Darkened Souls {HAITUS}

1

I feel very scared. My anxiety was never a helpful trait, but right now I was a ball of nerves and I didn't know what to do or what I could even start to do. My panicky state was not helping anything, and now I was quite stuck in a bad situation. The closet. The closet was a tight space, sometimes I loved tight spaces, such as earlier today, whenever I felt extremely anxious. But sometimes, that changes, and now things were worse. Much, Much worse.

The closet is locked. Not only is it locked, but I'm alone. I'm alone and scared and nobody can hear me. And I'm starting t panic and I don't know what to do now. 'HelphelphelphelphelpHELPHELPHLEPHELPMEHELPMEHELPMEHELPME H E L P M E' I couldn't think anything else at the moment, everything was flying everywhere and I couldn't think.

Nothing was helpful. Screaming, crying fits of anger, nothing worked. I was borderline ready to rip up our coats when I heard the front door and I screamed louder and louder until I was reached. I heard footsteps rushing up the stairs and into my room as my voice gave out.

The door opened and I ran as fast as I could into the corner. I was hyperventilating but at least I was OUT of that closet. I felt a gentle hand rest on my shoulder as another combed through my hair. I was still far too freaked out to hear what they were saying, or what was happening, but the touch alone was enough to ground me and keep me from panicking. I looked down and I could see. There was my carpeted floor, with the green glitter long engrained inside the light beige strands, and felt its warmth and softness.

I looked up and I could see Boo's calm face, and their eyes filled with worry. I breathed again, I need to be calm. If for nobody else, I needed to be calm for Boo. Boo was here, they were my big brother and they couldn't think that I was weak. And so I evened my breathing. I blinked away the uncomfortable feeling of eye contact and knew that they would have to do the same. I then felt selfish for locking eyes with them. They would feel far less comfortable with the eye contact than I would, being thirty years older.

"Sorry." That was all I said.

"What for?" They asked. Maybe they thought that I was still panicking.

"Looking you in the eyes. It makes you uncomfortable and I know it because it makes me uncomfortable too."

"Awh, that's okay, that's just you being scared. Don't worry."

I smiled a little under the sweater paws that I subconsciously made. Boo pulled them down and talked with me for a little while, I didn't remember most of the conversation, but that didn't matter to me. What mattered was that he wasn't mad, nor was he going to lash out at me. My anxiety died down bit by bit until it seemed that it was nothing. Then Boo looked over at the clock and saw that Bale and Fable would be home soon.

Bale was cool. He wasn't blind in one eye like Boo, but he was still Boo's twin brother. They could communicate with each other through nothing but eye contact and mouth twitches. I didn't even understand how they did it, or how they didn't constantly get super mad at each other. It seemed like it almost didn't affect either of them to look into the other's eyes anymore. Or maybe it never did and they just share a brain. But they were also probably the two smartest in the family, so that wouldn't make sense.

Fable scared me though. He could control the weather, and he didn't like me or Boo that much because of the way that we like to be addressed. Boo liked to be called by they/them pronouns, and around family, I'd rather they/them than she/her, but Fable disregarded this. Though he was not openly hostile, I could tell that he didn't like us very much. He loved Bale though. Or maybe he just didn't like us for some other reason, I wouldn't know. I was only five. Fable was twenty-eight. He knew better than me.

The front door opened and mum and dad were rushing Fable inside, he was bleeding and it looked pretty bad. Boo immediately rushed over and took Fable's hand, looking worried. Bale came stumbling in as well, he had a face wound, but it likely wouldn't even scar over. Maybe there happened to be a wound in his leg that he was concealing. It didn't look like that was actually a bad guess. But Bale looked nervous and shell-shocked.

Boo locked eyes with him for a few seconds, doing that weird telepathy thing, and then they both nodded and wordlessly started to help mum and dad fix Fable.

I knew that I wouldn't be of much assistance anyway, being five, but I wasn't about to pass up this opportunity to learn how to patch wounds, so I sat on the couch and listened as panicked and unorganised conversation slowly became calm, collected, and concise. I fell asleep listening to Fable's pained whimpers and Boo's reassuring whispers.

—

When I awoke, the atmosphere felt tense, like someone was pulling on a slingshot and just barely taking careful aim. Fable looked worse for wear; his normally royal purple skin was now a placid light violet. It made me want to vomit, he looked so incredibly pale.

"What happened?" My voice rang out like a bell in the silence.

"Fable got attacked," Bale's voice sounded annoyed.

"By who?" Apparently, this almost set him off, but Boo's gentle hand on his shoulder immediately calmed him down and stopped him from lashing out. They explained to me,

"Fable got attacked by hunters." Mum looked like she wanted to interject, but Dad shot her a look that read 'let him teach'. I always felt uncomfortable when that look would cross his face. It meant that they all knew something I didn't, and I didn't like that. Though it was discomforting that I didn't already know this stuff, like they were keeping it from me, I also had to remind myself that I'm only five and there is almost no conceivable way that I would know much about the world around me yet.

That didn't stop the discomfort though.

"What's a hunter?"

"Well Mara, a hunter is a... a human, and this human ah,..." Boo looked really, really uncomfortable now, so Bale, who was now much calmer, took on the burden of explaining it to me.

"Mara, a hunter is a human, and they're not like the ones that you see all the time at the market stalls. These humans are... misguided. They hunt down creatures with magic, made of magic, because the people who pay them to do it are scared. They're scared, nothing more, Mara.

"But that doesn't make me hate them any less. They killed my uncle, and now they almost killed Fable." I saw pure fury flash in his eyes. We didn't make eye contact, but that didn't have to happen for me to see the new fear masked by a thin layer of intense hatred. "These humans are always pretty dang strong and have good equipment, I mean, who would actually want to go into full battle against two Enderkin without thorough protection, but...

"I just can't lose another family member to them, you know? It'd just, I think it'd kill me." he was intently studying the carpet, just like I would and I could see the anguish in his soul at the mere thought.

It was then that I decided that I would never let that happen.

Ever.

_________

Word Count: 1305

Hello hey hi again. :]

IDEK I just write for the sake of writing sometimes, this plot already be pretty weird... BuT that doesn't mean that it's not going in the direction that I want it to go, it just means that I harmed one of my characters in a tired trance and it's actually not that bad. :P

If you wanna kill me feel free to let me know here, I know you don't know any of these characters yet but IG for rereaders or smt?

Also the chapters are still short as fork for some strange reason, my brain doesn't normally make them this short-

 Another day of school. School took forever and it was never that beneficial too me, I have early onset trust issues with humans. While bullies are frowned upon and punished immediately if they were caught, that didn't ever stop them from going after me. I didn't like most of the human kids. Neither did the rest of the 'humanoids' in my class.