Guardian: Protectors of Light (4 page)

“
I’m glad
you’ve found something you like,” Cheyenne smiled, as they
proceeded to eat dinner.

*

Night had fallen, and the entire family had gone to bed.
Yet, still, James didn’t seem to be able to sleep. There was just
something about that book that was so intriguing, so interesting...
He just couldn’t figure out
what
.

“
Come on,” he
whispered to the book, as he, hidden underneath a blanket fort with
a torchlight in his hand, scanned each and every page carefully. “I
know you’re hiding something. Tell me your secrets.”

He closed the book and opened it on the back page, the page
with nothing but ‘
Believe
’ on
it.

The author of the book
had put it there as if it was a secret message. But to who? Their
readers? Someone more specific?

James kept thinking about
it all night, until his mind finally doze off to sleep.

What he didn’t notice,
was that as he fell asleep, the people on the pictures in the book
slowly started to change.

It seemed almost as if
the pictures could magically change into the Next Generation as
soon as the book had selected one.

Sweet
Dreams

James sat up.
He found himself sitting in the middle of a dark, unfamiliar room.
Where was he?

He got up and
started to walk around, searching for his friends.

“
Samira?”
James called out. “Guys? Anyone?”

No one
answered. He was all by himself, alone in a dark room without
knowing where he was.

“
Oh, come on
guys! I know you’re there; this isn’t funny!” James cried, yet
still no one answered his calls.

James was on
the verge of admitting that he’d been deserted, when he suddenly
noticed something shiny, not too far away from him.

He walked
closer, and found himself in the only area of the room that was lit
by three, small candles, standing around a mirror.

James slowly
walked toward the mirror, wanting to catch a glimpse of his own
reflection.

But what he
saw in the mirror as soon as he stood in front of it was not what
he’d expected to see at all.

The face
glancing back at him was his own; two bright blue eyes stared back
at him in a confused manner, with messy and un-brushed red hair
hanging in front of them in messy tangles. The clothes the
reflection was wearing, however, were completely different from
James’s pyjamas.

James’s
reflection was dressed in an all-blue attire, with shades varying
from marine to cobalt. A red cape was draped around his shoulders
which reached to about his ankles; the cape, unlike the rest of his
clothing, was a royal red colour. The cape was held together by a
brooch with three oval gemstones on it; topazes. They glowed in the
soft, blue colour the gem would usually have if it didn’t glow
(because of course, gemstones aren’t known to glow on
Earth).

The
reflection also wore long, blue leather gloves, which matched the
leather tunic he wore; a bright blue, swirly pattern which glowed
in the same colour as the topazes did, running all the way from the
middle of the hand to the elbow. The same pattern appeared on the
tunic.

Most of his
blue trousers were covered by long, white leather boots.

It took James
a moment to realize what his reflection represented; he looked like
the Guardian of Innocence, one of the five Guardians from the
book.

Completely
baffled, James stood as stunned in front of the mirror, with his
reflection standing just as still as he was.

But that came
to an end.

James
stumbled backward as his reflection came to life; the blue glow on
his clothes and the three topazes on the broche made way for a
bright, threatening shade of red, catching James’s
attention.

When he
looked back up and glanced at his eyes in the mirror, James was
startled by what he saw. His eyes – or at least the reflection’s
eyes - had changed; the white in his eyes had turned black, and the
iris had gained a bright, blood orange colour, making it seem as if
they were glowing in their dark surroundings. The pupils had been
stretched and become sharp at the edges; like a cat’s pupil looking
into the sun.

The
expression on the reflection’s face had changed as well, no longer
resembling James’s expression, which had shifted into rather fear
than confusion; the reflection was grinning back at James in a
devilish and sinister way.

James slowly
started to walk backward as the reflection started to move; instead
of going backward, like James did, the reflection walked forward,
setting a foot outside the mirror, as if it was merely a wooden
frame he’d been standing behind.

James tripped
in his hurry to get away as he watched the scene unfold, and
started to crab-walk backward as fast as he could, without ever
taking his eyes off his reflection, who had now come out of the
mirror completely and was walking toward James.

James crawled
backward as fast as he could, but the reflection got the best of
him; he bent over, baring his teeth in a sinister grin, before
lunging out at James, who let out a yell as he braced for
impact.

James shot upright,
finding himself back in the safe darkness of his own bedroom. He
could feel drops of sweat roll down his face; his heart was
pounding loudly in his chest.

Letting out a loud sigh,
James allowed himself to fall back on his pillow. What had that
been all about?

He couldn’t remember what
had exactly happened, but he could remember being attacked by
himself... looking vaguely similar to one of the characters inside
the book.

As he felt that his
heartbeat started to slow down, James looked aside, at the
led-screen of his alarm clock. It was close to six o’ clock; there
was no use in going back to sleep now. Despite of the autumn break,
James still always got up early.

He silently slipped out
of bed, flipping on the light of the lamp on his nightstand. He
searched for the book he’d been reading earlier that night and
pretty much all afternoon; he was convinced that his dream had
something to do with that book.

With the book, James
climbed back into bed, with his back resting against his pillow and
the book resting on his knees. As he got comfortable, he opened the
book somewhat halfway, right on two picture pages; just the right
pages to come to a surprising discovery.

“
The people in these two pictures...” James
gasped. “They look different than yesterday – they look an awful
lot like
us
.”

After making this
discovery, James proceeded to flip through the book, searching for
other pictures, hoping it’d been just a simple coincidence, or
maybe the sleep still being in control over his eyes.

But it wasn’t. Every single picture looked exactly like
James and his friends; and he was
certain
that those
drawings hadn’t looked like them ever before.

It mildly worried him;
yet, he put down the book, turned off the light and rolled over to
his left, trying to get some more sleep and put everything off his
mind for a bit.

Luckily for James, he was
able to sleep for a few more hours, without having any more strange
dreams.

When he woke up about two
hours later, he got dressed and quickly headed downstairs, where he
found his sister eating breakfast.

“
Where’s
Mum?” James asked his sister, slightly confused, as he wasn’t able
to find his mother anywhere.

“
Good
morning, James, yes I slept well, James, how kind of you to ask,”
Samira said sarcastically, while poking in a fried egg with a fork,
putting it on a sandwich. “Mum had to go to work; her flight left
earlier. She’ll be home by three.” She then proceeded to turn
around to look at her brother, holding her sandwich.
“Why?”

James shrugged. “I was
just wondering.” He sat down beside his sister and tried to steal a
piece of the egg, but his sister slapped his hand away. “Don’t
touch that. Bake your own egg.”

James snorted. “Fine,” he
said. “Maybe later. I’m not hungry now.”

They sat there for a
while, James watching Samira finish her sandwich, before deciding
to talk to her about his strange dream. But... in a kind of
different way.

“
So...” James
started out, slightly nervous. “Have had any weird dreams
lately?”

Samira ran her fingers
through her hair, as if James’s question had made her feel slightly
uncomfortable. “Now that you’re mentioning it...” she said,
“...well, yes.”

James raised his eyebrows
in surprise. “Really?” he said, eager to know more. Perhaps Samira
could help him find the meaning of the bizarre dream he’d had, if
he could do the same for Samira. “Tell me about it,” he said. “What
did you dream?”

Samira looked at him.
“Please don’t think I’ve gone mad when I tell you,” she said.
“There was a dark room. And-”

“
And a
mirror?” James finished her sentence, as Samira had to take some
time to think.

Samira nodded. “Go on...” she said.

“
Oh,” James
stammered, slightly surprised. “Oh- well... let me guess: you saw
yourself in the mirror, looking like one of those Guardian
characters from the book?”

“
Yes,
exactly,” Samira said in utter surprise. “How’d you know?” It took
her a few seconds, but eventually, she came to the most “logical”
conclusion.

“
You didn’t
have the same dream as I did, now did you?”

James laughed nervously.
“Well, now you’re saying it that way, it sounds a bit strange,” he
said, “but yes. I had the same mirror dream. I can’t put it any
other way.”

Samira stood up, and
brought her now empty plate to the kitchen. “I really think you
should eat something,” she shouted at her brother, who was still
sitting at the table.

“
No thank you
once again,” he replied. “I’m still not hungry.”

“
All right,
your choice,” Samira said as she walked back to the table. “So, is
there anything else bothering you, something you might want to talk
about?”

James chewed his nails,
with both his elbows resting on the table. “Well... yes,” he said,
as he stood up from his chair, shoving it back underneath the
table. “One moment, I’ll be right back.”

He rushed upstairs,
fetched the book and returned downstairs.

“
The book?”
Samira asked, as James handed her the book. James didn’t reply, but
just opened the book on the same page as he’d done last night.
Samira threw one look at the drawings, resulting into her eyes
widening in surprise as she gasped and clasped a hand in front of
her mouth.

“
Bu-bu-but-” she stammered. “These people- look
like-
us
?”

Her eyes shifted back up
to meet James’s, who couldn’t do anything but nod. “I’m glad I’m
not the only one who sees them,” he said, with a nervous chuckle at
the end. “I thought I was perhaps still dreaming or my mind was
still fuzzy from sleep when I saw it last night, but when I looked
again before taking the book to you, they were still the
same.”

Samira flipped through the book. “But-
how
?” she
said. “Yesterday, these drawings were still more or less random
people. And now it’s us?”

James shrugged,
scratching the back of his head. “Trust me sis, if I knew the
answer, I would’ve given it to you already,” he said. “We should
ask the others for help on this one.”

Samira smiled at her
younger brother; she had the exact same idea. After all, the others
were appearing on the drawings as well; something weird had
happened, and they were all in this together.

And that meant that they also were going to have to fix
this issue – or whatever it’d turn out to be –
together
.

“
Come on, we
should go right now!” James said and rushed for the
hallway.

“
One thing,”
Samira said, as she saw her brother rush toward the hallway,
pulling his coat off the coat rack. “It’s eight o’clock in the
morning, James.”

James looked at her; he’d completely forgot how early it
actually was. His family consisted almost entirely of morning
people, but that
certainly
didn’t
apply to his friends.

“
Oh, yeah,”
James chuckled. “Forgot about that.”

“
Yeah, you
sure did,” Samira chuckled. “Also, don’t forget that Bella said
she’d be training with Daniel from eight to twelve.”

James snapped his
fingers. “Right,” he said. “We can always call and ask if they want
to meet up at one o’clock?”

Samira nodded. “All
right, let’s do that,” she said. “Until then, try to put your mind
off it, okay?”

James watched her leave the hallway as he hung his coat
back up on the coat rack. He smiled at her, but as soon as she was
out of sight, his smile dropped into a concerned frown, as he took
his coat back
off
the coat rack. “I’m sorry,” he
whispered, “but you and I both know that I can’t.”