Aurelia took one last look at herself in the full-length mirror, her chest clenched with nerves. The past day, especially the last couple hours had been full of excitement and anxiety and not in a good way. Aurelia traced one finger along the green lace mask that obscured half her face, not fully recognizing herself in the reflection. The fancy braids and curls that shaped her chocolate curls were a style she would never have done in her normal life. The skin on her face was treated with shimmering makeup, though the mask did hide some of it. As she let her hand fall to her side she noticed the toned muscles in her arms, that didn’t exist a couple of months ago.
One thing she could fully recognize in the fancy gilded mirror was her green and brown hazel eyes. That was one thing this place hadn’t taken from her. This world was both magical and terrifying, and Aurelia was forced to adapt in order to survive. Though right at this moment, she wasn’t feeling too optimistic about what kind of future lay in store for her. This world had forced her to become a weapon. A weapon that was to be used for another’s wishes.
Knock! Knock!
Aurelia whirled around towards the door, her right palm shining with an orb of cold blue light. The door opened and a tall handsome man stepped through. Aurelia still couldn’t tell his exact age, his face making him seem not even thirty, but she knew for a fact he was much older. His dark blonde hair was perfectly styled, and his thick beard was neatly trimmed. On his head rested a majestic golden crown encrusted with large rubies. He put up his hands in a sign of defense, but his mouth just turned into a charming smirk.
“Threatening me with your magic won’t help you now, Aurelia.” The king let his hands fall to his sides.
That is when Aurelia noticed the guards stationed behind the man. Aurelia allowed the blue energy to dissipate but didn’t keep her eyes off the king.
“Just because you're the King, Darius, doesn’t mean I won’t blow that smirk right off your face. The only reason that I don’t, is because you have something I want.” Aurelia growled.
The smirk fell from Darius’ lips and turned into a menacing glare. Aurelia would have been scared of the King a couple of months ago, but not now, not after everything she had been through.
“Then you are well to remember, Aurelia,” Darius sneered, “that if you don’t behave,” he walked towards Aurelia, “I can always take that chance away from you.”
Aurelia clenched her fists tightly, “And if you didn’t follow through on your end of the bargain, you would not get what you want. Something you desperately need right about now.”
The king’s eyes flashed with anger. “Then you better get on with the dance, you have some men to charm.” He offered his elbow to her and Aurelia reluctantly took it.
The two of them started to walk out the door when one of the guards stopped them, “Your Majesty, your mask!” The guard offered a black and gold mask that matched the elegant suit the king was wearing.
“Of course.” The soldier held out the mask to Darius, which he took. The King pressed the mask to his face with his hand and released it when the magic kept the mask adhered to his skin.
Darius and Aurelia began their way down a lavish hallway after stepping outside the room. A thick red rug ran across the floor, the floor and walls were made from deep gray stone, and magic orbs on chandeliers dotted along the ceiling to allow sight through the darkened night. Aurelia felt as if she was walking towards her doom. In a way she was. After all those months of training, learning how to fight and use magic was all for nothing. All she wanted was to find a way home, to defeat King Darius so she could find the one who could tell her how to get back home. In these past months, Aurelia had found herself thrust into dangerous situation after dangerous situation, with her ending up between a rock and a hard place.
But it wasn’t quite over for her just yet. This ball was going to change this world forever, just not in the way that Darius had hoped. A blue screen popped up in her vision, something only she could see. It read,
[Message from User [Fritz]: “Everyone is in position, we’ve got your back.”]
Aurelia grinned under her mask. This was going to be fun.
----------------------------------------
“Miss Burgess! Are you with us?” Aurelia jumped when the words reached her ears. She looked up to see her History teacher, Mr. Harlem, reaching towards her with his hand out. “Are you going to turn in your test?”
“Oh! Sorry, Mr. Harlem!” Aurelia gave her finished test to her teacher and stepped away so the next person in line could hand in their test. She walked towards her best friend, Irene, with a grin on her face.
Irene mirrored her grin and then they embraced, “I can’t believe that was our last test on our last day of college!” Irene squealed.
“I know! We can do whatever we want without any care of homework that needs to be done. With graduation in two days, I just can’t wait!” Aurelia and Irene joined the stream of students leaving the testing center and out into the halls of their college campus.
Hundreds of students streamed out into the hallway until it joined with another hallway and there were a couple of thousand students out in the halls of the school. Students pressed together as everyone raced to get outside and away from the memory of the tests they had finished. Some faces looked excited at the prospect of freedom and others worried at how well they had done on their tests.
Aurelia and Irene joined the throng of people as they exited the school into the school grounds. Thankfully, the testing center was near the southern edge of campus and therefore, the student parking lot. Aurelia fished her keys from her backpack as the two girls approached the black Toyota sedan. She opened the driver’s side door as Irene slid into the passenger seat. As soon as the engine was turned on, Aurelia rolled down all the windows, to air out the heated up inside. The mid May sun sent the temperature rising above 90 degrees, a little too hot for Aurelia’s liking.
As Aurelia buckled her seatbelt, Irene turned on the radio, tuning in to the local pop radio station. She turned the volume up until the music blasted out the windows.
The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.
After they got out of the crowded parking lot, Aurelia let out a pent up breath. She felt more relieved now than when she had finished her senior year of high school. Then, the idea of adulthood and college felt exciting and new, but after finally finishing her bachelors degree, she was excited to be done for good with school. College had been much more draining and demanding than her naive self had ever imagined, and it had been difficult to get the good grades that had been easy in high school.
As they drove through the green hills of Tennessee, Aurelia felt grateful for the cold AC air blowing on her face. No matter she had been here for four years now, she could not get over the humid heat.
Irene turned to her, finally speaking over the music to talk to her. “Hey, would it be okay if we stopped by somewhere to get some ice cream?”
Aurelia replied quickly, “You don’t have to tell me twice!”
A minute later they were pulling into a parking spot by the nearest ice cream shoppe. As they were walking towards the door, Aurelia noticed movement in the corner of her eye. She turned her head to the side to see a group of four large men walking in the same direction as them towards the ice cream shoppe. Each of them stood over six feet tall, with half looking like steroid-using bodybuilders and the other two looking muscled, but lean. Aurelia couldn’t help but notice how good looking each of them were. They all had tanned skin and each seemed to have a different color of hair. One had brown hair and a thick brown beard, one with short cropped black hair, another with bright red hair, and another with blonde.
Aurelia nudged Irene as they walked through the door into the cool air of the shoppe. “Dude, look at those guys behind us. They look intense.”
Irene turned around, and Aurelia watched her eyes grow wide. Irene opened her mouth to say something, but was interrupted by a voice behind the ice cream counter. “Hey, what can I get for you two?” The teenage boy behind the counter asked.
Putting aside what she was going to reply earlier, Irene didn’t answer the boy directly, but asked Aurelia, “Do you wanna split?”
Aurelia grinned, “Absolutely!”
Irene turned to the boy and said, “We would like to share a banana split, with cherry chocolate chip, cookie dough, and chocolate brownie ice cream.”
The boy nodded, then began to start scooping ice cream into a larger bowl. At the same moment, the four large men walked inside. Their presence made the sitting area of the shoppe seem much smaller.
Seeing as they couldn’t exactly talk about the men with them standing right beside them, Aurelia took her phone out of her back pocket and started texting. She wrote, [Those guys all look super cute, but also kinda scary]
Irene’s phone dinged and she glanced at the text appearing on her lock screen. She smiled and typed a reply, [I know right! I wonder if they are professional gym goers or something].
Aurelia smiled and then put her phone away, “So, what are your plans for tomorrow?”
Irene put her phone away as well and said, “Well my parents are flying in tomorrow night. But, I don’t really have anything planned before then. I probably need to start packing, though."
Aurelia nodded as she noticed the men in the corner of her eye. They were all checking over the ice cream selection, all except one. The youngest looking man, who looked maybe a couple years older than her twenty-two, was glancing at the two girls. Maybe a couple inches over six feet, he glanced down at them with bright blue eyes, his shaggy blonde hair low over his eyebrows. As he noticed Aurelia glancing back at him, he quickly turned away, looking towards the ice cream flavors.
Aurelia’s attention was taken away from Blondie when the ice cream employee called them over, letting them know their ice cream was ready. Irene paid for the split, and the two went to sit down at one of the booths. Aurelia took a seat facing the door and the four men.
The two girls started up a conversation about plans they wanted to make after graduation. Both girls had family coming to town for the weekend, but would be free to do other things once their families left. All through the conversation, Aurelia kept glancing at the men, and especially the blonde man. Looking at them closer, she noticed that their clothing didn’t seem quite right. They all wore jeans, but not in a common style, lacking zippers and a button. Their shirts seemed to be of a coarser fabric than the average cotton T-shirt, in varying shades of brown. After the men got their ice cream cones, they left, each of them glancing back at the two women before doing so.
Seeing them alone, with the employee going in the back, the two girls gave each other a look. “They gave me a really strange feeling,” Aurelia told her friend.
“I totally feel the same.” Irene said, before shoving a huge bite of banana, ice cream, and whipped cream into her mouth.
----------------------------------------
The next morning, Aurelia heard knocking on their apartment door. With Irene still in the shower, Aurelia went to answer it alone. Standing behind the door was none other than her mother, Rachel.
“Mom!” Aurelia surged forward to give her mom a hug. “Where is dad and Ezra?”
Rachel flipped her chocolate brown hair behind her ear and said, “Ezra needed some more time to finish a project for work, so they’ll be here later tonight. I thought it might be nice to spend a girl's day together before they arrive!”
Aurelia grinned, “Is Irene invited? I know she would love to join us as her parents aren’t here yet.”
Rachel dragged her suitcase inside the apartment, “Of course she is! Is it alright if I leave my bag here while we go out? We aren’t checking into the hotel until the boys get here.”
“No problem! We can leave once Irene and I are dressed and ready.”
The three women left for the mall and spent the day going out to lunch, getting their nails done, and shopping for graduation dresses. The three women went to store after store, looking for the perfect dresses. An hour into their search for dresses, Aurelia noticed something that made her a bit curious. One of the four men from the ice cream shoppe, a large muscular man with black hair and tanned skin, passed them as they were headed towards a new store. Aurelia nudged Irene, and pointed at the passing man.
Irene’s eyes widened in recognition, “Is that one of the men from the ice cream shoppe?”
Aurelia’s mom also turned around to view the black-haired man. “Ooh do you two know him? He’s cute!”
“Mom! No we don’t know him, we just recognize him from yesterday, we saw him and a couple other guys at the ice cream shoppe,” Aurelia replied.
“Yeah, it’s such a coincidence to see him again.” Irene said.
The three women turned the corner into a new area of the mall, and that’s when Aurelia noticed a man sitting on a bench near a stall that sold roasted nuts. He was staring down at the paper bag of nuts in front of him. That wasn’t strange, it was the fact she recognized the brown hair and beard as one of the other men from the ice cream shoppe. As Aurelia, Irene, and Rachel walked closer to where the man sat, he looked up in their direction.
The man’s black eyes made direct eye contact with Aurelia as they passed, and she had a deep feeling in her gut that it wasn’t a coincidence he was there. The man did not seem surprised to see her or Irene, and her neck prickled with the sense of danger. She, Irene, or maybe both of them were being followed.