Firebolt

Chapter 3

I PRESSED THE GREEN button near my head and warm, soft pink water came splashing from the metal nozzle. It smelled like roses, and a sense of calm washed over me.

I had never been in a shower quite like this one, until a couple of days ago. Grecian marble seats lined the walls with mosaic tiles placed in delicate and intricate patterns on the floor. The water cleared and rinsed my body mentally and physically. The flow, softer than before, caressed my skin, creating small waves across my still-bruised flesh. My skin had begun to flush in the heat making my now greenish, yellow bruises darker and more pronounced.

The tension in my muscles and the pounding inside my head started to evaporate as the heat and smells enveloped me. At the moment these showers were the highlight of every day.

I got lost in the string of thoughts swirling inside my head like an unrelenting vortex.

I'd always wondered about Dad's stories and if Paegeia was really located inside the Bermuda Triangle. A part of me always felt that it could be real. I just never imagined it was. I still couldn't remember the detail of them, just that he used to tell them to me. The only thing I could recall was that Paegeia was a realm hidden from the human world behind an enchanted wall; a realm where dragons and magic existed.

Constance tried the past couple of days to help me make peace with whatever was going on outside. She was beautiful, tall, skinny, and had that kind of smile that made you feel that you could do anything, take on anything, even if it involved scaly beasts soaring through the sky. She also explained that the people of Paegeia had to conjure the wall nine hundred years ago to protect magic from other people; dark, selfish ones who wanted to harness and abuse the magic for themselves. Only after the wall was erected did they realize that just the dragons could cross it. Once a human entered Paegeia, they could never leave. I looked at it like buying a one-way ticket to Neverland.

Still, Dad must have told me about this, but why I couldn't remember it raised more questions.

The water continued to wash over me. I really struggled to accept Dad's death. I felt responsible for it. No matter how many times that scene of him yelling at me to run played off in my mind, and how many times I tried to tell myself it was what he wanted, I felt the opposite. I should've stayed. I could've helped, not knowing how; I should've been there to try. Matt wasn't that far and I could've distracted the dragon, just maybe Dad might have still been alive.

His death, and the reality that dragons were real, was the reason I had spent nearly five days sequestered inside this infirmary.

I hated hospitals, more than I hated moving, but Constance and Julia were really kind. Julia helped her with nursing duties. She was beautiful with big doe eyes and thick black waves of hair. She was funny too, and made me giggle more than once with her dry sense of humor. For some reason I imagine her as a goth chick on her days off, with dark makeup wearing black clothes and lace up boots with a nose ring or two.

Both of them had been my only company since I arrived here, other than Master Longwei. He was the headmaster of Dragonia, where this infirmary was located. He too popped in from time to time to check on my recovery.

We would have these long conversations of making peace with the past and focusing on the future crap that ended up making me feel guiltier.

His number one advice: If I wanted to keep my sanity, I had to face whatever was out there. Today, I reluctantly decided to take that step.

I didn't want to end up in the loony bin just because I couldn't accept what was real, even though magic and dragons belonged only in fairy tales.

Fortunately, there was a silver lining around this dark cloud. My birthmark.