Mystic Island

☼☼11☼☼

Raine

When I dreamed, I was once again in the shadowy field I was earlier. They said a person never dreamed the same dream twice. I supposed that rule kind of went out the window in my case.
The single tree, the black poplar, was only a few feet in front of me, lightning still occasionally flashing behind the branches. But the tree was my height, a tiny sapling with only a handful of leaves to its name. I caressed the little tree, smiling a little. This was no nightmare, like before. This was a dream. Only a dream.
But at my touch, the tree crackled and shook. Nothing too drastic at first; only a lot of shivers on the tree’s part. But then the leaves thickened and multiplied. They were a lighter green before but they strengthened and darkened until they were nearly black. There were so many that I didn’t know how the little sapling would hold them all. That was the first change.
Then branches unfolded from the skinny trunk. The waved out and shook, stealing some of the hundreds of leaves on the original branches as the new ones appeared, all in full shadowy bloom, spiking out all in different directions. Soon the new twiggy branches were so many that I had to back away at least a dozen feet before I was out of impaling-range. The spikes that were the new branches made a full circle of dangerous dagger-twigs. They all looked like arrows under the cover of many, many leaves. That was the second change.
I was shocked. Nearly all of the branches were wider and more monstrous than the trunk itself: a mere kindling twig next to under the monster-branches. But the trunk was widening and fattening when I thought these thoughts and it was becoming richer in color. The dull gray trunk was changing to silver-black bark, the color of the dark side of the moon, and when it was done widening, the trunk was beautifully-colored and very stout. I raised an eyebrow. This was the third change.
And while the tree that looked like it had been squashed look strange enough, it did not prepare me for the next change. The fourth change.
A stroke of lightning came down with a harmless flash and struck the small tree. I expected the poplar to catch fire, but the tree just glimmered white. And then the branches shook…and then the black poplar grew.
The trunk was stretching and stretching as it reached its night-colored branches to the dark sky. When the branch tips looked like they were piercing the stars and the tree was now enormous and looked like it was hundreds of years old, the tree stopped growing. My neck craned back to stare at the top of the poplar, but it hurt too much to do that for too long. I looked back straight at the silvery black bark that shined every time lightning cut the sky in two.
I put one hand to the silver trunk and it shuddered. This was the fourth and final change the poplar endured.
On one of the lower branches, still high over my head, still skyward, two shapes began to glimmer and fold and create into true forms. Soon the shapes turned humanoid and sitting on the branch were the two girls from my nightmare by the fire, the two girls with the blood-red eyes. Only now the light was better. Now I could see their faces. I gasped horribly.
Sitting in the tree was Andrea and Kayla.
Both demigods stared down at me with terrible, hungry red eyes, darker than the empousae’s. Darker than Hecate’s red part of the rainbow.
One of the girls---Andrea---opened her mouth to smile an evil grin. I could see fangs…and they were coated with blood. She was speaking with Kayla in a chittering, solemn voice---definitely not hers. Not anyone’s. And Kayla understood. And Kayla responded in the same noise. She had fangs too. I gasped again.
Both head snapped in my direction. Their eyes were bright and angry. I almost muttered, ‘Sorry’, but I was afraid. I felt Lightning Strike in my jacket pocket. I drew the little knife and squeezed the hilt.
That was my mistake. If I hadn’t pulled out the sword, Kayla and Andrea might not have attacked. But I had, and the sight of my sword was so terrible to them that they leaped from the poplar to pounce on me.
My nightmare had first ended like this with the two demons attacking me. But it did unfortunately end like that this time. Andrea was at my neck, trying to sink her fangs into my throat while Kayla lingered by the tree. I knocked her off with the hilt of my sword and at this, Kayla lunged. She was now clawing at me, trying to taste blood, but I would not let her. I was afraid, truly. This was not Kayla. But Andrea? It could have been.
When both demon demigods teamed up on me, I flipped Lightning Strike’s side to face them with the lethal blade. Both back up a step in sync but then lunged again. I took a step backward instinctively but the grass was slippery. I tripped and fell down, both demigods about to overcome me. I held up my hands with my sword in one hand in a final, desperate attempt to save myself. I saw a man standing by the poplar with an amused expression: a god, with black hair and glittering red eyes. He was clothed in night-colored robes and his voice echoed in my head.
This will be your end, Raine Strike.