It was Mr Bergstrom. Standing by my window and as usual looking gloomy and creepy. He flicked his wrist and a glass of water appeared in his open arm before giving it to me. "Drink up. It will stop the shivering." He said.
" How...." He stopped me mid-sentence.
"Quiet now. Sssssh. I wasn't informed about your memory returning to you. If I had known I would have waited for your friends to tell you yesterday. You must promise me something," he said.
I looked at him and nodded as a feeling of warmth started taking over me and my shivering reduced.
"Whatever you remember, promise me you will be strong. The memory your friends are hiding from you is a painful one. It's inevitable, to reduce the pain," He said.
"They are trying to protect me?" I asked him.
"Yes, they are. Promise me you will be strong," he said again as he held my hand in both his hands staring into my eyes. I nodded at him once again and he smiled but still couldn't stop the tears welling up in his eyes. "I'll see you in the morning lesson and our lunch session."
"Okay. But this time can we have something to eat during that session," I told him and he chuckled before he vanished like the old man. I now knew a bit of what had happened that day at the field. We had walked over to the guy and Ciara had been convinced to give me another chance. My loner personality had failed to sit well with her and it had been the reason she avoided me that day.
"Sure," he said before vanishing.
I got out of bed and discovered it was only five but I didn't feel like sleeping anymore considering I was covered in sweat. I showered and took the liberty of preparing breakfast to give my mother a break from preparing breakfast every morning. Later at six, everyone was awake and found the table set.
"Good morning people," I grinned at my wonderful family.
"You did this," my mom squealed amazed.
"Honey, we're dreaming, this is not real. Let's go back to bed and when we wake up it will be a normal morning where you do the cooking," my dad said faking a yawn.
"Ooo, breakfast," Gary rushed to one of the seats and he starts eating immediately, "Dad can't you at least try the fake bacon before going back to bed?" he said with his mouth full causing all of us to chuckle as we sat around the table.
My family knew me to be the one who always woke up late. "So Kevin, how come you woke up so early today?" Dad asked as he began eating.
"Couldn't sleep," I said like it was no big deal.
"Isn't that ironic? You sure everything is fine. You know you have a game on Saturday," my mom added.
"Yeah, I'm fine," I replied.
"Okay, just don't push yourself too hard," Dad finalised the checkup session.
Gary was eating so fast he caught dad's attention. "Hey, Gary you want to take mine too. So you can surely choke," He said and we laughed at him.
"Okay Gary, slow down," Mom says and Gary puts down his fork and gets his juice. "I didn't know Kevin could cook this well." He said as he looked back to the kitchen counter for some extras.
"There's more in the kitchen if you want," I told him.
"Really?" he asked.
"No," I lied and he looked at me with pleading eyes. "Fine, yes," I admitted and he stuck his tongue out at me as he went to the kitchen to refill his plate.
Dad stood up and started sneaking to the kitchen which was weird. "Oh my God, Dad finished his too."
"Kevin did you have to say it out loud," he complained as he went to get more from the kitchen completely abandoning his small act.
"I have to admit, you have cooked well," mom said and I couldn't help but smile. 'If only my family knew what was going on.'
...
Breakfast ended and I got on my bike and rode to school though I had to keep myself from getting into speed mode as I got to school.
I entered the school building and went to my locker only to find Ciara waiting for me with a smile. A feeling of coldness took over and I remembered my dream that night of her explaining why she puts on glasses.
"Good morning, Kevin," she said cheerfully.
"Good morning, Ciara," I replied, "someone's cheery," I said while opening my locker.
"How was your night and by that I mean midnight?" She asked with excitement in her voice. I couldn't help but smile at her and reply.
"It was amazing."
"I can't believe you already learnt to use super-speed," She said quite jumpy. Then as we went on talking, someone stepped in front of us, Thomas to be more precise and our coach.
"There's our man," the coach shouted attracting attention and all the students begin applauding.
"What's this all about?" I asked Thomas a little lightly. He grabbed in a side hug and addressed the students.
"This Saturday, surely we have nothing to fear from the Pirates," He shouted and people started applauding again. He then got out his phone and showed me a video of yesterday's training when I dodged the defenders with inhuman speed.
'This is bad. I don't even have a handle on how fast I run.'
'Don't worry, Kevin. You'll do fine,' Ciara's voice rung in my head. I relaxed a bit and soon the crowd dispersed and we finally got to class. The mathematics teacher was my favourite teacher/trainer in magic. Well, my only trainer.
Classes proceeded and this time Ciara sat with me in Physics which was totally great as now she was not staying away from me.
....
Lunchtime finally arrived and I went to the math class after bidding farewell to my friends in the cafeteria to start my training with Mr Bergstrom. He was set with two hamburgers and juice boxes at his table.
"Okay when I said, food I didn't mean kill me with food!" I smiled at him having found that he had gone out of his way to make sure I had three burgers to eat this time, "how are you Mr Bergstrom?"
"I'm fine. Take a seat and we shall begin," he said and got out a book. "Well magic as you know can be performed by just about anyone from Armensia, but as you know the witches and wizards are the ones that specialize in this field of study."
And like that our lesson began. "Magic can be done in four ways. Normally it is either done by using a wand or by rhyming. But if you are gifted such as you then you can also do magic either by concentrating on what you want to do or by reciting incantations in the elven language as it was the original language of Armensia. I prefer the elven language because it makes incantations more efficient and instant."
"Okay, so what are we starting with?"
"Today we are starting with a magical ability rather than magic itself. You are going to learn how to stop time. I chose this one because it can be related to your speed."
"Okay, so how do I do that?" I asked.
"You know when you're tapping into your super-speed everything around you slows down."
"Uh huh," I nodded.
"Well before you forget the feeling of time slowing down since there will come a time when you don't even wait for time to slow for you to run. When time slows down, grasp that feeling and concentrate on time slowing even more until time really stops. Right now it makes no difference but it will soon," he explained.
So just as I had done the previous day, I slow down my surroundings even Bergstrom slows down. 'This never gets old.' I focused harder and they moved even slower until finally they stopped though the toil on my body started to make itself known to me. I looked around and this felt completely different. I couldn't quite run when time was frozen still. This was really different.
I walked over to the board and picked up the eraser. It stayed in space frozen when I let go of it but started dropping slowly when I moved away. I slowly loosened my grip on time and everything snapped back to action while the eraser fell to the ground at normal speed.
Bergstrom snapped to look at me allowing a wide grin to take over his face which then quickly disappeared just as it had appeared. "How long did you stop time?" He asked dead serious.
"For about five minutes," I told him.
"Well, this time when you do this touch me and focus on granting me the ability to move." He said.
I started concentrating again and time slowed down until it finally stops and I felt a click somewhere in my mind which let me know that time had stopped. I walked over to Mr Bergstrom and touched him, but nothing happened. I concentrated on him moving, but still nothing. 'It's not supposed to be this hard.' Just as I start to give up and wish he could just move already, he started to move again.
He looked around and looks at me. "You did it? Is time stopped?"
"Yes, but I don't know how I made you move." I told him.
"Don't worry about that. It's a subconscious decision made by your mind. When you wanted to make me move it failed but when you needed me to move, then I moved. Do you get it?" He tried to explain.
"How do you know so much?" I asked him and he went quiet as tears begin to well up in his eyes although they were gone in a matter of blinks. "That's a story for another time," he said firmly." Let's eat while you hold up time, shall we?"
"Wait, you mean we have all the time in the world to eat these burgers?" I asked.
"No, but that's what I taught you the ability for. With time your body will grow tired and you will have to let go of your hold on time. It's not something you can take lightly. Time is constantly demanding its motion so the longer you hold it the harder it becomes. There are also some beings that are powerful enough to break through your hold on time. So you have to be careful. As you learn more I will be teaching you how to run fast when time is stopped."
We finished up the meal and I let time back to normal. He dismissed me like a normal student and assumed a gloomier state not that he wasn't gloomy already. It was like he was dark or something. I wondered why he was so gloomy yet he was one of the best teachers I had had in a while even though he made me feel sick in my math test. I definitely don't want to go through that again.
....