CHAPTER I MAGIC IN MIND
The tranquil serenity of the sandy sea, the abundance of thunder bolts, the misty radiance of the silky clouds, a giant fire ablaze, the great strength of destructive Tornado-s and the peaceful yet dangerous Earth. Artemis put down his book, he had been reading it for the past two hours and had not realized that he was late for his class. He scanned his school room hoping to spot his pet cat Chinco. Seeing that Chinco must have wandered off somewhere he proceeded to get dressed then walked down the hallway leading to the boys shower room. While he was walking down the way he looked out of the window to the left and noticed that there was a strange glowing light coming from outside of a bush which was located five meters away from the hallway. He studied it closer as the light grew brighter, then Artemis fell to the floor after being knocked down by another boy who was making his way hurriedly down the hallway. Ruffled and shocked Artemis stood up and peered out of the window but there was no strange light emanating from the bush this time. Seeing nothing Artemis decided to keep making his way along. As he was walking down, what seemed a mile long hallway, he thought about a dream he had the night before. He was standing on the edge of a giant blue cliff surrounded by strange purple lights. In his dream he looked to his left and noticed his cat sitting down on the end of another ravine and to his right a strange golden sword which emanated a strange glow similar to the one he saw just moments ago. Then looking straight ahead of himself he spotted another cliff far in the distance. Then he started to float in the air slowly making his way to the rocky cliff that was now strangely close to him. Upon landing on the second cliff he turned to look back but saw nothing except complete darkness. Making his way down some jagged rocks he ceased when he came to a rushing waterfall.
He was transfixed by the serenity and tranquility of the fresh, clear falling water. He felt a sudden rush of celestial peacefulness run through his body as the rushing water landed smoothly onto the rocks below.
Fourteen year old Artemis got undressed and hopped into a double shower, which he had all to himself. Artemis turned on the tap and felt the pelting of shower water flow down his body which was turning soft. After he had washed his body he glanced at his hand and for a second he saw a strange purple shape that looked similar to a pyramid, but has strange edges. He blinked then looked again and once more he saw nothing. Artemis looked at his black watch 9:55, he only had five minutes to get to class and he wasn-t going to waste any time, he quickly got dressed and ended up putting most of his clothes on back to front, another student mentioned it to him so his had to dress all over again!. He rushed out of the changing rooms and swiftly darted through the halls and into a classroom which had the number 17 written at the top in big bold letters. Upon entering the classroom he looked around and too his relief only seven kids had arrived for class so he was not late. He took a seat next to his friend Johnny Keen who had bet him to class by ten minutes. Johnny looked nothing like Steve, he had black hair down to his shoulders, dark brown hazy eyes, a thin head and very pale white skin, that looked like someone had just thrown a carton of milk on his face or he had been found dead in a river, Artemis didn-t really know which one to choose from. Johnny-s milky appearance was a lot different from Artemis-s, who has Striking short blonde hair, thin lips sparkling blue eyes and Tanned skin. Johnny thought that someone must have chucked sand at his face and it had stayed there or that Artemis was lost in a desert for forty days and forty one nights! And just like Artemis, Johnny couldn-t decide which was true.
As the period wore on Artemis found that the teacher was getting ever so much more boring, talking about how to say the word antidisestablishmentarialism . Classes were so vague to him, he would never remember what he had learned in his last lessons and never once had he completed his homework it wasn-t that he was a bad student he just had other priorities which he thought were more important than schoolwork. He has only been at Evan-s bay Boarding school for a year, and he actually wanted to go so he could have some space to himself. His parents, brother, and two sisters live a few towns away from where Artemis is and he catches the bus too see them once a fortnight, sometimes every week depending on how he was feeling. Artemis enjoyed everything about his life, his friends, his school, his family and everything in between except his name. He really hated the name ARTEMIS because he thought that he was the only one in the world with such a stupid name. Having listened to the teachers boring lectures Artemis thought he would die if the teacher continued talking in such a boring manor. Johnny turned and looked over at Steve
-Hey, I saw you on your way to the showers, you dropped your diary-.
Artemis-s eyes filled with shock, he dreaded the thought that if someone found it and opened it, the diary had all of his secrets and things he thought about people that only he should be aloud to read and write in. Artemis leaned over, closed his eyes and said a faint
-Oh-
As he leaned over he noticed a mirror sitting on the floor of the room, he curiously picked it up and looked at it bluntly. The reflection showed his desk and pencil case, but he continued to stare into the little mirror. Johnny noticed this, tapped him on the shoulder and asked him what he was doing. Artemis looked closer, and harder and after a few seconds another item came into focus, his diary, in the reflection his diary was sitting on his desk along with his pencil case. Shocked Artemis dropped the mirror, which smashed on the floor, picked up his diary and started walking slowly down to the end of the classroom. He held the diary up to his face and stared at it closely then dropped it and quickly ran out of the classroom.
-all of this is getting too weird- Artemis yelled as he ran down the corridors of the school, and five times he wasn-t looking and ran into sides of sharp walls, his uniform was ripped where he had been cut and blood pored onto his shorts, but Artemis barely noticed because he was at this point terrified of what had happened during the past two hours of the day. First the flashing light, then the strange marking on his hand and now, his diary strangely appearing in the classroom it was too much for him too handle, he didn-t know what was wrong with him, was he hallucinating, or very tired. The more he tried to think the more his vision faded, his temperature starting to rise drastically and his breathing becoming very heavy, he needed to get back to his room but he couldn-t remember which way to go, it-s as if he was suffering amnesia. He came to a double door which led to a staircase; he took one step then fell the other seven and landed painfully on the cold, hard, stone floor. He looked up at the ceiling and started to weep, he had no idea what was happening to him. He sat at the bottom of the staircase for hours, people ran past him, some not noticing at all, some asking him what the matter was, never the less he did not respond to anyone not even the teachers that asked him to go to his classes, he stayed there all throughout lunch and last class.
Johnny made his way through the library and around the quad in search of Steve, he wondered what happened to him, he-d rushed out of class so silently then hadn-t turned up to lunch, Frankly Johnny was worried, Artemis was strange but not that strange. Johnny asked a student with short reddish hair if he had seen Steve, but to no avail. However a very short black haired student ran up to him and said that he saw Artemis at the bottom of the stairwell near classroom 13.
Artemis entered the library briefly after Johnny Left sat down and sadly opened the book he had been reading in the morning:
Fire, powerful, harmful, yet a source of heat can be a very destructive and deadly force, during the past fifty years approximately 135,000,000 people have been seriously injured or killed caused by fire.
Wind, strong, evasive yet a source of refreshment can be very helpful on a warm summers day but very destructive when formed into a tornado, during the past fifty years approximately 234,000,000 people have been seriously injured or killed caused by severe Tornado, typhoons and hurricanes
Thunder glistening, dangerous, yet a source of display and electricity. Lightning, like thunder make-s an array of light. Over the past fifty years approximately 2856 people have been struck by lightning and 18,000,000,000 people have heard a thunder clap.
Earth, essential, yet destructive and vengeful. Mother Nature controls this element the most, making huge earthquakes in remote areas killing many. Over the past fifty years there have been over 988,000,000 earthquakes and 153,000,000 people have been killed during an earthquake.
After reading a page of his book he slammed it onto the table and slowly lifted himself to his feet, then ran out of the library down the stairwell and past room 17. Artemis had a hunch not a very conclusive one but a hunch. He found himself standing in front of the leafy bush he saw this morning where the blazing light had emitted out of. He began too search the plant thoroughly, as if looking for something. After looking for ages Artemis gave up looking through it and decided to go back to his room, after looking at his watch 4:47. How very strange his day had been, unlike any other he had experienced. Then something occurred to him, he had left his stuff in the classroom, he decided to go and get his things. Artemis walked slowly away from the bush turning back swiftly as if trying to catch a glimpse of that radiant light he saw earlier but he knew that he would not see that light.. Today anyway. He opened the door leading inside and who would he bump into but Johnny himself. Johnny turned around, obviously noticing Steve:
-Hey Artz where have you been all day are you alright???-
Artemis looked blankly into Johnny-s eyes and noticed a slight glimpse of fear. Artemis took a step forward turned to look at Johnny and blurted
-Fine-.
He ran off before Johnny could reply.
Artemis reached room 17 and peered in the small window that sat on the door, noticing that his books and bag were still in the classroom, he proceeded to open the door, he grasped the door handle and pulled but it would not open. He began to put it frantically but it was no use the room was definitely locked for the night. He turned disappointed and started walking away. There was a strange creek and Artemis turned around too see that the door had opened, he figured a teacher must have unlocked it and was inside, he made his way back to the class room and looked inside.. There were no teachers in the classroom. Artemis started to get scared, a moment ago it wouldn-t budge, now it opened itself? He quickly picked up his items and ran out of the room as fast as he could and he turned around again to see the door slam shut.
Artemis plonked himself down on his bed and opened his diary to the date FRIDAY MARCH 13 2005. He grabbed his blue pen and before he wrote in it he noticed that there was small writing on that page that he couldn-t read very clearly. Artemis reached for his Magnifying glass and put it in front of his eyes, then held his diary up to his face and the words clearly said
-MAGIC IN MIND-
Whatever that meant he didn-t really care because he was now very weary and tired because of the events that had occurred. Sulking he reached for his book but then double thought and decided not to read but to think about things that had happened and how to understand what they were once and for all. Without getting undressed he opened his bedcovers and got into his nice, soft, warm sleeping quarters. He took one last look at his watch, it read 7:35, before he took it off and put it on his shelf which was filled with all kinds of things, alarm clocks, books, video-s, a TV and vcr a radio Discman and a photo of his whole family. Artemis looked out at the many bright stars that were shining proudly in the moonlit sky that night, at this point he wished he was as bright as each and every one of those magnificent stars, he wished that all of his problems would sink out of his head and dissolve in outer space, he wished he knew the strange happenings that had turned a perfectly normal day upside down, he wished that he hadn-t been so nasty to his friend Johnny but most of all he wished that he knew what the writing in his diary meant - magic in mind-. He felt like he was standing on a bridge, on a pitch black night with no answers and no way of finding out the questions he longed to hear.
Out of all the stars in the sky he focused his attention on a specific one that shone more brightly that all of the rest, and was much bigger it reminded him of his cat Chinco who had bright yellow fur, unusual fur for a cat, and big green eyes.
He sat up and realized that he hadn-t seen Chinco at all today, he was starting to get a little worried, usually Chinco was there in the morning and night but today it wasn-t. Art-s decided not to fret so he lay down again and looked out at the star but the one that shone brightly was nowhere too be seen and most of the other stars had faded too, possibly because of thick fogy clouds. There were only about ten left in the sky but Artemis started to count them and came up with the number 17. Noticing that the stars faded one by one Artemis looked at them more carefully and every four or so stars seemed to blow up when they disappeared, in minutes they were all gone, no stars in the sky, just the full moon and a completely black sky. He assumed that it was around 9:00, he had been staring into the atmosphere for quite a while and couldn-t be bothered to grab his watch.
The temperature was dropping rapidly and Artemis was getting very cold, despite the fact that he had three blankets on and a quilt, the cold had always got to him more than any other kids. Shivering he shoved his head under the blankets, breathed in the cold air and let out warm air into his bed, in no time he was warm again. But for the first time in his life he felt lonely. -Magic in mind- the word revolved in his head and whatever it meant he knew he was going to find out soon.
During the night Artemis had another disturbingly real dream, it was a sequel to the last one he had, Artemis often had re occurring dreams. He was standing at the same magnificent waterfall, the rushing clear water, pelting onto the jagged rocks below. Artemis slowly walked slowly toward the water, but was hesitant to touch very sharp rocks, afraid he would lose his foothold and collapse onto the spiny rocks beneath his feet. He looked at the rushing water and raised his hands up in the air. He turned around as if knowing someone was there but it was all clear. He slowly moved his hands closer and closer to the water and when his long, thin fingers touched the tranquil, clear water it formed a hole in the middle of the fall, he didn-t know how he did it but there was a large hole where the water did not flow. He looked at it curiously and scanned the area once more making no body was around, then he made a circle with his hands and the water flowed in a different direction. Artemis could now see that behind the waterfall was a dark, dank cave. He looked at the rushing water and stepped through the gap which no water was rushing down and entered to dark cave. He took a glimpse of the stalagmites and stalactites that were hanging and spouting off of the ceiling and wet ground, occasionally one would fall and just miss him. He came to the end of the cave and what he saw horrified him, lying on the cave floor, was a rotten, moldy, sickening, defunct body. Artemis looked at it skeptically and closed his eyes
The first thing Artemis saw when he woke up the next morning was Johnny-s distressed face floating above his head
-Steve-
He gasped, obviously out of breath.
-What?- he said back plainly
-You have to go down to room 17 something horrible has happened!-
