Xander and I were outside talking when I felt that chill again and I didn't know what to make of it. I kept looking around as if to find the source but couldn't, and I didn't want to disrupt the flow of our conversation so instead I just replied his earlier statement by saying, "yup, I wouldn't miss such a chance for anything in the world. I'm petty like that", and with that we both started laughing.
To be honest, talking with Xander felt nice, like I was talking to a longtime friend. It was easy and very comforting. I was still smiling and enjoying the ambience when it happened again.
I was suddenly in a strange place, a large piece of property, a giant mansion with a few attached buildings on the outside. The place was secluded from civilization with a giant forest as its borders. I could tell it housed quite a number of people if the multitude I saw trooping out and running around was any indication. The place was a full blown chaotic circus. Some parts of the massive building was on fire and I could hear people screaming at each other trying to save themselves. It was all too much and too little to make sense of.
I felt overwhelmed, with all I could see, hear and smell. It was an overload on my senses but somehow I knew this wasn't the main thing I was here to find. It was like a small part of my brain knew something I didn't as I struggled to make sense of all I was seeing.
All of a sudden, like teleportation, I was in the courtyard of the main building where it seemed most of the pandemonium had stemmed from, and what I saw broke my heart and left tears running out of my eyes. People were lying on the ground everywhere as far as the eyes could see, some dead, some charred beyond recognition and some with their limbs detached far from their body. It was a gory sight. But then I heard a voice break out of the maddening confusion screaming, "Lily!!! Lilith!!! Help here please".
The girl called Lily came running as if on cue to the direction where the scream came from. She was a beautiful girl with flames for hair, a lithe body and disturbing silver eyes. For some reason I couldn't pinpoint, she looked very familiar.
"Go… get out now", she shouted frantically while pulling the old lady out of the almost burned out room she was stuck in. I could see their suffering but what I was yet to understand was what was causing the problem and what they were running from exactly. I was yet to spot an enemy so far and yet the whole place looked as if it had been visited by Satan himself. Something just didn't add up.
I kept walking through the courtyard as if I would find the problem if I searched well enough. All of a sudden I felt a hand on my wrist as I was forcefully turned backwards and I came face to face with the girl named Lily. Her grip on my wrist tightened even harder as if to enforce the urgency of her message for me.
"Get Xander immediately. He needs to know. Please tell him the harbingers have begun, it's time to locate the 'niveum lupa'. Tell him he needs to come home immediately. Tell him NOW!!!!!!!", she shouted and just like a flash I was back in my body.
I opened my eyes and saw Xander panicking. "Asha talk to me. What is it?", he questioned immediately. He looked really scared but that was nothing compared to the dread flowing through my veins at the moment, but no matter how scared we both were he needed to get his message. I was not going to make the same mistake as I made the last time.
"Xander you need to go home now", I said urgently. "Why? Why should I go home?" He asked in confusion. "You're not okay. I've been shaking you for the past few minutes and you were….". I immediately cut him off, "Xander you need to go, NOW please!!!!!"
I was still trying to make him understand what I was saying when I felt that chill again but I didn't have to wait long before the reason stepped into view and said, "You should listen to her, else there might be nothing to return to".
I don't think I've ever hated having visions till tonight and that includes the very first vision I had of her. "You", I pointed at her, I don't know how, but I felt like she had been following me all night, if the chills I felt when she was around was any indication. But wait a sec she just spoke to Xander didn't she, wait how did she? No, wrong question. I looked at Xander and he wasn't liking her presence either, so why did she talk to him as if they've met before or something. Asha, use your words with your mouth not your brain, I mentally instructed myself.
"What exactly do you mean by that?", I heard Xander ask coldly slowly rising to his feet and pulling me up gently with him, even as my thoughts were confirmed. They were staring at each other as if there was a conversation going on in their eyes that only they could understand.
"I simply mean to let you know that my warning shouldn't have been ignored", she said solemnly, "the pups I chose were deliberate and make no mistake, I was just trying to enlighten you to the truth that will hit you now sooner rather than later".
"If these were the times when I still believed in you maybe I would've had reasons to heed your warning, but as for now Nixa, what you are is the epitome of the disgrace you brought to your pe…. All of us and have been trying to eradicate for years now but make no mistake, the truth you speak about will hit no one", he replied vehemently.
"Xander, young one you still speak and never listen, but it is good though because your deafness will cost you tonight and don't say I didn't warn you", she told him condescendingly. Okay now I'm thinking how old is she to call Xander a young one, I mean we're all in high school and I guess he has the college banging body but we we're all teenagers or am I going nuts right now.
"Now child I need to speak to you", she said to me finally realizing that I was there all this while. But her stare has now got me scared, cos I don't know what the hell she would want to talk to me about. Can Adam just appear right now pls…..
"You will do no such thing", Xander said immediately pulling me behind him in an instant. Hmm I guess I was worried for nothing.
"Xander!! Xander!!....", I recognized Nat's voice instantly and boy did I feel a lot better knowing that the crazy bitch was headed our way. She appeared out of the clearing through the other side of the fountain coming right behind us. Something was definitely up cos she looked completely frazzled.
"Nat, what is….", I started to ask but she cut me off. "Xander, you need to go now", she said looking scared as shit. "Jesse and Keith just left since I told them I'd get Justin, Canaan and you".
"What is it", Xander asked stepping away from me to hold her by her shoulders gently, "its home X, we're being attacked", she answered meekly. If it was possible I think Xander just growled in the most inhumane way I ever heard in my life and I've lived through horror so that counts.
"Did you do this", he asked deathly with a voice that surely didn't belong to him. He was beyond seething at this point, when all he heard was silence. "I said did you do this Nixa", he practically growled out the words.
She didn't appear fazed by his words or voice as she replied in that same solemn manner she had been speaking in all night, was that her natural state or she was just doing that for some other reason, who knows. "Lessons never make you weary, I did inform you you'd pay the price for your deafness tonight, maybe it's time you listen to the last instruction given to you, leave this place or you can return to the ashes that'll remain".
Something about the way she said it made me realize that things could be going out of hand completely and I didn't want that to happen, not if it was anything like the vision I had. With my decision made I held onto Xander who was still seething about things and shook him. "Xander you need to go home please", and Nat did the same. It took a little more tug for him to give up on Nixa tonight and go home after making Nat promise him she'd follow me home and stay over at mine.
As I watched him leave I felt that chill again and turned back only to be staring right into Nixa's face. She didn't even flinch, just held my chin and looked straight into my eyes as if trying to see through to my soul. "Hmm I guess it's true then, the moon never makes mistakes. But you're buried way below where you need to be dear one, time to rise". I was beyond baffled by what she was doing. I tried tugging her hand off, it didn't work, looked over to Nat and she just stood transfixed unable to help while she stared at us like a dream. This was so not normal at all.
I wasn't paying Nixa attention which was a mistake on my part because next thing I knew she whispered on my face in a foreign language at the same time as her eyes liquefied to gold, "Auribus percipite verba mea et exaudi me voca. Egredimini somno prope tempus adesse et non praeteribut".
As she said that she released me and smiled for the first time, her eyes returning to black before looking to me apologetically and saying gently, "I am sorry dear child but it'll hurt for the next few days, just know it's all in due time". With this she placed her palm on my cheeks and I felt electricity crackle to life beneath my skin and travel all over until I felt like a life wire, it was too much. I tried to keep standing but couldn't and just like every other day in my life, dark spots covered my vision and I passed out.