KEYS

Chapter 1: The Victors

New York City, a city known to most as the city that never sleeps, a concrete jungle with cars passing by from dusk to dawn, the smell of pollution filling the air, bright lights dancing from street corner to street corner, an endless variety of shops everywhere and the lack of nature from one end of the city to the other.

Deep within the heart of the city stood a large, but quite attractive building known by all as The November Hotel. It was shaped like a wave that seems to be turned on its side, in beautiful shades of dark grey and pearl white. Floors upon floors with nothing but windows covering almost every inch of the hotel and elaborate pillars carved in different shapes and sizes leading from the first floor all the way to the top of the building, holding together a rather large wooden deck. On the top of The November Hotel, much larger than the other floors, was a penthouse with even more windows covering a three story building which had a large swimming pool on its edge blocked by a glass fence and a wooden deck surrounding most of the outside of the penthouse. The November Hotel was one of the latest, most modern buildings constructed in the street and was surrounded by German themed houses, a coffee shop or two, and a rather large shoe factory right next to the hotel.

The shoe factory belonged to a wealthy businessman known by almost every individual living in New York as York Victor - who was also the owner of the penthouse on top of The November Hotel. York Victor was a tall, handsome man with light blue eyes, dark brownish skin and neatly combed black hair.

York had the image of a lawyer or a banker as he wore a suit and tie no matter where he went and his leather shoes were always shining as he walked through the hotel doors to the end of the sidewalk where a large black Rolls Royce stood with its door held open by one of his many employees taking turns to drive York to his next destination. Though a wealthy business and family man, York himself never had much of a real family as a child, being raised by foster parents from the tender age of five and as such he never really understood what the value of having a family meant. Whenever he asked about his biological parents, his foster parents would always tell him the same story they made up when he first realized that he was a foster child. 'Your mother and father were never really able to take care for you; they are currently in a rehab in their home town in Florida.' Mrs Victor was never really able to tell York the truth about his parents which was that they were murdered two weeks after he was born on a family outing to the woods, in an attempt to drown their son; relatives claimed that they were never really able to care for him, they were poor and unfit to raise a child as loving parents should be able to.

After the tragic and yet undetermined death of York's wife Silvia, York became obsessed with his profession and lost touch with reality because of daily routines at work and his significant wealth. Around 7:30 a.m. he left his home, only to return at 8:00 p.m. from a busy day at work. Some people say that he was married to his work and would most likely die one day behind his desk in his office. York became a self-centred man throughout his career and never really took the time to give to those in need or to offer help to someone passing by on the street. In his mind, he believed that the world owed him a favour, being a man with a successful international business. York's shoe manufacturing business, which was called Victor's, was going strong, with branches in America, London, Paris, Germany, South Africa and even Japan.

York's friends and close relatives always gave a different description of the greedy self-centred man that he was. They claimed that he was quite the family man when his wife Silvia was still around to keep things down to earth and in order. Some claim that she was holding him back, seeing that he was not quite as successful when she was still alive, but mostly those comments came from gold-digging women York met on business trips.

On the 12th of July 1988, York and Silvia gave birth to their first child, a beautiful girl whom they named Rochelle. Rochelle was quite the dreaming and creative type when she was younger than twenty-five. But after a few years she grew into a more down-to-earth, mature young woman - just like her mother had wanted her to be ever since she had found out she was expecting a daughter.

She was, without a doubt, the spitting image of her mother. She had milky white skin that almost glowed at night time and long curly black hair that could be mistaken for brown when she stood in the sun, emerald green eyes exactly like her mother's and the graceful figure of a ballerina. Rochelle spent most of her days locked up in her room with her nose behind a book or painting a picture she saw from a gardening magazine seeing that the only thing she could paint was the buildings surrounding her and the fact that there is no nature for miles and miles from where she lived. Rochelle had always wondered what the world outside New York City would be like. How it feels to wake up in the morning with the sound of different sorts of little birds singing as the sun rises over a large snow-covered mountain or to take a stroll in an open field in the afternoon and lying on the thick green grass, staring at the sky, deciding on what a cloud floating by resembles. Unlike York, Rochelle saw that being consumed by the busy city life, working like a dog every single day, not to be part of her future. Her idea of 'the perfect life' was living in the country-side with miles and miles of open fields surrounded by snowy mountains.

The youngest of York and Silvia Victor's children was their twenty-three year old son Ross; a well-mannered, upright young man, the spitting image of his father. He had the same dark brownish skin and shining black hair as York, but just like his mother and older sister, he had emerald green eyes, making him irresistible among the girls living at the hotel and the clerks only just starting out at his father's shoe factory. Ross had never much liked socializing with others and he had never really made friends at school or around the city. He preferred to do things by himself, but always turned to his mother for guidance and support when necessary.

Between the three of them it was Ross that took his mother's death the hardest because they shared a very close relationship. After Silvia had died a few weeks before Ross turned twelve, he blocked himself off from the rest of the world, claiming that things would never be the same now that his mother was gone. A few years came and went and he finally realized that concealing himself from the outside world and the people who cared about him wouldn't bring his mother back. He changed his entire personality and became more social, even with people he didn't even know. This raised eyebrows amongst his family members because they never really expected Ross to turn into someone who could communicate well with others, but they thought that something dark still overshadowed him or that something was still missing in his life, which was his mother's love.

When Ross turned five, he took an interest in his mother's grand piano she had inherited from her father. She used to play for him every afternoon when he came home crying to her about having had a bad day or children hurting him at school. As Ross got older his mother started teaching him how to play her piano and told him that whenever she wasn't around to play for him, he could play something to himself or for her if she had had a bad day herself. Ross became quite famous among the people staying and working in the hotel. On his eighteenth birthday he played a song to his party guests in the hotel lobby and was overheard by several employees working in the lobby that night. He was offered a spot to play regularly on a Friday or Saturday evening in the hotel's restaurant.

The Victor family seemed to live the perfect live. They were quite wealthy, successful and talented, but money can't buy happiness, they were told by many of Silvia's old friends whenever they saw York shopping for new things along with his children. Though York thought he could spoil his children with a luxurious life, they longed for their mother's love which is the love he would never be able to buy them. It seemed that they would never be able to experience the true meaning of a real family again. York never remarried, and Rochelle and Ross never really had a close relationship with their father. Their mother had taught them just about everything they knew while they saw little of York, as he spent most of his time at work, but one thing is certain, Rochelle and Ross Victor never gave up hope that maybe, someday, the doors to a wonderful opportunity might open to them...

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