Criss-Cross

Level One: Beginner

Anastasia's POV

Past

Dream World

In a village that was once rich in soil now lay in rubble in the wake of the recent demon attack. Bodies spewed everywhere, homes ruined and blood everywhere. Many people of this village would still be alive if not for a traitor in the mist. Nobody had known who this traitor was or is. But one; the legend goes that she was locked away because her people had feared her when she was a child. As she grew, they became harsher towards her. But she had gotten used the beatings, the harsh words, the rejection. This girl is a half breed; Half-Human, Demon, and Witch. She was said to be the most powerful breed of her time. With a powerful priestess inside her, helping her, but also having her make more sense than anybody else. This priestess was said to be royalty. The girl's hair was the color of wheat and her eyes as blue as the sky. Most men would have fallen in love with her if they had not heard of the lies that the villager's had not told them. Then one day, everything had changed from there. When the royal guard's had come for her, they had stumbled upon a destroyed village with a girl—demon standing in the middle. Her wheat colored hair now stained with blood, her eyes were piercing silver and it had taken awhile for them to calm her down. Only for them to capture her again; they grabbed her arms and put shackles on them. They had hoped to control her, for another royal was waiting at the castle for her. She started to put on a struggle but they fought back and yanked her down onto the beaten path. She had remembered walking this path as a young child, back when her parents were alive and well. What the guard's didn't know was that they had captured their down queen.

There queen had flowing white hair, as white as the clouds themselves. Her eyes, narrow as a cats, she had piercing green eyes. Attractive if nothing else; the queen had been living or had rather been born into the girl after the big war that had claimed the lands millennia ago. Her sister still remained. She had been waiting for her sister to return. Her sister herself, had been reborn into a girl; But the girl didn't know she had the queen in her until she had reached 5 years. It had taken the queen years to tell her everything. The 5 year old had many questions—to curious for her own good the queen had said; as she grew older, she fell in love with the head villager's son, Robbie. He was handsome enough. Dark brown eyes and flowing black hair; which he always kept in a braid; she had lost control of her magic when he was supposedly "killed". That's when everybody had known what she was.

As she and the guards had approached the stone castle; she had realized something. This wasn't your average royal castle. This was a…vampire castle. She looked around, curious. She found the gate was made out of iron bars, with gargoyles hunched over the top, glaring down at you. It looked dark and mysterious. The gates opened with an eerie sigh and they all walked in. You could see dark trees, there bark dark with moss and vines. They had graves some fresh, some older. The court yard was huge. You could see different people—vampires, demons, fairies, elves. Different animals, wolves, coyotes, tigers; all different shapes and sizes; you could see guards walking around. With women, their women; they looked at me and looked…surprised.

We made our way inside and down a big hallway. There were different portraits of people. I looked around as we made our way to the main room and saw one of the queen's. The one inside the girl, she was wearing a Victorian style dress. With a low front, the colors were black and violet. With long sleeves that showed her pale arms, her flowing white hair a contrast to the dress, was straight and had a bit of a twang to it. Her eyes piercing you as you looked at the picture. With see-though sleeves over the dress, you could see underneath the fabric. She had on a lace choker with a bat. The velvet dress also had a lacy corset with purple colored lace around the front. She was smirking kind of and sitting down. Her hands in her lap;

The woman next to her is her sister; she's wearing a blue dress that shows her shoulders and rests on her upper arms and she's also sitting with her black gloves on her hands the lower half of her dress has black ruffles and blue mixed in. Her hair is a contrast to her sister's. Her hair is as black as a raven's and her eyes are green also. She's wearing a blue rose choker that has a black ribbon hanging on her color bone.

We made our way to the main hall and stopped at two big Mahoney doors. On the doors were two lion knockers and on the doors were Latin. They said "Those who enter must have good reason, for thay shall not enter without good reason" the girl raised an eyebrow at that and the doors opened. There in the middle of the room sat a beautiful woman, whose black hair was up in a messy bun, her dress is a blood red color, which had black flowing through it. Her piercing green eyes looked upon us as they widened a fraction. She rose up from her throne and walked toward us as she yelled "Anastasia!" The room went quiet and the guards immediately let go of her arm. The girl looked around and looked back at the woman. She hugged the girl and looked…surprised? "Anastasia? My dear sister…what's wrong?" Then I heard a beeping sound; "What the hell?" she murmured.

I sat straight up; I slammed on my alarm clock and glanced at the time. It read 11:57pm. SHIT! I jumped out of bed and jumped straight into the shower. Five minutes later I was yanking her platinum blonde hair into a pony and yanking on my clothing. Gathering up my stuff she ran out the door with an apple in my mouth. My ride was waiting and I saw Hikari waiting for me. I opened the car door and before I even got it closed, she was already driving away. "What the hell took you so damn long?!" she growled at me. I grinned and chewed my apple; "I had the same dream again, you know I have a tendency of sleeping through my alarm clock!" I explained cheekily. She rolled her eyes and stopped at a stop sign. Hikari is 16, like me. Her birthday is on St. Patrick's Day. We never stay the same age long. She had short brown hair, slightly wavy today. She was wearing black Tripp pants and a red tank with a dragon on it, with a leather jacket. I looked down to what I was wearing. Leather Pants with a black tank that read "Perfect Lil Angel" in sparkly letters with a halo. With a leather biker jacket; my hair was in a messy pony today.

Hikari and I have been friends since I was in the second grade and she was in the third grade. Our school is an academy; Black-Cross-Academy. Don't ask, my mom just put me here and I live in the dorms, but seeing as I was sick Monday, they allowed me to go home. We have days where we could wear whatever we wanted, like today. Those days are Tuesdays and Thursdays. Mondays and Wednesdays we wear our uniforms and on Fridays had half day. We could room with whoever we wanted. (Well, girl and girl and guy with guy) That type of thing. But also, our uniforms are kind of interesting. We have a black skirt with white pointed crosses at the bottom (no, this isn't a church academy) and black socks with buckle and lace ankle boots. Our top is a white shirt with a black tie, and a black jacket with the school symbol on the side. We could buy our own backpacks;

Our dorm room was huge; you walk in and there are two beds, two large windows, a desk on either side of the room, one closet straight ahead when you walk in, and one on the other side on the left. Two dressers and room for a TV; the beds came with it, Hikari's room and mine has everything, we had this lacy thing that hung from the ceiling above the windows and lights that were around the room. We had different posters around the room and on the doors. We had a phone (even though we had cell phones) our walls were painted black with huge animated skulls on the wall (the big kind) and some red dangly things.

I got so caught up in my thoughts I didn't hear Hikari calling my name. "EARTH TO SHADOW!" I jumped out of my thoughts and turned to face her. We were out in the parking lot; the sky was a big black pit with a million of stars and it was a full moon tonight. We had to be back by a certain time, but seeing as I overslept, we'd probably get into trouble. We're supposed to be back by 11:30pm. I asked my mom to call and explain what happened. It took awhile of convincing but I got her to do it. We got out of her black Mercedes and I grabbed my back pack while she grabbed her bag. She locked the door and we made our way to the front, where our dorm leader was there. She was cool, just never piss her off. She had black hair and blue eyes. She had six piercings and she was a weird one. She tapped her foot and her arms were crossed. We glanced at each other. "HURRY UP! OR I'm LOCKING YOU OUT!" she screamed at us. We ran to the door and made it inside. She pulled us aside. "I don't want this happening again, understand?" We nodded and she smiled slightly. We know she didn't mean that, she was only 20, young, but she does her job well enough. Her name was Sonia;

We walked into the common's room and we saw all our friends; one of them noticed us and waved us over "Hey Hikari and Shadow!" she waved and we grinned. Music played over head, softly, but enough as to where we could hear it. Our friends we all mixed in; we ranged from weird to insane. (It was our little joke). We had to share a bathroom, but it was ok because we all worked out times to shower. Just then, Sonia came out and told us it was time to go to our dorm rooms. Normally, we could go to bed at any time, but tonight must be special or something. Hikari looked questionably at me and I shrugged. "I dunno chicka…don't look at me" she rolled her eyes and we linked arms. Our friends followed us out of the common room and down a hallway. We stopped at each one, with my bag slung over my shoulder we hugged each other and we went to our own room.

We unlocked our room and flipped on the light; I went over to my desk and took my schedule and changed into my pajamas. They had little bats on them and slipped into my Scooby Doo slippers. I grinned and found Hikari on her bed, turning on her alarm and reading her book for English. I shook my head and took out my pony and ruffled my hair a little bit and opened my backpack and looked at the contents inside. I looked at my schedule and saw:

8:00-9:37: History of Rock and Roll

9:45- 11:15: AP Honors English

11:20-12:30: Gym

12:45-1:20: Lunch

1:30-2:30: Choir

2:30-3:55- AP Chemistry

I shook my head and yawned stiffly, stretched and turned off the main light and turned on the lights, closed the drapes and saw Hikari sleeping, the book on her chest. I shook my head, marked her place in her book and put it on the nightstand. I turned off her light and turned mine on low and went over to my bed, got under the covers and turned my lamp on low, I heard Hikari shift a little bit and took our my journal. I wrote in my journal for half an hour and turned on my alarm clock. I shut my leather bound journal, put it back in its spot, and turned off my light and lay down. My back ached a little bit and stared up at my ceiling. I kind of dreaded going back to sleep, but I dozed off and rolled onto my side and finally fell asleep.