The Light and Dark

Kali managed to drag herself to her van, getting ready to drive away from her home and to the place she called hell.

Meira walked to her Volkswagen, obviously very awake as she held on tightly to her coffee container.

It takes Kali a minute to realize that she is quickly falling back asleep in her car. She shakes her head slightly before starting the engine.

Meira instantly starts her car engine, looks at her house once more as if looking at her hectic Spring Break finally over, and drives away.

It’s only a few minutes until Meira receives a phone call. She looks at the caller ID before answering.

“Hey Tail.” She says. Her voice doesn’t crack, and it isn’t a low moan either. She sounded just as fine as she would any day.

“Meira, have you seen Jamie yet?” Tail asked in an excited voice. Meira frowned.

“No, I just left. I’ll be at school in five minutes. Why?” Meira asked, although she already knew why.

“Her nose!! She has this huge bandage wrapped thing tapped to her nose, and you can clearly see that it is purple underneath! Rumors are going around that Kali - y’know that emo girl, yeah, Kali punched her! Can you believe that!? I laughed so hard when she walked by, but the thing is I expected her to glare and have some nasty comment, but she just glanced up at me and kept on walking. I wonder what happened over Spring Break…” Tail continued to drone on and on. Meira sighed quietly. Tail always was a bit of a gossip… but the only thing that caught Meira’s attention was Jamie’s behavior, and the fact that people knew that Kali had punched her.

“So how did you find out that Kali had punched her?” Meira asked, her voice calm and smooth.

“Everyone is talking about it, for Caterina wanted to make sure that everyone knew that they finally made Kali snap. Jerks… but yeah, it’s spread across the school like wild fire. The teachers are annoyed because it didn’t happen in school because they wanted to bust Kali I guess. But I’ve heard a rumor that they’re going to bring Kali and Jamie into the counselor’s office and try to ‘fix it’. As you know, that is NOT going to work, I mean-” Tail continued talking until Meira was parked and walked up to where she was sitting. They hung up, and Tail continued without a greeting. Meira was worried, if the teachers were going to try and talk to Kali and Jamie… that could get ugly. It all depended on what Jamie said, and whether or not Kali could stay calm.

“Meira!? HELLLOOOOOOOO?” Tail asked. Apparently she had been asking Meira something.

“I’m sorry, what? I’m just tired…” Meira faked a yawn afterwards. Tail sighed.

“I said, what did you do over Spring Break? We barely got to see each other!” Tail asked. Meira repeated the question over and over.

What did you do over Spring Break? What did you do over Spring Break? What did you -Flashbacks occurred in her mind left and right.

Meira saw another shooting star, but this one did not disappear like all the others. It gathered speed as it grew larger, heading straight towards her.

"Mei, what is that on yours hands?" Dian asked Meira.

And her mind was off, picturing nothing but light. She could feel an energy, a force or something in her hands, desperately wanting to burst out.

"LET HER GO!" She shouted, raising her hand to him shining the brightest light she could come up with on his face. He shouted in pain.

Meira glanced up in time to see him teleport out of the lake and right next to her. With his two giant arms he grabbed Meira before she could do anything and lifted her high in the air, getting ready to cover her in darkness. Instead, Meira completely covered herself in light.

“Oh, nothing special. Just, hung out with the family.” Meira said, shrugging. Tail believed it.

Tail raised her hand to stop Meira and nodded to someone down the hall. It was Kali, pulling a few binders out of her locker. Meira wanted to run over to her, to talk to her rather than gossip with Tail.

Her breath caught in her throat as she just realized that she had chosen Kali over Tail.

Kali glanced up at Meira, her eyes lit up suddenly. But in the same second she caught Tail’s eye and looked away quickly, slamming her locker door shut and walking around the corner into the two hundred hall. Tail muttered ‘what was that about?’ Meira didn’t answer.

Kali continued walking down the crowded halls as the first bell rang. Five minutes. Kali sighed and shook her head. This was not what she needed right now.

Lost in a trail of thought, Kali ran into someone two inches shorter than her. She gasped in shock as she recognized the face as Luna. What shocked her most was a high pitched, cat/dying bird/whatever shriek that Luna shouted when her stuff fell everywhere.

“Fuc-” So, she was a freshman with quite the vocabulary. Kali wasn’t surprised, but she helped Luna gather her things. Luna hadn’t noticed who Kali was until-

“YOOOOUUUU!!!” Luna shouted, taking a step back and raising her pointer finger at Kali. Everyone was staring now. Their eyes burned into Kali’s skin. She just walked away awkwardly, her head down.

The day dragged on. Kali was walking to Lunch when she noticed someone. Well, two someone’s. There weren’t a lot of people walking along the courtyard leading to the cafeteria, which was why Kali loved going that way. The two people she noticed made her stomach twist, her throat tightened, her pulse increase and her mind panic.

It was them. The two guys. The one in the skull and cross bones T-shirt with black hair covering his most of his face. He had baggy black pants and chains laying across his thighs. Then the brown haired, taller one with a regular baby blue button up T-shirt and khaki pants. They were both smiling, leaning against the chain fence staring at Kali. She acted on instinct and bolted. Her backpack slowed her down, but that wasn’t what stopped her. A huge wall of light emerged in front of her, making her stop and fall backwards. She could hear their laughter come closer as she sat up straight.

“STAY AWAY FROM ME!” Kali shouted, her hand raised with darkness circling her arm leading to her hand. They both raised their hands, still smiling, but continued to come closer until they were only a few feet away.

“We’re not going to hurt you; there are too many people around!” The light-guy laughed. Kali looked around. The courtyard was suddenly deserted, and she could just barely hear the loud lunchroom on the other side of school. Kali stood up; the dark-guy was blocking her way to the lunchroom. They were trapped.

“Don’t touch me.” Kali hissed to him. He laughed.

“You think we’d beat you to a bloody pulp and then kill you where so many people could see? No, we’re here to give you a warning” The dark-guy spat the last word. Kali was shaking with fear, but they had a point. Why would they try and kill her here? So many people would be able to see. They’d be noticeable. They’d be caught.

Kali just noticed something about them. They were beginning to age. At first they both looked around eighteen to twenty, but now wrinkles started to set in. Faded hair color, and loss of energy in their dying eyes. They looked about thirty five to forty now. It was because they had missed the time where their powers were meant to be ‘recharged’. The time where Kali and Meira had gotten their powers. She noticed some sort of longing in the dark-guy’s eyes. He, out of no where, reached out for Kali.

She stepped back instantly, only to be grabbed on the back of the neck tightly by the light-guy. He used his other hand to block his buddy.

“Not NOW!!” He hissed. The dark-guy gritted his teeth together and stepped back. The light-guy let go of Kali before turning his attention back to her.

“You have a month before we hand your death to you and your friend. Give her the message, will you?” He asked politely. Suddenly, they were both gone. Wrapped up in their element only to disappear inside it. Kali found herself crying with fear. She leaned against the wall of the school, sliding down until she was sitting, pulled her knees up to her chest and began to sob.

Meira was looking around the cafeteria. Kali was no where in sight. Did something happen?

“Who are you looking for?” Tail asked suddenly. Meira shook her head.

“No one…” Her voice sounded unfocused and bored. She turned back to her untouched food. Something felt wrong, she couldn’t sit still. She was nervous, tense. This made her worry about Kali. Could something have happened? Would those guys really attack her at school?

“Hey what’s wrong?” Tail asked, turned her full attention onto Meira. She shook her head and stood up.

“I’ll be right back.” Meira said, walking to the outside part of the cafeteria without turning around. She looked on one side, Kali wasn’t there. She walked to the other end, the end that led to the courtyard.

Farther away, Kali was curled up and sobbing. Meira could still feel that there was some sort of presence, like someone was there but just left. But not by walking away. The energy they left behind was incredible. Meira felt as if she could just reach out and snatch it.

Meira ran up to Kali, who looked so relieved to see her. Her eyes lit up once more as she reached out for Meira. She did something she never thought she’d do with anyone else but her mother. She hugged her. She hugged Meira and sobbed silently into her shoulder. She was still shaking with fear. Meira knew that this wasn’t like her.

“Where are they? What did they want?” Meira asked, looking around with a glare in her eyes. She was ticked, pissed off, and wanted to make them pay. She didn’t need to ask Kali what had happened to know that those two guys had come. Kali couldn’t speak, all that had been going on in her life had finally hit her. Finally broken her to the point where all she could do was cry. Meira knew that this wouldn’t last. This was just a weak moment for Kali, nothing more.