Chapter Four –

Dreams

While he was unconscious, Seph was having flashbacks to his early life. They would hit him, and with every one, a new wave of pain, emotional and physical, came over him. And here was one now. . . .

Seph shrieked silently as the flashback came on. The pain was almost too much for his injured body to bear. Then he spun through time to the day he first saw the Dragon Warrior1. Seph was thirteen years old at the time. . . .

Seph walked down the street and started to talk to a bunch of his friends. Everyone thought that it was so cool that he was adopted, so Seph was the leader of the bunch. Today was the day of the field trip. Everyone was so excited! The school had donated $10,000 to the National Museum of Greek Mythology and the museum had given them tickets to take all of the 7th graders to see the museum's new exhibit. Seph and his friends were herded into the bus by the teachers. Seph slid into his usual seat at the back of the bus. His best friend, who was becoming more then just a friend, slid in the seat next to him. Her name was Gazelle Longbranch.

"Hey Seph," she said, openly flirting with him, and snuggled up against his side. Seph didn't really mind, so he didn't push her away like she usually did. Gazelle obviously took this as a sign of encouragement and snuggled closer. She gazed upward at the same second as he was looking down at her. She lifted her chin slightly, so that her lips were just inches from his. Seph bent down and gently pressed his lips against hers. Immediately, he felt her heart go wild underneath his hand. Seph heard footsteps and jerked his head up. Gazelle looked at him, confusion written across her face.

"Relax," he whispered "Someone's coming, but just relax and sit on the seat next to me." Seph saw her eyes go wide as she sat bolt upright next to him. Oh great, he thought, there is no possible way we are going to pull this off. Seph turned to the isle of the bus and saw Mr. Turner, the super strict math teacher doing his rounds on the bus. Seph groaned. Aw, crap. Why did it have to be this teacher who was doing the rounds? Why couldn't it be that nice English teacher, Mr. Bass? Mr. Turner walked down the isle calling out to make sure that everyone was sitting down and stopped next to them.

"Hello Seph, Gazelle," the teacher said menacingly. "Having fun?" Mr. Turner said this in such a way that Seph got the feeling that he somehow knew exactly what had been going on.

Seph sneaked a look at Gazelle and saw that she was trembling. Gazelle was obviously trying not to show it, but wasn't succeeding. So that's how he knows.

"Yes Mr. Turner," Seph said smoothly. Time to change the subject. At least he had practiced this part. "We were just talking about how much fun you make math." Immediately Mr. Turner blushed and started to talk about something that had to do with geometry or algebra. The math teacher was still standing in the isle. The bus screeched to a stop and poor Mr. Turner went flying to the front of the bus. The bus had arrived at the National Museum of Greek Mythology.

Once the teachers had managed to get everyone off the bus with no one being trampled, the 7th graders went into the museum. Right in the middle of the lobby was the new exhibit. And in the middle of the new exhibit was an incredible painting. There was a huge Ancient Greek dragon on it. The dragon's intricate tail was coiled around the Washington Monument, while the weight of the beast was crushing most of the flags surrounding the monument. The dragon's wings were flared and the fire was spurting from the huge mouth with marble colored teeth. The dragon had beautiful, intelligent, eyes that looked as if they had been carved out of jade that were set on a surprisingly delicate head, and shimmering, interlocking, crimson scales. She was entrancing. Somehow, he just knew that the dragon was female. Seph couldn't look away from her. But then the unimaginable happened.

The dragon tore itself from the painting and, while there was still a copy of it on the painting, the dragon's scales on the painting had lost their sheen and the jade eyes had lost their intelligence. But the dragon standing in front of Seph was the same as Seph had first seen her. She stretched her wings and yawned, expelling a cloud of surprisingly sweet-smelling (but boiling hot) breath. She stared at Seph with those hypnotizing jade colored eyes. Seph looked away as fast as possible.

"I have been waiting forrrr you forrrr a hundrrred yearsssss," The dragon hissed, rolling out her r's forked tongue flicking in and out. "And only now you come to me, Sssseph?"

Seph screamed and lunged away from the dragon.

"Seph," Gazelle called "what's the matter?"

"The dragon's alive!" Seph screamed. Gazelle looked at him, and started to back away, looking at him with pity. The dragon started to walk toward him in her smooth, long strides. He ran out the door, hearing one of the teachers say sadly, "we knew that this was possible, we just didn't think it would happen so soon." Seph was still half paralyzed by the dragon's stare, and that forced him to run in an odd, loping jog, even though he was trying to run. He heard footsteps behind him and felt a needle pierce his bicep. Then all he knew was the shadowy world of unwilling sleep.

Seph was dragged into his past for the second time. He whimpered, not able to get enough breath to scream.

Seph jogged easily on the boardwalk. He started to get a little out of breath, but kept pushing himself like he always did. It had been about four in the morning when Seph had left the house and Seph always jogged for as long as he could before he had to stop, because the longer that Seph was out of the house, the less time his horrid foster parents had to yell at him. For what felt like the thousandth time, Seph wondered why his true parents had let these people baby-sit him when he was two, and then went missing. Seph had been told that his parents had died in a freak accident while hunting lions on Africa, but he didn't quite believe that. He felt a thick liquid at the back of his throat. Seph stumbled to a stop, chest heaving as he fought to breathe through the mucus blocking his breath. He cursed silently. He had overreached himself again.

Seph silently closed the door behind him and pushed the bolt into place. He pulled off his running shoes without taking the time to untie them and tiptoed to the stairs. Seph was about to start climbing up the stairs when he remembered that the first, third, fifth, seventh, and eighth steps creaked when you stepped on them. Seph carefully drew his foot back from mid-step and hopped lightly to the second step, then the fourth and lost his balance. Seph staggered and got his balance only after he had slipped down three stairs. Hopefully they didn't hear that. Seph took a step up on to the sixth step, then the eighth. The step creaked and groaned loudly. Seph groaned. Good luck not having them hear that. He hurried up the rest of the steps and hauled his tired legs down the hall and into his little room. The door slammed shut behind him, pushed by the wind that he had stirred up as he was running down the hall. The door slammed open, but this time it was not caused by wind, but was caused by his fourth foster father, Paul, bursting into his room.

"Kid! You are in so much trouble!" Paul yelled.

Seph decided to venture a question. "Are you going to yell for Mary?" His foster father stepped over the threshold.

"No," he said, quietly and dangerously, "I'm not going to call Mary." Seph breathed a sigh of relief that came all too soon.

"No," said Paul, "I want you all to myself this time. Natalie is sweet, but too nice to you." Seph struggled to hold in a fit of nervous laughter. Natalie? Nice? I don't think so. Now Seph went through his music library in his head. It was the only was to keep his foster father's words from hurting him. Seph put on his best anti-hurt armor and switched off to be alone with his thoughts during the hard lecture and possible beating that would surely come.

"Are you listening to me?" Seph was jolted out of his thoughts by a bellow from his foster father.

"I know that you've been sneaking out every morning," his foster father snarled at Seph. Seph could smell the alcohol on his foster father's breath. Crap. Seph cursed under his breath as he realized that his foster father was drunk. His worst beatings always came when one or both of his parents were drunk.

"And I'm going to take care of this right now!" his foster father said, his voice going up, as it always did when he was completely wasted. Seph knew that he had only seconds before his foster father hit him when his foster father started to advance towards him, hand raised.

"This will teach you not to sneak out without my permission!" his foster father shrieked, his alcohol-reddened eyes rolling wildly in his head. His foster father swiped at him but Seph jerked back out of the way. Seph tripped over his mattress and fell over backwards. His foster father staggered towards him again and Seph put his hands out in front of him as a meager protection from his foster father. The hit landed squarely on his forearm. Seph could feel all of the anger towards all of his foster parents, suppressed for so long; start to stir deep inside his mind.

Seph got up and as his foster father approached and raised his hand once again, Seph, in a desperate attempt to stop his foster father, raised his hands. Seph's karate instructor always said, "Push or strike with your mind as well as your body." And Seph did. He closed his eyes and visualized his foster father flying backwards into a wall. Seph opened his eyes and saw his foster father hit the window, reddened eyes wide, and burst through with a crash and a shower of shattered glass.

There was a scream, a thump, then silence. Seph slowly walked over to the window, looked out of the shattered window at the ground and saw his foster father lying bloody and broken. His foster father's head was twisted at an angle that made Seph sure that Seph had broken his foster father's neck or worse. Seph felt a bubble of remorse about what he had done come up. He shoved it back down savagely. What had happened was what his foster father deserved for what he had done to Seph. He spat and walked away. It was only once he was out of the house that he began to think about what he had done. Seph liked to read about telekinesis and telepathy, the powers of moving things with your mind and reading minds, and he thought back to everything he had read.

Seph silently screamed as the third flashback in as many days came over him. Wham! Suddenly he was in his house, back when he had a house, if you could call it that, and didn't live in the warehouse, right before he ran away.

"You useless boy," his fifth foster 'father' was yelling, "I told you to clean your room, not shove it all in a closet! No T.V. for a week. A month! A year!"

"You will go to your room and stay there until tomorrow morning," snarled his fifth foster 'mother' "or later, if I decide to keep you there for longer." She waved a hand at Seph, dismissing him from her presence.

"Well, go on!" Seph went. He was too scared not to obey, for the fear of being beaten or starved in to obedience. Seph went straight to his stash of food that he had squirreled away for when this type of thing happened. Seph checked it and saw that there was only a loaf of bread, some chocolate, and some fruit. He pulled out an apple and had started to eat it when he heard steps coming up the stairs. Thud, thud, thud. He had learned from experience that his foster mother's steps sounded like a boom, while his foster father thudded up the stairs. Seph whipped around and had started to shove his apple back into his hiding spot, but before he could, the door flew open.

"What are you doing!?" demanded his foster father.

"Mary, dear, come here and see what this brat of ours has been doing," he called out the door. Seph heard the booming of his foster mother coming up the steps. In a split second, Seph made the decision that would change his life forever. He snatched his food, lunged desperately past his foster father and ran by his foster mother on the stairs. Seph ran through the kitchen, grabbing whatever food he could.

"Mary! Get him!" Seph heard his foster father yell.

"What?" his foster mother responded.

"I said, get him!" his foster father screamed.

"Huh?" Seph could hear that his foster mother was completely confused by what his foster father was yelling. It was a good thing for him that him foster mother was half deaf, Seph thought. He opened the door and started to run again. He turned around and . . . Wham!

1 Dragon Warrior – an elite warrior, the best of the best, takes the form of a dragon when he or she dies and becomes the personal protector of one person of his or her choice.