Wake Up, Witch

Chapter 5

Akiko panicked when she learned that my temperature went above normal. She hovered over me with questions and tests. They took my blood and temperature using devices that beeped and hurt. Until I had enough and cried that I was thirsty and I needed water.

They all dutifully gave me bottles. When two didn't quench the thirst, I internally panicked. What if something was wrong with me? What if my body was trying to catch up on the two-hundred years it did not grow old?

Suddenly, I didn't want to sleep. But eventually, I had to. They turned off the lights and locked the door before midnight.

Then, I dreamed again.

I was back in the ballroom. Witches burning around me. I searched for a door, found a white one, and burned my hand on the handle. Crying out in pain, I pushed it open.

Everywhere, there was fire. Only one corridor remained passable.

Someone else grabbed my hand and pulled me there. It happened so fast I barely managed a blink before I realized he took me somewhere else.

I was no longer in my family's manor. The heat was gone, but the pain was still there, burning into my body. I tried to scream, but I couldn't. My throat was burnt. No—my face was. I shivered in pain, internally calling for death to claim me. The pain was too much to bear.

Then he was above me. A familiar silhouette. A familiar scent. I knew it was real. That it was a memory.

"Wake up, witch." His voice echoed, muffled by the blood that surged to my ears.

The council said they found me in my room, but where I was didn't feel like my room. It felt like someone else's place. His—whoever he was.

"Do you think she deserves it?"

The sound came not from me or the man. It was from outside my head. Not in this place of my dream.

Akiko?

"I don't know. I haven't seen her use her magic. All we know is what the books tell us."

Spinett.

I knew what it felt like to be in someone's dream. It would have been easy to stand and see the face of the man hovering above me, or even travel further than the room. Or jump into another dream, another place. Another consciousness.

But I wasn't in someone's dream. I was in mine and I couldn't even will myself to wake up. Was this what my poor victims felt when I brought them nightmares?

"Even Petunia Byrne didn't go into details about her powers. We just know she can walk into dreams. Everything written about her, despite her infamous sleeping existence, is vague. It's as if those who knew were afraid to even write about it." Akiko's voice said.

"Mertha Krall and the others may find this very unfair," Spinett said. "They were born with their gifts, but they still went through the painstaking process to become Astrals."

"But what if she's as equally powerful as Mertha Krall? Or even more?"

"Darling, no one can beat Mertha Krall. All Aster has is a spell that kept her asleep and famous for two centuries. That's the only reason they're giving her a simple pass into the Astral function. Do you want to know what I really think?"

"What?"

There was a slight pause. "I think what she's showing us is all just a facade. I can feel it, you know. She's... weird. Like she's planning every move, every word. She's playing us."

"But she's been nothing but nice."

"Well, whatever she's planning—if she has any at all—she's not going to succeed. No one has ever placed a dent on the Saint Society. I think she's just like every Elemental there is. Nothing special." He sighed.