Chapter One : The Fountain of Knowledge

The sound of my dog barking wakes me up. My eyes are too lazy to open and they don't want to see the blinding light. I'm starting to fall back asleep, but the yellowish short-furred labrador has other plans.

"Dante, please stop making noise. Momma is trying to sleep here buddy." I tell him with my sleepy voice.

This little player surely knows how to strike a nerve, but I love him too much to get angry.

Seeing as his barking won't stop untill I get up, I make the sacrifice to throw my blanket off and stand up.

Dante barks a lot, but at least I have my personal morning alarm; and evening alarm; just a super alarm in general.

As I try to get up, Dante jumps on the bed and places himself in my arms.

"What's wrong little guy? Are you hungry? Are you hungry?" I ask with my special pet voice. He seems to like the way his tummy is scrached, but I have other plans for today.

"Come with ma'!" I tell him when I get up and go to the kitchen. God, I love this baby soo much. He really is my bestfriend. Literally. Since I've moved into this apartament two weeks ago, he is my sunshine.

As I pass by the window, I see a furniture truck and some guys taking the furniture into, what seems to be, the same building as mine. Looks like someone else is moving here too.

I glance one more time outside the window, then I go make myself a coffee. Like every other normal morning in my life, luck isn't on my side and I trip over, hitting my pinky toe in the corner of the freaking table.

I hiss in pain, letting the electricity wave that went through my foot to get away.

"Just my luck." I murmur to myself.

I get up and this time, I go to the coffee machine without hitting and rolling on the ground.

I take Dante's food and give it to him. Then I choose to make some breakfast, and I take two eggs from the fridge. I regret the fact that I don't have initiative to cook more often. I do have more important things to take care of, though.

In my almost eighteen years of this shit called life, I learned a lot, even if not by choice. A few more months and I take the plane to the grown-ups land. Unfortunately, I don't have a business class seat.

So far, adulthood doesn't look very compromising.

I had to become an adult at a fragile age. I only had my mom growing up, and she only had me. We took good care of each other even though we had to be on the move almost all the time. I've never quite get it why we were changing places soo often. I didn't had the opportunity to create bondings with, well, mostly anyone. To say that her death came as an extremely disturbing shock would be an understatement. She was killed in our house when I was at school. It was a murder in cold blood, right in the middle of the day. When I was coming home from school I had known something happened. I could sense it.

I ran as fast as I could, only to get home and see my mother laying on the cold hone of our kitchen with a wound on her forehead and her throat slit. I couldn't even cry. I was staring at what was written next to her corpse. 'Search the truth.' My mind tried to focus on anything else than the horrifying image in front of me, but failed nontheless. The writting looked like a mess of weird symbols that somehow, made sense. If it was my mother who wrote it there, I have yet to find out. It's been six months since it happened. Not even the therapist couldn't make it better. Only Dante. Dante helped me more than words ever did.

Enough with this sob story. I can't deal with another season of melancholic and depressed stages. Life goes on, even if without her. I accepted that, now I'll only have to find the truth. Whatever that might be.

I decide to go for a run as long as the weather is on my side. Tomorrow is Monday, a new school day. It's already October and the air gives me chills as I pass the streets.

The Slumber Forest is not far away. I might as well go to the Fountain and rest a little by the Healing Willow. This is how the people named it. They say they feel the power it gives you. When you are feeling down, they say it will take away your sorrrow. Transforms the negativity into positivity. Trust the people of Primdale to make nonsense stories.

I'm not saying I don't believe in miracles or angels and demons, but a healing willow? Seriously?

As I near the Fountain, a feeling of nausea causes me to stop running. I place a hand on my stomach and one on a tree. A small pain courses through my leg and I bend down for a couple of seconds. I walk my hands through the grass. Its soft touch relaxes my muscles and gives me a refreshing sensation. After the nausea dissapears, I get up and continue my run at a jogging pace until I reach the Fountain.

Even if it is cloudy, the weather is still good. Especially in this area. Small sunshines break through the sky. The nature is pale, with shades of green close to grey. I hear the birds singing from up in the sky and down from the trees. I feel every blast of wind. I feel it with my hands, with my face, with my everything.

I inhale deeply the fresh air and I let it invade my senses. I walk by the Fountain and I stay on its edge. It is a beautiful structure. White stone with what it seems to be mythical creatures as design. I pass my hand over the perfect denivelations and take a closer look. I can see the form of the Minotaur, I see dragons, I see phoenix birds. Angels and demons. Good and bad. Life and death.

I pull my legs up and hold them to my chest. I look at the water, which is moving even though no wind is blowing. I look deeper and see the big brownish-white Willow. I see its branches floating slowly in the air. They look soo free. Like nothing can separate them away from their world. They are all unique and yet the massive tree keeps them all together. Free, but captured and yet never apart. Just like our world. The people are made to believe that they have the freedom they deserve, but they are controled by massive organisations, and yet all of this maintain us together somehow.

As I look deeper into the sparkling water, I see myself in a strange form. I see myself slowly turning into something abnormal. I can't tear my eyes from the mesmerizing water, not even when I see my red eyes, two big and sharp horns on my head and black wings growing out on my back.

I can hear my heart pounding hard in my chest, my breath unregulated and my body shaking.

When I came back to reality, I jump off of the Fountain's edge trying to delete the image from my brain. At an alert pace, I make my way back home. I run through the massive forest, passing every tree in a blur. I stumble a few times over tiny rocks and I feel the nature calling me to stop. So I do. I stop and I look around. Silence. Then the magnificent birds start singing with their golden voices. Their melody is filling my ears, and the tremendous pressure starts leaving my body.

I continue my jogging in silence, lost in my own mind. When I exit the Slumber Forest my senes come back to me and breathing seems a lot easier than before. I stop running.

After a little while, I get to the building complex. I feel like I'm being watched from everywhere and with shaking hands I open the door of the building. I climb the stairs and when I get at the top of the staircase, something pushes me back with such force that it sends me down over more than fifty stairs.

As I land, I feel my bones being crushed and my head going numb. I try to move, but I am paralyzed. I keep trying and trying and nothing happens. I close my eyes. My mind tells me not to worry. So I don't. I let myself fall into melancholia while my body is recovering.

I hear steps coming from upstairs and I want to scream, but my mouth doesn't make a sound. I vaguely hear someone asking me if I can hear them. I do, but I can't respond, so I blink twice. They are talking to someone. My body is then being carried away, back on the steps and then it stops at the apartament in front of my own.

""""""""""""""""""

Whispers and movements are all around me and I'm confused. I must've passed out for a while because darkness is surrounding me. I stand up and blink a few times. I remember what happened, but I can't explain why I can move like I've never stumbled across the stairs.

I get up from the couch and I march towards the voices.

In my visual perimeter appear two people. A woman and a young man. As I aproach them, they turn their heads towards me. I look at the table beside them which is full of food. I hear my stomach growling. Apparently they hear it too.

"Hey honey! Glad to see that you woke up." the woman says. She is very beautiful, with a dark brown hair and blue eyes. She has soft traits. She remembers me of my mother.

"For how long had I been out?" I ask her while I go towards the table, eyeing the whole food paradise. A lot of pasta lays into a bowl and next to it there are some tacos and homemade pizza. My stomach growls once again.

She gives me a sympathetic smile and motions for me to come and sit down.

"Not very long. A couple hours at least." the young man tells me.

"Thank you for your hospility and your kindness." I adress to both of them. They eye me like I might pass out any second from now.

"You don't have to thank us, sweety." the woman tells me kindly. "But enough of this. You must be hungry after all the energy you've lost. Come sit and redo your powers." I give her a sincer smile, and then I remember I don't know who she is.

"Thank you ma'am. I am Cathia. Cathia White." I introduce myself as I go for a handshake.

She looks at me and then recognition strikes her. She doesn't say anything about it though.

"You are very beautiful, Cathia. I am Sylvia Kane and this is my son, Cassius. We found you passed out onto the base of the stairs so we took you here. I hope that is not a problem." Sylvia says.

"Not at all. You just moved here today?" I ask as I take a seat at the table.

"Yes. I have lived here before and necesity and curiosity made me move away, but no place is like home." she says and a beautiful smile appears on her lips, most likely by remembering the good old times.

"I agree. If you need help with unpacking I'd be glad to help." I offer, feeling very comfortable around them. Like I've known them for a lifetime.

"That'd be lovely, my dear, but you must rest now."

"I don't understand how I've fallen over fifty stairs and yet I feel no pain whatsoever. It's like it never happened." Sylvia gives me a sympathetic look. "But I still want to help. It's the least I can do."

This time she agrees.

She then brings some plates from a box and places one in front of me. I glance at the clock on the wall and I see it's almost six pm. I was unconscious for seven hours?

Sylvia serves me some pasta and for a while no one says anything. I think this is the first real meal I've had since I moved here. The spicy flavour burns my tongue, but is soo good. I'm a sucker for spicy food.

After we'd finished eating, I ask them what I can do to help.

"You should go home and rest, darling. You've had enough agitation today. Get some rest and we'll find another day for unpacking." Sylvia tells me. I want to protest, but then I remember Dante. The poor baby is there all alone.

"Thank you again for everything you've done for me." I wonder why they are soo kind. And soo familiar.

She gives me a smile and a nod as in 'We'll catch up later.".

I return the smile and march towards the door.

"Good night, Miss Kane. Good night Cassius."

"Good night my dear. If you feel any pain this night, don't hesitate to come to me."

"Sure thing. Thank you." and with that I was out the door and entering my own apartament.

When I opened the door, Dante was lying on the floor, waiting for me.

"Oh you sweet thing." I tell him when he comes to me and start to shake his tail. "I'm sorry that I left you here all by yourself. Mommy didn't want to." I bend down and kiss his little nose.

Apparently he was very bored, because my bedroom was a mess. All the bedsheets were on the ground and my book shelf was a mess. A few books were on the ground, as well as my school paper sheets. There goes my homework. And when I've thought it was a miracle from God that I finished three days earlier. At least now I can use the excuse 'the dog ate my homework'. Not that anyone would believe me.

I cleaned all up and started doing my history homework again.

By the time I've finished it up, it was already nine pm. Grabing some pajamas, I go to the bathroom and take a long hot shower to calm my muscles. I keep thinking about what I saw at the Fountain. Maybe it was just my imagination. Even though it looked pretty awesome. I can't explain it. I don't have the words to explain what that was.

After the well deserved shower, I still had some time to kill. My usual sleeping schedule is at twelve AM, one AM mostly.

I get my phone and play some music. 'Emperor's New Clothes' by Panic! At The Disco starts blasting through the speakers.

I take some thick paper sheets and my B pencils and begin drawing the reflection I saw in the water. With the ideas still fresh in my mind, I might as well transform it into a livid thing. Curiosity eats me alive. It somehow reminds me of dragons. Shout out to the Merlin series.

After some time, the drawing takes shape, but I am too sleepy to finish it this night. I stop the music and go to bed, taking Dante with me. I pet his fur until I fall asleep. Oh, Dante. Such a good treatment for lost souls.