“Who are you?” I growl at the strange woman standing before me. “My name is Emira, the strongest witch alive,” the woman, Emira, boasts. Laura steps closer to me and eases the berry bucket from my hand. She probably realized that I have a better chance of beating this woman than she does. I flex my fingers and prepare to shift. Before I can even start to change forms, the witch’s eyes flash bright green, and I find myself unable to move my arms or legs. “What did you do to me?” I growl at Emira, trying my best to make my hands move. All of my limbs feel like they have been encased in thick cement blocks, making them unable to move. "I cast an immobilization spell," Emira gloats. "You didn't even see it coming, just like you never saw any of our attacks coming." She cackles evilly and sparks fly from her fingertips, singeing the grass around her. "Oops," she giggles. "I got a little too excited. We-" "What are you planning?" I growl, cutting her off. S

Beep. Beep. Beep. A loud noise awakens me, but disappears as soon as I open my eyes. My vision remains blurry and I swear that I can see a lab room with doctors bustling about surrounding me. My limbs feel heavy and weak. Then I blink and am back in the same bed I woke up in yesterday. I sit up, rubbing my eyes. Nothing has changed when I open them again. I am still sitting in bed covered by my navy blue comforter. My desk stands opposite my bed in the right corner of the room. Both my closet door and bathroom door hang open the way that I usually leave them. I slide off my bed and wait until my feet are buried in the soft, plush carpet before standing up. Then I spot it. My keys are on my desk along with my wallet. I know for sure that I left them hanging up in the hallway as I always do before going to bed yesterday. Perhaps, the day is repeating itself the same as yesterday. If that is true, then I may be in a nightmare. Upon realizing this, my mood immediately improves.

My nightmare repeats itself over and over again and each time I am younger than before. My helplessness is driving me crazy as I am forced to watch my parents die, unable to help. I wake up for the seventh time and my room is different from how I remember it. The walls are painted purple, but I only remember them being light green. My bed is also smaller. It suits my small, five year old body better than my normal twin size bed. I decide to lie in bed and think about my options. I have tried practically all of them without success. During the third round, I pretended to be sick the whole day, forcing my parents to stay home with me in hopes of avoiding the wolves. This ultimately failed when the rogue wolves broke into our house and killed them. Then I tried going into the city, going to another country, and even visiting the top floor of a skyscraper. Nothing worked. Each time the wolves came without fail. “Good morning, Sleepyhead,” a voice says. I roll my head to t

“So if someone is cursed to sleep, what spell would you use to counter the curse?” I ask Aunt Shanna. “Ah!” she exclaims after pausing to think. “I know just the spell.” She begins to flip through the pages. Words fly past in rapid succession, but I manage to read a few. They mean guard, bind, and dispel. After flipping through half of the book, Shanna stops and points to a page. The explanation of the spell is short and merely states that the spell will wake up the recipient. The magic word is ‘izuzzu’ which means ‘arise’ in the language of magic. This is written at the center of the magic circle and is surrounded by lines that form the shape of z’s. Shanna seems to be watching me because when I glance up at her, she is staring back at me. “How do you end a spell? You said that you end a curse by casting it twice,” I question, looking away from her penetrating stare and back to the book. “Great question!” she cries. “Spells are normally negated by casting the opp

I become aware of many voices around me as my consciousness slowly returns. My fingers twitch to the side and bump against something. The thing moves and then a hand grasps mine. The pleasant tingles that shoot up my arm are all the information that I need to know that the hand holding mine is Tyler’s. “She’s awake,” I hear him cry and several other voices respond. Memories of being locked up in the lab flash through my head and I quickly cast a protective barrier around myself and Tyler. Shouting erupts on the outside of the barrier and I reach up with my free hand to rub my eyes. “Arielle?” Tyler asks. I squint my eyes at the bright overhead lights. All I can make out is a dark figure standing over me. Reflexingly, my fist flies up to remove the threat. It misses the figure and is caught by a warm hand that causes tingles to fly up my arm. “Arielle, look at me,” Tyler commands. I blink several more times, trying to adjust to the lights. My eyes slide around unt