Seven
1210 Words
I fought to open my eyes when I woke up; my eyelids had never been so heavy before. Neither had the rest of my body, actually. What happened? My mouth was dry, my throat sore, and I was exhausted.
"Oh, your awake! For chrissake, Briseis, I thought you'd never wake up." Troy said from somewhere I couldn't see.
"What?" I rasped as he walked into view, frowned and walked away again. "Troy?" I squeaked as my throat became even less willing to produce sound.
"Here," he said, returning to my side and handing me a glass of water. "Drink this."
I accepted the offer and greedily gulped down the entire glass, wiping the trail of water that dripped down my chin on my arm. "What happened?" I asked, trying and failing to fit the pieces together. I felt like my brain was wading through quicksand. My synapses sluggish and unable to break the surface.
"I have no idea," Troy shrugged. "You were trying to reach your friend, with your," he made a vague motion toward his temple to indicate my newfound psychic ability. "You were mumbling before you woke up, or well, I thought you woke yup. Then, you were out again before I knew it and you've been out of it ever since."
"How long?" My throat was only a little smoother than it had been before I drank the water. Troy took the glass from my hands and trekked to the tiny kitchen to refill it.
"About 12 hours," he answered as he placed the glass back into my hands.
It took about ten minutes to catch him up on what happened while I was talking to Jess. His brow furrowing deeper as the story continued. He tossed his hair back and slumped against the couch when I finished talking. I had no idea what he was thinking, but the harsh line of his mouth combined with the crease between his eyebrows led me to believe he was not entirely happy about the train of thought.
"I think you should call your mom," he said, looking for all the world like he was suggesting launching nuclear weapons. "I know you probably don't like that idea, but if you want to learn how to use these abilities properly, and effectively, maybe we need more information about what exactly you can do and, maybe, what you shouldn't do." He explained. "If she has the same abilities you do, she can tell you what's what."
I sighed, "you're probably right," hand me my cell, would you?"
Troy did as I asked and settled back into the couch to wait out my call. This time, I used the video call feature. It seemed likely that this conversation should be face to face, or as close as we could get with her in a different country. It rang several times before my mother's face appeared on the small screen. Her long hair was a burnt orange color, that looked almost brown in low light, and her eyes were the same greenish yellow as my own. In the harsh lighting surrounding her at the moment, shining across all of the copper and orange strands in her hair, and her high cheekbones sharper than I remembered, she looked so much like a fox that I couldn't believe I never noticed the similarities before. I flicked a glance toward Troy, whose eyes had widened in surprised appreciation at the sight of my mother and rolled my eyes. She was beautiful, I couldn't argue that, I had resented my father's interference with my features when I was younger. I had her eyes and high cheekbones, but my hair was more of a dark brown, my nose was wider, and my lips thinner. While, I could understand Troy's reaction to her, it sent a pang through my chest that automatically set me on edge. Beautiful, we hadn't even spoken yet and I was already annoyed with the woman.
"Briseis, honey, is everything alright?" She asked, drawing me from my own thoughts and back to the matter at hand.
"Mom. I need help. I was able to reach Jess, but I think something went wrong."
"What do you mean you were able to reach Jess? I know we discussed your abilities some, Briseis, but not nearly enough for you to be flinging your spirit around with no regard to your boundaries." She paused, briefly, to inhale before she continued. "Sweet Kami, Briseis. You won't do Jess any good if you kill yourself in the process of finding her. You need to understand the abilities that you have and their limits before you dive in with your eyes closed."
"Yeah, I guess I found that out. Maybe. Honestly, I don't know what happened. That's why I called." I said, feeling thoroughly chastised and more than a little stupid for not even considering that there may be a toll to pay for using these 'gifts.'
"Alright. Spill it then, kit. What happened?"
"Okay, so, I wanted to try to get another vision or whatever, so I could try to see something that could help us find them." I waved Troy over to fit him in the screen as explaination for the 'we,' before she could ask. "I think, maybe she was asleep or something, I guess. You said something about communicating in dreams, right?" I paused for confirmation, and she dipped her head in agreement. "Well, I did talk to her for a bit, but then things got weird."
"Explain weird," my mother responded with one delicate eyebrow arched.
"Uh, well, I kept hearing someone call my name-"
"That would've been me, I think. After she had been out for a while, I got worried and tried to wake up her up," interjected Troy.
"Right, but I didn't realize it was him. It was like I forgot all about him. I kept asking Jess if she heard it, but she didn't. Then, it got even weirder." I paused for a breath, and my mother waited, the corners of her mouth starting to turn down. "Jess disappeared, and I was there by myself, but it was like I was floating in nothing."
"When she finally did wake up, it was only for a minute before she passed out again. I think she was just asleep that time, but she didn't wake up again until a few minutes before we called you." He finished, raking his hand through his hair.
"By the gods, Bris. You're lucky your friend was there. You have to be very careful when you use abilities that pull your spirit from your body. First, you can only stay under for a limited amount of time. If you linger too long, you may not be able to come back. Second, it saps a lot of energy to do these things. Not to mention, you have to protect yourself. You can't leave your body or your spirit unprotected like that."
“Oh,” there didn’t seem to be much else to say to that. She was right and I was reckless. However, what I needed now wasn’t a lecture, it was guidance. I needed to know how to use these abilities and I needed to know fast.
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