In this area, the lights never come on, there are no visitors, and it's always dead silent. The houses stand empty without residents, and no one wants to buy a home here.
Twelve-year-old Luke Campbell suffers from loneliness - he has no friends, an...
Luke Campbell couldn't fall asleep for a long time.
He had made a big mistake — he shouldn't have behaved like that. At least Aliya was the only person in the whole world who was willing to listen to him without any judgment or mockery. Yes, she hadn't helped the boy shed his status as a perpetual victim. But, eventually, what could she have done?
The boy wished to find a friend more than anything else, just only one, and he did find one, even though he hadn't really tried searching. In a small town where everyone knows each other, once you've been disappointed by every single resident, there's not much else to look for. But something happened that Luke definitely hadn't planned for — life has a way of throwing its surprises. It's so hard to get what seems unattainable, and even harder to lose it in an instant.
Yes, they had an argue and no longer talked about everything under the sun, no longer played mahjong together, no longer drank fragrant green tea, and no longer sent soap bubbles flying around the house. But who among us hasn't ended up in a conflict at some point? It's a part of life. The kids will make up and talk about everything again, play mahjong together, drink fragrant green tea, and send soap bubbles flying around the house.
He needs to return to Dark Lanterns Lane and apologize to her. And that's exactly what Luke will do the very next day.
***
He visited Dark Lanterns Lane every day for the whole week after school classes, and then for another week twice a day — not just after lessons, but also in the early morning. Aliya was nowhere to be found. And when Luke knocked on the door of her house, no one answered. The lights no longer shone through the windows — it was as if the girl had moved away forever.
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She couldn't go anywhere else; she had nowhere to go and no one to turn to. She had no acquaintances besides Luke. No friends and no family. No close people. At least that's what the girl had said. So, the option of moving away was immediately ruled out.
It seemed that Aliya was nothing more than a dream, a whimsical creation of a bored mind, and her voice was a distant echo coming from the deepest corners of Luke's imagination. After all, did the girl even really exist?
Luke Campbell was seriously worried. What if she never showed up again?..
