Don't Fall In Love | HeartLiming | GeminiFourth

Chapter 1: Harbor

Ding, ding, ding.

Bells. Bells were ringing.

That was the first thing Li Ming heard when he came to his senses. Then, he felt the dry soil under his palms, hard and cold. The cool wind licked over his face. He pried his eyelids open and saw that behind his lashes was not the ceiling of his room, but the whole sky. It was almost bright blue, although it was still mixed with a little bit of pink and purple with the rising sun. There were no clouds, only tree branches between him and the clear sky.

Wait. Tree branches? Soil?!

He sat up with a startle, looking around frantically. Where was he? What was going on?

The last thing he could remember doing was crawling into his bed and almost not being able to make it there because he was dead drunk. But now, he was nowhere near his room! He was in the middle of what looked like a forest. Was he kidnapped? Was he going to die? He checked his body from his chest to back but nothing seemed weird and nothing hurt. He raised his t-shirt to check if he had a scar from getting his kidney stolen or anything like that, but no, he seemed completely fine. But then, why was he here sleeping on the ground? How did he even come here?

He had been drunk many times before, even before he was the legal age for drinking in America, but he never had a blackout. He never lost his memories from the night before. His only drunken habit was to kiss people and even then he always knew what he was doing, he was just letting himself get looser. So this whole situation made absolutely no sense. It was just not possible. There was no way he came into the woods, in the middle of the night, with his own feet and forgot about it.

Something was wrong. Something was very, very wrong.

Then he heard them again. The bells. He turned towards where the sound was coming from and saw a small house not far away from where he was. It looked very old, almost ragged and it was literally in the middle of nowhere; it was creepy. There were more than a dozen wind chimes dangling from its roof. Ringing and ringing every time the wind touched them, making the place look even more haunted. It wasn't abandoned though, from the curtains on the windows it seemed like somebody was still living in it. But there were nothing but endless trees around it and it was just awfully out of place. Who could live in a house this far from everything?

Yet, it seemed like it was the only thing Li Ming could ask for help from. He pushed himself up from the ground and looked around, with one last hope of seeing something else. A road, a tall building, or a human maybe. But no luck; it was just him, the trees, and the creepy house there in the woods. He took a calming breath and started walking towards the old cabin.

In less than a minute he was standing in front of the house, the yellow grass crunching under his feet. He took the low steps one at a time and reached the wooden porch. Now, just as Li Ming approached, the wide door creaked open, causing him to nearly lose his balance and stumble backward in a reflex. He put a hand on his chest, feeling his heart beating like it was trying to break free, and looked up to see who it was.

Before the wooden door was an old man. He looked directly into Li Ming's eyes, almost looking like he was already waiting for him to come. He wasn't surprised to see a strange boy appear in front of his house, this early in the morning, in the middle of what seemed like an endless forest. No, he didn't even look curious. His heavy, knowing gaze scanned Li Ming from head to toe before nodding once.

So Li Ming did the same. This man looked to be more than seventy, with his wrinkled face and his droopy eyelids that almost covered his eyes. But he certainly wasn't frail, he looked very healthy. Despite his short stature, not even reaching Li Ming's shoulders, he stood straight and strong.