The Phoenix Series: Sacrifice

Chapter 2: SURPRISE!!!

Waking up with a cold shiver, I look up at the calendar. It’s May 17th, 2021, “Happy Birthday to me,” I say to myself with a familiar sadness and longing in my voice, “Another year of celebrating my birthday all alone; my aunt doesn’t even care.”

              Sinking further into my bed covers, I look at my room; my extremely bright green walls, that my parents painted exactly one week before they themselves disappeared, which also happened to be my 6th birthday. My tiny chestnut dresser that I helped my dad paint a dark green, the funny part is that I can see all of the areas that I painted because there are tiny handprints where I used to lean against it. I even remember putting my paint covered hands on my dad’s cheeks. My parents loved to repaint things in the house; they always used to say that it brought life to everything, a personality. I guess after you see the same thing over and over it starts to lose some of its beauty and uniqueness. Located right above my dresser is a map of the mountains surrounding the city. And a twin size bed in the far corner of the room with an ocean blue bedspread on top of it, that my mother made herself, which is getting to be too small for me nowadays.

              “But what can you expect, of course I’ll grow in the 11 years that they’ve been gone,” I grumble softly to myself. Besides a few knick knacks here and there, there’s not much to my room. Only the things that I received from my parents before they disappeared; but even those things are all children’s toys that only hold memories of what they used to mean to me. Presents and gifts are something you get from people who care about you, but with no body like that in my life anymore; it’s kind of hard to add on to a collection that was never given much of a chance to start.

              I always spend the night of my birthday at my parents’ house, it’s kind of like tradition and also because I don’t feel like letting Aunt Krista ruin it the second I get up for the day. But then again, I do a pretty good job of doing that myself. Feeling kind of down, I get up, get dressed and walk outside of the house to make my way to school.

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Being outside is the most relaxing thing in the world; it doesn’t change for a single individual, no matter what their expectations or needs. Lucky for me, just because my morning sucks doesn’t mean that the weather has to as well. That makes me feel a little bit better, “Maybe today won’t be as bad as I expect,” I say with a sliver of hope. Yesterday was a nice peaceful day; something that I desperately needed.

“You never know, today could just turn out to be a pretty good birthday,” I say while looking up at the sky. The sunrise has a distinct sparkle to it, almost like something special is going to happen today.

Suddenly a face appears in my mind, a young boy, no more than a few months or so older than myself. Scruffy dark brown hair maybe about 3 or 4 inches long, eyes the deep green color of pine tree needles hidden behind long eyelashes, light freckles upon his cheeks with a single one on his chin, and naturally tanned skin, probably earned by working hours in the blazing sun. I’ve never seen him before, so I have no idea where the image could have come from; probably my crazy imagination. 

Putting the picture of him to the back of my mind, I bend down and get ready to sprint my way to school. Kicking up dust, off I start, with the wind flowing through my long golden brown hair, the way the wind dances across my skin, my feet barely touching the ground before I take the next step, bright beautiful flowers and green grass waving in the wind, with a distinctly sweet smell in the air, the sky high above with clouds of many different shapes and sizes, and many futures yet to be told. It’s such an amazing feeling, running, it’s almost like I’m flying. What’s weird is that it feels like déjà vu, this weightlessness; however, the thought quickly slips from my mind as I slip into a rhythm.