Here’s chapter two of my current project! Let me know if you want more!
Chapter 2: Extraction
Ayden looked around, curious about this new dream.
It had to be a dream. People didn’t just randomly get pulled into elevators. Ayden had always had weird dreams, and she was usually aware during them and could control them to some degree. She decided she had been lulled into a stupor by Mr. Dodds’ florescent-light-toned voice, and she was going to enjoy whatever this dream was. It was certainly going to be more interesting than physics.
The elevator was crowded with people around her own age, of all shapes, sizes and colours. There were maybe fifteen of them; some looked Asian or European, some looked Latino, some looked African-American. The clothes they were wearing were also from all over the place. She looked at one guy who was wearing board shorts and a muscle shirt, wondering how he could stand the Edmonton chill in the middle of March. Then she remembered this was a dream.
Horrendous easy-listening music was playing softly. The people around Ayden shuffled and looked around, seemingly as confused as she was. That was weird, seeing as this was a dream. The other people in her dreams usually weren’t surprised to be there.
“Uhm, who are you guys and where are we?” asked a short, stocky African-American girl standing near her.
Everyone shrugged and looked baffled. “I don’t know, little one, but it looks like we are all in the same boat - er, elevator,” said a massive, heavily muscled guy with an Eastern European accent.
The African-American girl scowled at him. “Don’t call me little one, you overgrown sack of muscles,” she said aggressively. “You just wait until I-“
Luckily, whatever argument or fight was going to transpire between the two mismatched opponents was interrupted when a pleasant female voice said “Great Hall,” and the elevator doors opened to reveal a tall, thin man wearing a crisp black suit.
Ayden was more confused than ever. To the best of her knowledge, she’d never dreamt of being in an elevator before, especially not with such a rag-tag bunch of people and being greeted by a guy who looked like a live-action version of a cartoon supervillain. Usually her dreams involved dragons, swords, palaces, and Amelia Earhart. The most recent one she could remember, before the disturbing nightmares from last night that she could not recollect, had been a very entertaining and dashing rescue of Chris Pine from a large, angry echidna somewhere in Australia. So the elevator thing was weird in a very different way than her usual dreams were, which was that the dream wasn’t actually weird at all. It was quite mundane.
The blonde dude in the board shorts took one look at the man outside the elevator and fainted. No one bothered to catch him - they just stepped back in surprise.
“Follow me,” said the man in the black suit in a jagged tone that further emphasized his resemblance to a supervillain. His dark hair was slicked back from a pale, pointed face, and a thin moustache adorned his lip. His black suit made him look like he was going to a funeral. The pale tint of his skin made him look like he was the corpse going to the funeral.
The rest of the group in the elevator followed, seemingly in a daze. Ayden hung back, hoping to avoid notice or maybe re-direct this dream into something more interesting. Pointy-Face-Supervillain sneered at Board Shorts and said to Ayden, “Bring that.”
Ayden stared at Pointy Face. “That guy weighs like twice as much as me. I can’t carry him,” she pointed out. Pointy Face scoffed and rolled his eyes, snapping his fingers. Board Shorts floated a foot or so off of the floor, upright, with his head lolling to one side.
“Ooooooh-kay,” Ayden said, “why would you even ask me to do it if you can do magical … floaty magic or whatever?” She cringed inwardly at her eloquence. Pointy Face ignored her and moved to the front of the group.
He lead them down a hallway with walls of black marble towards a massive set of wooden double doors. Ayden gasped as she looked at the doors. They were of a pure black wood that she couldn’t identify, inlaid with silver designs and carved with utmost skill and beauty. Her artist’s mind started working overdrive. What kind of wood is that? How’d they inlay the silver like that? Is that actual silver or just paint? She took so long taking in the craftsmanship of the doors that she barely had time to notice the emblem on them - a wreath of leaves, each with a symbol carved into the silver, and a silvery phoenix in the center with its wings spread wide.
As the doors opened, Ayden saw what looked like a hotel conference room with massive windows along one wall. It was so ordinary that Ayden was almost relieved. Oh good, she thought. This will be the end of the dream and the portal back to physics class.
That’s when she realized something was very wrong. She would rather be in physics class than in this weird dream. She hated physics class more than anything else she’d ever done. This must be a terrible nightmare. Aren’t nightmares supposed to be, like scary and fantastical? she asked herself. Maybe I’m subconsciously terrified I’ll be bored to death in a conference?
She looked around for signs of terrible monsters or guitar-wielding country singers (these had featured in her nightmares several times before). She saw only long, rectangular tables with comfortable looking chairs. Each chair had a card in front of it with a name.
Seating arrangement, she groaned inwardly. Now I’m certain it’s a nightmare, even without the country music.
She stood still and concentrated, trying to redirect the dream or wake herself up. Nothing happened. She shrugged and decided there was nothing better to do than find her seat. It was better than standing in the doorway.
About 30 other kids the same age as her were milling around and looking at the name cards, trying to find their seats. Some had found theirs and were sitting as if it was a throne. Others wandered with hunched shoulders and tried to melt into their seat when they found it. Ayden looked around. Eventually she found her seat near the front (why did it have to be in the front?). Her name was inscribed in silver lettering on a black card, with strange looking runes underneath:
Ayden Hestia Brand
Ayden stared at the strange runes. They looked familiar somehow - were they Viking letters? She sat down and picked up the card. The letters were actually engraved onto thick cardstock. Fancy, she thought.
Pointy Face floated Board Shorts to a seat near the back of the room. He dropped him unceremoniously into the chair and Board Shorts woke with a start. “Wha? Elevator!” he shouted. A few people giggled. Most were having the same thoughts. Pointy Face disappeared through a smaller black door at the front of the room.
Ayden looked to either side of her. On one side was the massive Eastern European guy from the elevator. On the other was a slight girl with golden blonde hair, wearing a uniform that looked like it was from a private school.
As far as Ayden could tell, these people had nothing in common. They were all so different. The only thing they had in common was the looks of confusion on their faces. Even the ones who sat like they owned the place looked confused about what exactly they owned.
Her hope that this was some kind of bizarre dream-nightmare was fading. Her brain couldn’t really process what was happening in any other way, although she’d always been one to believed in things that everyone else thought was nonsense - Sasquatch, Nessie, UFOs, all that stuff. She decided to let her brain just go with the flow until some sort of more reasonable explanation could be reached, because she was quickly coming to the conclusion that this was not a dream. Dreams were never weird on this level, or so boring, as finding your seat and waiting for….something.
Finally, when it seemed everyone was seated, silence fell and the black door at the front of the room opened. Pointy Face came back, accompanied by a very old man in black robes with silver trim. He wore a large silver pendant that matched the symbol on the door. His grizzled grey beard and wild hair made him look like a knock-off Einstein, if Einstein was about four hundred years old. His strange dress puzzled Ayden. What is this, Jedi training?
Pointy Face clapped his hands to get their attention, which was completely unnecessary, but he seemed to take pleasure in doing it. “Ducit Sapienter? If you would.”
The man in black robes stepped onto the dais at the front of the room and raised his arms to his sides. “Welcome, initiates,” he said in a deep, carrying voice. “I know you must be rather confused and possibly traumatized by your Extraction. All shall be explained in time. We have on-site counselling for those of you who will have nervous breakdowns.”
Oh, that’s a good sign, Ayden mused. On-site shrinks. This place must be really comfortable and welcoming. She had not failed to notice that Knock-Off Einstein said “will have nervous breakdowns”, not might.
“Allow me to begin by stating that this is not a dream. This will be made clearer during the Determination ceremony.”
The last glimpse of hope that this was a physics-induced comatose state of boredom faded. She wondered exactly how the fact that this was not a dream would be made clear to her.
“You have been brought here,” Knock-Off Einstein continued, “because you will all turn, or have turned, sixteen years of age this year. You are on the brink of your maturity, and once you reach the age of Determination, you can no longer inhabit the mortal world without the proper training. This is for your safety as well as that that of the mortals within a 500 kilometre radius of you.”
This speech was so utterly ridiculous that Ayden felt a slightly hysterical laugh bubbling up in her chest. She suppressed it. Her head was spinning, her brain working so fast trying to figure out what was going on that she could not distinguish one thought from another.
“Each of you has special…talents,” Einstein said, as though the word “talents” was a complete understatement, but the kindest phrase he could come up with for something unpleasant, “and once you reach the age of your Determination, your powers will be unleashed, and if you are not trained, things can get rather messy. For this reason, you are separated from society until you can learn to control your powers.
“This is all very complicated, and I do not wish to overload you with information right now when you are all still dazed from your Extraction, but for now understand that you have the power to control certain elements of nature. In this place you will learn how to do that without destroying yourself and everything around you.”
Dazed looks greeted this statement. Some people looked pensive. Ayden thought back to her own life. You have the power to control certain elements of nature… Something stirred in her memory that she could not place. It had something to do with camping trips in the mountains with her dads…
“The Determination ceremony will now begin. Danielson, if you would begin.”
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