Chapter 7: To Be Young Again

Korbin as a child, where his power first began to manifest and the events around it, or so they seem. Let me know what you think!!

My body ached as I lay in my bed. I was covered in the heat of many thick blankets. I was freezing, yet drenched in sweat. I shivered uncontrollably. My teeth chattered in rapid clicks, as if they were hoping for something to latch on to. I could hear my parents’ quiet whispers from right outside my door, while their animated shadows crept in through the partially open crack. They were talking about me. My mother seemed unnerved, and my father solemn, yet uncomfortably calm.

“We need to take him to a doctor,” I heard my mother say quietly, yet noticeably tearful, to my father; “He has been getting worse with each passing hour. I’m scared for him. I can’t lose him.” Her shadow put its face into the nook of my father’s shoulder as he comforted her, stroking the golden blonde hair that ran down the back of her head.

“I just don’t feel like it would be smart…” my father began, but my mother interjected before he could finish.

“Why on earth would it not be smart,” her body went rigid as she spoke and she pulled her head from his shoulder, her voice much less quiet than when she had spoken the first time.

“I was going to say that I don’t think it would be smart to move him right now, but I am going to try and get the doctor to come here to see what he can do.” I knew my father said this with a comforting smile; the words calmed my mother, if only because she knew at least something would get done.

“He’s barely eight,” she said as my father began to walk away. “He shouldn’t be getting sick like this at his age. Can his little body even handle it?” She said this because I was small, even for my age.

My father’s voice echoed through the hall amongst his fading footsteps, “I don’t know.”

It felt like hours before the doctor was able to get to my house. My mother was sitting by my side the entire time, slowly filing her fingers between the wet, sticky tendrils of my hair. The doctor seemed to understand my parents desire to not move me, but I could see on his face when he entered the room that he would have much rather seen me in the hospital. He stuck an old fashioned thermometer into my mouth and then stared at me for a short while, observing my features before he iterated his thoughts out loud.

He touched my drooping eye lids and spread them apart, shining a bright light into my eyes. “They dilate normally,” he said, “his sunken eyes and pale features, as well as his constant sweating simply tells me that he has a harsh fever.” He removed the thermometer from my mouth and stared at it, his eyes opening wide in surprise. “He has a temperature of one-hundred and three point three,” He said in alarm. “Have you taken his temperature before?” He asked concerned. “If it has been like this for a while, then you should have called me much sooner than this. The human body cannot bear a temperature like this.” He stood there in a stance that implied that he was thinking.

The doctor set his bag down at the end of my bed and unzipped it, digging through it for a few moments. He pulled out a bottle. “Here,” He said, handing the bottle to my parents, “give him a teaspoon of this every eight hours for the next two days, it should help to bring the fever down. If nothing changes, take him to the hospital. There’s nothing more we can do for him here. It is usually only something we give to patients after more study, not to mention in our direct care, but we need to lower his fever.” He nodded to my father, and then walked out the door. His actions seemed unusual; your average doctor wouldn’t just hand over a bottle of fluids, but he was right, I had a very high fever.

My mother quickly retrieved a teaspoon and gave me some of the thick solution given to her by the doctor. It burned as it slid down my throat. It felt like a solid marble slowly falling to my stomach. It did nothing but sting my throat, and my body continued to ache, in fact, I felt like it was getting worse.

My stomach rumbled. I could feel a pressure pushing my insides out. I barely had enough time to roll over to the side of my bed and puke in the well placed bucket my mother had put there only a few hours before. I was hit by a wave of sleepiness. This day was weird, the random sickness that randomly overcame me just this morning, my aching body, the doctor in my home. Now I was tired, and it was barely past noon, my eyes slowly drooped until they were fully closed and I was out cold.

 

I woke up gradually to the silent pattering of rain against the window panes; I turned my head to my window to see the darkness outside. The day had long ago fallen in surrender to the luminous crescent moon. I could see nothing out there except for the shadowy haze created by the rain. My mother was a still figure sleeping beside me, her head resting lightly on the soft padded back of the chair with her mouth wide open. My body was no longer drenched in sweat. I had stopped shivering, but I still felt cold. I looked around and noticed that, sometime in the night, I had kicked the mass of blankets off my body and my bed. They now lay in a ragged pile on the floor. I sat up, swinging my legs to the side of my bed and sat there for a little while, testing to make sure I wouldn’t faint with too much physical exertion. I had already fainted a few times the day before. It was not an enjoyable experience. The ground was not very forgiving.

I stood and stretched, then began to make my way towards the bathroom. The halls were dark, I had to hold out my hand and slowly walk down the hallway while grazing the wall with my fingers the entire time. I made it to the bathroom and struggled to flick the lights on, my hand was flailing up and down on the wall in the general area that the light switch should have been in, but it was taking me a long time to turn it on. My hand finally flicked up the switch and a flash of light blinded me. I tried to open them a few times after that, but shut them instantly every time because the light was so bright it was hurting my eyes. But, eventually I was able to open one of them in a squint and actually see things in the bathroom. It took a little longer to be able to open my other eye, and then even longer to open them fully.

The first thing I saw was my face staring at me in the mirror, but it showed none of the characteristics that the doctor had described the previous day. He said my eyes were sunken and my face pale. My definition of pale is a sickening white, but my face looked normal, and there were no signs of paleness in any of my features. No bags clung to the space beneath my eyes, and they weren’t plagued by sunkeness. My entire body was a figure of normalcy. There were no clues left that the day before I had been a bedridden, sickly pale child, whose parents had been worried about dying. The one thing that was off about my features was that my light brown hair was stuck up in every which way, the effects of being bedridden for an entire day. I thought that a few strands of hair looked black, but it was probably just a trick of the light.

Nothing about this made sense. I had been lying in bed just a few hours before in an immense amount of pain, and a pool of sweat, and now: nothing. I felt good, better than good. I left the bathroom quietly, turned off the lights, and walked steadily back to my room. I slipped silently back into my bed and pulled up one of the blankets from the floor, covering myself, and waited till morning.

I had unintentionally fallen asleep again, even though originally I had intended to stay awake until morning. Apparently I was more tired than I thought; the rest was welcome either way. I woke up to my mother’s gasp as she saw my face, back to normal. I could tell she was thinking the same things I had when I had woken up in the middle of the night and seen myself in the mirror. She picked me up and hugged me close to her, leaving my feet dangling a few feet off of the ground and the blanket caught between us. She was getting unnecessarily emotional. Tears fell down her face. Then again, she was a mother who was worried for her child’s life not too many hours before, and now, miraculously, I’m all better. I guess I’d be emotional too.

For the rest of the day she barely let me out of her sight. She clung to me like I was a baby again. I couldn’t blame her; we didn’t know what made me sick in the first place. I guess she just didn’t want it to happen again. I definitely wasn’t opposed to that. The next day she wasn’t as clingy. She checked up on me every once in a while, but she wasn’t by my side every moment of the day. She was exceedingly happy though, every time she looked at me it was like she was about to tell me something and then decided it would be better to wait just a little bit longer. Finally, during the end of the day, she cracked. Well, not so much cracked as decided it was time to let me in on her little secret.

“So I’ve been talking to your father…” She said discreetly, building up my enthusiasm, “and we’ve decided that the three of us haven’t been on many vacations. Actually, coming to think of it, we haven’t been on any vacations.” She was trying to give it some gusto in her explanation, but was only succeeding in boring me by not telling me where she was going with it. She took the bottle of medicine out of the cupboard and grabbed a spoon, pouring the last dose of the doctor’s burning liquid into it and handing it to me to take. I complied.

“So me, you and your father are going to the mountains to go camping for a week!” She continued. I gave her a blank stare as I gulped down the burning liquid.

I wanted to say with as much sarcasm as possible: Yay! The mountains, best vacation we’ll ever go on. But I couldn’t stop us from going; they just wanted to spend time with me. Oh the joys of being an only child, you get spoiled by your parents. But, sometimes what they think is spoiling you, is not.

 

The car was equally hot as it was humid. My father was refusing to turn on the air conditioning, and my mother was just playing along with him. It was a miserable start to a trip I’d say. Five hours in the car and two more yet to go. I had nothing to do: no games, no cards, not even a book to read.

“Dad how far are we?” I asked, even though I already knew. I just needed something to do to take my mind off of the boredom.

“We’re almost there!” He said enthusiastically. Almost there, huh? Two hours away and he says we’re almost there. There were absolutely no mountains in sight, not even a little hill.

“Ugh, I’m so bored,” I said to no one in particular.

“You could try sleeping,” my mother said. This was her fruitful attempt to try and give me something to do.

“Sleep? Why would I want to sleep? I’m bored and want something fun to do.” She thought to herself for a little while, thinking about what she could suggest I do to entertain myself.

“Well,” She began, as if she had just thought of a great idea, so I was prepared for something awesome, “There’s not much you can do in a car.”

My head dropped, exasperated.

 

We had packed tents, two of them. Why my parents thought it would be a smart idea to give me my own tent was unknown to me. They probably thought that, since I would be in the tent right beside them, nothing would happen. I wasn’t opposed to having my own tent, of course. I had just assumed they would have been more sheltering of me, on a mountain, in the middle of nowhere.

It took us longer than expected to set up the tents. My father forgot to bring the directions so he sat on the tarp deliberating which piece was supposed to connect to the other pieces and, once he figured that out, where he was supposed to put that piece in regards to the actual tent, and then realized that he put that piece on the wrong tent, yay, dad.

            Once we had finally set up both tents, my father let us move our stuff in. The floor was smooth and free of rocks beneath the tarp, but it was hard and cool to the touch. It was already getting dark outside, all thanks to the seven hour drive. We had left home around eleven and weren’t able to set up the tents for another hour because of my father’s forgetfulness.

The sun was barely peeking its head above the horizon, shimmering light flowing out, illuminating the mountainside behind us. Darkness was beginning to creep its way further forward and up the mountain. I imagined warriors of dark and light fighting to win over the other side, except, in this case, one of them only had the upper hand for about twelve hours and then lost its foothold once more. I set up my mat and then began to lay down my sleeping bag.

As I was smoothing it down, my mother unzipped the top of my tent door and poked her head in. She smiled and observed my work for a few moments. “It’s time for dinner, hunny. Finish up and get something to eat!” She zipped the tent back up and I heard her footsteps shuffling away.

            A minute or two later I exited the tent and walked towards the newly lit fire. My father handed me a bowl. The bowl was filled with macaroni and cheese. Why they decided to bring macaroni on a camping trip, I couldn’t say, but I wasn’t going to complain. I love mac and cheese.

            The night was cool; the moon wasn’t very high in the sky yet, but, out here in the mountains, I could see every star shining up in the heavens.

“Alright hunny,” I heard my mother’s voice saying, she had already gotten into her own tent while my father was putting out the fire. “It’s time for bed.”

I had forgotten that we had a long drive, and that’s why dinner was so much later. I went to my tent and zipped up the entrance to keep out mosquitos and bugs, and then lay down in my sleeping bag. It was moderately comfortable for being on solid ground.

It took me a while to fall asleep. I could hear the sound of my parent’s breathing in the other tent. Their breaths gradually moved slower, until I was sure they were sleeping soundly. I continued to lie there, waiting for my own body to reach the point of slumber. It was annoying; there was nothing on my mind, yet I couldn’t fall asleep. I closed my eyes, ignoring my surroundings, until I eventually drifted off to sleep.

            I woke up in the middle of the night, freezing. I rolled over and started fumbling through my things for a sweatshirt, hoping my mother had packed me one. I found one, but, by that time, all my things had been strewn across the floor of my tent, because, of course, the sweatshirt had to be at the bottom. I was about to lie down again to go back to sleep when I heard a rustling sound behind the tent. It spiked my curiosity. I slowly unzipped my tent door as quietly as I could and slipped outside.

            I wasn’t wearing my shoes, and I still felt a little chilly, but I was warming up quickly as I started to move. I headed behind my tent to investigate where the sound had been coming from; my tent was about ten feet from the woods. I stood at the edge and waited for my eyes to adjust to the darkness before I headed in. I glanced back at my parent’s tent, for a moment I thought I could still hear the sounds of their breathing, but they couldn’t be breathing that loud. I pushed the thought aside, deciding that it had to be something else that I was hearing. The chill had worn off, and my body had warmed up. I figured now was as good as any to move forward.

            The woods were not as eerie as I had initially thought they would be. There wasn’t much of the usual noise that could freak me out. In fact, it was almost silent, like it was waiting for something to happen.

Up ahead I saw a snake, or maybe a tail. It curled up around the trunk of a tree and quickly disappeared. The moonlight penetrated the canopy just enough for me to see where I was going. Not too far to my right, there was a small clearing with scattered patches of what looked like blue flowers. I decided to avoid it, even though it was intriguing, and continued forward to a larger clearing I saw up ahead. My vision was becoming increasingly clearer; it must be adjusting slowly to the darkness.

            There was something lying in the middle of the larger clearing, taking up the majority of the central area, and illuminated by a direct beam of moonlight. Its two front legs were scaly and taloned, while the other two were earthen, but each was thick and heavily muscled. Its head and body were that of a panther, resting with closed eyes between its front, taloned paws. Its skin was brown with a frill on its face and the scaled tail of a Cobra. It lay there, basking in the moonlight. It appeared as if it was sleeping, or maybe it was completely aware of my presence. I walked forward slowly, crouched near the ground like I’d seen stealth people do in the movies. They called it guiling, or something like that.

The beast shuddered as I drew near, shaking slightly like a wet dog, but it was a much smaller motion. One of its taloned feet twitched. I took one more step forward before noticing that one of the beast’s red, glowing eyes was glaring at me, and probably had been the whole time. It stood, stretching itself out, but facing the other direction. As it turned to face me again it yawned, curious. Fire bubbled out from the depths of its maw, quickly enveloping its body. Trails of lava spread quickly along its body, engulfing the creature in living fire, instantly brightening the entire clearing to a vivid orange and turning the grass beneath to ash.

            The creatures frill shot up and sprouted fire as it drew low to the ground with its hind quarters up in the air like a lion about to pounce, growling at me, a sound not unlike that of an actual panther, but with a hint of that of a viper, yet still different. It was deeper, more powerful, and far more threatening. It charged, bounding across the clearing in a single step and pinning me beneath its weight without hesitation. Its ruthless eyes bore into my own, gazing at me curiously while bearing its teeth.

I didn’t feel threatened. In fact, I felt calm beneath the firm taloned paw planted on my chest, although how calm I was feeling, ironically, made me uneasy. I shouldn’t feel calm beneath the weight of a creature of this size, one magma paw on my chest, pinning my arms to my sides while the other was primed in preparation for the strike. At my age I should already have been crushed. I felt unusually empowered. My fists clenched at my sides, muscles straining against the force pushing down on me.

            “Ugh,” I grunted under my breath, “Move.” My childish voice was stern, but the creature remained unyielding, almost laughing at my ignorance. “I said…MOVE,” I shoved upward with all of my strength against the creature’s underside, noticing that both my shirt and sweatshirt had melted in the place where its molten paw had rested against my chest, leaving the edges of my clothes still burning. I looked down at it, confused about how my skin was unsinged. I brought my eyes up, watching the flaming beast as it careened through the edge of the clearing and barreled through the mass of trees. The trees snapped and screamed as the fire touched them and sent them crashing to the ground.

I heard the roar of the creature at the end of the trail of shattered and smoking trees. It stood; I could see its eyes glaring at me from afar, rage boiling through its features as it lowered its head in a deadly snarl, baring its vicious fangs. It burst forward, running full force in my direction, zig-zagging between the smoldering stumps of the fragmented trees. I pulled back my small fist as it drew near, but thought better of a head on assault and sidestepped at the last second, punching it hard in its flank.

The beast fell solidly; face planting the ground and rolling head over heels back to the edge of the clearing. The trees on that side of the clearing stopped its progressive slide, but giant cracks spread up the tree’s thick trunks. I had broken the creatures left hip. It lay beside the trees whimpering loudly, crumpled from the force of my newfound strength. I decided to show it mercy. Giving it a quick death, I brought my fist down on its head, watching its body cool and slowly dissolve into a pile of dissipating black ash.

 

It was a memory I had forgotten long ago. I was staring in the face of de-ja-vu as this ape-like Igna pressed its knuckles into my chest in an attempt to crush me. There had been one of the Igna on Earth. It’s funny how it happened to be me who was in the perfect location to stop it before it could do anything, but that didn’t explain how it got there, but that wasn’t important right now.

What I did know now, was that neither of them should have tried to attack me. When the Igna had attacked me on Earth it had been random, with a hint of carelessness on my part. But, this time we ventured through these mountains knowing that there was a chance that at least one of the three Igna would spot us and attack, but the awakening of my forgotten memory showed me that I could beat them, but also that I should stop them before they could spread terror amongst civilization. I guess I did have a good heart somewhere within me. 

Author's Note

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