact. She watched the dark figure move about her room in that slow, drifting way it had. It had been here for awhile, just lingering. It didn't make a sound, and it would circulate through the areas of her room where the moonlight couldn't shine, melting in with the shadows and reappearing only enough that she knew it was still there. She had to bite her tounge in order to hold back a scream as it came ever closer, but as it neared, Sam realized that she could now make out distinguishing features that she hadn't noticed when it was essentially a part of distant shadows.

The creature seemed made of a thick smoke, gliding along above the ground like a dark wisp of cloud guided by an eerie wind. It seemed more solid the farther up its form one looked, so that Sam could clearly make out a head covered by a deep, ragged hood, a hood attached to dark robes that faded into the same smoke the creature's very form was composed of. The robes moved in the wake of a nonexistent breeze, waving and floating without explanation, concealing the creature's hands and feet, if it even had any. Sam could not see its face.

For the first time in her life, Samantha Dillen could neither explain nor understand what was happening to her.

Suddenly the creature detached itself from the shadows, moving with such impossible speed Sam could do nothing before it was right there in front of her. It hovered, so close to her face that she could feel the icy aura that it exuded in her very soul. Sam made a small noise of fright, pressing back to the headboard of her bed and trying to stay as low as possible on her elbows, her breaths halting. She tucked her chin against her chest, her eyes tightly closed, refusing to look up at the horror before her.

Horror. Yes, that was it. That had to be it. This thing was nothing but a nightmare. Soon she would wake up and it would be gone and she would be fine.

'Look up, child.' The voice was a whisper of an echo, clear and ominous and oh so terrifying. 'Look upon the doom of  this pathetic little world. Look up, and view your future!'

Sam felt a sharp pressure under her chin, and then her head was yanked upward, eliciting a cry that she immediately regreted. The moment her eyes met the face under the hood (which had been thrown back), her muscles locked up and her mind froze, rendering her helpless.

The creature's face was beyond the most petrifying thing Sam had ever dared to imagine. There were no eyes, no ears, there was no hair. There was no nose and no mouth. It had no face, no visage of its own. No. Instead, when Sam gazed upon the face of the nameless evil before her, she saw her greatest fears come to life.

Her loved ones, gone.

Her world, burning.

Everything, lost.

The creature's long, clawed fingers curled around her chin, cupping her face in its gelid hand, its claws digging into the skin on her jawbone. Instantly, Sam felt ill. A tsunami of nausea crashed over her and her vision swam, probably due to the lightheadedness that had descended on her in sync with the nausea.

'Yes,' the creature hissed. 'Give up, little girl. So easy, yes. Yield to the power of Xalvador the Almighty!'

Sam's energy felt drained; she suddenly had to fight to keep her eyes open, and her appendages felt as if they were filled with lead. But that wasn't the worst part. Her mind was fuzzy, disoriented, and that was what set panic to work in her system. Not the living nightmare in her room, not the strange symptoms of ailment plaguing her, but the fact that her brain was not working like it should.

Sam's mind was her most precious possession. Knowledge, wit, intelligence, it had always been her safety blanket in the world. Without control, Sam was lost.

But...wait. There was something else. Possibly something...worse. She had this feeling that something was missing. She didn't know what, only that it was important. It felt as if a crucial part of her were being sucked away at the creature's touch. Whatever it was, it had been there, and now it was leaving. Sam hadn't even known that what was being stolen had existed in the first place, but now that it was being taken away, it felt like a gaping, empty hole had opened in her chest, a great chasm that nothing could fill except the return of that stolen part of her.

It was so achingly important....

Why?

Sam couldn't speak. She couldn't move. She couldn't scream. She was helpless as this malevolent shadow attempted to rob her of an essential something that she knew she needed, just not what.

Sam was terrified.

'Yes,'  the creature hissed again. 'Yes, yes, yes!  The power -'

The creature lurched back, yanking Sam forward by her head before letting go, its claws dragging painfully along the right side of her jaw and under her chin. Sam gasped as it released her, falling forward onto the mattress.  She struggled up, still reeling from the disorienting effects of the creature's touch, her hands immediately flying to her jaw, which burned like it had been coated with acid. She bit her tongue to withhold a scream. Oddly enough, among the pain and the confusion, she noticed that the empty feeling was fading. That mysterious, crucial part of her was still there. It was safe.

Two figures appeared at the foot of her bed. They were hidden within colorful hooded cloaks trimmed in gold, the clasps perfectly rounded opals. The shorter figure wore a dark blue cloak, one the color of a velvet night. The taller wore a plum-colored cloak, full and encompassing. The taller turned to the shorter, and beneath the taller's hood Sam viewed the face of a beautiful young woman. Strangely enough, she seemed familiar, somehow...

The girl said something to the shorter cloaked figure, who nodded, then the girl turned to face the shadow figure, which had recovered from the previous attack and was now very angry.

The shorter figure whirled around and crouched beside Sam. It was a boy, Sam realized, strangely familiar like the girl, a good-looking adolescent boy with very expressive features.

"Are you alright?" he asked her. He had an English accent. Sam nodded numbly, but his eyes zeroed in on her hand cupping her jaw. The boy reached up with leather-gloved hands and slowly pulled her hand away. He winced at the ugly red marks on her skin, marks that had by now acquired beads of blood.

"Hey, " he said, his eyes locked on hers, "I'm going to help you now, okay? We're here to help you. But you have to let us." Sam nodded, and the boy placed his hand gently on her jaw. Sam closed her eyes, the tears that she had been too afraid to let fall earlier now making their appearance. The boy's gloved thumb swiped across her wet cheek. "Hey, now, don't cry. Sh, its okay, you're fine. We're here. Everything's okay."

There was a pleasant warmth along the area where the boy's hand rested on Sam's jaw, and the burning pain dulled. It did not disappear completely, but it was better than before.

"I'm sorry I can't take all the pain away," the boy said, helping Sam to lay back against her pillow. There was a crash, a flash of light, a yell in a language Sam didn't recognize, and an unearthly scream from behind the boy. Sam tried to sit up, to see past the boy, but he pushed her back down. Sam looked up at the boy, her eyes wide, frightened and confused. 

"I'm sorry, " he said again, but then he smiled. "See you soon,  Sammy-Girl." And then suddenly Sam was tired, and despite the battle she knew to be raging on beyond her bed, she couldn't keep her eyes open. Sam sank into the peaceful darkness, the boy's face being the last thing she saw.