Okay!
Sorry again, I know I'm slow. ^-^ I plan on getting a few more chapters up soon, though, so be patient my friends.
It's been a good summer so far. ^-^ How could it not be with the new HP book, The Order of the Phoenix, the promise of new KP episodes, and the discovery of Naruto and Arc (DARC) the Lad on my part?
This chapter, my friends, will allude on things to come, and enlighten those who weren't sure before on just what a wyvern is. (The wyverns in my fic are different than normal ones found in mythology, though.)
I'm gonna go see Clay Aiken tomorrow! WHOOOOOO!!
Clay's inspiring. I write my best when I think about him. He's such a cutie. He's like Ron, geeky, but cute as can be and my ideal boyfriend. ^_^ I'm a Claymate. I sooo hope I get to talk to him. He must sign my CD!! I must hear 'Invisible'! Any other Claymates lurking around, feel free to say 'Hi!'.
Chapter Seven
Kim's eyes opened, but she felt as though they never had. She was in complete darkness. She held a hand up in front of her face cautiously. It seemed impossible, but she could see it perfectly, as if it was lit by some unseen light that touched nothing else. Also to her surprise, she found that her hand was truly hers, not Ron's.
She would have been happy had she been anywhere else at the moment. The darkness that surrounded her seemed to be trying to eat away at her. When she stood up and looked down, it appeared as if she was standing on nothing surrounded by nothing. All around there was darkness, and she was alone in it.
As she turned, hoping for a glimpse of something else, anything else, her eyes caught sight of something glimmering. She squinted in the direction of the shimmer she'd seen. It was definitely there, but it was also very far away. Seeing no other alternative, she began to walk towards it.
She could have sworn she'd heard a soft snickering floating along the darkness. A shudder crawled up her spine and she walked faster. The glimmer was slowly growing and getting a more defined shape. It took a surprisingly short time for her to be so close that she knew what it was. It was a mirror.
She stopped in front of it. The mirror was intricately carved in gold and silver with serpents, dragons, and a phoenix that donned the top of it, wings spread high and beak open almost triumphantly. In its claws it gripped the tails of the snakes, and the dragons blew flames at them from below. Each creature's eye was a glittering gem; an emerald stood as the phoenix's eye, and garnets gave the dragons fierce, blazing expressions. The snakes had diamonds for their eyes.
Kim turned away from the border, and looked into the mirror itself. There was nothing there. It seemed just like everything else. It reflected nothing but the darkness all around her. 'It must've been the gold border that was shimmering,' Kim mused. She reached out one finger to touch it.
The mirror suddenly began to glow a dazzling white as she tapped it, and instead of feeling hard and glassy it felt more like water. Kim drew her finger back, and the mirror rippled. Kim watched as it hardened. Instead of resuming the darkness, it continued to glow a bright white, until finally receding into something else. Peering into the mirror, Kim saw someone at last.
She saw someone who looked much like an older version of herself, but the creature perched on her shoulder made Kim positive that it wasn't her. It had olive green scales and eyes that were all blue, save the slit that she supposed was its pupil. A scruffy yellow mane ran down its back, ending just before the long tail. It had two bat-like wings with little clawed hands that gripped the girl's shoulders, and its hind legs were pulled up beside them. It had a long snout and tiny teeth that showed when it grinned. Kim peered closer at the creature. It had a headband wrapped around its head, with the word 'Jakk' scrawled in red across it.
'Jakk' was speaking, though Kim was at a loss how. She moved closer to the mirror, and all of a sudden a voice broke into her hearing. "...and I think they'll be alright," he was saying. "Everyone has to do it sometime, ya know. We did."
The girl he was speaking to sighed. "I know, but I'm not sure they're ready," she said. "You have to admit, they are sorta naive."
Jakk laughed jovially. "Naive isn't the word for it!" he said. "New is more like it."
The girl leaned back against the chair she was sitting in, and Jakk, almost like he'd known what was about to happen, fluttered to the top of it. "How much trouble did we have when we went there?" she asked.
Jakk laughed again. "We were hopeless. I was sure Leon was going to tell us we were destined to work at McDonald's for the rest of our lives," he said.
The girl smiled. "Yeah, I was sorta surprised with what we got too." She reached to a chain of strange charms that was tied all around her arm precariously and touched one of them fondly. "I never would've guessed it, to tell you the truth," she muttered. She removed her finger from the charm, and Kim saw that it was shaped like a dog. Jakk had begun speaking again, but Kim had no time to listen to him. At that moment she was ripped away from the mirror. She cried out as the claws of whatever it was that had her dug into her shoulder roughly. She was swiveled around by the beast, but to her surprise she found that it wasn't a beast at all. It was another girl, one that also looked very much like herself.
This girl, however, was very different from the one in the mirror. What Kim had taken for claws were actually long fingernails painted a bright blue. The girl also looked a few years older than Kim, and her hair was tied in a ponytail that hung down almost the the floor. Her lips were parted in anger, and her green eyes were glaring. She wore strange clothes. Kim was sure she'd never seen any like them before. Around the girl's right arm were two bands, one of bronze and the other of silver, both with turquois shapes scrawled on them. On the bronze was a tear, and on the silver a lightning bolt. Around her neck was another band, this one adorned with tiny diamonds and blood red rubies. Two rubies were just before the middle of the band, and carved into that blank spot was a serpent. The serpent glowed a mysterious red, and the band itself was pure gold. The girl spoke up, finally, in a voice so like Kim's and yet very different at the same time. It was smooth and had a powerful, demanding tone about it. "How did you find this place?"
"I didn't find it," Kim answered her truthfully.
The girl pursed her lips, then said, "Nonsense! Only those who can See or those who can Call can find their way here." She smiled, and Kim noticed that the lipstick she had on was blood red. "I know for a fact that you could never do either of those things," she whispered haughtily. "Neither your soul nor your mind could ever reach out beyond the normal boundaries, and I don't think you'd try if you could."
'Those who can See or those who can Call? What does that mean?' Kim wondered.
The girl laughed. "You don't even know what I mean, do you?" she said mockingly. Kim didn't answer, so she continued. "But you wouldn't, of course. You're much too selfish to ever open your heart up to those things, and not powerful enough to do it without the help of your heart." She sneered. "Nothing you do now amounts to anything."
Kim couldn't hold herself back at that point. "I do a lot more than most people," she growled.
The girl laughed, and Kim had to wince from the pain that suddenly filled her. "What do you do, Kimmy? Do you think that by defeating those dimwitted numbskulls you are making some sort of a difference? Those people who proclaim their villainy so openly are nothing to those that lie low, waiting for the right moment to strike," she said, her laugh ringing in the endless darkness again. "One day you will fall to something you never even saw coming. You will be defeated by someone who outmaneuvered you. You're not that good, Kimmy. You've never been in a real fight before."
Kim tried to protest, but all that came out was a pained shriek, because at that moment the blue nails of the girl broke into her skin. A burning sensation swept through her body, and she was falling to her knees. For some reason it seemed like a very long fall.
~*~*~*~
Kim awoke abruptly as she landed hard on her back, entangled in sheets and covers. She fought with them for a second and finally escaped from them, crawling out onto the floor of Ron's room. The sun glinted through Ron's window, and illuminated Kim's hand, which was now, once again Ron's hand, and was trembling slightly. 'That wasn't an ordinary dream,' Kim thought, pulling herself back up onto Ron's bed, trying to ignore the fact that soon she'd have to wake up anyways. 'It felt so real,' she thought, pulling Ron's covers back up. 'Could it mean something?'
She gave up trying to fall back asleep after about fifteen minutes of trying to find a good position on Ron's bed. It wasn't half as comfortable as her own. Finally she stood up, yawned, then stumbled out of Ron's room and into the bathroom.
She looked as disheveled as she felt inside; Ron's hair was sticking up in odd spots and his eyes were slightly bloodshot. She sighed and began to clean up.
About halfway through brushing Ron's teeth Rufus toddled in, yawning cutely and leaping up beside Kim to brush his own teeth with a very tiny toothbrush and a speck of toothpaste. Kim wondered vaguely where Ron had gotten the toothbrush, but her mind was alive and still buzzing with other things. Things floated through her consciousness, such as 'What could that dream have meant?' and 'Thank heavens school's out soon' and 'I can't believe I'm stuck like this!' and 'I was supposed to go out with Josh on Saturday!'. After getting dressed and finally ending up in the kitchen, she slumped her head down onto the table like normal, and was totally unprepared for the giddy little creature that came bounding into the room moments later.
"Morning, Ron!" Rebecca crooned happily as she swung herself down into the seat opposite Kim's. "You didn't stay in bed long enough for me to wake you up this morning, where's the fun in that?" she said, poking her 'brother' on the top of his blonde head.
Kim looked up slowly. Rebecca was beaming happily at her from across the table. Her smile made Kim feel a little less tired. "Sorry, sis, couldn't get back to sleep," she said, sitting up and smiling back at the girl. 'I wish I had a little sister,' Kim thought. Rebecca was so cute and sweet. She was always energetic, and her energy seemed to radiate from her and into everyone around her. You couldn't help but smile when she was around.
Ron's mother was bustling around the kitchen, and soon had breakfast made for everyone. Kim ate her bacon, eggs, and toast and finished off her orange juice quickly, despite the lingering feeling of lethargy in her. She wanted to get to school as quickly as possible to talk to her best friend and ask about how his night had been.
"Leaving already, Ron?" Ron's mother called from the kitchen, where the sound of running water could still be heard along with the occasional clink of a dish. Kim was stuffing Ron's books back into his backpack and Rufus was scampering up her pant leg and into her pocket. She felt him snuggle into its depths and heard a contented sigh from him.
"Yeah," 'Ron' answered. "I've gotta talk to Kim about something."
"Okay, dear," Ron's mother said. "Are you coming straight home after school, or are you going to Kim's house?"
While tying Ron's shoes, Kim answered, "I might go to Kim's, but we'll probably be at Amy's house."
"Just call me when you get there," Ron's mother said.
"'Kay, Mom," Kim answered, tugging the last of the knot into place and opening the door to leave. "Seeya later!"
~*~*~*~
Kim's mother watched her daughter closely. Something wasn't right. Kim had woken up before everyone else, and she wore a bright smile on her face. She was humming as she sat at the table awaiting breakfast, her eyes not even hinting at any weariness. 'Kimmy's not usually such a morning person,' Kim's mother mused silently, moving aside as her two sons came running through the kitchen rowdily. 'I wonder what happened to make her so happy.'
It wasn't that this was an unwelcome change. In fact, it made breakfast that morning a whole lot better to see her daughter so cheery. There were, however, other changes in other people that morning.
The twins were armed with what looked like squirt guns as they stalked into the room, and Kim's mother was very wary of what might be in them. They hadn't taken them outside to fill them up with water, that was for sure. "Jim, Tim, what in the world are you doing with those?" she asked as they proceeded to point them at her daughter, who looked up from her meal and blinked.
"We're going to use them to annihilate the evil alien that's invaded Kim's body," Jim said, making sure that his aim was direct.
"Now boys," Mr. Possible said sternly, "there's no alien in your sister's body."
"Yes there is!" Tim exclaimed, glaring at the girl in question.
"There has to be!" Jim piped in.
"Normal Kim couldn't have beaten us in a video game ever," Tim stated.
"And normal Kim would never be so happy at breakfast," Jim said pointedly.
Kim's mother took the opportunity to speak up. "I have been wondering about that, Kimmy," she said. "What's gotten you so sunny this morning?"
'Kim' was tracing a circle on the table with her finger, and now had a very embarrassed look on her face. "Well," she said, "you know Josh Manke? That really cute guy that I like from school?"
Kim's mother's eyes lit up. "Yes?" she inquired.
"Well, he kinda asked me to go on a date with him this coming Saturday," 'Kim' said, blushing.
"Really?" Mrs. Possible said. "No wonder you've been so happy!"
Mr. Possible abruptly tuned out of the conversation. He coughed and picked up the newspaper, pretending to read it while his mind buzzed with reasons his daughter shouldn't be going on this date. Meanwhile, the twins looked dumbfounded. The nozzles of their squirt guns now pointed at the ground and dripped out an ugly green substance slowly as they both stared at their sister.
"So you're not an alien invader?" Tim asked. He sounded disappointed.
"No, I'm not an alien invader," Kim said, laughing.
The twins trailed out of the room unhappily. They had been looking forward to the battle with the alien in their sister's body. They had already both imagined it. It would've been a heroic battle, in which they would have narrowly escaped being possessed by aliens themselves and would have saved their parents, who were far too old for possession by such beings, from certain doom.
~*~*~*~
"Bye, Dad!" 'Kim' called as Mr. Possible drove off down the street to drop off the twins. 'Kim' shook her head as she thought about today's little breakfast adventure, and laughed openly as she headed towards the school entrance.
"What's so funny?" the real Kim asked as her best friend approached. She'd been waiting for almost twenty minutes.
Ron laughed again. "It's your brothers! Those two are nutso. They thought I was an alien invader just 'cause I beat 'em at one of their fighting games a few times," he said. "They tried to shoot me with squirt guns full of 'Alien Repellant' at breakfast this morning." He shook his head and said, "Then your mom was getting suspicious of me because I was happy this morning. I had to tell them that it was because I was going out with Manke." Ron made a face at this, one that Kim quickly covered up.
"You idiot! What if he sees you do something like that? He'll think that I don't really like him," she hissed angrily.
Ron stuck his tongue out at her, and said, "Well, don't let anyone hear you talking about liking hims either."
The next few moments passed in silence as the two sat on the edge of the sidewalk watching people file into the school. The quiet that surrounded them and left them with only their thoughts was unbroken by the chatting of the various groups that headed into the building.
"Hey," Kim said suddenly. "I've got to tell you about this dream I had last night. It was totally weird."
Ron looked curious. "What kind of dream was it?"
"Well," Kim began, but she was cut short as a happy voice trilled across the schoolyard.
"Helloooo you two!"
Amethyst bounded up to them, plopping down at Ron's side and grinning at the two of them gleefully. Kim was annoyed by her arrival. She had this nagging feeling in the back of her head that told her not to tell the cat about her dream.
Ron turned back to Kim. "Well?" he said.
"I'll tell you later," Kim muttered, just loud enough so that only he could hear.
~*~*~*~
That's it for today! Next time on One Year: Kim and Ron's first day of school as each other. ^-^
I gotta go to bed now, because I've got a concert to go to in the morning! Goodnight, y'all!