6 The Beginning

Rushing out of bed in a cold sweat, The feeling from last night comes back, the fear, the anxiety. It all hurts, the walls feels as if they're closing in on me bit by bit. My breathing is rugged, My vision is blurry, all I can think of is those men. I try to reach out for anything and I touch a surface with a fabric on top. I take a second to feel it and it fills me with comfort, I take the second to notice my surroundings. I am in my room, nothing is here to hurt me, for now. I calm my breathing, It seems that my mom had taken me to my bed after I fell asleep last night. I look over to Lynn's bed, she is still sleeping surprisingly. It seems I've woken up at the usual time. I have to get ready to meet Luelle, I head over to Lynn's bed to check on her. She is deep asleep, she looks so calm that it starts to rub off onto me. I give her a kiss on the cheek.

"I'm sorry Lynn, but you can't come with me anymore to see Luelle."

I whisper as I head over to where the cloak that man gave me was left. I get myself bathed and ready to take off. Now that I actually see myself getting ready to leave, fear flows all through me as I remember what happened last night. I don't want a repeat of that, so I pray to the gods that this cloak works. I steel myself as I leave my bedroom and head into the living room. Doesn't look like my mom is here, maybe she went out to get some groceries. I then try my hardest to make my way towards the door. I hesitate to reach my hand for the handle as the door feels like its emanating an evil aura. I hold on tightly to the cloak as I lift the hood up and reach for the door handle. Opening the door felt like an eternity, like time had slowed down as I was slowly exposing the outside to myself. Soon the door was fully open and my nerves couldn't be any worse. I take the step outside and just stare at the ground as I continue walking. I sort of know where I have to go while I take glances up and back onto the street. In a rush I accidentally bump into a man and I fall to the ground by accident, he seems to have dropped something as well. I look up to him,

"I'm so sorry! Forgive me!"

The man looks down at me, crouches down and grabs what seemed to be a folder. He looks at me with an expression I have barely ever seen before, it wasn't fear, sadness, or anger. It felt, normal; as if he didn't see me as a devil. He lets out a sight,

"It's okay, just watch where you're going next time."

He walks off with nothing else to say. I take a deep breath and get up from the ground. I double take at the man who had just walked off, making sure he hadn't noticed what I was; He just passed by as if nothing else had happened. After another deep sigh I look around at others who are passing by and they don't really seem to pay me any mind. Confidence rises up as I continue to walk to where me and Luelle agreed to meet. I had safely managed to make my way out of the town. As I walk through the forest my nerves return close to normal, and I manage to fully calm down once I see Luelle in the distance. I take off my hood and wave over as I walk at a faster pace towards Luelle. She notices me and a smile can be seen from her face as she walks to me as well.

"Namea!"

She stops in front of me and her facial expression changes for a second as she seems to look around me.

"Is Lynn not with you this time?"

As I stop in front of Luelle I just stare at her, I feel so overwhelmed with sadness. I try to hold back my tears, but my efforts were fruitless. Remembering that night made the tears in my eyes flow through despite my attempts to hold back. Without hesitation I go in for a hug, Luelle being caught off guard had taken a second before committing to the hug. I try to get my voice out amidst the tears.

"You don't know how happy I am to see you Luelle."

We both then end our hugs once I began to collect myself, and she looks at me with a sad expression on her face.

"Did something happen? What's wrong?"

I look at her after wiping my tears. I take a deep breath as I try to calm myself as I begin to explain to Luelle what had happened last night. Her expression had really taken a complete opposite turn as she takes in the severity of what is said.

"How could they do that to you! That is just awful. I can't imagine how you feel."

I look down at the ground, clutching the cloak in my hands trying to muster up any courage to say anything more than what was said. Grabbing onto my cloak makes me remember what the man who had saved us had said. It motivated me; I then looked up at Luelle,

"I am still determined to learn magic. I want to learn magic, otherwise this will keep happening."

Luelle taken aback by my attitude, clears her throat and then confidently looks at me,

"Then follow my lead, I'll make sure you can properly learn the basics like I did."

I smile at Luelle and manage to hold back my tears. I nod in agreement and say,

"Where do I start?"

She takes a second to respond as she thinks,

"Well, I'd assume it'd be trying to call upon the elements, without destroying everything within the vicinity of yourself. That might be a good start, then we can get on to actually manipulating the elements as proper magic."

I nod in understanding. Luelle then grabs both of my hands and looks at me.

"Yesterday what did you do to call upon the wind?"

I think for a moment back to when I had tried to call upon the wind, when the memory comes to me I explain,

"In that moment I remembered reading in the book that I had to focus on the wind near me. Then Eventually I had lost all perception of my surroundings and only the wind. It felt dark, and I wasn't able to snap out of it until I had heard your voice call out to me, and that's where it all stopped."

Luelle thinks to her self and then after a second seems to have an idea.

"I think I understand the issue; you are probably putting so much focus into the element that you end up slipping into a sort of dream state where everything besides the element you are calling upon disappears. I had that happen to me a few times, but I had never put the area around me in danger like you had done."

I respond in turn,

"That may be it, I just don't know how to keep myself locked onto not only the surroundings but also the element."

"That's exactly the solution, you need to keep your surroundings in consideration and also keep the amount of focus on the element stable, the more focus you put on the element, the more power will be put out. So the key is making sure you are focused on the element, but not too much or everything around you will be in danger. If you take the whole time you can knock out the callings in a whole day, they are the easy part."

I nod at her and we begin our own respective training. I keep a good distance from Luelle in case I end up putting too much power out. I take a deep breath and focus on my surroundings, making sure that I keep enough focus on the element. I try and I try to focus but I can't seem to fully get the hang of it. after about thirty minutes of trying I manage to catch a glimpse of the wind around me. I try to hang onto that and put a tiny bit more focus every hour as it becomes bigger and bigger. Eventually I am able to keep my eyes open and manipulate the wind around me like a breeze of air. I can also pick up the pace a tiny bit before it becomes too much and my power seemingly cuts itself off. As time had seemingly passed, it was about that time where Luelle and I leave to go home. I begin to feel confident in being able to call onto the wind with ease now. I go over to Luelle as she seems to be getting ready to leave.

"I did it! I can call upon the wind now."

I then call upon the wind to move around my arm and then around her as well. She looks at me with a very happy face.

"I'm so happy for you Namea. Once you are able to call upon all the elements then you can begin the physical training along with me. Especially testing the amount of stress my light barrier can take before breaking."

I nod at her and say,

"I'll do my best."

We then go our separate ways. Over the course of the next four days I spend my time with Luelle trying to call upon each element, with fire I could make a small candlelight flame upon each of my fingers, water was similar to wind where I could move it around my body and surroundings. When calling upon the earth I could make small cracks in the ground as if there was a tiny earthquake, Lightning was also similar to fire where I could make a jolt in my fingers appear, they didn't really have any affect when I brought it close to my skin so it didn't have any harmful attributes. But now that I have begun to successfully call upon the elements I can begin actually learning how to cast magic, I've been waiting so long for this.