Island of Myths

One week since we got our powers, and we were starting to get used to it. Julie had to lock the bathroom door when she took a bath so no one would come in and see her fishy features. She realized one night when the water was too cold, that she had some control over it. She somehow willed the water temperature to rise, which was a good sign her powers were growing. When Lianna and I were alone outside we would do some target practice with our powers. We found that she could shoot fire from her hands, and even though it was an awesome power she constantly had to question it. I could also shoot fire from my hands, and it was awesome. No questions asked. After a lot of practice and even more arguing we found that we could freeze time, but we had to be touching. Sometimes we would practice by freezing time in class, and messing with people that we didn’t like. Call us mean for that, but they all deserved it. Amy could teleport, but she didn’t like to because she said that it made her a little dizzy. Really though she was just afraid of what might happen.
“Want to walk home together?” Julie asked us after school. “I found a way that drops us all off at our houses.” We all smiled. That was perfect, now we could all walk home together. We all agreed to go, and set off. We talked a lot, happy to able to hang out a little longer. We walked for what could have been anywhere from two to five minutes before we came upon a long dark alleyway. I didn’t like it at all, and I prayed we could just walk past it quickly and be done. If you’re wondering why I didn’t like it, then you’re probably not the sharpest tool in the shed. Dark alleys, if you have ever watched scary movies, are never in any way a good thing. In fact they are usually the exact opposite.
Unfortunately Julie came to a dead stop right in front of the alley. That was just wonderful. “Guys, this may sound kind of strange, but it feels like something is pulling me towards there.” she said as she began to walk down the alley. “C’mon” Julie said as she gestured for the rest of us to follow her. Amy hesitated. She may be brave when it comes to some things, but when it comes to dark places, she is NOT OKAY. I repeat NOT OKAY, but, though reluctantly, she went in any way. We all began to walk through the dark alley, but Julie was the only one who actually wanted to. Lianna honestly couldn’t have cared less, or at least she acted like it.Though the sun was shining brightly, the building were tall and didn't allow much light. It gave it an eerie sort of glow that could send a shiver down your spine. There were two exits, one went off to the left close to the end, and the other was straight and led to the docks. Though no one ever used the docks except occasionally at night, I still didn’t like it.
We all had worried and suspicious looks on our faces. Who knows what was over there that Julie was sensing? It could have been just about anything, and just based off of that I wasn’t too sure that I wanted to find out what it was. As we all carefully walked onto the docks we breathed a sigh of relief. There was nothing there; Julie was just being weird as usual. I was about to turn back to the alley to walk away from here as fast as I could, but was interrupted by something that scared me more than the dark alleyway.
“Glad to see you showed up,” came a crackly voice out of nowhere. We all turned around to see a man with pale skin (like a blue/white kind of pale that someone should only have if they froze to death) and jet black hair standing on the roof of the boat rental shop. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the scariest part, the part that stood out. His crimson colored eyes that gleamed with a malicious delight. (Well, there went the relief) This was not good.
With a wave of his hand he sent Amy flying across the pier screaming. Her voice was high and loud as she landed with a thud. She tumbled several feet before coming to a stop, her back facing us. I heard her let out a soft groan, letting me know she at least was still conscious. It looked like she hit pretty hard, and I had no idea whether or not she was hurt. Next he aimed at Julie and shot a lightning bolt from his hand that threw her backwards into the ocean. She screamed as she hit the water and sank, the end of her tail visible just before going completely under. He just smiled showing off his sharp, shark like teeth. My heart was racing, and my breathing was getting heavy. My eyes were wide with shock and terror, so I’m fairly certain that the look on my face brought him even more joy. Amy and Julie were out for the count, and Lianna and I were too scared to fight back. Next he aimed at me, I froze, victim number three.
I was unable to move, unable to scream. I could barely even breathe as he stared at me with his crimson eyes. He smiled, enjoying the fear I knew was written all over my face, and evident even in my eyes. Frozen in fear, unmoving even before death; I wouldn’t let it end that way. I would go down fighting, defending Julie and Amy and Lianna. If I couldn’t beat him I at least had to try to make sure the others were safe. That was all the motivation I needed to fight. I watched his expression briefly change as I went from frightened little child to warrior. I drew a fireball ready to fight, and I watched him smirk. I could tell he found me amusing, but at the same time he wanted somewhat of a challenge. I got ready to throw it, but out of nowhere a red ball of light hit him and he exploded in a fury of darkness and dust.
I swirled around to see a woman and her boyfriend (at least I guessed that he was her boyfriend by the way that he had his arm around her) in their early 20’s. The woman had dark brown hair and dark brown eyes. The man had extremely pale skin, brown curly hair, pale eyes, and was about a half foot taller than his girlfriend. She had a dangerous look to her, like she was nice, until you made her mad. I could only wonder what that guy had done to piss her off. They took out that dude in a second, and he never even saw it coming. Imagine what they could do to us...
“Good shot,” commented the man as he smiled down at the woman. She gave him a small smile in return, but, even though her smile looked sweet, she still looked dangerous.
“Who are you?” Julie asked, still a bit dazed from being tossed like a ragdoll.
“Friend or foe?” I added suspiciously, a fireball still swirling in my hand. I wasn’t really planning on using it, unless I had to. Even if I had to up against them, I would have lost before it even began.
“Put away your fire witch, I’m a friend. No dear, if I were your foe I would have killed you already. I’m Veronica, and this is David. I’m a witch just like you.” She it said casually, in an almost joking tone. “Now, what are four young creatures such as yourselves doing out here alone?” Did she really just call us creatures? I take that offensively!
“Ask little miss ‘let’s go through a dark alley to an abandoned dock.’” Lianna remarked, giving Julie an annoyed glance. Julie gave her that it-wasn’t-my-fault look, but we all knew that it was.
“Well”, David began, “It doesn’t matter whose fault it was all that matters is that you’re all ok.” I swear that when he spoke I could see fangs. He walked over to Julie and helped her up out of the water.
Veronica looked over at Amy, who was grumbling about how sore she would be in the morning. “You better get used to it; it will be happening quite often now that they know who you are.”
“They?” asked Amy, with more than little fear quivering in her voice. I was wondering the same thing though, and I’m sure if I had asked I would have sounded the same way.
“Have you got hold of your teleporting power yet?” Veronica asked ignoring Amy’s question. Amy just shook her head, and Veronica looked disappointed. The truth was that she was too scared to use her power, and she just pretended that she didn’t have it. I don’t know why, she could teleport herself to Hawaii if she wanted. I would love that power! “No problem.” She closed her eyes for a moment and all of the sudden a girl about the same age as Veronica faded into existence; similar to how Amy did the first night we got our powers.
“What is it, what’s wrong?!” She exclaimed. Unlike Veronica she had bright red hair, green eyes, and pale skin; she looked Irish. Also unlike Veronica, she looked a lot less threatening. In fact, she looked pretty harmless. She looked around for a moment to see what was happening, and then said, a little disappointedly “Oh, never mind, what’s up?”
“We found these four being attacked by Talos. Judging by how poorly they were fighting, it was their first time up against a demon,” Veronica replied casually.
“De...de...demon”, Julie stuttered. (She just realized that?)
“Poorly?!” I asked, although I knew it was true, but I would have fought well if Veronica hadn’t come in to save the day... maybe... possibly... hopefully.
“Well,” she began in her I’m-so-much-better-than-you tone. “I wouldn’t call being thrown across the dock doing well.” She looked at Amy, then to Julie with disappointment. Julie’s legs suddenly replaced her tail, and without a thought she stood up and began trudging over to Veronica. Out of the corner of her eye she saw me giving her a warning glare, and glanced over at me. I simply shook my head at her, and she took a step back, letting both me and Veronica know that she wasn’t going to try anything stupid. Trust me; picking a fight with Veronica would have been pretty stupid.
“You girls should come with us. You need training to help fight off demons, and we can help train you. It is very easy to get killed in the world of magic; you must always be prepared for the worst.” Veronica said in her soft yet serious tone. We all looked at each other and nodded, and then I looked back at Veronica and nodded to her too. “Good, but first you should probably call your parents and tell them you’re going to be late getting home.”
We didn’t bother with the calling thing, texting is much quicker. I just lied and said I was going over to Lianna’s house to do homework, and that I wouldn’t be home for a while. She text me back, “ok, just don’t stay too late”. That was good enough for me, but I knew that if I wasn’t home by 7:00 she would freak. I wasn’t too sure when we would be back, but I would try not to stay for too long, wherever we were going.
“You girls ready?”Rose asked after we had all put our phones in our pockets. We nodded our heads, and she began to walk over with Veronica and David. “Well don’t just stand there,” she looked over at Amy and Julie, “Come on.” They walked over, a little unsure. “Know everyone hold hands.”, and so we got in a circle and held hands, anxious to know why. “Ready?” she asked, a smile seeping across her face. We all nodded our heads, and the next thing I knew we were in some weird cave type thing, I couldn’t really tell because my vision was blurry. I felt dizzy and my vision was cloudy and fuzzy. It was not very fun.
“Not cool.” I manage to get out as I stepped back to keep myself from falling. I think the others were too dazed to talk.
“You better get used to it; you’ll have to do that a lot.”Rose said as she laughed a bit. Once my vision focused, I looked around saw that the cave was actually a small rock dome. When I looked in front of me I saw two boys leaning against the wall. One had thick black hair, brown eyes, and was fairly tall. The other one had thick black hair, deep blue eyes, and he was looking right at me. I felt slightly embarrassed for not noticing them sooner since they were standing right in front of me.
“I felt the same way when I had to do that the first time.” said the boy with the deep blue eyes. He smiled a bit and I smiled back. At least I wasn’t the only one.
“Girls, I’d like you to meet Jonny,” she pointed to the brown eyed boy, “...and Jason.” She said as she pointed to the other boy.
“Hi.” Jonny said monotonously, obviously not caring whether we were there or not. That was when he actually looked up. He scanned all of our faces, but stopped at Julie.
He probably would have kept staring (???) if it wasn’t for the loud bang that erupted out of nowhere. We all looked around, all except for Jonny and Jason. (Of course) Then I saw Veronica and David standing in front of two huge metal doors that were gradually sliding open. Behind the metal doors was a huge silver pod shaped like a bullet that looked like it could hold ten people at the very least. Jonny and Jason began walking over to the doors, us following curiously.
When we got to the pod, Veronica pressed a glowing green button and the doors to the pod slowly creaked open. “Well don’t just stand there,” she said as she disappeared through the doors with David and Rose following close behind, “come on.” Inside the pod were eight seats pressed up against the walls (four on one side and four on the other), and that wasn’t counting the pilot and passenger seats.
Veronica was already sitting in the pilot seat with David next to her and Rose sitting just behind. We all sat down when the doors banged shut. I was sitting between Amy and Jason with Lianna sitting at the very end next to Amy. On the opposite side in order were Julie, Jonny, and Rose.
“Buckle up” said Veronica, and we all fastened our seatbelts. The instant the clicks stopped we began moving, and I swear it was like we were in a race car, but instead of zero to sixty in two seconds, it was like zero to one hundred and fifty. At first I was so surprised I didn’t even hear my friends screaming. I wasn’t like them, I don’t start screaming, I just tense up.
“It’s ok, it’s ok.” I heard Jason say next to me, making me relax, but not very much. Then he put his hand on my shoulder. I looked over and he was smiling, which made me relax until I was barely tensed at all, but it is really hard to relax when you are going as fast as we were. “That’s better.”
“How fast are we going?” I managed to spit out. I really was curious; we had to be going at least one hundred miles per hour. I looked out the front window and saw that everything was flying by so quickly.
“About two fifty,” he answered. My jaw dropped. TWO FIFTY!
“What if we crash into something?” I said in a panicky voice.
“Its fine, we are not going to crash.” He assured me. Then that’s when we stopped. It felt like I was going to be thrown out the front window. Thank God for seat belts. I unconsciously put my hand on Jason’s arm and tensed up again as if trying to brace myself for impact, or at least, that’s what I told myself at the time. He put his hand on mine, “It’s okay, we just stopped.” I moved my hand away from his and took a deep breath.
“Okay,” Veronica said, “time to see the island for what it truly is.” Amy, Julie, Lianna, and I looked at her questioningly. “We are inside of Phoenix Island, believe it or not. Now come on, I have a lot to show you.”