19 Chapter 19: Unknown Point of View (Part 2)

When I gain awareness, I am in the same dark room. Only one thing has changed: Two Spirits stand in front of me, staring. I reach with my mind and feel the Spirits' energies. I realize they are Cognitonis and Cogniton, the twin Spirits of knowledge.

Standing to my left is an old man, standing a couple inches shorter than me, and he has wrinkly, sagging skin and a mess of thin, white hair on top of his head. He has a wispy white beard and silver irises, though he is blind. He stands tall despite his age, and I can see remnants of athleticism in his fading, weathered body. Standing to my right, an old woman, with long silvery hair and the same silver irises is at the same height as the old man; they have similar facial features despite their hair. They both wear silver robes with black embroidery around the edges, shifting and spelling out words in every known language and all the lost ones.

"My boy," the Cogniton begins, leaning on a wooden staff that appears in his hand. "You aren't following your father's footsteps, I see," Cognition strokes his beard while Cognitonis fiddles with a small beaded string and rage swirls within me. I stand and they move closer to me, inspecting me.

"I will build my kingdom, just like my father," I say, rage leaking out into my voice. The Spirits laugh gently and give me smiles that suspiciously look like smirks.

"You think you are so much stronger than the girl," the old woman starts, and I scowl, "But I can already tell she has learned much more than you in a few mortal years as a human than you have in centuries as an untainted Dark creature with much power," The rage in me boils over and I swing a fist at the old man, my chest heaving, but he catches it and twists my arm around my back for a moment before letting it go.

"What do you want, Spirits?"

"Little boy, did you really think you have the strength to penetrate even the weakest barrier protecting the chosen one's mind? We opened the pathway for so you can see." With the last word, the Spirits, in a blur, put their fingers to my temples and I am standing back on the golden trail. The Spirits stand on either side of me.

"Go, into the outermost layer," The woman says authoritatively. I am still angry, but also curious.

"If you can open her mind, are the Spirits more powerful than the chosen one?"

"No, boy, We can only open the pathway for a day the longest. Even then, you will only see flashes of her. We used most of our energy showing you her dream. Most of our brethren cannot even touch her mind, but we can as the girl's mind is filled with knowledge," I am still confused, why would Spirits help me? Brushing off my thoughts, I enter the small arch in the barrier warily and close my eyes before sitting, receiving flashes of the girl.

"Don't forget, boy! See the girl before you make your choice," Cognitonis says, smiling like they know something that I don't. I roll my closed eyes. I have already chosen to stand with my father. I am soon sucked away into a dark waiting space. I sit on the floor while images play on the wall in front of me, too fast for me to comprehend. Then, the first vision comes, drawing me into the screen.

I am again with no form. The girl stands in a beautiful yellow summer dress, with her hair out, a hat on her head, sunglasses on her face, and a clutch in her hands. She stands in front of what I am assuming is her house, watching two teenagers sitting in a dark gray car. I search my mind for the word. Jeep.

She smirks at them and a tall blond-haired boy with sharp green eyes steps out of the car, annoyed. After their conversation and they realize that the girl is Vivienne, they get into the car, laughing. The girl holds herself with pride, but not with a boastful attitude like father.

I am back in the dark room, a little confused. Why would her two friends, really close ones at that, not know who she is? She spoke about hiding herself for years and now she can reveal herself. When she straightened her spine, she looked cold and detached. If I hadn't seen her smirking moments before, I would never have guessed it was a mask, and not her real facial expression.

I wait for hours, pondering this information, before the next vision comes. This time she has taken off her sundress and is sitting in sand, in a huge circle of teenagers. People are calling her Analise now, for some reason. I see they are playing that game of spinning bottles and kissing that teenagers apparently play in this age.

She holds a small magnet in her hand and her friend with the green eyes is spinning the bottle. I feel a foreign sense of magic pointing the bottle to the girl, but she obviously doesn't want to be kissed. She turns the magnet toward the boy, and it turns back to him. This happens three times before he gives up, and I almost miss the regretful look in his eyes.

This is all the girl's schemes. She is playing hard to get, just like the whore she is. I scoff in my head when she shows signs of not caring that multiple boys obviously are after her.

While the girl is still looking at the magnet, another teenager across the circle grabs the bottle. He has blond hair and dark, hooded eyes. Not much muscle, but he is lean. He spins the bottle and it lands on the girl. I see her panic; her features slightly contort as she realizes what happened. In less than a second, I feel a powerful surge of energy and a large gust of wind points the bottle to another girl next to the other boy.

I realize that was her magic this time. Her energy is already awakening. I go back to the dark room, and this time it is only a few minutes before I am sucked back in. I watch overhead as some boy reveals the girl as Vivienne and not Analise, and she and her friends run and escape. I am a little surprised at how fast she runs; though she isn't as fast as any creature, she is without a doubt much faster than other humans.

I am pulled back into the room moments after she and her friends hop into the vehicle, driving away.

I wait for another half an hour before I get pulled in again, the finality of the magic warning me that this is the last vision.

This time, I am inside the girl's mind, an excruciating pain going through my head makes me tremble, but the girl, who is under water, keeps diving down after a small grimace. A sense of urgency runs through her mind. She is trying to save a small girl who is drowning in what seems to be a lake. I watch as she brings the girl to the surface and swims backwards while holding the girl on her torso. I remind myself that she is just a treacherous snake, using her beauty to her advantage and doing things like this to get attention.

Once she is on her knees in the grass, I push a little deeper, watching as the recent events let me go a centimeter deeper into her mind, where I can feel her most powerful emotions. Now she is feeling numb, and I absorb the feeling of the water on skin, sunlight dancing through eyelashes. It is bliss until I feel the green-eyed boy take her hands, concerned. It brings me back and I sneer in my head. I send a shock through her mind which makes her pull away from him like she was burned, satisfying the flame of anger within me.

A slut, treacherous viper, deceiving tempter. No doubt she will not survive the coming war. I leave her mind and body and appear back at the golden trail. I walk back to my own body, seeing that I can move a few fingers now. Still, none of those around me I observe have even woken their minds as I send out invisible tendrils of my magic to feel around.

I receive a little shock as someone's mind wakes up, finally. I reach out with my magic until I find who it is. Pesménos, one of my father's most trusted advisors. I dig into his mind a little when I find that he is…contacting someone. I dig into his mind and sort out many different loopholes and thoughts until I reach something very interesting.