23

Chapter 4

As he stepped into the restaurant, he immediately recognized his friend that worked there, James, sitting at the same table that he had done the first time he was invited to dinner here. He walked towards the table, a smile slowly creeping onto his face as he approached his friend.

"Hey James," he greeted, sitting down across from him.

James looked up at him with a soft smile on his lips. "Hello Dullminiur. How have you been? It seems like you haven't changed a bit. It hasn't been too long ago that I saw you for the first time, so I guess I shouldn't have expected anything else."

Dullminiur nodded his agreement. "I guess not. Although I did grow taller than you when you first met me," he joked.

"Really?" asked James while raising an eyebrow. "How tall are you again?"

"Six foot. I'm a full six feet now."

"Really?" James repeated. He reached underneath the table and pulled out a glass paperweight. He threw it towards him, which landed square on the tip of his nose.

Dullminiur chuckled as he watched James' reaction. He took a sip of his water and waited for the paperweight to fall to the ground before throwing it back toward James.

The two spent most of the evening laughing over small stuff like this until the waitress brought their plates of food and they both started eating.

After he finished eating, he decided that it would probably be best to check on his friends as he promised his sister. "Do you want to come with me?" he asked James.

"Sure," agreed James and stood up from his chair. "If it's okay, I'll walk with you. I don't want to intrude on your personal time with your brother."

"That's fine. Come on, then."

They walked side by side along the sidewalks of New York City. They chatted for a while, but eventually settled down into an comfortable silence as they made their way around town. Eventually, they reached the place where they always ate whenever they stayed in town. As they passed by the building, it didn't fail to hit Dullminiur how different it looked compared to the last time he had seen it. It was completely abandoned, almost looking like nothing had ever happened in the building.

He pushed the door open and entered, following after James. It surprised him seeing that there was nobody in the restaurant. There weren't any customers waiting for them to start working, but Dullminiur didn't mind. He had come here a couple times during his visits with his parents, but this was the first time that it looked completely empty.

"So what are you doing back here? I thought you were always busy?" asked Dullminiur, confused.

"My work got cancelled yesterday. So I decided to try to relax since my boss wouldn't take me back for today." answered James truthfully.

"Oh. I see… well, I guess I'll go ahead. I'll catch you later."

James waved to him as he headed towards the front desk area. Looking at the time, he realized it was almost time to get home.

When his phone suddenly rang, he pulled it out quickly, knowing instantly who was calling, but hesitated to answer it. 'It probably just wants a report from me on my mission. I'll tell them once I'm home,' he thought to himself before answering.

"Hello?"

"Hi. Is there a certain reason why you aren't talking to me?"

He sighed softly. "Sorry about that. My dad sent a message telling me to hurry back to the house. I'm on my way now."

"Alright. Be careful, alright?"

"Yeah. You also should be careful."

"I will. See you later."

"Bye."

He hung up without even saying goodbye back to her. With the mission done, he was going to head straight home without even paying another visit to his family's home. As he walked out of the restaurant, he noticed someone standing by the entrance. He stopped and turned towards her. She didn't notice him yet, as she was busy talking to one of the waiters, pointing to various objects and talking animatedly. As soon as he saw her, however, he couldn't help but stare at her.

She was wearing an elegant dress with a flowing skirt and a light blue shawl wrapped around her body. A golden necklace was dangling from her neck, but she seemed to have forgotten it as she continued to speak to the waiter. Her short brown hair was curled nicely, framing her pale, delicate face beautifully. She had her hair tied in pigtails with golden ribbons, showing off her beautiful eyes. Even her smile looked absolutely enchanting.

For a moment, he forgot the time and stood there, staring at her, trying to memorize every little detail about her. It seemed like forever that he was standing frozen by the doorway, but he still hadn't moved when she spotted him. She stopped talking and smiled widely, waving happily at him. "Well, hello there. Are you just coming for a quick glance and then going to go home?"

Slowly, he nodded his head. "Yes."

She giggled softly and held out her hand. "Then allow me to introduce myself. I'm Diana, daughter of Lord Vexen."

His heart skipped a beat. "You're Lord Vexen's daughter?" he whispered quietly, taking her hand hesitantly.

Diana nodded. "Yes. I must say, I haven't seen you in a really long time. You look older!"

"Yeah," murmured Dimitriu, feeling a little uncomfortable at the fact that she could probably tell exactly what was happening between them even though they were barely ten years apart in age. "It's been... a good year."

"And do you know what's changed the most?" inquired Diana, smiling as she squeezed his hand slightly. "Not only has time passed since we last saw each other, but you've grown taller than me." she said, chuckling lightly.

Ddimitriu let out a nervous laugh as he glanced away nervously, scratching the back of his neck.

Diana gave him a curious look. "I hope that doesn't bother you," she said gently. "I just didn't expect to see you here again so soon after we last spoke."

Ddimitriu shook his head no. "It's not that," he responded, glancing over at the counter. He couldn't bring himself to look back at her directly, even though he wanted to more than anything right now, but he knew if he did, it would make things awkward for him. He figured that he needed to leave before they were both stuck in the middle of some awkward situations.

"Okay. Well, I guess that was nice meeting you and all, but I really need to get going," explained Dimitriu awkwardly, stepping backward as far as he possibly could.

"Oh of course! Have a wonderful day, Dimitriu!" replied Diana cheerily. "Have fun being tall."

Before he had any chance to respond, she quickly turned around and started walking towards her father. He stared after her for a few seconds, watching as she went towards him, trying to calm down his rapidly beating heart. Forcing a smile onto his lips, he forced himself to turn around, hoping desperately that they wouldn't remember what had happened in the restaurant that evening even though he already knew that it was unlikely.

As he walked through the streets of New York City in his car, he kept thinking back on the event he had with Diana. She was definitely very beautiful; he couldn't believe how much she looked like the real her, although he was sure that it was only a matter of time before she actually grew up and became an adult version of herself.

'At least she'll definitely find something attractive about me once she gets old enough to realize what I actually am,' he thought to himself as he thought about his own future. 'Even if my face isn't quite as pretty or as handsome as hers is now...'

A sudden knock on the window interrupted his thoughts, causing him to jump. 'What was that?!' he thought as he glanced out of the window. After a second, he realized what he was looking at: an enormous black dog sitting in the driver's seat of a large white Cadillac. It was parked in front of the car, its big, yellow eyes shining out at him curiously.

After pulling himself together, Dimitriu took a deep breath and rolled down his window, letting out a loud sigh. "Look, Buddy. I'm sorry to tell you, but I'm in a bit of a rush right now. I'm kind of in a situation at the moment. Would you please move along?"

The dog began baring its teeth at him and giving a low growl at the same time. Dimitriu immediately felt a chill run down his spine.

'Great, now I'm starting to get spooked… What is wrong with me? Why am I being affected this badly by this dog?' he thought to himself.

"Buddy, please, just go home. Please don't get any closer to my car. Just keep running around it until I can find a place to park somewhere. Alright?"

The dog sat patiently next to the car for a few minutes, but Dimitriu could tell that it wasn't going anywhere anytime soon. The dog finally gave up and walked back around the corner, disappearing out of sight.

Sighing heavily, Dimitriu returned his attention back onto the road. At the beginning of his journey home, he had taken several side roads, hoping the dog wouldn't follow him home, but thankfully it never came back.

Pulling up in front of his house, he stepped out of the car and headed inside. His parents weren't at home, which surprised him a little. After locking up his car, he headed up to his room.

Walking into his room, he closed the door behind him and leaned against it as he sighed heavily.

'Now I feel really stupid for getting so spooked. This dog looks so harmless, and I shouldn't be afraid of a few stray dogs. But it's just too easy for me to fall prey to this strange power that's been awakened within me. I mean, it's been dormant for three days! Why is this happening?'

Suddenly he heard a noise coming from below his floor. Jumping a foot in the air and turning around, he caught a glimpse of a large black shape underneath his bed. His heart stopped and he began backing away slowly. Suddenly, a loud bang sounded and Dimitriu jumped forward toward the bed. He fell back as the huge dog appeared at the end of his bed. Dimitriu stared at him for a few moments, terrified of the creature. After a moment, the creature began jumping up and down excitedly on the bed, making it bounce up and down and causing it to slip dangerously close to his legs. As Dimitriu watched the dog, panic set in as he realized that his leg was touching the edge of the bed. Without hesitation, he backed up and tried to pull away. The bed tipped forward, threatening to send him flying across the room. As it started moving closer to his feet, his mind went completely blank. The only thing he could think of was to escape. He pushed himself away from the edge of the bed with every ounce of strength he had left. Just before his legs touched the ground, he pulled his body upwards and managed to reach the top of the bed. He lay there for a second catching his breath, staring at the ceiling in shock before he slowly climbed off the bed. Once he was lying flat on the ground on the other side of his bed, he slowly got up, still holding onto his side. Looking around the room, he noticed several boxes of pizza boxes lying on the floor next to his desk. 'Shoot, I'm starving,' he groaned mentally. 'Why don't I clean that up later?'

'But where am I supposed to sleep tonight?'

He suddenly froze as he heard a soft growl. Looking up, he met golden glowing brown eyes with his own pale green ones. In that moment, he could have sworn that he saw pure white fur underneath the dog's thick coat and fluffy white tail that almost reached his chest.

Without another thought, Dimitriu ran out of his room and down the stairs of his apartment building. He ran outside and quickly made his way towards one of the parking lots. However, when he made it inside one of them, he paused. A flash of light flashed in front of him, causing Dimitriu to freeze. Glancing down at his hands, he noticed that they were now completely transparent.

"How are you doing this? Did I kill somebody today or something?" he asked aloud. "Am I going crazy? I can't be seeing things..."

Glancing around nervously, he found that his surroundings seemed to shift and shimmer, but they weren't the familiar colors that he used to associate with magic. Instead, they reminded him of the color blue and purple with specks of gold and silver dancing around them. It wasn't unpleasant to look at it, but he wished that it weren't changing colors constantly.

Dimitriu tried to look at whatever was going on, but before he could do that, a loud sound rang in his ears, sending him flying backwards. He hit the ground hard with a thud, pain shooting up the whole length of his left arm. The pain made him lose the grip on what remained of his arm, leaving it laying lifelessly next to him.

'This is worse than I remembered. Why does everything seem to be moving so fast? Am I having some sort of delayed reaction to the effect of the spell? But why would I have a delayed reaction like this? Is there something else wrong besides my arm?' He continued to question his current situation while struggling to get to his knees, his eyes wide open as he looked around him for help. All the while, a dark shadow crept closer to him as it stood above him, towering over him even further than usual.

As the darkness moved closer, the shadow shifted ever so slightly, revealing the shape of a cat crouching down next to him.

"You're okay, Dimitriu. Calm down. Everything will be fine. It was only a dream," said a calming voice that he instantly recognized.

"Alexei? What are you doing here? And how did you know that I was having a nightmare?" Dimitriu said as he slowly pushed himself off the ground using his arms and slowly sat himself up.

"I was waiting downstairs for you to wake up so I could help you out with your dreams. I figured that it might help you get better faster," Alexei replied. "I also wanted to see if you were okay; otherwise, I didn't want you falling asleep in class again. So, I waited for you to wake up. You didn't need to worry because I knew that you would be able to deal with it in time."

As Alexei continued speaking to Dimitriu, he turned his attention downward towards his hand and noticed that it was completely solid.

'What in the world just happened?'

Before either of them said anything, Alexei suddenly grabbed both Dimitriu and his hand and brought them together in a fist. He then started to rub his fist between his fingers as he continued talking.

"It's true that I don't possess the ability to read minds or control the elements of nature. However, I'