Book 1: The Chaos Keys

Chapter Eight: Ethan☄️

Ethan sat on the familiar stone step in front of a house, staring into the night. It was almost pitch black, the stars and moon shrouded by the clouds. He was toying with his pendant in his hand, absently looking at nothingness. He was still wearing his clothes from the school day, and he had his backpack on the step beside him.

Suddenly the door clicked open, swinging gently inwards. A figure stood there, almost unrecognisable. Their dissheveled mass of black curls fell loosely past their shoulders, and their hands were in the pockets of their grey sweatpants. They were wearing an apron over their black T-Shirt, and entirely lacked their typical concealing attire.

"Oh, hi short stuff." Said Alexis, her voice just as monotonous as usual. He noticed the way her expression had shifted when she saw him. They obviously hadn't expected him to be here.

"Did something happen?" She asked, looking him over and furrowing her brows in concern.

He shook his head vigorously, standing to his feet.

"I just got here." He said with a lopsided grin. "I found something really cool!"

Alexis looked him in the eye, and he looked back at her eagerly. Then he looked down to his feet, his smile fading a little.

"He kicked me out again." He said a little more quietly, quickly correcting his lie.

Alexis scoffed, some mix of scorn and disapproval, and opened her door fully, walking back inside. This was clearly not a rare occurrence.

He followed her into the cozy house, smiling a little bit again. The atmosphere of her home was always welcoming and safe. There was a little girl sitting on the couch, kicking her feet idly as she ate a sandwich.

"Hey Mina!" He greeted her cheerfully.

She rubbed her eyes tiredly and waved to him, shifting her focus to Alexis, who was in the kitchen. He sat slowly on the floor by Mina, and started digging through his backpack, eager to show Alexis his new discovery. When his eyes fell upon his pendant, he was suddenly thrust into the world beyond the gem. This time it was a dark, grassy area. It was impossible to see anything that wasn't straight in front of him. He had just begun to look around, before he was snapped out of the world.

"Here." Alexis said, holding out a plate with some of the same sandwiches Mina was eating. He blinked back into reality, spaced out for just a moment before be grinned at her.

"Thank you Lexi!" He said eagerly, taking the plate and enthusiastically beginning to devour the food. It was certainly not difficult to tell that he had not eaten since lunch.

She waved off the thanks, sitting beside Mina on the couch. There was a comfortable quiet as Ethan practically inhaled the sandiwches. When he was done, she took the plate from him, washing it and tossing him a bottle of water.

"What did you want to show me short stuff?" She asked absently, going back to the door and resting her hand on the doorknob.

He almost erupted with excitement as he pulled an old book out of his bag. The pages were slightly yellowed with age, and the cover seemed to be slowly disintegrating. The black cover was etched with golden markings, in the center being what looked like a golden drawing of a keybole.

When he touched the book, there was a tingling in his fingertips, and a strange feeling settled over the room. The energy from the book seemed to shoot through his fingers into his body, surging with an almost painful  feeling of power.

Alexis froze with her hand on the knob, and slowly turned to look at the book that Ethan proudly brandished. Mina's eyes locked onto the book, and an eerie silence fell over the house. Thrilled with the fact that they seemed as interested as he was, he started explaining.

"Dad found it on my bed this evening, he thought it was mine." Ethan said, waving it around a little. "Then he thought it was from the library and I didn't return it, then he thought I stole it. That's why he kicked me out again, he got really angry, but look! Feel the book, and the stuff in it is amazing! I don't know where it came from but-"

"You don't know where it came from?" Mina interrupted him. This was perhaps the first time Mina had spoken directly to him for as long as he could remember.

"Yeah, it was just on my bed." He said eagerly.

When he looked at Alexis, she was still staring at him, seeming frozen. Suddenly, her cat bounded out of the hallway leading to the rest of the house, sharply stopping to stare at Ethan. Alexis turned swiftly and locked the door, then stepped closer. It was as if every being in the house, human and animal alike, felt the strange presence of the book.

"Look, it has pictures of dragons and magical creatures and elves and so many other things." He said eagerly, opening the book and flipping through the pages.

The pages seemed to shimmer every time they moved, the energy becomig stronger and stronger each time he touched them, until it became almost unbearably powerful. Each illustration had symbols on the page with beside it that seemed to form words. But it was a language he could not identify, and did not understand. Though, the odd curves of the symbols reminded him of something. However, he couldn't quite tell what.

Alexis slowly reached for the book, but Mina grabbed it first, her nose scrunched in puzzlement. You could see the gears turning in her mind.

"Mina don't snatch." Alexis scolded her. However, she sounded disconnected. The reprimanding wasn't the slightest bit firm.

Mina ignored her entirely, her eyes fixated on one particular page.

"That one is about Cupid." Ethan volunteered, looking at what she was staring at. "There's the bow, and the arrows with the heart end. And that picture on the page next to it is Cupid's Dragon. The same statue at our school." Ethan rattled off the information eagerly.

Mina did not answer him, her eyes seeming unable to peel away from the illustration on the book. However, she didn't have to look away. Alexis grabbed the book, and closed it quickly, visibly shivering as her hands connected with it. Although Mina didn't seem to feel the aggressive energy from the book, Alexis seemed even more aware of it than Ethan. In fact, she looked deeply unsettled.

She dropped the book back into his bag like it had burned her, and immediately the air around them returned to normal. The cat, who had his unblinking gaze fixated on the book, now walked away to the kitchen. And the look on Mina's face disappeared.

"Don't take that back out, and don't show it to anyone." Alexis said sternly. Her voice was low and commanding, but it had an unmistakable undertone of fear.

"What's wrong Lexi?" He asked, zipping up his bag. She never tried to force him to do anything, and she rarely ever sounded afraid. Alexis barely knew the word fear.

"I don't know, it just- felt wrong." She said, shoving her hands back into her pockets and shivering again. She did not seem to take well to the energy the book had injected into her bloodstream.

"Well... What do I do with the book then?" Ethan asked, frowning slightly. He'd been excited to show it to Lilith the next day, but he wouldn't go against what Alexis thought was best.

"Keep it in your bag. You can show it to Drake at MT." Alexis said, exhaling slowly. Noticeably, she did not unlock the door.

"Time for bed." She said, nodding her head to Mina.

The child slipped off of the couch without complaint and walked down the hall, disappearing. Alexis tossed a blanket that had been folded on a chair over the couch, and nodded to Ethan. He obediently lay there, wide awake because of the overpowering energy coursing through his veins.

When the cat lay on top of him however, it all seemed to go back to normal almost instantly. Within a few minutes, Ethan had already drifted off into a deep slumber.