The Turning Point

Chapter 1

"Brax, hey, Brax, wake up!" whispered Sidney as she shook her twin furiously trying to wake him up.

"What?" murmured Braxton as he sat up and rubbed his eyes. "What time is it?" he asked her, trying to squint at the clock that was across the room.

"It's 1:27 in the morning, but before you say anything guess what day it is!?" she whispered excitedly trying not to wake anyone in the house.

"It's June something, why?" he answered, sounding confused.

"Dude it's our birthday dummy!" she told him.

"Damn it's the thirteenth of June already?" he asked

"Yup," she replied to him.

"Ok but why did you wake me up so damn early, it's Saturday just let me get some sleep? Ok?" he asked while laying back down and pulling the covers over his face.

"Braxton Jones!" she said mockingly. "GET. UP." she talked in an almost yell whisper. She shook him so hard he almost fell off the bed.

"Ok, ok, I'm up geez." he grumbled, taking the covers off his head.

"Ok, so now that you are up we can do our tradition." she said as she got up and ruffled through her nightstand that was across the room from Braxton, as they share a bedroom. They both technically have separate rooms but now they are sharing Braxton's room because they don't like being alone.

Braxton and Sidney were put up for adoption when they were five, and they were adopted at the age of seven by a lovely rich couple looking for kids. They have always been inseparable from each other.

"Ok come on let's do it before I pass out again." said a sleepy Braxton. So he got up, pulled on a shirt, and walked over to the window, where Sidney was waiting for him holding something in her hands.

"You got it right?" he asked her

"Of course I do." she replied to him. So the twins opened the window, climbed onto the ledge of the building, and slid down the metal flagpole next to the ledge. They walked down the driveway, their hair blowing in the early summer wind.

They walked for a steady 15 minutes in total silence, until they reached the graveyard. They hopped over the low rise chain that they put up to stop the cars from driving on the graves. After a couple of minutes they arrived at the double headstone east of the chain and sat down. Brax brushed the dirt off his shirt while Sidney was fiddling with the thing in her pocket.

"You ready?" Sidney asked

"I guess so yeah," replied Brax as he grabbed a handful of something from Sidney. Sidney poured the other half into her own hands. She moved over so she was directly in front on one of the headstones and Brax did the same. Brax brushed the moss of the stone in front of him reading the name MARSHA MILLER 1979-2000 and Sidney did the same on her's and the name was LIAM MILLER 1975-2000. Those were their biological parents. They died in a car accident while Braxton and Sidney were in the back seat. The people who rescued them said it was a miracle that they were even alive. They had gotten away with only scratches and bruises and were nicknamed "The Miracle Twins." They were on the news and everything. That's how their adopted parents found them. They told the twins that they had been looking for a pair of twins to adopt and as soon as they saw their faces they said those were the ones they were going to adopt.

Just as they stretched out their wrists to drop the object, they heard a crack coming from somewhere behind them. They quickly got down and hid behind the gravestone.

"I heard them. It sounds like they went this way!" said a voice from the distance. It was muffled so they weren't sure if it was a male or a female voice.

"We have to go Brax!" Sidney whispered to her brother pointing to an opening behind them. The fence there looked like it had been cut with some sort of bolt cutter. So they quietly crouched over to the opening. That's when they were blinded by the flashlight that was pointed straight at their face.

"THERE!" shouted the one with the flashlight pointing at us.

"RUN!" yelled Sidney and Brax at the same time turning to look at each other.

So they both jumped up and bolted towards the fence. They slid under the fence and Brax winced in pain as he cut his arm on the jagged edge of the fence. On the other side of the fence was an opening right next to the road. So they booked it as fast as they could towards the house across the road. Behind them the voices got louder and closer so that they could hear what the strangers were saying.

"Don't let them go, we need them!" a man's voice shouted to his buddies. It sounded like there were at least three of them, maybe four.

Then suddenly, Brax stopped. He had just gotten this really bad headache and felt like he was going to pass out. Sidney didn't notice that he had stopped until the strangers were on top of him grabbing his arms.

"LET GO OF HIM!" Sidney stopped and yelled at them. Just as she was about to storm them, something crazy happened. One of the people shouted out and grasped onto their arm, it was mangled and looked like it had been scratched by an angry tiger. Then she heard it, the roar. It was definitely a tiger roar but she couldn't tell where it was coming from. Just after the roar a huge orange blur jumped on one of the other people. This one was a woman and her scream was cut short by the orange figure biting into her throat. The other two people turned around and ran behind them screaming for their pathetic lives.

A rush of adrenaline hit Sidney's body as the figure turned towards her staring with its one blue and one green eye. That's when it hit her.

"Braxton?" she said confused. As the thing got closer she realized that she was right, it was a tiger, but it had her brother's eyes. The tiger took a couple steps and collapsed on the ground. Sidney ran over to it and it wasn't the tiger anymore it was Braxton.

He had a really big gash in his arm and was gushing blood. He also had scrapes and bruises on his whole body. Sidney grabbed her brother and gently dragged him out of the road and into the grass. She played soccer so she was fairly strong and was able to move him quite easily. When she laid him on the grass she looked back, and in the middle of the road were two mangled dead bodies that were barely recognisable as humans.

Sidney took a medical class a couple months ago so she knew the basics of what to do. She knew that she had to make a tourniquet, so she took off her flannel and tied it around his arm tightly. He was still passed out so he didn't flinch. Then she looked around on the grass and spotted a stick next to a tree. Sidney hopped up, grabbed it, and ran to Brax's arm sticking it under the flannel. She twisted the stick as far as she could sticking it in place.

Then Sidney's hand flew to her pocket looking for her phone, but it was empty. She realized that she must have dropped it when she was running. And Brax didn't bring his phone. She looked around but the street was dead quiet. The nearest hospital was miles away and she couldn't carry him that far.