Raven

Chapter 2

Raven's POV

I knew I was dreaming the moment I opened my eyes and found myself in the middle of a crowd. It's not that I saw something different, but I always feel this weird discomfort on my right eye everytime I'm experiencing "prophetic" dreams.

This was the busy streets of Shaw District Square. Many people would really gather here since this is a shopping district for famous brands.

I was just walking aimlessly when something caught my attention.

A fiery red cloak stood out from this busy crowd. I assumed she was a woman because of her long platinum white hair, floating freely despite the stillness of the wind. People around her seemed to be moving in a slower motion.

However, what made me stare at her even more was her crimson-red eyes that glowed like jewels. Those eyes seem so familiar, yet I couldn't pinpoint out where have I seen it before.

Her lips were moving like she was saying something. I couldn't clearly figure it out due to the distance, so I tried getting closer to her. I tried so hard to focus on what she was saying. But when I finally got it, time stopped.

"grata domum"

Except for us two, everything and everyone around us turned black and white, like everything suddenly turned into monochrome. This phenomena sent chills down to my spine.

My body couldn't move. I could only watch her as she smiled at me and mouthed the same words again and again.

The next thing I knew, my vision went black.

Before my consciousness completely left me, I finally heard her fading voice.

"et ego ad te venio, Raven..."

࿈

*brrring brrring*

I was jolted awake when the sound of the alarm clock blared beside my ear. This time, it's already 8 in the morning. My side was already empty. Lilibeth was gone, probably preparing breakfast.

I drag myself downstairs, still a little bit muddled, while trying to decipher what my second dream meant. I really hate it when my dreams won't just unfold directly to me instead of hinting me stuff that doesn't even make sense. It makes my head hurt from wracking my brains out on what could it possibly meant.

What I do know, is that, grata domum was the latin counterpart for the word "Welcome Home".

Still doesn't make sense though.

"—next week?"

My steps halted when I heard Lilibeth's voice from the kitchen. I was gonna eavesdrop on her when she suddenly appeared in front of me.

"Understood. I'll handle everything soon." She said to the phone, eyes trained on me. I could only stood rooted from where I am and wait for her to finish the call.

When she finally said goodbye, she then put the phone away and smiled at me. "Pancakes?" She asked.

I smiled at her as if nothing happened. "Good morning, Lily. Yes please."

The pancakes were already at the table when we entered the kitchen. She sat first and gestured for me to sit down. I poured a glass of milk by the counter before joining her and started eating.

Lilibeth has been with me since my parents died. Now that I've thought about it, I always forgot her exact age, or maybe she never told me in the first place?

"How old were you again?"

Lilibeth paused. She looked at me with her eyebrow arching, expression amused.

"What?" I asked consciously.

"Well, we've been together for years and this is the first time that you strike a decent conversation, different from your usual hi, hello, nodding, and shaking." She chuckled.

I could only scratch my head from guilt.

"Well, to answer your question, I'm 25 years old."

"You're still 25?" That's weird. The last time I remembered she still looked the same 10 years ago. Does that mean she took care of me when she was just 15 years old???

"Yes, I'm 25. And if you don't believe me, go look for my documents. It's just inside my closet." She answered nonchalantly and continued eating.

I stared down at my pancakes. "Aren't you too young to have full custody of me?"

I heard her placing down the knife and fork. "I told you, I was paid to take care of you, in a sense. My... employer, took care of the things related to you... and your family. She didn't want you to be thrown to an orphanage somewhere and get adopted by unknown people."

I tilted my head in confusion. "You were also a stranger back then and I'm just a nobody. Why rescue me? And why are you willingly telling me all of this now?" She usually zips her mouth when this kind of topic gets opened up.

"Because you asked nicely." She said as if it was a normal thing. She looked at her phone and stood up. "I have a lecture at the university today. Can you do some errands for me? I'll cook you something delicious for dinner as a reward."

Yeah right, you answered me but you still changed the subject. "Sure, no problem." I then finished my pancake and went back to my room to take a shower.

I should go to the library and get some new books. It's been a while since I read a new one.

But before anything else, let me introduce myself. My name is Raven Black and let me tell you a secret about me, sort of.

I have an ability similar to clairvoyance. It's like whenever I dream of something, it will happen in real life.

I was born with this special ability, so basically I've been like this ever since I started to know how to crawl.

According to Wikipedia, clairvoyance was the claimed ability to gain information about an object, person, location, or physical event through extrasensory perception. Any person who claimed to have such ability is said accordingly to be a clairvoyant.

Well, that really made sense. I mean, I do believe in metaphysics and that's just how my life goes on right now.

My dreams would tell me so many things. Some of it were about rainbows and unicorns (yes, unicorns exist). But most of the time, it was just events that carries murder... and death.

It's also frustrating if my dreams would send me messages in cryptic mode. Like, before I could even realize that the events from reality and my dream were correlated, it was already too late since I wasn't able to c***k it immediately, due to unforseen circumstances. Take that one earlier as an example.

On a very random occasions, I also dream of secrets from people that I'm close to. There, I get to discover their deepest and darkest secret, which I terribly hated because I'm totally invading their privacy.

Because of that, I don't do physical contacts. I'm afraid to discover something from the people close to me or some random strangers. Man, that is too much to handle and think about. Hence, people who don't know me personally, would think I am a germophobe.

Speaking of dreams with blood and accident, I somehow blamed myself for my parents' death. I dreamt of their accident way before it happened and I told them about it, but no one believed me, since, you know, I'm just a child.

After all, kids do have wild imaginations. They would only laugh at me and say, 'You're just paranoid, sweetie.'

Yeah, I'm paranoid.

It was an ability that I detested ever since I was a kid. I hated myself for being useless— silently watching the events unfold. Many sleepless nights watching these dreams like a horror film reeling inside my head, having no switch to turn it off.

I wanted to help them, but I'm still not capable enough to do it. I tried helping people avoid the tragedies but I always failed, so I stopped.

And besides, I also read (or heard) from somewhere that changing the inevitable would only cause it to happen even more. Manipulating what is bound to happen would only quicken its occurrence.

Now I would be damned if I say I didn't believe that statement. I mean, aside from the fact that it's right, I am the living proof to make that statement valid.

The only person I could talk to about this stuff was Lilibeth. She was already by my side the moment I was rescued from that dreaded accident.

According to her, she and the family she was working for passed by that road and saw the state me and my parents were in. Her boss took pity of me and decided to adopt me, whilst hiring her as my guardian.

I don't have any relatives, not that I knew of, so the adoption went smoothly. And I heard that her employer was kinda rich that everything was handled quickly and conveniently.

Lilibeth was very kind to me. She treated me like a sister and I trusted her.

But who knows what will my future bring, now that in my recent dreams, my parents keeps on telling me not to trust anybody.