Sweet Sleep (The Children of Ankh Book 1)

by Kim Cormack

  Then suddenly Kayn began to scream in terror, her arms flailing as she found herself plummeting through the air toward certain death without any tomb at all. She slowed down as she spiraled towards the beige colored land below her. Everything came into focus and her rapid stomach churning descent began to slow down. She landed almost simultaneously with the others, squatting in the warm, luxurious feeling sand. Kayn was bent over holding her stomach. She fought the urge to vomit.

  It was scary, surreal, and mind-blowing all at once as she focused in on her surroundings. She was standing in what appeared to be a desert. Had she come here before? She stood up. She heard her sister’s voice say her name. Kayn’s heart was filled with joy as she laid eyes on her twin sister, Chloe. She jumped into her sister’s arms. They were touching each other’s skin, tears streaming down their faces as they clung to each other. Kayn was afraid to let go. She was desperately afraid that her sister would disappear again.

  “This is all beautiful and shit, ladies, but it’s time to get down to business,” Grey quipped in his sexy Aussie accent.

  “Well, this is an unexpected twist. You really are tethered together aren’t you? What shall we do now? It makes sense that we would have to train both parts of your whole. It is nice to get a chance to meet you in the flesh, Chloe.” Lily held out her hand towards Kayn’s sister.

  Chloe shook her hand, and Lily twisted it over to reveal something surprising.

  “I’ll be damned,” Lily laughed as she caught sight of Chloe’s symbol glowing with her own.

  Kayn felt the most amazing feeling of delight as she watched her sister touch someone’s hand. She put her arm around Chloe, and she began to cry again. Kayn’s heart surged with love. She began to sob again, and it started Chloe’s water works. My Chloe, she thought as she caught her sister’s gaze, her eyes dancing with joy.

  “Today, young ladies, we will be learning to trust each other. You will need blind trust in your clan in order to follow through with some of the questionable things that you will be required to be party to in the future.”

  “Questionable is just my style,” Chloe flirted, giving Frost a daring look that hung thick between the two of them. The sparks that ignited in the air separating Chloe and Frost were visible to everyone. Frost just stared at Chloe looking confused. Right here, right now, in this space and time, Chloe was as real as her sister was. Frost liked her sister. She could tell.

  “This whole undead, ghost girl situation is an intriguing one,” Frost said.

  Grey said, “You realize you are hitting on a ghost … really?”

  Frost defended his actions, “She is as flesh and bone as you are in this place.”

  Grey quipped, “Get down with your freaky bad self brother, I’m not judging you.”

  “Where are we?” Kayn asked as she looked around at nothing but desert as far as she could see in every direction. The sky was mixed shades of brilliant blue that looked as though someone had just grabbed every shade of blue paint and thrown it up into the air. Kayn couldn’t help but know that she was in her version of paradise.

  Lily glanced at Kayn and smiled, then said, “We are in the In Between. This dimension has many other names. It is created from our own minds. We see here whatever we need to see before we move on. We can come here to train, to mess around, but we can’t get through to the other side. We are not truly dead after all, just visiting. So back to my speech, trust and ability management—this is what we will be focusing on this week, ladies,” Lily said, smiling as Kayn’s eyes widened.

  “I can’t be here for a week,” Kayn stated. They will know that I’m gone, call the police or something.”

  Lily laughed, “It will only be a half an hour, maybe a touch more in earth time, trust me. You need to trust in everything. You have a lot to learn, if you going to stand a chance of surviving the month, Kayn. You will need to do the work to trigger all of your abilities and learn how to control them before you are faced with fighting someone who knows what they are doing.”

  Kayn looked around her in every direction, thinking, a week in the desert. How do you spend a week in the desert? Kayn turned to see Chloe smiling a real smile. Her twin’s smile displayed, not an inch of pageantry, just pure joy. She understood now how lonely Chloe had been. Kayn had read the entries in her diary. She grabbed Chloe’s hand in solidarity and said, “Okay, what are we going to learn first?”

  A light wind began to whisper, blowing the sand across her bare feet. Bare feet, Kayn thought. She looked down to see her athletic attire had disappeared, and in its place she wore a familiar white dress. It was very similar to a dress that both twins had as children. She raised her eyes from her dress to see that everyone else’s attire had changed. They all wore white Greek god and goddess attire. When she looked down again, her childlike white dress had changed to resemble the rest of her clan. It was a bit disturbing, yet somehow still angelic. She decided not to ask how it had happened. Kayn had a sense that nothing, but blind acceptance was going to work here. Then she smiled and thought about Kevin.

  He was nowhere near blind acceptance of the situation that they both had found themselves in. Kevin hadn’t even gotten in the tomb. Her boyfriend had chickened right out. Kayn smiled and wondered how they were going to train Kevin when he was claustrophobic. Kayn was instantly brought back to a memory of having to search for him after school. She had finally found him in the boy’s change room. He was screaming bloody murder when she finally rescued him from a locker some jerks had shoved him into.

  Chloe started jumping up and down squealing with delight. It brought Kayn back to the here and now. She had a full week to spend with her twin sister. She needed to take full advantage of it. Her sister had a whole week to flirt with a cute boy. She would get to feel what it was like to be alive again. It was only a matter of time before they both lost their autonomy forever. Where would her sister go once they had combined?

  Lily looked directly at Chloe and said, “I am glad that you could join us, Chloe. It is fitting though because we are not sure which of you will be the dominant when combined. You will need all of the same training as your sister.”

  Chloe answered, “I’m glad, too, and I felt like I didn’t really exist anymore until today. Now I feel like maybe I still do.”

  Chloe was still beaming but next to her Kayn had a mixture of emotions surging through her. She had begun to let her sister go. The happiness of being with Chloe again was mixed with the fear that she would be the one lost once they combined. What would happen to her? She had survived against all odds, and her sister had died. Kayn felt the panic of her identity slipping away as she looked at her twin. She felt guilty for her thoughts. Her twin sister whom she loved desperately had been alone for so long that she felt she needed to give her this time. She understood now that they were both afraid. This was why it hadn’t happened yet. This was the reason.

  “Back on track,” Lily said, “I know Kayn loves to run. I can’t explain this to you two. You have to feel it.”

  Kayn looked around as the smiling group began to run.

  Lily sprinted ahead of the rest, she yelled, “Follow me, try and keep up, follow my lead. Remember blind trust; we operate on blind trust, girls. Do exactly as I do.”

  Kayn ran with the group without a second thought, and Chloe stood there for a minute before she reluctantly attempted to catch up. They ran together as a pack of wild horses, manes flowing untamed and free. They galloped barefoot in the sand. It was gentle and warm on their feet as it slipped like a silken scarf between their toes. Kayn’s soul had leapt to the occasion. It felt like magic. The clan’s feet churning the sand in strange unison, setting it adrift on the breeze in their wake. Chloe, who had caught up with the rest somehow, seemed to have found the joy of running as well. She was smiling again. Kayn could not remember when she had seen Chloe smile this much. Best of all her smile was pure joy. That kind of happiness could never be contained beneath the surface. It would always explode through. It wa
s strange that they didn’t feel thirsty or tired.

  They had been running for a while when Kayn could tell that the sandy desert had disappeared into nothing but sky. A cliff had appeared out of nowhere. One by one they jumped with arms upward as if they could fly right over the side. Kayn followed without a moment’s hesitation. She outstretched her arms to fly because who wouldn’t take the opportunity to experience flight, if given the chance. There was one small problem; they couldn’t fly. They were in a dead fall through the nothingness of blue sky and clouds that surrounded them. Through wispy clouds, they continued to plummet. The clouds encasing them had turned dark grey and ominous looking. They were all soaking wet now. It was cold, and rain began to pelt them. Kayn watched everyone fall calmly around her.

  She was trying to remain calm as well, but her adrenaline began to race out of control. They were going to hit the ground. The swirling forest floor was growing closer and closer. Nobody was stopping! Her soaking wet hair thrashed into her eyes. What the hell? Kayn started to panic, waving her arms in a vain effort to stop her collision with the earth. She was swiftly falling alone. She screamed as she grew closer and closer to impact. The scenery was flashing by her peripheral vision. Bracing herself for the pain of contact, the forest floor abruptly vanished.

  Back in the basement of the house, Kevin and Lexy were chatting about inconsequential random things. They were in the middle of casual conversation when Kayn’s tomb began to pulse out of rhythm from the rest. Lexy calmly strolled over, laid both palms on the tomb. Her Ankh symbol began to glow. She reset the pulse of Kayn’s tomb to match the others.

  “What was that?” Kevin said instantly concerned.

  “You don’t really want to know, Kevin,” Lexy replied and then continued, “but trust me, She’s fine.”

  Kayn reappeared as if from thin air and landed hard on the desert floor face down. She lay there for a second and then pushed herself up, hacking and spewing the sand from her mouth. She peered up at everyone standing around her in a circle. “What the hell?” she said. She noticed her sister’s guilty face.

  “Shall we try that again,” Lily said. She glared at Chloe, “At least you jumped, Kayn. Your sister didn’t even jump.”

  Chloe sparred, “I’m not jumping off a cliff without a parachute. You know what, even if I had a parachute I wouldn’t jump! Why would I possibly want to jump off a cliff? Do I look insane?”

  Frost pressed his lips together in an obvious attempt to stifle his laughter. He seemed to get a kick out of her sister. Chloe was somehow prissy and ballsy at the same time.

  Lily stared at Chloe and spat out, “You’re dead, for the love of everything that is holy. You are already dead. You are the one that should have jumped without even giving it a second thought. You cannot die because you’re dead already.”

  “I guess that’s true. Okay, I’ll jump this time,” she agreed almost too casually, smiling innocently.

  Lily looked at Kayn and said, “I’m proud of you for jumping. Let’s do it again, but this time Kayn before you hit the ground. I want you to try to stop yourself.”

  Kayn shot her a strange look and said, “How would I do that?”

  “I threw the stapler at you in your room, and you blocked it. Do the same thing,” Lily answered.

  “I have only ever done that with small things,” Kayn replied.

  Lily said, “Lesson number two, your adrenaline is what gives you strength and control. Falling to your death gives you a shit load of adrenaline. Stop yourself from hitting the ground the same way that you stopped the stapler from hitting you.”

  Once again they ran through the desert. The group came to the edge, and jumped off. That is, everyone except for Chloe. She stopped on a dime. “I just can’t,” she shouted after them over the ledge.

  Frost teased, “Did you chicken out again?”

  Chloe whipped around to see that Frost had not jumped with the rest of them. He stood inches from her grinning from ear to ear. “You wouldn’t dare,” Chloe spat out as he gave her a gentle shove with one finger. “You asshole,” she yelled as she began to fall all alone into nothingness.

  The world whizzed past Kayn, and she was falling this time with a semblance of control. She was focused this time. She could feel the adrenaline that coursed through her body. Fear caused goose bumps to ripple across the surface of her skin. She knew what to do this time during her rapid descent towards the forest floor. She tried to imagine that she was the one that was not moving and the ground had been hurled at her. She shoved against the impending impact, and it worked. She slowed down enough to drop with only a negligibly painful thud to the lush green grass below.

  Everyone else walked out from their hiding spots behind the trees around her, clapping.

  “Almost perfect, Kayn,” Lily applauded.

  Frost said, “You should all move out of the way.”

  Above them, Chloe was coming, thrashing her arms, and high-pitched, hysterically shrieking. It looked like nobody was even going to attempt to slow her down. Kayn shut her eyes and turned away as her sister hit the ground with a thunderous pound. Then instantly they were all standing in the desert.

  “Okay, ladies, one more time,” Lily ordered.

  Her sister picked herself up, sputtered out a mouthful of sand and stated, “You asshole.”

  Frost replied, “There’s no point in denying it. Suck it up princess. Time to go again. If Kayn can do it, then so can you."

  Over the next few days, they worked on moving things by mentally pushing objects away from them. Kayn took a break for a moment. She watched her sister’s emerging love-hate relationship with the incorrigible yet delectable Frost.

  Kayn’s eye was definitely off the ball when a giant boulder came spiraling toward her. Grey had launched an attack. The rock smoked her in the head, and her brain exploded as though it were a watermelon dropped from a hotel balcony. Kayn laid sprawled out dead on the powdery desert floor. Her brain matter completely revealed for all the other-worldly inhabitants to see.

  “You son of a bitch,” Kayn sputtered. She inhaled, groaning loudly. Her vision wavered, and then came clearly into focus.

  Chloe was kneeling beside her sister, shaking her, “You are sick in the head,” she cried in Grey’s direction.

  Kayn tried to move, but her fingers twitched and clutched at the grains of sand. Her head was screaming and pulsating with pain. She couldn’t stop the ringing echo in her ears.

  Lily appeared over Chloe’s shoulder, “This is how it will happen when somebody attacks you, Kayn. They aren’t going to ask you for permission. However, in all fairness we were standing in the middle of a desert again, so nobody would expect to be hit in the head with a giant boulder.”

  Kayn understood the object of this lesson. It was so they would learn to expect the unexpected. She was herself again. The girls blocked surprise thrown objects for hours upon hours, never feeling tired, never hungry or thirsty. They found themselves in different places and scenarios every single time. Kayn discovered it was Grey that she found herself most drawn towards. She wanted him to like her. She wanted to be his friend. Perhaps she had the inner workings of a feline. She was drawn to the person who did not appear to like her at all. Grey was an interesting and strangely standoffish guy. They were forced to take a hiatus from training, when he disappeared.

  Lily said, “It’s a good time to have a mental break.” Frost and Chloe vanished, leaving Kayn with Lily alone.

  Kayn asked, “So what’s Grey’s story?”

  Lily replied, “I have a sneaky suspicion you are about to find out first hand.”

  The scenery flashed around her, Kayn found herself standing with Lily alone. They were in a rustic, burned out shell of what she assumed had at one time been a barn. Its frame held fresh hay, which Kayn found strange, but now her entire existence was made up of nothing but strange. “What Happened?” Kayn asked Lily as they sat down on a haystack. Lily answered quietly, “If you are expecting him to jump o
ut and attack you any second, this isn’t one of my places. It may happen.”

  Kayn stood up and pointed toward a rickety old farm house that had appeared out of nowhere. The sky had grown angry with black swirling clouds forming by the second above them.

  “Damn it,” Lily said, “I remember this place. He’s taken me here before.” They could see him in the distance as he burst through the front door of the farmhouse.

  “What’s going on?” Kayn questioned as the charcoal sky crackled with lightning, the wind violently whipping through the barn’s fragile frame.

  “Grey made a mistake thirty years ago. He just can’t seem to let it go,” Lily yelled, her voice barely carrying through the now howling wind. Their conversation was silenced by violent claps of thunder. Lily hollered over nature’s temper tantrum, “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.” Kayn and Lily stood up, their hair twisting savagely in the wind. The sky above them began to swirl with ominous shades of black and gray. It looked like a tornado might drop from above at any moment. The barn became solid in the next flash of brightness. They were inside of the barn as it once had been. They found themselves protected now from the weather outside. Kayn stumbled backwards falling to the dirt floor. She began to remind herself that the scenes that flashed through her mind were not for her, they came from Grey’s mind. Kayn could hear the stirring of animals, whinnying horses and the barking of dogs. Lily began to explain, “It can be hard to comprehend the simple truth. The truth is that there is a reason for everything that we are asked to do. To do the most unthinkable of acts can be the difference between saving one life, and saving a thousand lives. We are expected to follow orders; sometimes they are just too painful to do. Could you kill someone that you love? What if they changed and became possessed by darkness. In Grey’s case, it was a situation where evil came in the form of someone he loved.”