• Part 5- My dream
    One month before the dance. In a few days will be the dance, which I've been dreading for the last little while. Yea I know, if I don’t want to go to the dance I should tell Nate, but I didn’t want to. I did want to go and have fun at the dance even after what had happened year before. But after what I learned yesterday…

    Where am I? What just happened? What’s going on? I wondered questions like these, when I woke up in a white mist. Am I still dreaming? I looked around and saw a slideshow, or more like a replay of my dreams. I recognized most of them, then when I looked around again I saw ‘the dream.’
    This dream wasn’t like my normal human ones. This one was a replay of the night with Mandy, in the pathway. But it was a different version from the one I remember. We were fighting but when I said stop it and held my hand out; I saw a pink force coming from my hand. The force hit Mandy and made her fall. It wasn’t because she tripped; it was because of the force coming from my hand.
    There was more to the dream. There was what had happened after I ran home. It was of Mandy waking up, blood running down her face. And in front of her was a shadow. The shadow said something to her and laid a hand on Mandy’s forehead, and I saw her eyes go blank. Then she got up, wiped up the blood on her face, and began walking home.
    I was staring in awe at the dream. The dream I had been seeing for the last 6 months. Then the shadow came out of the dream screen, and walked toward me. The shadow was wearing a black cloak and had their head down which was covered by the cloak’s hood.
    “Hi Blaise,” the shadow said, their voice was a soft caring voice that sounded vaguely familiar, “wow, your much bigger in person.”
    I stared at the shadow, trying to remember who it was then it said. “I suppose you don’t remember who I am. Well you really shouldn’t. I’ll give you a hint; I died when you were still a little girl.”
    I stared at the shadow, still thinking of who it could be, and then I figured it out, “Mother?” I said my voice shaking in fear.
    “Yes Blaise. It’s me. Your mother.” She said, as she removed her hood.
    I stared at her, dazed, as she revealed her short black hair, which I remembered gleams red in the sunlight. “But if you’re dead… how am I talking to you...” I asked still amazed.
    My mother smiled a wise and beautiful smile, “Yes, and your right I am dead. But I’ve been following you around since you met that boy at the pool-”
    “Benji, his name is Benji.” I interrupted.
    “Okay. But after I saw him talking to you, and the look in his eye as you told him your name, which by the way he already knew, I remembered who his father is.” She looked sadder at this point, “I didn’t die by stray bullets, Blaise. I died because I was immortal. I was born the same way as you, but growing up, whenever I got mad, items would fly all around the room, and if someone grabbed me, and I got mad, the power would blow them off me and into a wall.” I had a flashback of Mandy, lying there halfway dead.
    “As I got older. I learned how to deal with my powers, and I began working with a group called Mentis, which is Latin for mind. They sent me out killing people the police couldn’t catch. Lots of people didn’t like me. And then when Adrian Rink, Benji’s father, began looking for me, and when he found me, he shot me in the heart.” My eyes widened, staring at my mom.
    “Then after I died, I stayed on earth and watched you grow up. You were okay until you met Benji. Benji grew up with his father, who trained him to be the perfect hunter. Benji had to do one thing. Kill you.” I started to cry, my mother continued. “Benji also had power, he could control people’s minds with a fragrance he had. When he gave some to Mandy, I knew there was going to be trouble.”
    My mother stopped talking and knelt down beside me, handing me a tissue. Her voice was softer as she said “When you called Benji, he sounded disappointed because you were still alive. Your powers had saved you. After you ran home, I erased Mandy’s memory so she wouldn’t tell anyone what had happened. But I let her remember you winning the fight. That’s why she acts weird around you.”
    I had stopped crying, that was it, the reason of my dreams, Mandy’s attitude, my powers and my mother’s death, it all made sense now. But I still had one problem. “What am I going to do about Benji and my powers?” I asked trying to hide the fear in my voice.
    “You have a choice, to learn how to use your powers properly, so you can kill Benji. Or you can stay with the life you have, and every so often be attacked by Benji and his henchmen, your choice.”
    I couldn’t say anything. I knew what I should do, but well I didn’t want to leave my life, my friends, Nate. Nate, I had almost had forgotten about him. If I decided to go train would I ever see him again? But if I stayed with my life now, I could be killed by Benji. I guess I might as well die knowing I tried “I think I'm going to learn how to use my powers.” I said sadly, I'm going to miss my normal life.
    “Okay,” my mother said, in a calm soothing voice. “You should go see Michael Gauze. He works with Mentis, tell him you’re my daughter.” She added, “Well I guess you don’t need me anymore.” She began fading.
    I wiped my tears, “WAIT! Don’t leave yet!” I cried.
    “Don’t worry,” she said, “I’m not really leaving you, I'll still be with you. Bye.” She continued to fade.
    “Okay, mom.” I said my voice shaking because of my tears. “I’ll miss you. Bye” She kept fading until I could see nothing.

    Part 6- Explaining
    Ever since the night with Mandy, I’ve wanted to talk to someone. I wanted someone to tell me it would be okay, and that nothing was going to happen to me. I had considered telling Susan and Jane. But they might not have understood, and they’d think I was crazy.
    But when I woke up this morning, and thought of what was soon going to happen, I thought I might as well tell them. So after I ate my breakfast, I called Susan and Jane, and told them to come over.
    While I waited for them to come, I tried to get myself, angry enough, so that I could show them my powers.
    I thought of all the stuff I hate but none of it got me mad enough. Then when I gave up, I fell on my bed, and let my mind wander. Somehow I got thinking that Mandy might steal Nate from me. And well it got me mad enough to move all the books on my desk (and believe there were about 60 books) I smiled, and kept thinking of Mandy and Nate. I was so busy trying to get the objects to move, I didn’t even hear the front door open, or the footsteps, that went up the stairs, and I certainly did not hear my door open. What I did hear was the screams, coming from Jane and Susan.
    I looked over at the two girls, who’s eyes where widened, and jaws had dropped, and started laughing. They looked at me like I was crazy.
    “Wh...What just happened?” Jane said her voice as quiet as a whisper.
    I sighed “If I tell you, you’ll probably not believe me.
    “And how do you know that, Blaise?” Susan asked.
    “Because at first I didn’t believe it, because well it’s not exactly believable.”
    “Try us, we might surprise you.” Jane said as she plopped down on my bed.
    “Okay… here goes.” I said and I started telling them my ridiculous story about what happened with Mandy, my conversation with my dead mother and what I had to do now.
    When I had finished I asked Susan and Jane, “So do you believe what I just said?”
    “Yeah. What I don’t believe is what’s happened with you and Benji.” Jane said.
    “So what are we going to do now? Go to the training facility or stay here and get ourselves killed?” Susan asked.
    “What are we? You are going to go home and forget about everything.” I said pointing to Jane and Susan, “I am going to go train.” I said.
    “Oh no. We’re going with you to train. And we’ll help you fight Benji. But first, we’ll go get some pizza.” Susan said and smiled at the word pizza.
    I signed in anger, “Fine, you can train with me, but you can’t fight Benji with me.” I said, “And that’s that. Let’s go.”
    I know Susan and Jane very well, so I knew that this conversation would never be over until they got what they wanted. So I should, at least, get them to learn to fight.

    Part 7- Okay let’s train
    The training studio was quiet, to a normal person. But to me, I could hear the breath of my opponent. This was Susan. Since I brought her and Jane here, they’ve been constantly training. Trying to become good enough to fight Benji with me. A sudden noise came. A crashing. I smiled because I knew that Jane had started to break the glass with her foot. This would come in handy.
    A shadow loomed over me. Trying to get me from behind.
    “Hah hah, Susan. I didn’t let my guard down.” She tried to jump on me. I grabbed her hand and flew her over my head and she landed on her behind. Who said I always needed to use my powers.
    “Well at least I tried.” She panted. “Can we take a break now? I think Jane screwed up the studio.” She started to get up.
    I sighed. “Sure, and don’t try to get up.” I moved my fingers over toward her, and levitated her toward the door.
    Jane came running through the doors, “Blaise, Michael wants to talk to you.” She looked at Susan, who was dancing above her head. “Wow, you’re really getting good at this.” I nodded and set Susan down.
    “I’ll see you guys at lunch.” I said walking to Michael’s office.
    It had been 4 weeks since I learned of my powers and 3 weeks since I started training. I came here, to Mentis, where my mother had trained, and met Michael. My mother’s tutor, and now my tutor. I opened the doors to his office and looked at the middle-aged tallish man with brown hair which was starting to go gray. He turned around. Michael was just like me, he had telekinesis. He had been training since he could walk. He was able to lift a 1000 ton boulder without breaking a sweat. He lifted his hand and the door behind me closed.
    “Blaise,” he said, “since I’ve met you, you’ve become stronger, and I believe you are now ready, to fight Benji.” He finished, and even though I wanted to grin, I had to stay serious.
    “Your friend, Jane is now able to break glass and wood with both her hands and feet. And your other friend, Susan, has become very skilled in kung fu. With the right weapons you and your friends will be able to fight Benji. Your mother would be proud.” He nodded.
    “Thank you, Michael. But there’s one thing I'm wondering about my powers. Do they have a weakness?” I asked widening my eyes.
    Michael sighed, and looked at the floor. “Yes there is. Whatever you do, you cannot… eat junk food.” He looked up at me and smiled.
    “Hah, hah. But really, is there a weakness?” I asked becoming impatient.
    “Fine fine. There is, if you injure you head like a cut, you won’t be able to use your powers.” He said his tone serious again.
    “Okay. Uhh I’ll come back to train after I have lunch with Susan and Jane.” I said started to the door.
    “Okay. Bye Blaise.” He gave me wise smile.
    When I walked outside the studio, I looked for Susan and Jane. All I really had to do was turn around and of course there they were.
    “BOO!” Jane shouted at me.
    I looked at her and rolled my eyes. “Where do you wanna go for lunch?”
    “Uhh… I don’t care, just as long as it’s not McDonalds. I'm trying to stay fit for training.” Susan said, shaking her head.
    “Okay, how bout pizza?” Jane said.
    “Sure and I have to tell you something about our training.” I said and we began to walk to a pizza store.

    When we go back from lunch, we walked into the studio, so we could begin training again. Susan and Jane were going to fight each other, while I would practice lifting weights with my mind.
    But when we were in the training studio, we called for Michael. No one had answered, so we tried again. Still no answer.
    “C’mon Micheal this isn’t funny.” Jane called.
    “I'm going to go see if he’s in his office asleep, you guys stay here, and be ready to fight.” I said and began walking to Michael’s office.
    I knocked on Michael’s door, I had no answer. I tried again. I still had no answer. I opened the door and heard something fall. I peek through and saw a body on the floor and the window opened wide. Next to the body was a piece of paper. I slowly walked over to the body, ready to fight if someone attacked me.
    When I was standing over the body I looked at its face to see who it was. I stared at it in disbelief. I can’t believe my eyes. It was Michael. His violet eyes had rolled over and now all you could see was white. And there right on his forehead was a gash, a large gash in the middle. I looked around, hoping that there was some evidence of who did this. But all I saw was a note. I moved Michael’s body to the chair, and picked up the note on the floor. I squinted trying to think of who wrote it, it was the same style of Michaels only it looked like it was rushed.

    Blaise, I am very sorry for leaving you like this.
    Right now I am hiding under my desk trying to write this.
    Benji is here, and he has an army with him. I want you to know
    How proud of you I am, you remind me so much of your
    Mother and I know she is also proud of you.
    I want you to keep training and never to give up.
    I love you Blaise, I hope you will be okay.

    - Michael.

    By the end of his letter I was crying. Benji had come for me and killed Michael. He was innocent. And now, I know for sure that I have to kill Benji, so I can avenge Michael’s death. I folded the note and put it into my pocket.
    I closed Michael’s door and walked back to the studio. Jane and Susan were standing in the middle; their eyes focused, and ready to fight. They looked up at me when I walked in. It seemed that they knew what had happened, because they ran over to me, and gave me a hug, and tried to comfort me.
    A few hours later, we were back to training. Susan and Jane were fighting against me, and at the moment I'm winning. Susan was holding a sword and Jane had a rope. But I had no weapon.
    Jane wrapped me in the rope and Susan was holding her sword under my chin. I wasn’t really afraid because I knew she wouldn’t be able to kill me, but I still had to get free. I focused on Susan, and after a minute or so she went flying and landed on the mats. Jane ran over and tried to tame me. She also went flying.
    “OW!” Jane shouted when she landed on the mat face up.
    “Oh c’mon you hit a mat. You’re lucky.” I said and grinned. “Need some help?” I asked.
    She shook her head, and then Susan asked, “Where did you get the sword?”
    “There’s a weapon hole behind one of the walls, before we go home we all need to get a proper knife.” I said looking around the room.
    “Why” Jane asked.
    “’Cause, we might be attacked, and we’ll need a weapon.” I said. They nodded. “Actually wanna leave now?”
    “Sure.” Jane said.
    “Okay, let’s go get the knives.”

    The weapon room was a large room with hangers everywhere. On those hangers, were weapons. All of the weapons you could think of; knifes, guns, swords, crossbows, bows and arrows, etc.
    Susan and Jane stood at the doorway, staring at the room, like it was heaven.
    “Pick a knife, and make sure you can hide it.” They nodded.
    I walked over to the knife table, and picked up my favorite one. Smith & Wesson H.R.T boot knife, it was perfect, it had the best sized blade, and it was truly sharp. This was the same knife my mother used when she was fighting. I picked up the knife and slipped it into my boot.
    Behind me, Susan and Jane were picking their weapons. It looked like Susan was going to take to twin knives, which would be a perfect choice for her. Jane on the other hand looked like she was going to take a sword. How would she be able to hide it?
    I walked up to her and said, “You shouldn’t take the sword, it’s too hard to hide, try for a long knife, but small enough to hide in your pocket or boot.” Jane nodded, and picked up a medium sided knife, with a grooved blade.
    “Okay, ready to go?” I asked.
    “Yea, but I think we should take some protection for the fight, so we won’t get badly injured.” Susan explained.
    “Okay, uhh… we should each have a shield, and a… hmmm... yea just a shield.” I told them, looking around the room.
    They nodded, and we picked up our shields.

    Part 8- Forgetfulness
    I slowly opened my eyes. I think today is Sunday… right? May uhh 21st yeah probably. I yawned, and got out of bed.
    Hmm... I thought, something important is coming up. What is it? Ugh I can’t believe I don’t remember.
    About an hour later I was showered, dressed and ready to go out. Then as I was going down the stairs, my cell phone rang.
    As soon as I answered it I heard Jane’s loud scream. “BLAISE! OH MY GOD! I CANT BELIEVE IT! DID YOU FORGET?”
    “Jane calm down,” I said in a soft voice. “What did I forget?”
    “The dance, it’s in 2 days!” she said in a calmer voice. “And we never got to finish your dress. OH MY GOD! What about Nate? Hasn’t he called? Or spoken to you at school?”
    That’s what I was supposed to remember. I thought, Nate? Called? Ugh, nice going Blaise you probably didn’t answer your phone when he called. School? Ugh I can’t remember it. My life’s been all training.
    “Jane, call Susan and tell her we’re going to her house. We have work to do. I’ll meet you there.” I said.
    “Okay. Bye.”
    I hung up, and went to my missed calls. Wow. There are 29 missed calls, I thought annoyed with myself because I didn’t answer the calls. I skimmed through the first few, which were from, my step-mom. Then after about 4 missed calls, I saw the rest were from, NATE! Oh my gosh. 25 messages! I have to call him back! I dialed Nate's cell number, and waited for him to pickup.
    Nate didn’t answer so I left a message, “Nate, I'm so so sorry, I haven’t answered your calls, and uhh… I've just been so busy. I hope we can still go to the dance together. Bye.”
    I closed the phone and began walking to Susan’s.

    “Blaise!” Susan shouted at me, when she came to answer the door. “C’mon! We have lots of work to do!” Instead of hearing the usually attitude in her voice, I heard something nicer. Weird.
    Susan led me to her basement, which had been claimed, as her band space. Her band was punk, it was really her older brother’s band, but she was an awesome guitar player, so he let her join.
    In the middle of the basement, was a, familiar, pale pink halter dress. My dress, the dress Susan and Jane began making for me about 3 weeks ago. It was nearly finished.
    “Hey Jane, how the dress coming?” I asked, walking over to the, kneeling, blonde haired girl.
    “Perfect, I’ll have it finished in about half an hour. Just need to fix the back. I was keeping it in my basement, but well a few days ago, my brother got at it with a pair of scissors. So there’s a V-shaped hole on one of the legs.”
    I looked at the back of the dress. Like Jane said, there was a v-shaped piece of fabric missing on the left leg.
    “Leave it,” I said to Jane, she looked up confused, “I like it better that way. It looks more umm more like my style.” Jane nodded and stood up. “Now,” I said. “Susan, I have a question, what the heck have you been doing for the last 10 minutes?”
    Susan, who was sitting in a chair, had been playing with her cell phone for the last little while. She rose her head and said “Stefan just asked me to the dance.”
    Jane squealed, “OH MY GOSH! When’d he ask?”
    Susan grinned, “Right before Blaise came.” Jane and I squealed.

    After all the squealing and talk about Stefan, Jane sat down on the beanbag chair, and began to sob. In my ears, her cries were loud and sad. Susan and I ran over to her, and began to ‘attempt’ to figure out why she was crying.
    After 10 minutes of trying, she gave us and answer that we could understand, “It so unfair!” she shouted, her voice was still shaking because she was crying. “Both of you have dates, and I don’t!” she buried her head in her hands.
    I looked up at Susan, who was holding back a laugh. “It’s okay Jane, you don’t need to cry. We’ll find you a date.”
    Susan nodded. “Wait. What about Gavin? Didn’t he ask you before?”
    “Yea, but I said I wouldn’t go with him. I’m not sure if he has a date now.” Jane explained.
    “Well, call him and find out. Here use my phone.” I said and handed her my slick black text phone.
    She took it from my hand and dialled Gavin’s number. “Thanks guys, you’re the best.” And she got up and walked to the corner of the room.

    When she was gone I tried to remember what Stefan and Gavin looked like. I remembered that Stefan was a year older than us, but because he didn’t know much English he was kept in our grade. He had green eyes and wavy black hair. He had recently moved here from Italy, and was already losing his accent. He was a nice and quiet guy. He would be great for Susan.
    When I was thinking of Gavin, I thought of a white hawk. ‘Cause well that’s what his name means. And he looked like a white hawk. His blonde hair was almost white and he had nice brown eyes. He had always been loud, and funny. We had known him since elementary school, he was the kid that would talk back to the teacher and pull pranks. Now he was a quarterback for the school football team.
    Jane came into the room right when I was thinking of how they would look like together. She handed me my phone and said, “He said that he would love to come to the dance with me. And he can’t wait.” She grinned.
    The next few hours were full of planning and joking around.

    Part 9- The mysterious note
    I got up today thinking of all the things that had happened in the last few days. When we finished training, Michael's death and Jane finishing my dress for the dance.
    When I got dressed and went downstairs to leave for school, my step-mom said, “Some boy came here this morning, and told me to give this to you.” She handed me a black envelope with my name written on it.
    I took the envelope from her and went outside. I ripped the envelope open to find a small piece of paper. I read the piece of paper and dropped it. Written on it was:
    ‘If you think your safe, you have no idea what will happen soon. –B.R’
    I folded the paper and put it in my pocket, and ran to school.

    As I walked up to my locker, I thought about the note I found today. I knew that it was from Benji, but why would he send it? And what did he mean by ‘what will happen soon.’
    While I was thinking of this, I didn’t hear someone shouting my name, so when they patted my shoulder, I screamed and jumped.
    “Oh! Sorry to scare you, Blaise!” a low voice, coming from behind me said.
    I spun around to see Nate, standing there, one of his hands still on my shoulder and the other in his jacket pocket. I struggled to say something but before I could, he began talking again.
    “Blaise?” he waved a hand in front of me.
    I grabbed his hand and moved it away from my face, “Yeah, I’m okay, you just scared me. I need to talk to you.”
    “Okay, what do you need to talk to me about?” I asked and looked at him; his eye lids covered half of his eyes.
    “Umm... it can wait, I’ll tell you at lunch, I’ll meet you at the bleachers.” He said and turned around and went to his next class.

    I was ambushed by Jane when I was walking out of my English class; “Hey!” she shouted her voice peppy and loud. “C’mon Susan said she’d get us a table for lunch.” She turned toward the doors outside.
    “Uh… I can’t eat with you guys.” I said turning toward my locker. “I’m going to eat with Nate.” As I said this I saw her eyes widen as she grinned and nodded.
    “Okay, then see you after school.” She turned around and waved at me.
    “Yeah, bye” I waved at her.

    I walked toward the bleachers and saw that Nate was sitting there, with his headphones one. Just the way he always is, addicted to music. When he saw me, he took off his headphones, and took out his iPod and began winding the headphone cord around it.
    “Hi.” I said sitting next to him, on the highest bleacher.
    “Hey. Look I won’t take up your whole lunch hour, so I’ll just come out and say it.” The tone of his voice was a meaner tone than he usually spoke with. “I know you don’t want to go to the dance with me anymore.”
    I opened my mouth to ask him what he was talking about, but before I could, he was speaking again.
    “You could have just told me, so I wouldn’t have made such a big fool of myself.” His voice was louder, and angry. “So you can just go I know you don’t like me so go.” His voice slower and he was panting, like he had just run a marathon.
    “Can I ask you something?” I asked staring at him. He nodded. “Why do you think I hate you?” my tone annoyed.
    “Hmm let me think,” he said bitterly. “You haven’t returned me calls. You’ve been avoiding me, and I-”
    “Avoiding you? I haven’t seen you around school! And I haven’t returned your calls, ‘cause I’ve been busy trai-” I stopped myself in mid-sentence, I was about to tell him I was training. “Whatever it doesn’t matter. I don’t hate you okay. I’ve been in my own world for the past few weeks.”
    He nodded, “Oh. Look I’m really sorry, I just thought that-”
    “I was an insensitive jerk?” I said my voice still tingled with bitterness. “Well I’m not. And I’m sorry I didn’t return your calls. And if you don’t want to go with me to that dance, than okay, you don’t have to, Bye.” I said and turned to leave.
    “No wait!” Nate said, grabbing my hand, “Please, don’t leave, I’m sorry. I really want to go to the dance with you. Please go with me.” His voice was soft and calm, almost pleading.
    I stared at my hand; Nate’s fingers were intertwined with mine. “Okay.” I said still staring at our hands.
    “Great, umm same plans as before,” he said, just as the bell rang. “Uh.. I guess I have to go.” He reluctantly let go of my hand, and ran off to class.