Preternatural (Worlds & Secrets) (9 page)

“
Yes, which gives me more reason to forget,” Robbie chuckled to himself.  Tammy sniggered.

“
No, you idiot – it would give you more reason to remember since you’re alive and you’re fourteen – well, allegedly of course,” she finished off with a light giggle. Suddenly, Tammy’s mood changed. The then happiness that could easily be read on her face was robbed as she turned pale and morose. She looked around twice before looking at the door fearfully.

“
What? What is it, Tams? Is something wrong?” Robbie pressurised.

“
Shh
!” she urged Robbie to remain silent, almost covering his mouth with her hand.

She marched to the door and opened it
with caution. Tammy looked at both sides. The flickering lights drew her attention almost instantaneously; her head turned sharply to look towards them. She was panicked and frightened. She looked up at the staircase in the tunnel and could hear the entrance-bell ringing, followed by sudden, slow and intimidating footsteps.

Tammy walked back into the room and gripped her pendant as tightly as possible. She closed her eyes and whispered something which I could not seem to hear. She opened her eyes fiercely and looked at Robbie as if she were looking at me.
Her eyes were now a bright amethyst pink that was so intense, the light from her iris seemed as if it could waft out and billow like smoke. They also gave off a strong incandescent feeling. The sound of the footsteps grew louder and louder.

“
That’s impossible! Lock it!” Tammy shouted to Robbie.

“
Why? What’s wrong?”

“
Just hurry up and do it!” she retorted.

The footsteps grew even lo
uder and Tammy’s heart pounded against her chest.

“
Step aside,” Robbie told Tammy calmly.

He
barged into Tammy’s way and gently pressed his palm against the weak, rusty lock. Suddenly his veins began to emit a strong radiant glow and with one heartbeat, his hand lit to luminescent white whilst his eyes lightened to shimmering, flickering gold.

T
he lock clicked and grew bigger and the core of the door began to develop into polished silver. The silver spread through as if it were a virus. Robbie had changed the existing door into a dense, silver, metal one. With a set of loud clinks, the door locked and secured itself. The sound of the steps were too loud now. Robbie stepped backwards in front of Tammy, protecting her. As he distanced himself from the noise of the steps, he became some sort of shield in front of Tammy, pushing her closer to the wall as she peered to the door from over his shoulders whilst Robbie reared backwards cautiously. The sound of the footsteps seemed to have stopped. Tammy breathed heavily behind Robbie’s protective stance.

BANG! They
flinched whilst staring at the large metallic door as fists embedded themselves in it. Although I wasn’t myself, I could feel the heated tension of what was happening. But as real as this felt, I only considered this a lucid dream. It couldn’t have been real.

Then,
just when the suspense was at its peak, everything closed in. My vision became blindness as water enclosed on everything in front of me. I couldn’t tell if I was finally awake – everything I could see was blurred, wavy and couldn’t keep still.

I
inhaled. With a horrible rush, the unbearable feeling of water surging through my nose and into my brain was imposed on me. I quickly sat upright. I think I’ve lost track of the number of times I’ve been confused today. I had fallen asleep under water – but my primary concern was why I didn’t drown. I was gasping for air as water spewed out of my mouth. The shower curtain was pulled around me. Suddenly, my eyes paid attention to one single thing alone as it fogged everything out. Something blue was dangling over my eyes. I lifted it out of view and tried to pull it off. But it wouldn’t budge. I yanked on it harder but ended up with a sore scalp which caused me to exclaim in pain quite loudly.

I gave up
. Subsequently, just when I was about to pull open the shower curtain, a surge of Goosebumps ran all over my body spine-chillingly and I fell back in the water with a sore body. At that moment, I wasn’t bothered to do
anything
. It felt as if I had been working out strenuously and therefore, every muscle and tissue in my body couldn’t give a flying poodle about what my brain was saying and so decided to stay paralysed.

I put my mouth in the water
and I automatically tasted a familiar, yet odd, flavour. I stretched two fingers in my mouth and realised that both my top canines from my left and my right were loose. Without thinking, I pulled them out and I exclaimed in pain after a brief two seconds of acknowledging my stupid mistake. Then, my bottom lip began to sting.

I slowly touched it, feeling scared of the consequences. Something – and I
wasn’t sure what – had cut my lip. There were two big slashes which slightly crept to my chin. On the brighter side, my sunburn wasn’t a problem anymore. Then again, that’s what I thought earlier and it surprised me once more. I reached for the shower curtain when it was suddenly pulled open by mum.

“
My goodness
; Aden! What happened? Are you okay? I hope this isn’t another attention seeking scheme?” she panicked. I felt too much pain to be bothered to talk.

“
Oh dear. Here, let’s get you out of the water.” Mum supported me as I unsteadily stepped out of the bathtub. I attempted to speak softly, sounding like mumbles, in order not to affect the slashes on my lower lip and chin.

“
Mum, what were you doing in here?” I asked drowsily. My marble skin was paler from being submerged underwater.

“
I was cleaning the mirror.”

I observed the mirr
ors clean, smooth and reflective surface.

“
Why do you ask?” she continued.

“
Because I was just wondering how you were here all of a sudden,” I replied.

I looke
d out of the window above the tub, only to witness the pale moonlight shining down on me through the gloomy mist and clouds. The night seemed still and no stars were in sight. The night was an eerie mist of accumulated blackness above us. It didn’t feel like a usual nocturnal setting. All I could feel from looking outside was a backbiting cold that seeped into my bones and ruptured my nervous system. Something about England’s night this evening was…
off
.
I quickly turned to mum, flabbergasted.

“
I couldn’t have taken a nap that long could I?” I asked mum.

“
What?” she replied. She wasn’t even paying attention to me, she was practically cleaning up the place as if her dishevelled son (who had just had a God-awful day, I must add) was not standing in front of her.

“
Mum, what year are we in?” I asked in hesitation.

“
2016, why?” mum replied.

“
Two years?! This ridiculous joke advanced by two years?!” I flustered.

Mum stared at me and before I knew it, broke
down in unnecessary laughter.

“
Mum, I’m serious,” I said out of annoyance.

“
Okay, it’s apparently 2014 – according to you, Jaden and Jade. You went to school today at, what, seven fifty-five? But apparently it was ten fifteen. Is that your point?” asked mum, still finding this entire topic humorous.

I felt partl
y relieved that she at least was still mentally healthy but still shocked at how long I had slept underwater. How could I have not died? I was starting to lose hope that things would start making sense again; this couldn’t have been my imagination – the chances of this being a joke were as likely as a T-Rex taking me to the land of Skittles and rainbows.

“
Mum, how could I have slept that long? From around five past eight when you picked us up this morning to – what time is it?”

“
Eight thirty,” mum answered plainly, brushing her long flaxen coils out of her face. My face practically dropped; I was faceless. Things had just gotten serious; I had slept from approximately eight in the morning to eight thirty in the evening? This small rest I took felt like it was only ten, maybe even fifteen minutes long –
but not twelve hours.

“
Oh. Great,” I mumbled sarcastically.

“
When did you arrive home?” I continued.

“
I think a couple of minutes ago. I had to discuss some matters with Tantrus – your maths teacher.”

“
Just call him Jojo’s dad. It’s easier,” I mumbled. Mum scoffed.

“
Besides, he’s like obsessed with the fourth dimension –”

“
Fourth dimension?” mum interrupted.

“
Time,” I hastily replied.

“
Yes, well, Jojo doesn’t seem at least one bit embarrassed by the fact that he’s always going on about time management and don’t misuse time and blah, blah, blah,”

“
Aden!” mum exclaimed.

“
What?” I ignorantly answered.

“
That’s not very nice. You know better than to insult your friend’s father,”

“
Well, mum, it’s not technically insulting, it’s just stating facts. But c’mon, Tantrus is awesome – I’m not badmouthing him,” I adjusted. At that moment I couldn’t help but wonder where Jaden and Jade were; if they had fallen asleep for as long as
I
had.

“
Come on, sweetheart.”

“
I’ll just be a minute,” I mumbled back languidly as mum left the bathroom. Given the fact that my frizzy hair was probably a mess and that my long elastic body was too weak for me to support, I am one
hundred
percent sure I looked like a sloth. All that was left was to invite the discovery channel to come and see me in my natural pigsty of a habitat. What a disastrous day!

The blue thing dangled over my hair again. I turned around and looked at my wet self in the mirror. I held my hair and ran my fingers through it again and again
, still looking in the mirror as I grew even more flabbergasted.

My hand seemed to be touching something which felt like hair, but in the mirror, I seemed to be running my fingers through the air
; through nothing. I looked much more tired. I was about to leave when I looked back at the mirror noticing something odd.

“
That’s funny,” I thought aloud. “The mirror wasn’t cracked before.”

I reached out slo
wly to the crack in the mirror; the reflection of my finger growing nearer and nearer. The very utmost tip of my finger touched it. But out of the ordinary, when I thought nothing would happen, the crack spread like a series of elaborate intricate diagrams. First with one loud shatter as the crooked lines lengthened, and then with tiny shattering sounds as it spread to the entire mirror; deserting its beauty and making my reflection look crooked and ugly towards it. 

“
Snap! Seven years bad luck!” I said to myself.

The
elaborate mirror pieces were shattered into fragments in the sink. As they fell into it, my eyes followed them, staring at the many reflective pieces. The reflection of light against the broken mirror pieces shone onto my eyes. I looked up at the empty frame, but surprisingly, another mirror stood in the place of the one that had fallen. My bug-eyes enlarged and I screamed at the top of my lungs, not afraid if I disturbed the whole neighbourhood. I think I tore my vocal cords in the process.

“
WHAT THE BLOODY HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU?!
DO
YOU KNOW
WHAT TIME IT IS?” Jade barged in. I turned and looked at her. She melodramatically closed her eyes and exhaled, as if doing yoga to relax herself. She seemed to be adjusting and composing herself as she tried to breathe soothingly, regaining her ‘
balance
’.

“
What’s the matter?” she asked in a more calming tone.

“
The mirror.” Jade trudged over to where I stood with a suspicious look towards me on her face. “What’s wrong?” she asked.

I pointed childishly at the mirror whilst my finger wagged and my hand trembled. I seemed to be facing Jade but my eyes were fixed on the mirror in front of me a
s I took in heavy breaths with my heart beating disproportionally. Jade shrieked and by reflex stumbled backwards, almost falling into the bathtub. She reflexively lifted a hand to cover her mouth. I looked in the mirror and realized we looked nothing like our previous selves.

Jade looked
somewhat the same, but her brunette hair had grown longer – to the back of her knees. But that was hardly the problem. My bouncy, russet, curly hair seemed to have turned electric blue, slightly wavy (but much straighter than before) and shoulder-length. My brown eyes transformed into the same colour as my hair and I seemed to have identified the culprit of the cuts on my lips. I opened them to reveal two long canines that looked like fangs (only in the sense that they were as sharp). But they didn’t hang out of my mouth like a vampire’s would.