Chapter 7

I was thrown just like a stone tossed into the sea, and before I could even curse him, I was already immersed into the deep sea, gasping desperately for air.

I didn't even know how to swim and panic set in as I thought I was going to drown.

"Don't struggle Aurelia, stay calm and breathe",I heard Raquel's voice in my mind. Was he communicating me through telepathy now? Was my mind playing tricks on me? And how was I even supposed to breathe under water?

"Your mind is not playing tricks on you Aurelia, you need to trust me and stay calm. Breathe",his voice invaded my mind again.

I decided to trust him or his voice for once and stopped struggling, and tried to breathe in, although I wasn't sure how it was going to work since I was a human and not a fish.

As I breathed in, I felt the water entering through my nostrils, but surprisingly, it didn't hurt and I could breathe just fine as though it wasn't water but oxygen.

"Now that you know you can breathe, kick in your legs and stretch out your arms and do what you can do",Raguel's voice said.

"Gee, thanks a lot Raguel. So glad for the clarity",I retorted to him in my mind, furious at him for not giving me proper instructions.

'Do what I can do?',and what was it that I could do underwater, when I couldn't even swim? It was already a miracle that I could breathe in water like air, but it was another thing to swim and catch fish, while trying desperately not to drown.

"You're not going to drown",I heard him say and though I didn't believe him much, I had no choice not to.

I tried to do as he instructed me, and got the hang of it and I finally managed to swim to the surface.

I was excited that I could breathe in water but at the same time frustrated at Raguel for throwing me off guard.

"You still haven't caught any fish yet. We don't have the whole day",he simply said as I fumed at him and dived into the sea once more to do as I was told, catch fish.

I couldn't,for the life of me, catch hold of even a single fish as they seemed to slip right through my hands so I told Raguel that I couldn't catch it.

"Aren't you replying to me now Mr. Raguel, or were you just telling me to catch it because you couldn't as well?",I questioned him from under the water still.

Just as I was about to swim back up, he came beside me and in no time, caught a big fish without any struggle, as though the fish itself wanted to be caught by him.

As if, that wasn't humiliating enough, he did that a couple of times before he had caught enough fish to feed a few people.

I looked at him in disbelieve, but considering how he could fly and read minds, I shouldn't have been too surprised,but it still didn't stop me from wondering what else he could do.

"Could I have done it as well?",I asked him as I came out of the water. I was completely dripping wet and leaving my marks as I made way towards him, but unsurprisingly, he was completely dry, as though he hadn't even come near the water.

"Mr. Raguel, just how did you dry yourself up so fast? And how were you able to catch all these fish when I couldn't even catch a single one?Is there some special technique to that",I fired my questions at him and he simply tossed a fish at me to start cleaning I guessed.

Though I was feeling uncomfortable in my wet clothes, I followed his movements and cleaned the fish that he threw along my way.

"Here, I'm all done. I did just like how you cleaned it",I said as I handed him the fish I had cleaned, proud of myself for having cleaned it well.

"Dry yourself up first and then start cooking the fish",he said, without even explaining to me on how I would be drying myself.

Was this how my training for two years was going to be? Reading between the lines of his words?

"Care to elaborate on how to dry myself?",I said dryly, not bothering to care whether I sounded rude or not.

"You let the fire in you course through your body",he said as though it was something as simple as breathing air.

I knew I wasn't going to get much more tips from him, so I focussed my attention on the fire I had felt last time. I channeled my anger and focussed on the fire inside of me, but instead of drying me, like Raguel said, it was instead burning the fish in my hand.

I left the fish in a rock nearby and tried again, but nothing happened.

"You need to control the fire and not let the fire control you",he told me and I tried once more,and this time, I focussed my whole attention in one part and slowly let the fire course throughout my body.

Sure enough, my body felt warm and slowly, it became dry, including my wet dripping clothes.

"Wow,cool",I exclaimed and though he scorned at my reaction, I saw him giving a sneer when he thought I wasn't watching him.

"Do we cook the fish the normal way or do you use your powers to cook?"I asked him, now eager enough to know more about my own abilities.

He flicked his finger on my forehead and said,"Do you see any wood nearby?".

I looked around, while rubbing my forehead where he had hit, and saw that there weren't anything we could use to build a fire, so I understood that we had to use our own fire to cook the fish, and got excited to see how he would cook it.

He pointed at two flat rocks and instructed me to clean it, and I obediently went to pick them up to clean.

After much struggle, I managed to take them out of its original spot and take it to the shore to clean it, and brought it to where he was.

"Watch and do as I do",he said as he handed me one of the rocks and place one near him. He laid the fish on the flat rock and built a wall of fire around the rock, which cooked the fish with the heat.

I watched him and tried to copy him, but I struggled to keep the fire burning like him, as within a few seconds, the fire would just die down.

"You have a lot of pent up emotions, which hinders your abilities",he said as he observed me, and I wondered if he didn't have any emotions at all, to make him so powerful.