Beneath Your Lies

Chapter Four

The light of the morning rushes in on me as I wake up from my amazing dream about finding my mom.

“Did you sleep yesterday?’’ Derek smiles at me – someone’s in a good mood.

“Yeah, I did.’’ I get up with a really painful back and a bruised shoulder as I remember about the apes. We still couldn’t find her, but once I do find Mikala, I’m going to make them regret they ever touched her, because once I set my mind to something, I don’t give up on it.

We wake Daniel up and go on our journey again. It was a rough night, after all. When we couldn’t find Mikala, we set off for some shelter with leaves near a pond nearby. We eat bananas and keep on going. I feel a bit dizzy from all those ‘games,’ and it feels like someone stuck a knife inside me from all the stuff that’s been happening. I shake my head, no, stop, I tell myself. Don’t give up; just remember the reason you kept on going.

‘‘I saw something.’’ Daniel signals as we both go to him, we see Mikala’s tie hung on an apple tree. It was weird, and who would’ve put her tie on a tree? It’s too obvious, maybe it’s some kind of a trap. But then I stopped, turning as pale as ever, not that my face wasn’t pale in the first place. Derek and Daniel stopped when they saw it too. It was a rabbit’s head, it’s blood all over the ground. I counted to ten to keep myself from screaming in terror, and then a pair of claws reached around my neck and tried to tear it apart. The adrenaline clicked in again and I pushed as hard as I could, but it won’t budge away. Derek called out my name but I couldn’t feel anything; it’s like when you know you’re going to die and you still don’t know how to react. I felt cold and really sad, sad that I won’t follow what I began, and sad because we didn’t find Mikala, and sad because Derek won’t find another sister to love.

‘’Please tell me you’re alive! Can you hear me, Sophia? It’s me, Daniel.’’ He kept shaking me, bringing me to life as I opened my eyes again; I touched my head.

‘‘How did this happen?’’ I ask, as the ache starts to pain me.

‘’A strange creature tried to kill you, but I took it out. It was pretty disgusting, but it’s worth the killing.’’ I give him a small, grateful smile, ‘‘thanks, I guess.’’

He smiled back. ‘‘No problem, you have pretty blue eyes.’’ I swear my cheeks got red once he said that, but I had to change the topic before it got really weird.

 ‘’Um, where’s Derek?’’ I snap back to my serious alert mode once I realize my brother isn’t in sight.

‘’He went to get food and told me to keep you here.’’ Typical Derek, leaving me being awkward with Daniel. Thanks, brother!

Daniel did something unusual to me –  he hugged me after he told me that compliment, and I hugged him back, my heart racing. ‘’What was that for?’’

‘‘For letting me stay with you guys and for everything. I don’t know what I could’ve done without you.’’ After he notices me blushing, he adds, ‘’and Derek.’’

 I look down, thoughtful about Mikala. Did she eat? Is she safe? Is she feeling cold, hot? I can’t take my mind off her. ‘‘I really hope she’s okay.’’ I think  out loud.

‘‘She is; don’t worry, she’s a strong child.’’ Daniel says, though he doesn’t know her that well, only that she is a part of our journey. As he takes off a leaf next to him, his eyes never leaving mine – I’m nervous but I don’t know why. Could it be possible that I’m falling for him? Or is it just normal teenage hormones? I still don’t know what it is.

I scan the rabbit’s head for any Mikala evidence but don’t find anything. What kind of a heartless thing could ever do that? I mean, rabbits are my favorite animals and always have been since I was a child. My mind wandered off to my seventh grade memories where I used to be jealous of my classmate because she had two lovely rabbits and she would let me play with them. That’s when I developed love for them, and I begged my dad to buy me one, but of course, the answer would always be, “it’ll mess up our house.” My dad was always protective when it comes to his properties, just like in the business.

My legs were aching and telling me to stop, but I kept on moving, even if it takes all my body parts being tired, I still had my plan to reach for. It was eleven in the morning, and Derek was breathing heavily; so was Daniel. It’s unfair to them because they kept working so hard to keep me safe, and I was feeling kind of like the bad guy. My hands shivered because it was a cold morning. Daniel held my hand tightly, trying to keep it warm, but it made my hand tremble more, not because of the cold but the fact that he was touching my hand. It felt so tense, and I really didn’t feel like I’m me when it came to him, the compliments, the reassurance and the holding hands wasn’t really making me feel comfortable, but it made me feel suspicious – why the emotions all of a sudden? It felt like twilight to me, like he was another person, too cute to me, too kind to me, and it was fishy.

‘’Sophia,’’ a whisper came from the woods we were in.

‘’Who’s there? Show yourself, if you’re courageous enough.’’

‘‘Oh, you can’t hide forever, little insect.’’ I knew it was Lysander Winchester from the tone of his voice, like a viper ready to attack. ‘’Come out, you coward bastard, I’ll show you what I’m made of.’’ He gave out another one of his usual dark chuckles as he came out. Me, Derek and Daniel stood beside each other as we prepared ourselves for this. We are always prepared, but he wasn’t the only one there – another man came out beside him.

 ‘‘Hello, brother.’’ Lysander said to the other guy that had a face like he’s in pain, as he directed his stare towards me, showing the other burnt half of his face. It was a terrible, gross sight.

“Hello, I see you have guests, Lysander”

“Yes, Sophia, meet Mark Winchester, the Demon that appears in your dreams.”

My eyes widened as he mentioned my dreams. So he was the one who actually showed himself in my dreams. I still couldn’t believe my eyes,.

“But how did you even..”

He interrupted me, “it’s so easy getting inside your head. It was a piece of cake for me, you see, I have the power to get inside anyone’s dream and sabotage what they plan. I know everything about anything” He gave out a weird, cruel laugh as his nails turned into claws, and Derek and Daniel were speechless. I guess we weren’t prepared after all, as something exploded as Mark was about to charge towards us.

We all looked at the explosion happening as Mikala performed in her glorious power to destroy but in the face of the common good, “I will smash both of your ugly faces,” Mikala spoke for the first time, and the declaration made me want to laugh, but I stopped myself. They both collapsed, “so you’re the gifted child, I suppose,” they all spoke so formally, it annoyed me so much. Mark continued once he began talking, spit flying everywhere, “you’ll die eventually, I’m not worried about you. You are just an unblessed child in life.”

Mikala’s face radiated hate, but then it turned into something….miserable. He laughed, “do you think your parents loved you? They hated you, they wanted to get rid of you so they sent you to live in an orphanage your whole life”

Mikala’s tears came so easily down her cheeks and it shattered my heart – how come he knows all of this about her life? Maybe it wasn’t true? But from the look of sadness in Mikala’s face, it was obviously accurate.

I attacked them both, throwing branches all over them. They didn’t hurt, they even barely didn’t stumble, it made me groan from the devastation I was feeling. It’s like I couldn’t control my power anymore because it’s making me lose my energy. This is for you Mikala, I thought as I got back up again and forced all the power inside of me to be directed to the faces of the dark in front of me. I screamed as this huge light appeared on my chest as it took off to Mark and Lysander’s direction, and they were caught off guard and vanished.

I fell on the ground and got into the darkness again. “How did she even do that? Wow, that was so insane!” I caught Daniel saying that, but I didn’t flutter my eyes open, “it’s still not good for her at all, and besides, it’s twelve now, and we still have so much to do.”

I decided to show them that I’m alive. I get up only to feel like my chest is killing me, and I go down again. “Ouch, what is that?” They both rushed to me, and Derek sat beside me as I laid down on the ground again, and he touched the place that was hurting me. I gave out a whimper as it was burning. “Shush, just let it heal by itself, you just wait for it.”

“We don’t have time Derek, you said it yourself, and we need to go.”

I tried to get up but then ended up laying on the ground again, as I couldn’t move at all.

“Stay put Sophia, it’ll hurt you more if you keep forcing yourself, that light that came out took a lot of energy from you and err…you lost a lot of blood.”

“What? How?’ he looked at me and said, “after you fainted, blood came out from your arm. I was scared because I thought you’d be dead from all that blood coming out of you from both your arm and your forehead.”

No wonder why my forehead pains me, “great, just great.”

Then an idea came into my head: “Daniel can heal me?” Derek looked uncertain again, just like when we first met Daniel, but we both knew we had no other solution except for me to wait, but that’s not going to happen because I won’t let it. Daniel came to me after he was grabbing a bunch of apples from the trees near us. “I’m back with food,” he was smiling as he got Mikala next to him, and she seemed really unhappy and I know why. It’s because she was being told about her life from someone else, “you okay?”

I nodded but I couldn’t get up anymore, my body was so weak. “Can you heal me?” He gave me a look of hesitation but then he said, “I could try.” He placed his hand on my arm as he closed his eyes and took a deep breath. I could tell he was focusing so hard, and an instant rush of light came inside me as I felt a buzz of hopefulness, and my arm didn’t hurt anymore.

“You did it, Daniel!” He opened his eyes, his face full of pride and joyfulness. His power was amazing after all.

“I did it! I can heal your forehead now.” He touched my forehead and I saw his concentration. I felt a rush of cold wind all over the place as he touched me on and the headaches were not felt anymore. Ladies and gentlemen, the great Daniel.

We found another pathway after the celebration we did of discovering Daniel’s power and Mikala’s power, too. Derek led us to the way we were supposed to go and Mikala was restless against my arm as I held her. I can tell she was out of it. Daniel was walking silently beside me and it made me remember all the events we had to go through; we did it but there’s still going to be more events happening, take it from me.

“I’m hungry,” Mikala whined, which was strange because we just ate apples, but I gave her my orange that I kept for later and she ate it like she’s never eaten anything in her life.

I was feeling groggy. “What time is it, Daniel?” He answered me after checking his digital watch – I never knew they still sold that. “It’s three p.m.” Wow, time passes by so quickly. We lastly saw the ‘enchanted door,’ as Derek called it, and he managed to open it without a key. We went inside and a blast of wind hit us so hard that I had to keep myself from falling into the strength of the wind.

“Close your eyes!” ordered Derek as we all did so, and we kept moving, but slowly in order not to fall. I couldn’t bear it any longer, so I sat on the mud and crawled as Mikala did, too.

Derek and Daniel just walked until we saw another door. “We’re almost there, Sophia. Where are you?” he looked around and saw me.

“I’m here; I’m fine.” He nodded and I stood up, regaining my strength until we reached the door. My hands were numb from the wind and I couldn’t see whether I had something marked on my legs because of the mud, so we go into the door, expecting worse but it wasn’t, it was something good…it was Disneyland. I was shocked because this was something unexpected, but there was nobody at all, just us.

“Mom, where are we going?” My mom drove us somewhere I didn’t know about.

“You’ll see, honey. It’s a surprise.” She knew how much I hated surprises – they’re like secrets but there’s a difference; a surprise is like a secret, but you figure it out at the end, but a secret is something you’ll never realize. I was really impatient along the way, until we reached a place near Disneyland on our way to another place in Paris, but dad didn’t join us because he had business to deal with.

She got out of the car where a man was standing, smoking with his hair ruffled in a mess and his beard darker than my dad’s brown hair, and he looked somehow horrible. I could see from the window of our car my mom’s facial expression; she looked very irritated and really horrified – what was happening? I was only 6 years old; I didn’t know what to think of what’s happening in front of my eyes. She slapped him and got to the car again, closing the door in a loud noise, just like in the movies. Clarissa Hart was never afraid of expressing herself, she was a great woman after all, my mother.

We went inside after long hours of exploring and searching for something suspicious. All the games were moving, which made us doubt more, and I was really scared that something might happen to Mikala, so I held her safely to me, never releasing my grip.

“Let’s play,” Daniel joked. We are playing with demons, all right.