The Eternal Dreams Trilogy (Most Imaginative Setting Winner 2012)

Chapter Four: The Friend of my Enemy is my Friend (Part 3)

I was hurled backwards through the air, the force of the blow knocking me clean off my feet. I hit the ground hard and tumbled some distance before resting amongst my friends. My whole body throbbed and my head ached. Someone lifted me to my wobbly feet, my blurred vision slowly coming back to me. When it did, I looked out across the quiet street towards my attacker. Kanoa was staring back at me.   

He didn’t move, didn’t even seem to blink. He was an empty vessel, staring into what he had left behind with no remorse. It sent shivers spiralling through my body. He looked the same, and yet nothing like I remembered him. Malise hovered behind him, and for the first time, she was no longer the most frightening thing in sight. The two of them together, however, represented a power insurmountable.

“Are we sure that’s really Kanoa?” Osias whispered, his voice drenched in the same dread I felt. “What if The Illusionist is feeding off of our doubts and fears and is projecting it back at us through this newfound persona?”

“No,” Adora quickly answered, sounding absolutely certain. She seemed as trepid as she was ecstatic to see her friend again. Thalia put a hand on her sister’s shoulder, anticipating an attempt at a reunion. “It is him.”

“I think that’s probably worse,” he said, swallowing his apprehension.

Malise seemed to be loving every moment we spent in a huddled panic. It was like she had just unleashed a hungry cat on a group of caged mice. I didn’t know what to do. She had turned my best friend against me, thinking this was some kind of revenge. The only difference was that nothing I did to her was real, but her luring our friend into temptation against us was. Then again, I supposed, it was all real to her.   

“Go on darling,” Malise said, her cold seductive voice swimming into my ears, and into Kanoa’s. “Reacquaint yourself with your old friends.”

Kanoa nodded and threw his hand to the air. As if someone had tied a rope around me when I wasn’t looking, I was tugged, hard, away from where I stood. Everyone was flung in all directions, except Adora, who remained perfectly still. I landed on the roof of a nearby house, sliding backwards and slamming my head against an outer wall of the upper floor. Due to my high vantage point, I was able to see everyone else’s trajectory. Osias crashed through a window of another house with a shattering velocity, Thalia hit the porch railing of the same house with her back, flipping over it from the force of the push and landing on her stomach, and Cora collided into the steps that led up to the front door of another house. I didn’t get up right away, too stunned and injured to move, and neither did anyone else. It was a hell of a way to greet your friends. 

Kanoa walked over to his last standing friend with a swagger in his step. Adora held her ground. Her sister tried to get up, but she was too frazzled, and fell back down. Despite what he had done to the rest of us, I didn’t feel that Adora was in any harm, regardless of the fact that she was standing directly in Kanoa’s way. He stopped in front of her and stuck out his hand.

“The blade,” he said, calm but forceful.

Adora did not give him a response. They just stood there, staring at each other. She didn’t seem the least bit afraid, but seemed instead to be studying him. Kanoa grew impatient.

“Adora,” he whispered with a sigh. There was a hint of tired menace in his slow words. “If you don’t give it to me—“

“You’ll what?” she interrupted, leaving an alluring moment of silence to let him fill with the end of his sentence. He didn’t. “You’ll hit me? You think that would hurt me?”
 
This time, Kanoa didn’t give a response. He seemed uncomfortable and unprepared by Adora’s audacity. I looked back to Malise who was attentively watching over the scene as if it were one of nature, a hawk circling a dove. There was expectation in her eyes. 

“I held onto this for you,” she continued, a lethargic serenity spun into her words. She took the heavy blade from her back, struggling with its weight, and held it in front of her, but Kanoa kept his gaze on her. She ran her hand down its face pensively. “Even when everyone else said I was being stupid. They said that you had changed or that you wouldn’t ever come back. But I knew they would be wrong. You never could fool me.”

“Give me my sword right now,” Kanoa demanded, his former composure worn away to callous contempt.

My strength had returned to me and I noticed that my other friends were waiting in the wings too, preparing an ambush. I didn’t want to pounce and cause unnecessary calamity, but I saw that Kanoa was on the verge of impatience. If he attacked, would I have enough time to intervene?  

“You know Kanoa,” she replied, keeping in the vein of tranquility, “not all of your dreams can come true. Sometimes you just have to settle with the ones you already have.”

The words caused Kanoa visible aggravation, his face hardening into a grimace. He put his hand on her small shoulder and ripped the blade from her loose grasp. He pushed her away, which caused her to stumble backwards and fall down. She got right back up, brushed herself off and followed after him as he turned back to Malise. I hopped down from the roof and made my way back to Adora before the level of hostility rose any higher, the rest of my friends following my lead, nursing their various wounds.