Adira was a completely ordinary girl to society, I guess you could say that she had two different lives.

One where she could be herself, where she could use her gifts without being afraid of getting caught, and another where she pretends that everything about her is in fact, ordinary.

She had played the normal card for such a long time that she had started to forget that she was different, she had finally started becoming the mask that she had spent so much time creating.

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Adria's POV:

I awoke to the faint breeze of the cold morning air flowing over my face, I reluctantly opened my eyes and stretched out as far as I could, causing a yawn to escape my lips. 

Pulling myself into an upright position, I threw my legs lazily over the side of my bed and moved stiffly over to my large double glass doors.

I slid them open and stepped onto the balcony to admire the soft golden glow of the sunlight as it cast down through the pines within the surrounding forest in beams of brilliant light. I yawned again, rubbing my tired eyes and turned around to walk back inside, but something caught my attention, two lone flowers lay on the basic little stool that was positioned in the corner of the balcony.

I picked them up for closer inspection and stared at their dainty petals in confusion, one was a deep red colour while the other was a dark purple. I took them inside and hurried over to my desk, pulling out my laptop. They probably grew in the area or something, but regardless, I decided to scroll through an online flower encyclopaedia out of curiosity.

After a good two minutes of scrolling, I finally found a picture that matched the mystery flowers. They were called Anemones and certainly did not grow in the area. I sighed in frustration and slumped down further into my chair.

In reality, it was probably just my mother, nothing new or exciting ever happened here. With that thought in mind, I mentally laughed at my gullible nature while retrieving a small glass of water to put the flowers in, like seriously what did I expect? some random person to climb my balcony and leave two flowers? 

I snapped the lid of my laptop closed and pulled on a pair of simple black denim shorts and a red t-shirt, finished with a navy and burgundy hoodie to keep off the morning chill. I ran a brush through my long, light brown hair that hung down around my hips and put on a small amount of mascara. Peering further into the mirror, I noticed that my emerald green eyes seemed to look brighter than usual, striking me with confusion but I chose not to question it for now and hurried out of my room, making my way down the wooden stairs.

"Thanks for the flowers," I said quickly as I passed my mum on the way to the kitchen.

"What flowers honey?" she questioned popping her head around the door.

I grinned widely and shook my head, she was actually playing dumb, I decided to play along just to make her happy. 

"Ok then, whatever" I mumbled, grabbing a glass out of the cupboard.

My mother, Lynette stood in the doorway for a couple of seconds before she advanced further into the room.

"Here," she said passing me a cereal bar. "I guess you'll want to rush out as soon as possible." 

I accepted it gratefully and ran to the door excitedly, attempting to pull on my well worn black converse as I went. I was planning to go to the one place where I could practice my gifts, I hadn't been there in what seemed like forever so I  jumped at the opportunity to go.

"See you later mum" I called over my shoulder before shutting the door behind me.

I walked briskly down the front path of my house and took a right turn to walk into the forestry. Once I was sure that I was completely out of view, I began to run. I sprinted tirelessly through the woods, jumping over fallen logs and small streams until I finally came to a clearing.

I left the sanctuary of the towering trees and entered the open glade, taking in the familiar sight of my special place, there was a gleaming waterfall in the far right corner that flowed smoothly into a small lake which ran freely into a calm river. Various types of wildflowers grew tall, absorbing the morning sunbeams that pierced the trees to christen the sacred area with life and warmth.

This place was my escape from the world, it was the one place that I could come to be alone whenever I needed to, it was perfect.

I continued to walk slowly around the area, taking in every bit of nature. Small birds flew around, singing their sweet songs, occasionally dipping down to bath their feathers in the striking blue water. Butterfly's landed on the radiant surface of the wildflowers in an effort to camouflage their unique wings. There were even wild rabbits emerging from their burrows to nibble on the luxurious grass.

I sighed in relief and sat down in the centre of the glade under an unusually placed oak tree, and watched the simple lives of the nature that inhabited the glade until the sun reached its peak point in the sky.

Starting to get bored with just sitting around, I hummed softly to myself and looked down at the grass, spotting a dead wildflower. Cupping it gently in my hands, I closed my eyes and concentrated my full attention on that one flower.

I felt a small tingling sensation in my fingers and re-opened my eyes to see that the flower had begun to open and was surrounded by a soft, white light. Bright orange colour began to spiral out from the centre of the flower and ended its petals as soft yellow tips. I removed my hands from the flowers smooth surface and watched as it continued to grow until it was tall enough to absorb the sunlight.

I smiled happily, realising for the first time in a while how much I missed doing this. I shrugged off my thoughts and sprung lightly to my feet before I jogged blissfully over to the lake, I had almost reached it's rocky banking when I found myself engulfed by darkness. Confused, I screamed out and waved my arms around frantically, trying to free my self of the weird force that seemed to move on its own.

"This isn't happening," I told myself aloud.

Of course it wasn't real, I must have fallen asleep on the grass! 

I tried to relax but the darkness burned into my skin painfully. This was actually happening. I screamed out again and used all my strength to rip free of the darkness and wasting no more time, I immediately began to sprint across the glade.

 Although I didn't have a chance to get far before it wrapped around my foot, sending me face first into the grass.

I watched in utter horror as it began to spread in the form of a rope, binding itself around my body, caging in my arms and legs. I wriggled around trying to loosen its grip but it wouldn't budge, It began to slowly drag me back towards the lake with no indication of stopping. I tried to stop myself from panicking to get enough air but who was I kidding? I could probably hold my breath underwater for a minute on a good day, but that was it.

I closed my eyes and waited for the dreaded impact, I crashed into the lakes icy water with a splash, my hair flowed wildly out in front of me as it dragged me backwards towards the bottom of the lake, my mind went black and my ears stung from the pressure of the waters increasingly dangerous depths. 

After what seemed like an eternity, I was beginning to run out of air. I squirmed around in panic and managed to free my right hand, I snapped open my eyes, ignoring the horrible sting as my vision blurred and tried to look around the lake. The thing that was holding me seemed to pick up speed but continued to drag me downwards, I spotted a thick looking plant of some kind and grabbed ahold of it as we passed. 

I pulled with all my strength and to my surprise the thing stopped for a second, when all of a sudden, a bright light shone through the surface of the water, surrounding the whole area in a blue glow. The darkness instantly retreated but still had ahold of my foot. It ripped me backwards tearing me away from the plant, a sharp sting erupted my hand and out of natural reflex and my own stupidity I screamed out in pain. 

Water flooded into my lungs, making them burn violently, I panicked and tried to cough it out but the more I struggled, the more it hurt. The pain burned through my chest and clogged my throat, trapping me in this moment forever, sentencing me to what seemed like hours of torment. 

I noticed that something pierced the water's inviting surface and began to swim towards me, but nothing mattered anymore. All I had to do was close my eyes and everything would be fine. 

*** Thanks for reading :)

Thank you to the people who have come over to this book from Angel Academy, I really hope that you guys enjoy this story.

Please try to stick with me, I promise it will get better as the plot develops. 

Let me know what you think as we go along.

Happy reading :D  ***