“Either way, why is there a trampoline and the ply boards?” I asked, ignoring Alaric

  “These are your training tools for learning phasing and flight. They are safety measures. The planks are for you to try phasing through and the trampoline is so that you don’t fall and break your neck while flying. Usually we wouldn’t do it like this, but your mom insisted on doing it the safe way. Like you’d die from a broken neck.” Grandpa said

  “But it would hurt like bitch.” I said and he scoffed

  “Pain reminds you that you are alive.” He replied and I rolled my eyes

  “So which do you wanna learn first?” Grandpa asked and I already had an answer

  “Flight.” I replied and he smiled

  “To learn flight, you will need to be able to feel the magical energy flowing throughout your body. After your experience yesterday, you should be able to, just concentrate.” Grandpa said and I closed my eyes to concentrate. After yesterday, I knew what my magical energy feel like, or at least, the magical energy that resided in my body. I could feel new energy that I didn’t know was there before, flowing through my body, filling every bone, tissue, organ and cell in body. In the center of my chest, I could feel a greater magical energy than the one flowing throughout my body, and one that I was familiar with, my core.

  “Good, good. Your magical energy reacts to your thoughts, you image something and your magical energy will react to the best of it’s ability. Now for flight, you simply need to imagine your body lighter than air, allowing it to go upwards. See.” He said and started floating off the ground and into the air. He flew around the air, free and unbound by the laws of this world.

  ‘Amazing.’ I thought, and I was even more motivated to learn how to fly. I imagined myself floating through the air, soaring through the skies and touching the clouds. I could feel the cool wind on my skin, the hot rays of the sun burning my skin as flew close towards it. I imagined soaring through the skies to places I have never been before, places that I’ve only seen in pictures. I longed to leave here and see what else the world had to offer.

  “Chrissy, you can open your eyes now.” Grandpa said, but strangely, his voice sounded like it was coming from below.

  “Wow.” I said, as I could see everyone below, smiling as I floated above. An indescribable happiness filled my heart….before I began to descend a lot faster than I ascended. I covered my face as I fell to ground, hoping that it wouldn’t hurt too much, when suddenly, I wrapped in a blanket of wind, slowing my descent.

  “You alright sweetheart.” Mom asked as she walked closer to me

  “Thank the rest of you for nothing.” Mom said as she hugged me

  “Calm down Lilian, she wasn’t in that much danger.” Dad said and mom looked at him disapprovingly, making me smile

  “Alright, what’s next?” I said, wiggling out of mom’s tight embrace

  “Phasing, I’ll teach this one if you don’t mind.” Vivian said with a smile as she walked towards me

  “Of course you would want to teach the sneakiest skill of all.” Grandpa said as he walked over to the table.

  “Alright, now, phasing is a very simple ability once you can feel the magical energy in your body. All you have to do is imagine your entire body as pure energy, passing through solid objects.” Vivian said and pushed her hand through a nearby tree. She pulled her hand out and their was no mark left on the tree, her hand simply passed through. I walked over to the tree and tried to do the same, but she stopped me.

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  “For now, you will be using these ply boards. Wouldn’t want you get stuck in a tree…or a concrete pillar.” She said and looked over at Mom, who turned her face away, her cheeks turning red in embarrassment. I didn’t think too much about the fact that mom may have gotten stuck in a concrete pillar in the past, which I’m sure was painful. I placed my hands on the ply board trying to phase through with no luck.

  “Don’t try and force it. Let the energy in your body flow naturally. Remember, it’s all about allowing your magical energy to follow your imagination.” Vivian said and I tried again imagining my hand passing through the ply board. And like clockwork, it actually did, too bad the rest of my body didn’t do the same.

  “Alright, that’s good. You will need a lot of practice of course, but that’s a good first try.” Vivian said as she looked at my hand which was stuck in the ply board. I punched the ply board with my other hand as hard as I could, splitting it apart.

  “So, can I learn misting now?” I asked, a bit too confidently and Vivian smirked

  “Alaric will be the one teaching you about misting.” She said and Alaric appeared beside her with a smirk.

  “Now then, dearest niece of mine. You are going to learn about the vampiric art of misting. The ability to channel ones magical energy and turn themselves into mist.” He said and I rolled

  “Yeah, yeah, I know.” I said impatiently and his smirk widened

  “You don’t get it, this is important. Unlike the other abilities you’ve learned so far, misting requires some manual control. Whether to move or to convert your magical energy and body into mist. Also, misting is way more dangerous than flight or phasing. You don’t risk breaking your neck or getting stuck in a tree, but you risk not being able to put your body back together.” He said and I gulped

  “Luckily for you, your mommy can use her wind to make sure your mist doesn’t spread too far. But whether or not you can pull yourself back together is up to you.” He said

  “Now, as I said before, you will need to manually control the magical energy in your body for misting. You will need to intensify the amount of magic that flows through your body. Then you need to transform your body into mist. I’ll warn you now, when you turn into mist none of your senses work, except for your ability to perceive time. So don’t panic.” Alaric said

  “That was kind of obvious. It not like I have eyes or anything.” I said

  “Good, glad you understand.” He said and held out his right hand. His hand then transformed into white must floating around in the air aimlessly and started to spread outwards, before he pulled it back together.

  “You will do the same thing I did, intensify the magical energy in you hand and imagine it turning into mist. I’ll explain how to put it back together afterwards.” He said

  “Intensify my magical energy? How do I do that exactly?” I asked and he sighed

  “So all you have to do is try and drag more energy out of your core and channel it into your hand. The process of exactly how you do that is up to you, just do whatever works. Just concentrate and follow your instincts.” He advised and I quickly followed his instructions. I concentrated on feeling of the magical energy in my body, a feeling that was still fresh in my mind. I concentrated on the center of my chest where most of my magical energy was concentrated and concentrated. I could sense the magical energy that I sensed last night during meditation. I concentrated and took a deep breath before trying to ‘pull’ on the energy in my core into my right arm. I could feel the energy flowing into my left arm, and I think I could actually see it getting redder. I imagined my left arm becoming mist and I could see red mist being emitted from my hand. My entire arm soon turned into red mist, but stayed in the general shape of my hand, and didn’t spread outwards like Alaric’s did.

  “Why is the mist red?” I asked, a bit scared

  “No fucking clue.” He said and I became even more terrified, wanting my hand to get back to normal and the mist swiftly transformed back into a hand.

  “Well, that wasn’t weird at all.” Alaric said, looking at how my hand easily went back to normal

  “Chrissy, try turning your entire body into mist.” Grandma said and I looked at her with a terrified look on my face

  “Don’t worry, trust me.” She said softly, and I nodded my head slowly. None of my family member’s bodies turned into red mist when they used misting, so this was definitely not normal. Could something be happening to me? Maybe my abilities are just different because I’m a halfling? Or maybe…it has something to do with Victor. I mean, this all started after I fed off of him and we found pictures of him dating back to a decade ago, with him looking the exact same. There is definitely something up with him. I pushed these thoughts out of my mind once more and started intensifying the energy in my body once more, but this time, I did it all over my body. I was a little scared, but I pushed down the fear, and imagined my entire body turning into mist. And like before, I could see my hands turning into red mist and I could feel myself falling as my feet turned into mist, before darkness. All I could see was darkness, just as Alaric sai-

  ‘Wait a minute.’ I thought as I could sense something. I could still see my family in the darkness, a vaguely humanoid shape with a core in the center of their chest and red lines running all over their bodies. I couldn’t tell who was who without facial features and they all looked about the same height from what I could tell. I decided to bring my body back together and I could finally see the light of day once more.

  “So?” I asked as they looked at me strangely

  “Well, your mist is crimson and reeks of blood, and strangely enough, you seem to have full control over it even without instructions. Normally, when we use misting for the first time, the mist normally spreads out and it takes a while with a lot of effort, to bring our bodies back together. But you, your mist doesn’t spread and you can bring your body back together instantly.” Grandma said with a thoughtful look on her face.

  “So, I’m awesome.” I said with smirk on my face and she smiled

  “We’ll decide that after seeing how you do in your next test. Combat training. Are you ready Elliot.” Grandma said and dad stepped forward.