The Spirit Academy

Prologue

It's darkness, that's all I see. Cold nothingness.

It's so cold. So cold. I can't move. I'm frozen.

I'm numb. There's no pain. Just emptiness.

Slowly drifting. Slowly being devoured by darkness.

But I can feel something. I'm surrounded by it.

But my lungs hurt. My body hurts. I want air. I need air. I can't die.

I open my eyes. Water. Water. I'm in water. I can't stay under water.

I kick my legs, but they are numb, it's so cold. I can't move my legs.

I wave my hands frantically trying to get out of this water.

I can see light, it's faint but it's there, the faint glow of the moon.

There's heavy pain in my chest. I need air. I need air.

I kick my legs and they tingle, feeling finally returning to them.

My whole body is frost-white, it's so cold. I swim like I used to, gliding through the water, but every second is more painful than the last, then I see it. A clean sheet, just above me. Ice. I pound at the ice and kick, desperate for air. I need air.

Slowly the ice begins to break. I kick and punch the ice, slowly breaking through the ice; but weakening much faster, the cold is numbing me, slowing me down. And the need for air is killing me. Crack. A small hole in the layer of ice broke sending shards flying everywhere. I pull my head out through the hole, taking in sweet breaths of air. Only then do I look back. A memory. A moment in time. Forever frozen in my mind. My grandmother one hand reaching for me, slowly drowning in the cold water. I reach for her but it's too late. Too late. Too late. It's always too late. And I fall. And I fall. And I fall. And I fall.

No. Stop. Stop. Wake up. Wake up. Wake up.

Dahlia chanted it like a mantra. 'Wake up. This isn't real. Wake up. Wake up. This isn't real.' She thought.

Her thoughts turned into whispers and her dream turned into reality. Dahlia was aware of her surroundings. The thin sheet wrapped around her. The stuffy air. Her shirt clinging to her skin. Her parched mouth.

'Wake up,' She whispered again and opened her eyes, 'I'm awake. I'm awake.' She breathed in slowly, and peeled the sheet off her. She crouched in the corner of her bed and hugged her knees. She was shaking. She was a mess. The tears wouldn't stop rolling down her eyes. It had been a different nightmare every time, but in the end  her Grandma always died. They used to be regular, two years ago, ever since her Grandma went missing, they hadn't come back for a long time.

Her pillow was wet with tears and her clothes were sticky with sweat. She climbed down the steps of her bunk bed and slid open the drawers of her study table. Picking up her diary and a pen, she walked over to the bathroom.

Dahlia closed the door behind her and flicked on the light, she put both her diary and her pen beside the sink. She pulled the tap open and strangely, the sound of water gushing out of the tap, calmed her.

She cupped her hands under the water, it was cold, but she didn't care, she splashed the water on her face. It stung a little, but it numbed her. She kept splashing water on her face until her breaths became deeper and slower.

She picked up her diary and pen and began to draw her nightmare. It was what Matron told her to do. Normally Matron would tell the girls to write, but Dahlia had dyslexia, and she found it difficult to read and write at the best of times, least of all in the middle of the night after she'd just woken up. 

Drawing didn't make her nightmares go away, if anything it made it seem more real, that her Grandma was still missing, as she had been for two years. But it gave her something she could control. Something that was hers.

Dahlia didn't draw the whole nightmare, instead the one image that stayed in her mind, her Grandma, in the water, reaching for her. She cried as she drew and wiped away the tears that fell onto the book. 

She rubbed her necklace, a golden circle necklace, something she always did subconsciously whenever she was scared or nervous.  She felt that she was being watched. Slowly she turned around.

There was a new mirror in the far corner of the bathroom. It looked antique. It had golden edges that swirled at the top and sides. She had never seen it before. She walked over. She saw herself in the reflection.   The mirror was so beautiful, and she reached up to touch it. It seemed warm, and it seemed to vibrate even though it was freezing inside the bathroom.

Her ink was running out. She turned around wanting to lean the diary against the mirror to press hard with the pen. But just as her diary touched the mirror something happened.  It disappeared.

She looked at her bare hands, confused. She shook her head, this wasn't possible. She took a deep breath. Then she crouched down searching with her hands. 

Maybe it had fallen?  No, it wasn't there. Dahlia decided to search her study table for her diary, but as she got up, she gasped in horror.

There, in the mirror, right beside her feet, was her diary.