The Hildaria Chronicles: Book 1 Shattered

Chapter 6 - Anne

I wake with a start. "Dillon!" I call, and Freddie flies out of the cave startled. I turn around and finally see the note. Relief fills my whole body. While he is a complete and total idiot, I can't help but like him. We grew up together.

We grew up in an orphanage in Oakal, the second largest city in Lower Hildaria. We were both three when Ms. Lightwood took us in. I was left on her doorstep first, and Dillan was found three days later.

I don't remember much of the first three years, except for what Anne told us. Anne was our best friend, our only friend for the entire time we were at the orphanage. She has, or should I say, had an eidetic memory, and doesn't forget anything. She had straight brown hair and huge blue eyes.

According to Anne we refused to leave each others side during the first three years. During recess we would always play together; during nap time we would either share a bed or sleep in side by side beds; and during meals the three of us would all sit under the willow tree.

One day when we were ten years old, something terrible happened. Anne woke up screaming for her parents to run. By then, Dillon and I both knew that Anne's parents had both been crushed by an oak tree in a terrible logging accident. She bawled her eyes out, while both me and Dillon were holding her, trying to quiet her down. At this point she had already woken up the rest of the children, and all three of our night clothes were soaked. We just could not get her to stop crying. Suddenly, Ms. Lightwood burst through her bedroom door, seething with rage. "Who is making all this noise?!"

All fingers pointed to Anne. Fortunately she had stopped screaming, but the tears still ran fresh down her cheeks.

"Stand up girl!" Yelled Ms. Lightwood. Anne slipped out of our arms and onto the ice cold floor in front of Ms. Lightwood.

"Why did you decide to wake up the whole town," Mrs. Lightwood said, without a hint of remorse in her voice.

"My parents..."

"Your parents are dead!" Mrs. Lightwood yelled, cutting her off, "There is nothing you can do about it, so quit your crying!" Then Ms. Lightwood smacked Anne, hard.

"Anne!" I cried out, shocked. Ms. Lightwood stormed off back into her room, satisfied.

Dillon and I jumped out of bed to help her. We finally got her back into bed, and she faded off into sleep.

After that, Anne was never the same. She started sucking her thumb again and tried to seclude herself from everyone, including me and Dillon. This ended up only hurting the situation. Other kids just started making fun of her for it. Calling her things like,  "cry baby", and "baby Anne".

After a while Dillon got sick of it. Three teenagers had cornered Anne, and was teasing her mercilessly. Dillon walked in between them, threw Anne over his shoulder, and carried her out of there.

Anne got adopted a day later. Since it was a Saturday, we all woke up late. We didn't see Anne in the breakfast line, but we just figured she wasn't hungry, and we went to our usual spot under the willow tree. When Anne didn't show up there either, we started to worry.

We confronted Ms. Lightwood, and she said, "She was adopted. Thank the gods as well, that little brat was really started to get on my nerves."

That was all it took. Dillon punched Ms. Lightwood square in the jaw. With the other kids cheering, we grabbed our stuff and all of Ms. Lightwood's gold yeels and hit the road.

To this day, we still don't know where Anne was adopted to.

I rush down to the creek to bathe. As I'm running along, I see something strange in the bushes. I stop myself to check it out. I pull apart the branches in the bush, and to my complete horror I find a note. It reads, "We have your partner. If you want him to live, you must come to the palace in Greenburrow at once." And next to it lies Dillan's bow.