We continued on until we found a giant ravine, that looked like it contained no bottom just to the right of us. And just in front of us was a tiny, narrow, stone bride that was broken off in various places, so in order to cross one would have to jump from stone to stone. The bridge was just wide enough to allow someone to place on foot in front of the other while walking across it. I couldn’t help but get excited because it looked like it could be an exit. So I ran as fast as I could towards the bridge, I began tasting blood because I was running so hard and getting exhausted so fast. No matter how much I ran though, the bridge didn’t seem to be getting any closer and Linley was still standing right beside me. “I don’t understand. Why can’t I run towards it?”

“This is an illusion set out by the creatures of the cave to tire people out before they are able to access their hidden magic.” Linley reached forward to try and touched an invisible barrier that covered the ravine, then he continued, “I’ve only heard of things like this, I never thought that they were actually real. We better keep moving before we find ourselves entrapped in another illusion.”

We better keep moving before we find ourselves entrapped in another illusion.”

My eyes started to tear up but I knew that there was no use getting worked up about something that wasn’t even real in the first place. “Alright” I sighed. We walked away for a while and just when I thought I could rest Linley turned to me and said, “You ready to practice some more?”

“Yep.” I closed my eyes and focused on the light and dark magic inside of me. I imagined them splitting apart from one another the dark magic disappearing, and the light magic moving to my hands; filling them up with its heat. I formed small light ball in my head and when I opened my eyes I saw it hovering over my hands. ‘Now for the hard part’ I think. I took a deep breath, closed my eyes and made the small light pop in the air. For a moment I stand there not knowing what to do.

Then Linley grabbed my hands and shook them. Then the thought entered my mind ‘I just made the light disappear without anything exploding.’ My face lit up with a smile and a little school girl giggle escaped my mouth. Being excited with my small accomplishment I hugged Linley and held onto him as tight as I could. Linley suddenly went stiff, as if nobody’s physically touched before.

When I let go Linley returned to his normal stance and the only thing he said was, “Again.”

My first couple of tries felt like I would never gain my confidence back, but by the fourth time I got the hang of my magic and I was able to make the light pop above my hands every time. When I finished Linley smiled at me for more than ten seconds.

After he gave a nod of improvement he took his bag off of his shoulder and passed me an apple and the canteen of water as my reward for my hard work. We walked over to the closest wall and sat down to enjoy our small meal. We didn’t say a work the entire time. It was nice to be in his company and not have to worry about building up my strength, even if it was only for a short amount of time. When we finished we dropped our cores on the ground as we stood up and walked away. Out of nowhere we got hit in the back of our heads with apple cores. We tried to ignore it, but the longer we ignored it the harder we got hit.

Linley couldn’t stand it anymore, I could see his anger building up inside of him, and he formed a fist in both hands, swiftly turned around then yelled, “FINE YOU WANT A FIGHT YOU’VE GOT ONE!”

When I turned around an army appeared out of thin air. They were all built out of sticks, rocks and dirt. It was as if clumps of dirt piled on top each other eventually forming the outline of a humanlike creature. The sticks outlined its limbs and head, which the dirt then filled in and the rocks looked as though they were in a line up the sides of the army to be used as a weapon if needed. When the army moved they moved as one being.

Linley looked at me and asked, “You ready to test your power out on an enemy?”

Stunned by the number that now stood in front of me I lowered my head and quietly said, “I guess so.”

“Good, cause here they come!!” Linley then ran full force into the army of demons burning as many as he could, with his magic, while he ran past them. He was able to create a path for himself to run through; however, in almost no time at all he was completely surrounded by the army. “Jasmine help I can’t defeat this army by myself!! I need you.”

I perked my head up and thought ‘he needs me, well there’s no point in letting him down now.’ My body felt a sudden to save Linley. I closed my eyes and imagined the entire army exploding from my magic.

When I slowly opened my eyes the entire army was gone, all that remained was burnt ground where the army use to stand and Linley in a ball covering his face. I didn’t even notice that my hands were raised until Linley came up to me and lowered my hands for me. My eyes began to fill up with tears as I began to think what could have happened to Linley if he didn’t have his magic to protect himself.

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He grabbed my shoulders and said, “I can’t believe you took out that entire army. I’m so proud.”

Feeling guilty I spoke the truth, “actually… seeing them all gone was a surprise to me too.”

Linley took a step back and asked, “What do you mean?”

“Well… you see… I just saw them all being burnt in my head, and when I opened my eyes they were all gone.”

“So you’re saying that you had no control what so ever?”

I lowered my head and with a sniffle I answered, “No.”

“That’s a problem. At this rate you’re going to kill yourself before we even get close to our goal. You’re going to have to control your magic before you try and use it again. Understand?”

“Yeah.” I took a deep sign and walked away from him.

The rest of the day was more of the same, me practicing my magic to have better control of it. By the time Linley told me to stop since he was getting tired and needed sleep I was exhausted and fell into a deep sleep as soon as I laid down.

The crumbling noise around me was so loud that I could barely keep calm. My head started to pound and I couldn’t concentrate on what I needed to do. I couldn’t separate myself from the outside noise from what was running throughout my head. Finally, anger built up inside of me and I couldn’t take it anymore. I screamed as loud as I could for the noises to stop, but they just kept getting louder and louder. I tried placing my hands over my ears to block out the noise but it was too loud.

Without a second thought I put my hands out straight in front of me. I could feel my dark energy pulsing through my body and then it shot out of my hands and formed a small ball. I stayed like that until the noise stopped. There was finally silence all around me and I could hear my own thoughts again. Nevertheless, a bad feeling crept up on me. When I opened my eyes I was welcomed with a horrid sight.

Linley was laying on the ground holding his stomach. As I inched closer to him I noticed light ball marks all over his body. ‘I’ve done this’ I thought. My eyes started to tear up as I backed away slowly from his body. I couldn’t take my eyes off of his dead body. Tears were now pouring down my face and I could no longer control them. Before long I was crying like I had never cried before. I dropped to my knees and started crying into my hands, which were now vibrating from how scared I was. Even though my vision was blurred I could still make out the outline of Linley’s body.

The next few hours I couldn’t even move and the only thing I was capable of doing was rocking back and forth in a ball as a way to calm myself down. My head started to hurt from the amount that I had been crying, so I laid down on my side, closed my eyes and tried to go back to sleep. But my sleep was restless, anytime I closed my eyes I just saw myself killing Linley over and over again. No matter how many times I saw it, the pain never got easier, and no matter how hard I tried I could never prevent it from happening. I couldn’t help the nightmare anymore so I opened my eyes for real and sat up as quickly as I could, only to find the body of my friend only a few feet away.

I was afraid that he was dead for real so I shouted him name to make sure my nightmare was only that, a nightmare. “LINLEY!!!!!!” I woke up drenched in sweat. I couldn’t see out of my eyes past my tears that had formed in my sleep.

With a sleepy sound in his voice Linley asked, “What is it?”

*sniffle* “I saw you die because I lost control of my magic and there was nothing I could do to stop it.”

*sniffle. *

“That won’t happen. Just go back to sleep and try and forget about it. You think you can do that?”

“Yeah” I lied. ‘There was no way something that horrible I could just forget about’ I thought. The rest of the night I refused to sleep because I was scared that my nightmare would come back. So I laid on my back and stared upwards thought about what my hometown would be like once I finally made it out of the cave. Before I knew it Linley was awake and ready to start the day’s training.