Lucidity

Chapter Three: Departure

Yaz had missed work. The moment she woke up and saw the sun in the sky, that much was clear. Then again, it sounded like she'd be missing a lot of work soon.

Carefully, she pushed open the door to their house and found herself copying each detail to her memory, filled with emotion. This had been her home for several years now and she had always been happy and safe there. Sure, it was hard work, especially because she worked two jobs to help her mother afford the house. In addition, she wanted Hadiya's childhood to be just as comfortable as Yazmin's own one had initially been, the child should want for nothing.

Now, it was hard to know how things would turn out for her mother and sister. Hopefully the money her mother earned from her job would be enough once Yaz was taken out if the equation. Maybe her father could be convinced to provide financial support, yet chance had it that plan would go nowhere. The dark haired girl sighed, rubbing her fingers against the bridge of her nose. This chosen one thing had a lot of implications and the negative ones were outweighing the positive ones by far.

She sat at the table and after a few minutes her mother appeared. Her hair was lighter than Yaz's and braided to one side, making it seem a tad shorter than Yaz's. She had been on her way to fetch a piece of material for her headscarf from where it had been drying, but came to a stop when she saw her daughter sat.

"Are you not feeling well? I assume you informed your boss that you were staying home, would you like a cup of tea?", asked Dhuha Ahmed, to which her daughter hastily responded, "That'd be lovely, but... I'm not ill, Mother."

Now came the task of delivering two sets of bad news. Then again, was her being the chosen one really bad news? Some people would have surely been jumping for joy. One thing was for sure though; Arham joining the army was going to break her mother's weary heart.

"Mother, Arham dropped by earlier. Extremely early. He..." - she paused, trying to gather the courage to break the bad news to their mother, - "He's joining the army to fight in the war."

Immediately, Dhuha cracked. She didn't cry, she didn't scream, she didn't fall apart. It was just a crack. But a big one, almost as if a small part of her had fallen away. Even though her sons had chosen to remain with their father all these years, they still had a home in her heart. From time to time they'd see each other and Dhuha savoured each time. But now it seemed Arham would be dropping by no more. "I see."

Seeing her mother like this was torture for Yazmin, especially since she was dealing with similar emotions herself. Her voice now hoarse, the young adult continued, "There's something else, Mother. I had a dream... Unlike any dream I've ever had before..."

"Oh, Yazmin, that's wonderful," she exclaimed with a big smile, though there was still a sadness to all of this thanks to the news of Arham, "What did the ancestors tell you?"

"No, not the ancestors," said Yaz, immediately extinguishing her mother's happiness that had been bubbling like champagne, "It was a mage, Mother. He said... He said... He-"

"You mean... A... A chosen one dream...?", said Dhuha and her daughter nodded, a trace of so many emotions in her attempt at an emotionless face - fear, sadness, excitement, doubt, uncertainty... If only it could have just been a dream from the ancestors, spreading their proverbial wisdom. That would have required a lot less change than this did.

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Caitlyn awoke in a hospital bed, though thanks to her family's wealth, it was an extremely comfortable hospital bed. Additionally, this more elite hospital only lit the room with natural light which was entering through a pretty rosewood window, rather than blinding her with magical beads of light.