Chapter 1: The begining

Author's note: please review, all comments are welcome, please tell me what you think of my writing, good or bad, doesn't matter to me ... Also if you feel you could give me some story advise or guidance please let me know... thanks

-Megan Elizabeth

"Beep, beep, beep." I lifted my head just enough to see the time on my alarm clock, 8: 00 a.m. "Hey Stephen" by Taylor Swift started to play from somewhere on my dresser. I slammed my hand down on the alarm clock and shut off the alarm but in the process smashed it to smithereens.
"Man, that's the 3rd one this week!" I yelled at the crushed clock. I walked over to my dresser and searched for my phone. Finally I pulled out my silver LG enV and looked at the caller I.D. It was my mom, but it was a text message instead.

Good morning, Amanda. Remember to wake your sister up. I wish I could be home to wish you both good luck at Ravenwood. I love you and will visit you soon.
Love, Mom.

I grimaced and looked over at my sister, Elizabeth Taylor Bennett's, bed. My twin sister was under the covers and half way off the bed. I struggled trying to hold back my laughter. She was supposedly the more graceful one of the two of us, ha yeah right. I sighed and walked across the room to wake up the sleeping beast. I grabbed one of her pillows and threw it at her head. That did the trick. She looked up and then fell off of the bed. I finally couldn't help it. I let out one long musical laugh after another. Elizabeth stuck out her tongue and stood up and brushed herself off.
"What was that for?" she asked accusingly.
"Mom told me to wake you up," I replied innocently. I flashed a toothy smile and walked into the bathroom so she couldn't hit me with anything. It took me 30 minutes to shower, dry my hair, and put on some makeup. I took a chance and ran out of the bathroom and was on my bed dressed in less than 5 seconds. I chose a blue short sleeve shirt, my skinny jeans, and my faded white jacket that I had gotten for my birthday. I looked for Elizabeth and she was in our closet trying to flatten her hair.
"Do you have to do that? You know the wind will fluff out my hair!" she half screamed while crushing the brush in her hand.
"Umm sissy, your brush is…." I didn't finish because she was just getting madder.
"Why does this have to happen? I'm tired of destroying everything. I'm tired of having to change schools all the time just because we have these stupid powers!" by this time she was on fire. "Water" I whispered. Water came out of nowhere and fizzled out her fire. She was now perfect. My water had flattened her hair. I walked to her and gave her a big hug. We turned to look in the mirror. We looked almost exactly alike except I had wavy, curly hair halfway down my back (she said I looked like Taylor Swift, yeah right) and she had straight hair. I had blue-green eyes with a tint of gold while she had chocolate brown-colored eyes. We both had a golden bronze color to our hair and we both were 16. Most people had trouble telling us apart. When it came to powers though, we were nothing alike.
We both were super strong, but I had the ability to run as fast as…. Well honestly nothing that I knew of could run as fast as I could. I also had powers over the elements, you know like wind, earth, water and fire. All I had to do was say their name and will them to do something (I'm still experimenting). Elizabeth could make anything she wanted materialize in her hand. I wish I had that gift because right now I could go for a pizza. The thing that bothered her was that she couldn't control her gifts. O yeah, one other thing when Elizabeth gets mad, she sets on fire, Not a very redeeming quality. Oh another thing … even though we do have powers... There are some consequences … like for instance whenever we meet somebody and say their full name we can't help but say their middle name as well.

"Amanda Marie Bennett!" I looked up and Elizabeth was half packed and ready to go to Ravenwood. I looked at her clock since mine was still broken and it said 10:00 a.m. I sat here for half an hour staring at my reflection trying to explain this whole mess.
"Mandy, are you okay? You don't look so good." Elizabeth came up to me and felt my head. In her hand materialized a thermometer. She put it in my mouth and looked at the clock.
"5 minutes Mandy." She said sounding like mom. Elizabeth really took care of me. She was 2 minutes older than I was (big whoop). She treats the minutes like they are years. I remember her taking out the thermometer but it went black after that. I struggled to open my eyes but they felt like they were glued shut. Finally I got them open, but I was not at home or in Ravenwood from what I could tell. For some strange reason I was running.
"Elizabeth?" I tried to say but nothing came out of my mouth. I looked around and realized I was in the woods. The trees seemed to disappear from in front of me as I raced through the thick under brush. The ground seemed as fluffy and silky as a cloud and not like the ground should be. I looked down and realized that had no shoes on. The ground was littered with fresh autumn leaves and the trees half empty but still enough leaves to make them beautiful. After what seemed to be 15 minutes I came to a clearing, in that clearing was a girl lying on the ground with her eyes closed and a faint glow radiating off of her skin. I immediately recognized the strange girl that I had never met before and knew the purpose of her being here. She was Julia Faith Myers. She had the power to zap wherever she wanted and invisibility, she could also catch anything you threw at her, no matter how far. She was going to become my best friend, and I felt very protective of her. I ran closer and took a good look at her. She had dark chocolate colored hair that reached about a fourth down her back with big, soft curls that mirrored mine and hazel green eyes (her eyes were not open so I don't know how I knew that). She had a clear and glowing tan complexion, as well as a very small cut under her left eye. I wanted so bad to go over and wipe away the blood but something held me in the exact place I was standing. She was wearing a cute blue and white sundress, and flip-flops. Julia's toes were painted gold and blue. Even though she was not standing I could guess her height at about 5'0 to 5'3 feet. I was suddenly certain that I was not awake because I was recognizing every random detail about Julia and where I was. The clearing we were in was the most beautiful pasture I had ever seen. The grass was a bright green and covered in yellow, purple, orange and green leaves. There were little blue and white flowers sprouting all around Julia. The sun was peeking over the trees lined around us. Most of them looked like pine and oak trees, they were all very tall but full of bright leaves. The sky was red and blue.
"Twilight," I tried to comment but still nothing would come out of my mouth. Twilight I remembered from a class was the safest and strongest time for us immortals. I looked back at Julia and her skin was glowing gold. I looked at my skin and it was also glowing but it was a faint baby blue. I looked around and the meadow was glowing as well but not so much a color as just glowing. Every part and every plant was glowing. Suddenly something made my eyes come back to the girl in the middle of the strange meadow; she started to glow even brighter. Then her eyes opened, and her perfect eyes were the epicenter of the bright light. I almost couldn't look away, I didn't want to look away it was so captivating. But I suddenly felt my own eyes open and the beautiful picture in front of me vanished and was replaced with my bedroom. I had never realized how big my room was but now I could see that it was probably twice the size of a normal bedroom. Since Elizabeth and I share a room we had the construction workers bust down a wall to make the room big enough for us, we even had two bathrooms. Our room was painted blue, green, and silver in different murals and designs most were swirls and stripes. We each had a full sized bed an equal distance across the room from each other; mine had a baby blue and silver comforter with an intricate design. Elizabeth had a lime green and silver along with some white but the same pattern. My bathroom was green and white; Elizabeth had a blue and white bathroom to match. We each had a few shelves and bookcases (I have the most bookcases, I love to read) and on the big desk next to our balcony window was our big flat screen computer/ TV. For me it was way too extravagant because it reminded me of those rich snobs that lived next to us. To me it was mind-boggling how much I noticed in 5 seconds. And that was all before I noticed Elizabeth sitting on our couch in the corner.
"I see you have woken up," she said casually from the couch. I looked over at her and she was intently watching me with a look of worry upon her face.
"I was asleep?" I asked sounding muffled, I still wasn't sure that what I had seen was a dream. It was just so real.
"You've been asleep for about 2 hours. We aren't due at Ravenwood for a few more hours so I packed some of your things already." She rambled while taking my temperature for the second time. She grabbed the thermometer out of my mouth and looked at it.
"Well, you are back to normal now." Elizabeth said sounding a bit shocked. I looked out the window at the sky.
"It was a dream?" I asked again. I couldn't get over the fact that it was all a dream. No way was it a dream; it was too real. Everything about it was absolutely real. Elizabeth looked at me with wide eyes.
"What did you see Amanda?"

I turned my gaze back to my sister and flashed back to my dream.
"A girl," I replied in a distant voice. She looked at me and raised her eyebrows. "Okay well I did see a girl but it was … unlike any dream I have ever had. It was so real. I started out running in the most beautiful forest I have ever seen. And then ended up in a meadow or pasture, I'm not sure what you would call it, but the meadow was glowing, I was glowing. And as soon as I saw the girl, I knew everything about her. I knew her name, and what her power was, and that she was my best friend."
All Elizabeth could do was gawk at me. Before she could ask me anything else dad came into our room.
"Mandy what are you still doing in bed? Come on you only have an hour and a half before you have to go to the boarding school." Dad had a special nickname for each of us; mine was "Mandy" or "Mandy May". Elizabeth's was "Liz". Anyway, Dad came in and dragged the bed spread off of me and pulled me off the bed.
"Ha ha Dad I was up! See; I'm all dressed, you can't find any one who can get dressed faster than me!" I started to laugh and ran out of the way before Dad could grab me again. I stuck out my tongue and raced around both of them. An hour later we were all packed to go to our new and strange boarding school a half-hour away in Summerville, South Carolina.