[enchantment1991]

Everyone was so excited, and the weird thing was, so was I. Never in my life have I ever felt that excited. As I walked into the Academy with the rest of the first-years, I couldn't help but freeze. I felt my sTomach twist all over and my back went rigid. If it wasn't for Tom who told me to move on, I would have stayed at the entrance of the academy the whole night.

A Professor came out of nowhere and gave us our books, school robes, and the keys to our dormitories.

As I went to search for my dormitory, I wondered how all of these odd people on the bus were able to get into Merlin Academy, but the question narrowed down to me - how did I get into Merlin Academy?

Maybe it's just like Aunt Lucy used to tell me, "Magic comes from the heart, not from the mind."
I found my dormitory, which was labeled Herminia Chamber. I entered the dark room and I heard someone humming. On one of the beds sat a girl, with long ginger braids and glasses on. She was a humming a song, and a brightly-lit candle sat on the table, and a magic book sat in front of her. I shut the door carefully and coughed to indicate my presence. She opened her eyes, surprised. She looked at me, turned on the lights using her wand, and blew the candle.

"Hello," she said, "I'm Felicity Jones, and you are?"

"Terry Parson," I replied as I glanced at the room. It was beautiful. It had two beds with periwinkle blue sheets, the same color curtains, two wooden desks and closets. The walls were filled with paintings of rivers flowing, high mountains, and colorful gardens.

Felicity woke me up from my reverie by asking, "First year I suppose?"

I nodded.

"Well, dinner starts in thirty minutes," she said, "freshen up a bit if you want. The bathroom is right over there."

"Thanks," I said.

I went down to dinner with Felicity, who turned out to be in her third year, and later, Tom and Quincey joined us at our table.

And now I lay in bed, happiness filling my heart. I had a great day, made friends, and I'm beginning to forget everything that used to worry me.

I guess this might be a new beginning.



Chapter 3: Ancient Egypt

Great. Just great!

I really thought I'm starting to forget, but instead I got a horrible nightmare about many hooded people screaming my name, and my parents wearing black cloaks, with zombie-like eyes blaming me for their death. But I guess it wasn't that bad since I got to see them. On the other hand, I thought they were going to kill me.

Felicity woke me up from my nightmare since she heard me screaming. And then, she told me to clear my mind and to go back to sleep.

I did as she told me, but I couldn't go back to sleep. Instead, I stayed up all night thinking about the dream. My aunt has a mortal friend who said that dreams in the mortal world don't mean a thing, but in the magical world, most of the times, they have meanings or might be a vision or hint to what might happen in the future. As I sat on my bed thinking about the dream, I saw Felicity's cat, Kala, wake up, so I called her in a low voice. She jumped onto my bed and purred as I rubbed her behind the ears.

It's a miracle that Felicity hasn't woken up yet from the racket I've been doing.

It's finally seven. I went down to breakfast with Tom and Quincey and at eight, we went to our first class, Ancient Egypt, with Professor Loryane.

Professor Loryane greeted us with a smile on her face. We sat in the front and we waited for the rest of the first-years to come in and get seated, and then Professor Loryane started her lesson.

"Ancient Egypt has a huge part in our magical world. First of all, you will memorize the Egyptian symbols and learn how to read them, so you could be able to do most spells," said the Professor.

Then she handed each one of us a chart of all the Egyptian symbols and the letters they represent.

She waved her wand and symbols appeared on the board and she called each of us to read the phrases she wrote. It took everyone a few minutes to find the symbols on the chart and read it properly. Finally, it's my turn.

I looked at the words and my eyes started to burn and then I found them changing into letters that I can understand and I read it aloud, "Trigonella foenum gaecum."

Professor Loryane seemed surprised to hear me say the phrase quickly and with a perfect accent.

"Well done," she said, still surprised.

The class was over and as I was heading outside the door, Professor Loryane called me and motioned me to sit down on one of the chairs.

She stayed quiet for a few minutes then she asked, "Have you ever practiced the ancient Egyptian language?"

"No Professor," I answered.

"That's odd," she muttered.

She looked at me surprised, as if she didn't know I was there. Then she said, "You may go now."



Chapter 4: Oblivion

Here I am lying on my bed in the middle of the night, trying to drift into Oblivion. Not that I can. Felicity is making me do it, since I had another one of my nightmares.

She says if I do this spell every night before going to sleep, I'll probably stay in Oblivion till someone wakes me up.

But how does she expect me to do it when the only thing that's on my mind is the softness of my pillow, not to mention that only a few of the greatest wizards and witches can actually do this spell. I tell you, without a doubt, that I'm simply wasting the precious time of sleeping.

"You're not putting your heart into it!" said Felicity.

"How would you know?" I snapped back at her.

Really, I'm trying to focus all my energy, and I'm getting really tired, not so that she would tell me I'm not putting my heart into it.

"Think of something relaxing," she said, "the book states that that might help."

Thirty minutes passed and Felicity is still on my head. The only thing I want to do now is escape this place and be away from everyone.

I chanted the spell under my breath slowly, "Adeo oblivio subterfugion animadverto ut reperio pacis quod futurus a panton."

I tried to think of nothing and feel relaxed and I re-chanted the spell over and over.
Suddenly I felt safety and happiness wash over me. I opened my eyes and found myself in an empty white room and a bed in the middle.

I slept on it peacefully.

I guess the books are right. Oblivion is a place to find happiness and forget your worries.



Chapter 5: A New Friend and an Enemy

The next day, I woke up at the sound of Felicity's voice asking me to wake up and tell her what was in Oblivion. I told her everything on the way to breakfast.

When we reached the hall, we found a huge crowd around Professor Loryane. As we took a closer look, we found out that the teachers were giving out kittens.

"Oh! How exciting!" exclaimed Felicity. "It's a tradition for every first-year witch to get a kitten and each wizard gets either an owl or a toad."

Professor Loryane called my name and as I hurried towards her, I saw a perfect line of kittens.

"Wait for one of them to choose you," explained Professor Henry, our flying teacher.

I nodded and waited. Finally a cute pitch black kitten with silver eyes and a golden collar with a green stone dangling from it trotted towards me. I held her in my hands and decided to name her Phantasee.

Quincey's kitten is chubby, and its color was a mixture of brown, black, and grey and it tended to sleep a lot.

She named him Fluffers.

Tom came bursting in, his face red. He looked really angry. I was really surprised he didn't kill anyone on his way. He sat next to me, and started cursing under his breath, I wasn't even sure they were all in English.

After a few minutes of cursing all in one breath, he finally stopped and looked at us and said, "What?"

After his color changed back to normal, I asked him what was wrong.

"That's what's wrong," he said as he got out from his bag a fat ugly toad.

"Hoe adorable," squealed Quincey.
"There's nothing adorable about this monster," said Tom.

"Can't you exchange it for an owl?" I asked, feeling pity towards him on having to be stuck with a toad.

"No, it chose me, so I'm stuck with it," he signed sadly. Suddenly his sad face turned into an evil grin and he said, "Unless it mysteriously died."

"Don't even think about it!" snapped Quincey. "How can you even think about hurting such an adorable thing."

"Anyway," said Tom, "I've got bigger problems than this cursed thing. We were having the tradition in the school garden and when it chose me, I was so mad that I didn't see were I was going and I pushed Hunter Lex into the lake by mistake."

"So?" I said. "You can simply apologize."

"It doesn't work that way," he said, "you hurt or insult Hunter, he tortures you for the rest of your life."

"Good luck," said Quincey.

Tom didn't notice her sarcasm so he simply muttered a polite thank you.

A few minutes later, the doors to the hall burst open and in came in an angry, wet Hunter. He scanned the hall and his eyes rested on Tom. He walked towards him.

"It's freezing cold in the river," said Hunter, poison dripping from his every word as he held Tom by the throat.

"Sorry," said Tom, smiling weakly.

Hunter acted as if he didn't hear Tom's apology and he had his hand ready to punch Tom, but I stepped in between them.

"What do you want?" spat Hunter.

"He said he was sorry," I said, "so don't make a big deal about a stupid accident."

He stood there for a few minutes, his hand still on Tom's throat. Suddenly, he backed off and said, "you got lucky this time Norton, but watch your back, she won't always be there to do it for you."

Class started and Tom and I were running towards class. Quincey went before us and so did most of the other first year girls, since they wanted to meet Professor Mark, who is nineteen and about every girl in this school has a crush on him.
"Wait," Tom suddenly said, "I forgot slimeball."

We hurried back to the hall to search for Tom's toad, Slimeball.

After fifteen minutes of searching for it, we finally reached class.

"Why are you late?" asked Professor Mark.

We explained the whole story to him.

"Alright, alright," he said, "just take your seats and you'll be serving detention at six."

We sat at the back.

You know, I really think Tom shouldn't have even gotten a pet.

Hunter came in after us, walking casually into class.

"What's your excuse?" asked Professor Mark.

"Should I have one?" said Hunter sarcastically.

"Take a seat and you shall be serving detention with Mr. Norton, and Mrs. Parson."

"That thing really is cursed," I whispered to Tom as I pointed to his toad.



Chapter 6: The Truth about Oblivion

Honestly, for a nineteen year old, Professor Mark is really boring.

He kept on lecturing Tom, Hunter, and I about how being late is going to affect our grades, and how we're such smart kids, that we shouldn't throw our futures away.

What does that have to do with anything? We were just a few minutes late for class. At the end of this whole lecturing, he wanted us to write an essay about today's History lesson.

Couldn't he have said that from the beginning?

I tell you, there's something wrong with adults and their passion for lecturing. I'm getting so bored.

I really wish Tom would shut up, he's really starting to annoy me about his complaints about being stuck with a toad.
I'm going to try to get into Oblivion. I muttered the spell under my breath and concentrated to focus my energy, and then I found myself in Oblivion.

This was easier than last time, but there was something wrong. Oblivion is now a night sky with stars everywhere, yet the feeling of safety still rushed over me.

"What are you doing here?" asked a familiar voice.

I turned around, and I found Hunter standing behind. I ignored his question and I asked, "What happened to Oblivion?"

"Nothing," he said.

"Last time I was here, it was different."

"That's because Oblivion takes the shape of the place you imagined."

"I didn't imagine this place."

"I did, you may end up in Oblivion, but it still takes the shape of the place of who came first."

A few minutes passed, then I said, "we probably should get back, they might notice we're gone.

"They won't," Hunter said, "an hour here is like one second in the real world."

"How come you a lot about Oblivion?" I asked.

"None of your business," he answered curtly.

"Why do have to be so rude!"

"Why do you have to be so annoying?"

"I was just trying to be nice," I shouted angrily.

"You can start doing that by shutting up."

I wanted to kill him, and I had a feeling he wanted to kill me to. Well, at least we found something in common.

"You really ruined," I said.

"what's that supposed to mean," he asked.

"I'm angry!"

"So?"

"We're supposed to feel only relaxed when we come to Oblivion, and to forget all our worries."

"The only feeling you get from Oblivion is safety," said Hunter, "you don't come to Oblivion to forget your worries. You come to be away from people, to be alone."

"But the books state different things about Oblivion," I said.

"Books lie," he said, "Only those who can come to Oblivion, which are really few, know the truth about it, others think it's a place to relax and forget."

I stared at the stars and thought about everything. Even now, when I found out that Oblivion won't make me forget my memories, I didn't want to leave, I didn't know whether it's the feeling of safety it gave me, or wanting to escape reality, but all I knew was that it felt like home.



Chapter 7: The Key

Hunter was right, we came back from Oblivion and they didn't even notice we were gone. I wanted to tell Felicity about Oblivion, but I decided not to, since I remembered what Hunter said only those who can get into Oblivion know the truth about it, so if they wanted to tell the truth, they could have corrected the books, but I think it must be kept as a secret.

I went down to dinner and saw Tom and Quincey bickering and arguing about the name Slimeball. Quincey wanted to name the toad Daisy, even when I pointed out that it's a male.

Suddenly, the doors to the hall burst open, and in rushed an old woman wearing long, torn black robes, all wet from the rain outside. Her white hair was messy, and fear was glimmering in her eyes. She looked kind of crazy and unbalanced to me.

Everyone in the whole room was staring at her, surprised at what she could be doing here.
She looked at me and smiled as she approached. Then she stood next to me and kept on staring at me, laughing an evil horrible laugh.

"It's you," she said, tears falling down her cheeks, "you, our salvation."

And then she held me hand tightly, I felt it burn but she wouldn't let go. Her eyes were filled with pity as she looked at me, and she kept on holding my hand really tight.

I felt myself chocking, I couldn't breath anymore. Many voices kept on talking in my head, and blurry visions kept on popping. It felt like there was a drill inside it.

Suddenly, everything stopped, and I was in my house.

I looked around surprised, and then I heard mom's singing, and dad kissing me goodbye as I went to play with my friends when I was six.

Then mom came in and she sat next to dad, and they watched T.V, a gift from Aunt Lucy. They seemed oblivious to the fact that I was standing in front of them.

The door suddenly burst open, and hooded wizards came in, hands clutching their wands.
I tried to give mom her wand, which was lying on the ground, but my hand just went through it.

Mom was screaming as one of the wizards tortured her.

"Where is the key?" he shouted angrily, but mom wouldn't speak. She just stared at him, disgusted. Dad was fighting them, throwing spells at them, but it was no use. He was outnumbered and they were using black magic. They simply killed him. And then, they got sick of mom's stubbornness and killed her too, and threw them out of the way as if they were nothing.

It's ironic what a wooden stick and few words could do.

I heard one of the wizards say, "sdjm and show chet em per kat."

I recognized it as Ancient Egyptian. These words sank into my mind and got translated into English. They were looking for a key.

A ball of light appeared in front of them. It hung in the air for a few seconds, then it floated around the house. It went through a wall and in came the wizard who conjured the ball of light. He opened his hands and the key fell into them, and the ball of light disappeared.

"I can't believe we found the last key to Merlin's Grave," said one of them.

And then I found myself back at Merlin Academy. The old lady was still staring at me with pity in her eyes as she held my hand tightly. Then she suddenly said, "It's your gift, your curse." And then she got burnt and disappeared into ashes.

Everyone was still shocked and so was I.

"I'm going to my room," I said to Quincey and Tom. They nodded.

As I reached my room, I felt the burn on my hand. I looked at it and found a scar, the shape of Merlin's crest, a star with a sword going through it and a snake entwined on the sword.

I collapsed onto my bed, tears burning my eyes.

I watched my parents died in front of me and I couldn't do anything.

Someday, I will find those who tortured my parents and I will kill them.



Chapter 8: Merlin's grave

Since I saw what happened to my parents, I had been coming to Oblivion a lot.

Hunter just came to Oblivion. He looked around, surprised at my choice of scenery, a cemetery.

I was angry, and it was the only thing that came to my mind.

"Nice place," he said.

I didn't answer and I was quiet for ten minutes, which made him suspicious, then he asked, "what's wrong?"

"Nothing," I answered.

"You're too quiet and that's not normal," he said.

"Nothing's wrong," I repeated.

Then Hunter noticed the scar of Merlin's crest on the palm of my hand.

"What's that?" he asked.

"A burn from that old woman who burst into the hall."

"You could get into Merlin's Grave with that scar," said Hunter.

"What's so important about Merlin's Grave?" I asked.

"There's a scroll inside that contains a spell to return all dark creatures from the dead, and there's Merlin's amulet that contains imprisoned dark magic inside it."

"Hunter, we need to go to Merlin's Grave."

"Are you crazy?" he asked. "We can't."

"Fine I'll go by myself," I said.

"Let's go," said Hunter.

We were outside Merlin's Academy and heading to Merlin's grave, which was near the school since the Academy used to be his home and he wanted to be buried next to it.

I explained to Hunter everything about my parent's death and the key.

"My dad works for Merlin's Council, and I read a lot of his files without him knowing and it seems that they're trying to hide the fact that dark magic has returned." said Hunter.

"We might be wrong," I told him.

"Maybe, unless you can explain how come every single family that used to be protectors for parts of the key were killed and the pieces of the keys went missing."

Why did he have to put me down, I was kind of hoping we would be wrong.

I think that the way I feel right now is exactly the same way mortals feel when they fail in those simply ridiculous things called Algebra and Geometry.

We finally reached Merlin's grave. I really can't believe I'm doing this.

Merlin's grave was inside a small grey bricked house with no windows just a hole on the left side of one of the walls. I put my hand with the scar inside it and suddenly, it shifted and slided to the right. We entered the grave and a really foul smell entered our nostrils.

We found a silver coffin in the middle.

We moved the lid off and looked surprised at what we saw.

The scroll wasn't the only thing that was missing. So was Merlin.



Chapter 9: Chosen

Hunter and I ran to the school, hoping to find someone that could help us. We ran inside the school and found Professor Mark waiting for us. A stern angry look was on his face.

"Where were you?" he screamed. "You could've gotten killed, sneaking off at night. That's against the rules."

Ten minutes passed with him lecturing us on the ways we could have died.

He finally stopped to take a breath, and Hunter seized the opportunity to talk.

"Merlin and the scroll are missing," he said.

Professor Mark stared at him, "Missing?" he asked. "How did you know?"

"Yes, Hunter and I went into his grave and found everything missing," I said.

"How did you get into his grave?" asked Professor Mark.

I showed him my hand, he just stared for a few minutes, then said, "Come with me," in a panicked voice.

We ran into the highest tower room in the school. Professor Mark locked the doors, and then he looked outside.

"They're coming," he said with a worried look on his face.

Hunter and I went to the window and looked outside, and we saw an army of what seemed to be dead people who dug their way out of their graves since they were all dirty with soil, and their clothes were torn. They looked horrible, their skeletal-like bodies moving slowly towards us, and in the middle was another skeletal body, but it was wearing a glowing amulet. That was Merlin.

Professor Mark was really worried. He was pacing around the room muttering, "It can't be, it simply can't, she's too young."

Hunter looked worried too, he kept on looking at me and asking me whether I was alright.
But I just can't seem to get what they are so nervous about. I mean, that's Merlin, a white magic sorcerer. He wouldn't hurt us.

"Why did they come back from the dead?" I asked.

Both Professor Mark and Hunter looked at me, and then Professor Mark said, "For you."

The locked doors burst into flames, and in came Merlin, his army standing behind him, chanting something in a different language.

Merlin approached towards me, and then Professor Mark stepped between us, and Hunter stood next to me.

"Leave her alone," hissed Professor Mark.

"It's her destiny," said Merlin in a low and croaked voice.

"You chose her. You can simply choose someone else," continued Professor Mark. "She's too young."

"Move," said Merlin.

Professor Mark wouldn't move, he just stood there facing Merlin.

Merlin waved his hand and both Hunter and Professor Mark flew out of the way, and into the hands of the dead. They held them tightly, not letting go.

I started to feel nervous as Merlin stood in front of me. Professor Marks screamed about leaving me alone, and Hunter was struggling and telling me to run.

But I didn't. I stood there, not knowing what was going on. I wanted to be in Oblivion, yet my curiosity wouldn't let me leave.

Merlin put the amulet around my neck and said, "It's your gift, your curse. You're the chosen one."

[JirQUEST]

i'll just highlight a few problems since i dun really have the time. watch ur tense shift. it gets quite irritating after a while.

also, u should observe ur punctuations. the comma always goes b4 the inverted commas in dialogue. so u have:

"This is how u do it," she said.

Don't do this:

"This is not how u do it", she said.

Observe the same for question marks, exclamations and full stops.

[RENA HANDS]

I am posting my comments/suggestions at the end of this post…

1.You could have spread out the chapter and not condensed chapters 2-9. That’s too much for just one read. You need to give the reader time to adjust to what he or she is reading.

2.As much difficulties that I have with tenses, you should return and correct your errors.

3.Watch your spacing.

4.I think you should add more action than you have of dialogue. But this is only my thought.

I’m holding off my judgment on this for now. Hopefully you will return to correct the errors.

[Randomgold]

Everything in this story happens a bit quickly. Making the chapters longer and adding more details in about what's happening will help. I also noticed that Hunter seems to become a completely different person midway through, which you don't really give an explanation for. Keep working on it though, and it'll be fine.