The Glowing Mark

At the bright age of 12, Eliana had her life planned out. From graduating college, to starting a family. She had always been a planner and she was sure that the timeline she had mapped out for her life was going to go as smoothly as planned…until it didn’t.

Eliana had just started college and was eager to learn. She was always one of the first to arrive to class and the last to leave. She was known as the good student with a lot of questions. Some of her classmates liked her enthusiasm, while others found it annoying. What was interesting was she always had a feeling she could sense what others were thinking or how they felt. Eliana could especially feel if someone had discontent towards her or if an individual was extremely found of her. She never spoke of her “special feelings” worrying that others may think she was weird.

Because of her special feelings, she could easily manipulate whatever situation she was in to favor the outcome she wanted. She did this so often, she would do it at times without even realizing it. Eliana was a kind person and never did this to harm anyone or anything, but she was used to getting her way.

One rainy autumn day, Eliana was feeling off and for once, didn’t feel like going to class. She dragged herself to school, sat in her desk and stared blankly at the board. “I just don’t feel like being here. I have a feeling I’m meant to be somewhere else today.” she said. A few minutes later, the teacher walks in and tells the class what’s on the agenda. The instructor proceeds to turn on the projector, but for some reason it wasn’t turning on. Shortly after, the all the lights on campus suddenly turned off. The instructor decided to wait for 15 minutes before dismissing the class due to a power outage on the school grounds. Eliana thought, “Well, that worked out perfectly for me.” with a smug smile on her face, partially not surprised at what had just happened.

She walked back to her car, excited to have gotten out of class early, and heads back home. It was still pouring outside and the roads were extremely slick. She drove slower than normal and saw it as an opportunity to sit in silence with her thoughts. “I still feel like something is different today. I just don’t know what it is.” she thought. Just then, she saw something on her right, standing by a lamp post. The rain was coming down hard making it hard to see what it was. As she drove closer to the distorted figure, it started to look more like a silhouette…a freakishly large silhouette with long hair blowing in the wind. The closer she drove, the more she was able to see what it was. Eliana drove closer and closer and saw that the unknown figure was a person wearing an overly large grey robe. The figure’s hair looked to be at least ten feet long, and it was staring directly at Eliana! “What on earth…?” Eliana said as she drove by. She quickly realized that the figure did not have a full face, just glowing white eyes. This prompted her to immediately look in her rear-view mirror, and saw the figure continued to stare at her as she drove away. Panicked, she tried to come up with an explanation for what she just witnessed standing on the side of the road. “Maybe I’m just tired and I’m imagining things. Yeah, that’s it. I didn’t drink enough coffee this morning.”

She pulls into her garage and heads inside her house. She felt that the temperature was much colder than when she left the house that morning. As she walks up the stairs, Eliana notices that she can see her breath. “Why is it freezing in here?” she says out loud. When she turns the corner to head to the living room, the figure she saw standing outside was standing in the middle of the living room. Eliana screams and yells “What do you want?!”

The figure stands quietly, continuing to look at her without saying a word. Eliana’s heart begins to race as she becomes more terrified, waiting for the answer from the unknown being. Out of nowhere, Eliana sees what looks like fire embers start to surround her. Confused she looks at the glowing specs and instantly feels like she knows what she has to do. Telepathically, she tells the embers to grow, holds her right hand out and shoots it in the direction of the figure. The figure disappears for a split moment to dodge the embers then immediately returns. In a deep and raspy voice, it says, “You are the one I’ve been looking for.”

Eliana starts to feel drowsy and her vision begins to blur…slowly, she falls to the ground and faints.

She wakes up in her living room, not knowing how much time has passed. Dazed and confused, she frantically scans the room, looking for the tall figure that previously stood before her. Thankfully, she no longer sees it also notices that she has a pounding headache. Eliana attempts to slowly stand and feels a tingle in her right arm as if her arm fell asleep. Upon glancing down, she notices what looks like a floral glowing pastel tattoo wrapped around her hand and wrist. Instead of being alarmed by the unknown mark on her body, she felt more of a “this is home” feeling when she gazed upon it.

While looking around her home, she felt one of her “special feelings”. This specific feeling told her to go to her front door. She couldn’t explain what told her this, but she knew she had to. Eliana cautiously makes her way downstairs, and slowly opens her front door. Instead of seeing her lawn, she sees a crowd of people, all wearing colorful robes, staring at her and smiling. She gets an overwhelming feeling of joy and she knows this feeling is coming from the crowd directly in front of her.

After a few moments of silence, the handsome man standing towards the front and center of the crowd speaks up, “We’ve been waiting for you Princess Eliana.” Taken back by surprise she responds, “I’m not a princess. You have the wrong person.” The handsome man points to her right hand and says, “That’s impossible. You bear the royal mark…and I would never forget your beautiful face.” Eliana stares at him and starts to realize that he too looks familiar. As if she’s seen in him a dream. He holds his hand out and says, “Come now. Your family and throne await.” Eliana grabs his hand, closes her front door and proceeds to follows him. As they walk through the crowd, she notices that everyone has markings like hers, but theirs are on their left hand. Their glowing marks differ from hers as well. They glow, but not as bright and prominent as hers. She looks back at the man walking with her and asks for his name, and he responds “My name is Elias.” Curiously, she says “You look very familiar. Do we know each other?” He responds, “We know each other very well, my love” and smiles.

At that moment, Eliana knew her life was about to change. She has always had a feeling she was meant for something bigger. She knew in her core that her purpose was elsewhere and she’d make a difference somewhere. This was the moment she learned her biggest life lesson. That no matter what you have planned for yourself, there are other forces at play that will point you in the direction where you are meant to go. She knew that this was going to be the start of her brand-new life. A life where she was going to be a bigger and better version of herself. Eliana had found her true purpose and her true home.