I couldn’t breathe. I was as if my lungs were only being filled up with fog.

The next thing I knew I was transported back into the cave that I just escaped from. I rolled on my back and began to cough as hard as I could to get all of the fog out of my lungs. I just laid there for a moment looking up wishing that Linley was with me.

All of a sudden I heard a voice quietly say, “What are you doing?”

I sat up and in astonishment I jumped to my feet as quick as I could, because the voice belonged to Linley. I couldn’t help myself, so I ran up to him and gave him the biggest hug that I had ever given someone. Tears began to fill my eyes because I was so happy to see him.

“What’s all this about? We were training and then you just fell.”

Not being able to help my sadness I whined, “No we weren’t, you walked through the door of eternal souls and I thought that I lost you forever.”

Thinking that I was making something up Linley said, “I think you’ve done too much training today, why don’t you go over there and have a nap for a while and we’ll continue when you wake up.”

Going along with Linley’s act I went over to a small hole in the wall and I fell asleep. It was just like how I remembered it, Linley and I training together making my magic stronger so that I could face my challenge in front of me. I was truly happy and it felt so long since I felt like that. I closed my eyes and I instantly fell into a comatose state of sleep. A dreamless, peaceful sleep; a type of sleep that you don’t ever want to wake up from.

I opened my eyes and instantly felt refreshed. When I crawled out of the hole Linley walked over to me and said, “It’s about time I thought you were dead or something.”

“Really?”

“Of course not. Now ready to continue training?”

I made a half smile and said, “You bet.”

“Okay, I want you to hit me with your magic as hard as you can and I’ll do my best to block it. If I can’t then you pass, but if I can then we will have to keep training you until you can.”

“But I don’t want to hurt you.”

“Don’t worry you won’t. Now are you ready?”

My hands shook with fear but my head went against my fear and it shook ‘yes’ on its own. So Linley raised his hands ready to block my attack. I raised one of my hands and aimed my magic towards Linley, but it wasn’t as strong as it normally is.

“Jasmine I mean it force all of your magic on me, with BOTH hands!!” His face became angry for no reason at all and he said, “If you don’t do this I will aim my magic at you and you’ll have to block it. At least the way that we are doing it nobody will get hurt.”

I lifted my other hand and aimed both of my hands at Linley. My white magic wasn’t the strongest magic that I had, but I knew that I wouldn’t be able to get to my strongest magic while I was around Linley. I was truly happy around him and there was no darkness whatsoever rising inside of me.

“You failed your training for the day, and as a result you have to aim twenty times each hand at the wall beside you. After you’re done we will try again.”

I walked over the wall beside me and began to hit my magic against the wall one hand at a time. I didn’t try to hit it as hard as I could, but I still made it look like I was really trying to Linley. I would close both my fists and eyes at the same time and then when they both opened I would push my white magic out of my hands and onto the wall for a split second. Then I would close both of them and do it again.

When I finished I walked back over to Linley and said, “Okay I’m done, what now?”

“Now we try again. Hit me with everything you’ve got.”

My eyes widen with surprise and I said, “But I don’t want to hurt you. Trust me I will hurt you if I hit you my hardest.”

“By what you were doing to the wall I would seriously doubt that.”

“You don’t understand, recently I found out that my true power only comes when I am grieving the person I love.”

“Then do that.”

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I embarrassment I lowered my head and said, “I…Can’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because that person is you.”

In shock Linley turned beat red and looked down.

I just stood there and glanced over at him, but he couldn’t make eye contact with me. I didn’t know if I should say anything else to him, or if I should just walk away and let him think about what I just said to him. After a moment or two I decided that the best approach was to walk away and let Linley be by himself. So I turned around and began to walk away.

But Linley called after me, “Where are you going?”

“I was just giving you space, considering you haven’t said anything.” I just stood there and waited to see what Linley would say. But instead of saying anything he just slowly walked over to me.

He gave me a hug and said, in my ear, “We can never be together. If I would have known that you felt that way I would have gotten Grünvolk to train you instead.”

I hugged him tighter and said, “But why can’t we be together?”

He let go and said, “I told you when we first met when two people with the same magic, such as you and I come onto contact with each other bad things will happen.”

“Bad things already happened to us and we still survived. What makes you think that we can’t survive if something else bad happens?”

“I just do okay.” Linley didn’t say anything else he just stepped back and watched me.

When I reached out to grab Linley’s hand my necklace, that the wizard gave me; which had been around my neck, started to glow through my shirt and burn against my collar bone. Not wanting to damage it I turned my necklace around my neck as quick as possible and undid the clasp; burning the tips of my fingers in the process. Once it was undone I dropped it on the ground and watched it fall into a knotted pile.

Just then beams of yellow light began to shoot out of the tiny pile around the area of the cave that Linley and I were in. Every time that a beam even came close to me I ducked or moved out of its way. It would hit the walls or the ceiling causing massive amounts of dirt to fall on us. Every so often I would roll towards the pile, where my necklace was, and the ground would be so hot that I could get closer than 2 meters to it.

Linley was using his magic to block the beams from hitting him. However, when he was trying to block one beam another came quickly behind him and caught him off guard. It knocked him off balance and he fell down. He knocked his head on a rock near him and he didn’t move. When the beams disappeared and my necklace became normal again I ran over to where Linley was laying.

I sat down close to his head and placed it on my lap. I looked at my hand, that was supporting his head, and it was covered in blood. I knew the moment that I saw him hit the rock he probably didn’t survive. He was dead, for real, and there was nothing I could have done to prevent it.

I brushed my fingers against his eyes, closing them along the process. His face was frozen with a fighting look on it. Every time we fought something he would always be the brave one, and now there was nobody to protect me. I had no choice but to continue on my own no matter the consequences.

I bent forward and kissed his forehead then I carefully moved his head as I got up. I thought that he should have a proper burial; nevertheless, I didn’t have anything to use for it. So I just took the dirt that had fallen around us and covered his body with that, one handful at a time, until the majority of his body was covered.

After I was done I turned around because I couldn’t stand the sight of my closest friend being dead right behind me. Tears began to pour down my face at an incredible rate, even when I sniffled to try and make them stop they still kept coming.

I fell on my knees and began to cry into my hands. Linley was really dead. My love and my world was really dead.

I lifted my head for only a moment and in the distance, between my tears I could see something green quickly approaching me. I took my thumbs and wiped my eyes; however, before I could clearly make out what it was it surrounded me.

Once again the green fog was around me and swarmed around me before it consumed me once again.