CIRI THE LOST TRIBRID PRINCESS

SHELBURNE, VERMONT

Cirilla's point of view

Firmly, I adjusted the black boxing bag gloves around my wrists. I get my stance right by standing with my feet at shoulder-width apart and my front foot facing the punching bag. I do not hesitate in unloading my punches, making sure I throw powerful and snappy punches at the punching bag. I plant my feet firmly when throwing the punches and when I'm not throwing punches I move around on my toes. My breathing laboured. I've been at this for probably an hour or maybe more. I can't exactly tell. Suddenly, I'm getting bored by the exercise. It would have been a little more fun if I was sparring against an opponent. Now that would be entertaining.

I absconded the boxing bag gloves. My long and thick black lashes pressed firmly together and the gate of my eyes shut closed. I inhaled deeply and calmly. And as usual, my subconscious formed a well built and sturdy figure. It looked virile and manly. He wore black leather pants and a black tacky jacket that looks like one forged from the heat of battle in the medieval times. His face was covered with a silver mask. But the color of his eyes were as dark and dangerous. The conviction in his eyes were as firm as always. To kill.

I smirked to myself. My electric blue eyes hardened and so was my conviction to protect myself as always. He balled his hands into fists and pulled them up in a fighting stance. Eagerly I lunged at him, striking him. He blocked and sent a swing at me, which I was swift to avoid. I kept my eyes closed to avoid breaking off my connection and losing this imaginary character my mind always created to escape my very own hell of a life.

Everything was going well. I was still standing strong even after countless minutes of our heated combat. Abruptly, I felt a mighty force of wind which forced me to pull from my subconscious. My eyes flung wide open. I scanned the slightly huge gym I worked at after school hours. The doors were shut, and so was all windows and anything that could pull in the cold air from outside.

"Hello!" I called out to the faintly dark silence of the gym. "Is someone there?" It couldn't be Jim, the gym instructor who usually camps in the gym throughout the night. He wasn't even in town, so I decided to have the gym all to myself. Believe me, it was damn better than spending the night home with the chances of being deafened by the loud moans from sensual sex and repeated banging on the bed. Sometimes I feel the little exercise even gets done on the wall of the room next to mine in a hellhole called 'a home'. What an irony. Home is usually a teen's safe haven, a personal space where you belong and feel loved. But mine was a constant hell that I was willing to take whatever bus I could find to make an escape.

I didn't get a response. With a cautious last scan of my surrounding, I resolved to return to my training when I heard the unmistakably loud thud of the door, which I'm well damned sure I locked when I got here after escaping from home.

I was alarmed, but not terrified. I had a lot of scary shit going on in my life to be terrified of a little invasion. I picked up a long metal stick. Whatever or whoever the unlucky bastard was trying to break in picked an awful night for that.

I headed to the entrance door, and like expected it was opened. I checked around but there was no one. My eyes caught something strange on the door. It was some kind of a scratch. I trailed it with my fingers. It seemed like a work of anything but art done with the nails. But that was an impossible theory. Each scratch marks were few inches apart from the other. It couldn't be a human, probably some wild cat that lost it way or something.