Читать книгу Chronicles of the Second Realm - Curtis Reid Edgett - Страница 8

My eyes flickered, for what felt like a very long time, open and close, open and close. Eventually, they stayed open and I made the decision to wake up. I felt a rhythmic, pulsating, and pounding sensation in my head.

Holy crap, I had the strangest dream, I thought, unsure if I should be relieved or totally freaked out. I put my hands on my head, as if I were trying to contain the pounding that was in my head.

“Jeez, what time is it?” I asked rhetorically. I looked over at my alarm clock and saw that it was about 3:28 in the morning. I let out a groan. I tried for about an hour to go back to sleep. I fell asleep until five. I gave up on the idea of sleeping, pulled out my Gameboy, and restarted my Pokémon yellow game. I played and even won a few badges in the span of an hour and a half. I was just about to battle Lieutenant Surge for my third badge when I heard the buzzing of my alarm clock. Better get ready, I sarcastically thought to myself.

I showered, got dressed, brushed my teeth, and then went downstairs. I saw my mom and Stan already in the kitchen. Stan had his mug of coffee in one hand and his phone in the other, probably looking at the local news. Mom was at the counter making me and my little sister’s lunches for school. Gracie was eating her favorite cereal at the dining room table. As I walked down the stairs, both parents looked up at me.

“Hey bud, when did you get in last night?” Stan asked. “We didn’t even hear you come in.”

“I don’t remember.” I didn’t even recall walking home or getting into my bed. How did I get home?

“How did guitar lessons go?” my mom asked.

“Good. I learned more chords and a new scale.”

“Very cool,” she said excitedly. “Soon you’ll be rocking out and getting all the ladies.”

I rolled my eyes and headed to the fridge. I opened it up and grabbed the carton of orange juice. There was only a quarter of it left, and I started to drink out of it.

My mom heard the gulping sounds and turned around to scold me. “Owen, don’t drink from the carton. Grab a glass.”

“But there’s not much left.”

“I don’t care. You shouldn’t do that anyways.”

I started to drink more out of it while slowly backing away from her.

She gave me a dirty look. “Owen, put that down.”

“Uh-uh,” I said, with a mouth full of orange juice.

She grabbed a spatula from a jar on the kitchen counter and waved it at me. “Do I need to pat you on the butt like you’re five?”

Gracie looked over and laughed with food still in her mouth. I raised my hands and surrendered with the carton in one hand, bottle cap in the other. I looked at the jug and determined that I could finish this in one more gulp. So I quickly downed the rest of it before she could say anything.

“Ah.” I let out a sigh of accomplishment. I screwed the lid back on and tossed it at my mom. She caught it and looked at me with a smile and shook her head. “Hey Mom, we’re out of orange juice,” I said, walking toward her. I danced around her, grabbed my lunch, and started out the door. “Bye!” I shouted, heading out the door.

I heard everyone else yell back, “Bye! Have a good day!” I closed the door and made my way down the street to the bus stop. It was a day, just like any other. I found my seat on the bus and quickly disengaged from reality. I put in my headphones and entered into “All That Remains,” quickly attracted by the melodic, yet hard sounds of the guitar instrumental and the driving beat of the drums. God, I enjoyed it so much! It was all so nice, just looking out the window, thinking about absolutely nothing and watching the buildings go by. Then we arrived at the school—back to reality.

I roamed the halls with contempt. I had my hands in the pockets of my faded, black jeans and the hood of my purple hoodie was up and covering my head. The bell rang. I went through my day. All the classes just kind of happened. I barely remembered the lessons from the day. It was all kind of a blur. My brain was consumed only by thoughts of last night’s dream, and my notebook was filled with drawings of the creature-thing that attacked the mysterious, coiffed stranger and me.

I went through history, English IV, discrete math, and finally made it to Spanish class. I figured that I could sleep through that class, as there was a substitute teacher.

“Mrs. Videl just experienced the miracle that is childbirth, so I will be subbing this class,” said the teacher, who sounded like she smoked twenty packs a day and looked like she got her hairstyle ideas from Marge Simpson. “Pull out your textbooks and appear busy,” she continued as textbooks practically flew out from under the desks. “You can listen to your music, head-phones, or whatever; you can make crude doodles—just look like you’re trying or something.”

I quickly followed orders, picking up my textbook and plugging into Green Day. I began to drum along with Tré Cool and decided to turn to the page where verb conjugation was discussed. I was pretending to be interested in how to conjugate verbs, when out of the corner of my eye, I saw him. I spotted him from a distance and he seemed to be waving at me. Weird.

This guy looked like the guy from my dream. He had donned the same black trench coat and even had the same coif. It was starting to freak me out. I could make out his muscular build and see his facial features. It was him. He was still waving. I put my face in the book and did my best to ignore him for the remaining ninety minutes of class.

The bell rang. And just like that, class was dismissed. As everybody dispersed and disappeared into either the car line or the bus loop, I heard the voice. It was calling my name. “Owen, Owen,” the man cried out.

I turned around. He knew my name. I began to walk towards him.

“There you are, Owen,” the man said as he got closer to me. His look of concern turned into a somewhat reassuring smile.

“I saw you l-last night,” I stammered as I continued to fight the throbbing inside of my head. “Y-y-you were in m-my dream.”

“That wasn’t a dream; that was real.”

I stared at him in disbelief. “I’m sorry. What?” I asked, dumbfounded.

He gazed back at me. “Yeah.”

I couldn’t understand how or why he was being so nonchalant about this. “So, I almost jumped off a building and you really plunged a sword into me?” I asked curiously.

He paused and appeared to be thinking about his answer. “Uh-huh.”

“Who are you anyway—and what happened last night?” I asked indignantly.

“Do you really want to know?” As he said this, the man reached into his pants pocket and pulled something out with a closed fist. He stretched out his hand with his palm facing upwards to reveal two pills, a red one and a blue one.

My eyes grew wide. “Are we in ‘The Matrix’?”

The man slapped me on the back of the head. “No, these are for your headache.”

I stood in amazement as this seemingly angelic man had just Gibb-smacked me.

“That probably didn’t help though,” he said, smirking all the while.

“Not really, no.”

“It’s time for business.” His smirk quickly turned into a seriously straight face. “We have to go.”

“What?” I said. “I still don’t understand.”

“Get in the car, kid.” He hastily pushed me into his jet-black 2016 Camaro.

We drove off to ‘only God knows where.’ We then pulled up to a very swanky-looking office building. When the stranger and I walked in, it was clearly swanky on the inside, too. It had a modern interior with sitting areas spread throughout. The far back wall had a something hanging about twenty feet up. It was a giant medieval shield with a broadsword going down the center and angelic wings protruding from behind.

We walked up to a receptionist’s desk. She looked not a day over twenty-five and was chewing gum while she was reading a newspaper. The stranger approached her desk. He said nothing and the receptionist quickly looked up over her newspaper. “Hi, Marth.” Her face was beet red by this point.

Marth waved me over. The receptionist noticed me and the fact that I was with him. She stopped making googly eyes at Marth and looked at me. “Hi, Owen. We’ve been expecting you.”

I didn’t know what to say, so I said nothing. I watched as it looked like Marth was signing us in at some kind of office.

“Fourth floor.” The receptionist winked at him.

Marth turned and thanked the receptionist, and we boarded the elevator. We arrived on the fourth floor; Marth and I turned a corner and entered what looked like a theater.

“Class is about to start,” Marth said.

“Class?”

“This will give you all the answers that you want. I’ll come find you later. I’ll be in the gym.”

“Where’s the gym?”

“I’ll be back before the class ends,” Marth said as the door closed.

I walked into the auditorium. It looked very grandiose and very expansive. There were ten other people inside scattered about.

A man walked up onto the stage to the podium. He introduced himself. “Good afternoon, students. My name is Professor Hutcheson. How is everyone’s head doing, hmm?” He chuckled to himself. “Yes, yesterday really did happen. It was not a dream. And yes, you did see demons.”

The other people in the room started looking around at each other with puzzled expressions on their faces.

“Demons are everywhere and they are messing with everyone and trying to destroy us. Why? Because we are made in God’s image. The one who comes against us, Satan, hates God. So he and his demon pals hate us as well. But…we have dominion over them. God has gifted all of you with the ability to do battle against these demonic forces. He has empowered you to see these demons and destroy them.

“Demons can only enter a person’s body by being allowed in. People don’t literally say, ‘Demons come in me.’ No, they slowly creep in by things you say and do. It’s all about guarding your heart. If you don’t allow negative things into your life, you won’t be prone to demonic activity. Each demon has a different job. Some are there to fuel your anger, some make you sick, and some just come to bring depression upon you. Demons have been doing this since the beginning of time; so they know all the different ways of deception and how to manipulate humans. They are very smart and they usually work in teams. One may be attacking while the other is distracting you.

“We break each demon into classifications based on size and intelligence. Class-one demons are the small, annoying ones that don’t say anything. They just buzz around trying to distract you. Their size ranges from as small as a mouse to the size of a river otter. Class-two demons are slightly bigger; their average size is like a full-grown cow. They can’t talk, but they can roar, shriek, and make many high-pitch screams. The class-three demons are usually four-to-fourteen-feet tall. They vary in shape and features. These can communicate with people in any language. They know how to terrify and destroy people’s hopes and dreams; so be cautious when fighting them. The only class-four demon is Satan, but he doesn’t come off his underworld throne for anything. I guess he has to save all his energy for Armageddon.

“Now, how do you exorcise a demon, you may ask? There are many different ways. As exorcists, we have many types of abilities that we can use. Most exorcists use weapons, like swords, staffs, daggers, battle-axes, war hammers, and things of that nature. Soon you will see you natural abilities start to increase: speed, strength, reflexes. You’ll be able to do things that normal human beings can only dream of. There are some skills that have not been documented that are still within our abilities. Let your imagination run wild and create your own style. Also, your weapons can’t be seen by ordinary people. So when you pull them out, you’ll just look crazy. Try to keep your battles out of the public view.”

He took a slight pause.

“When? When is very important. When can we exorcise a demon? When they try to manifest or take over a human host. Demons are around everyone all the time whispering in their ears to do this or do that. They’re trying to make bad things seem harmless or normal. They love using people of influence. Actors, actresses, models, bands, artists, and politicians—they help set the normal. So when they take over a human, that is our chance. Until then, there is nothing we can do.”

“Why can’t we destroy them on sight?” some guy in the room shouted out.

“Great question!” the professor said. “The answer is free will. Humans have free will to do whatever they want; but once they are taken over by a demon, they lose their free will and are now being controlled by the demon. This allows us to take action and destroy them. But not until they manifest. And finally, why? Why you, you may ask? Because, He loves to use the least likely or the last picked. He did not pick you at random. He chose you because you are special and you will make an impact in your area or more. And because he chose you, His light will shine the brightest when you achieve success. Now, I know this is a lot to take in. You can go back to you regular lives and give up this gift and you’ll never see anything like this again. But this war is going on whether or not you join the fight. It’s your choice. That’s all I have for you. You are dismissed.”

The doors on both sides of the auditorium started to open and the professor made his way off the stage. People started to get up and make their way out. I exited the auditorium and saw Marth waiting for me outside the doors.

“So Owen, would you like to learn how to be an exorcist?”

I paused for a moment. “Sure, why not.” I shrugged my shoulders. “My mom always says I need to challenge myself. And what’s more challenging than taking on the forces of darkness led by Satan himself?”

Marth and I both smiled.

“When do we start?” I asked.

“Now,” Marth replied.