Beginnings

Chapter 1

Shaking off the last shadows of sleep I wake up to the ringing of my alarm clock. I set it to wake me from my dream. Every night for the past year I've been having the same dream. I see light, hear words, fall into fire and wake up on the floor. The strange thing was after a while I began to notice that my dream was waking me up at the same time every day. So I began setting an alarm to wake myself up before I fell out of bed. Now I just have to put up with my alarm.

"Shut up, I'm up already," I think as I slam my hand down on the off switch. I may need my alarm but it doesn't mean I like it. I slide my hand off the clock and grab my beanie that's lying beside it. I didn't used to like wearing beanies but now I wear them all the time. What caused this change you might ask?

Well, it all started a few months ago when I went to see my doctor. I was getting a regular check up when he noticed something strange about my eyes. He got me an appointment with a specialist who diagnosed that I had some new form of disease. The specialist confirmed that it was a genetic disorder and there was nothing we could do about it. The best we could do was cover up the symptoms. The symptoms include a progressing increasing yellow colour to my eyes, whitening of the hair and possibly more as time progresses.

And that's why I wear the beanie. It covers up the white strands that share grounds with my otherwise black hair. If my hair keeps changing at the rate it's at I'll have no black hair left. Same goes for my eyes. If they keep changing soon I'll have yellow eyes instead of blue. I reach for the sunglasses that I keep beside my bed.

After my sunglasses are on I head to my wardrobe and grab a t-shirt and pants, not really caring what I wear; after all all my pants are black. Plus it doesn't really matter what I wear today. It's not like I'm going anywhere. Almost all my friends are busy. The only one I can think of who's free is Lucas.

Ahh, Lucas Parker, my oldest and dearest friend. We've know each other since we were little. We met back when my parents took me to Ireland on vacation. The car broke down just outside Lucas' house. His dad was a mechanic and offered to fix the car and his mom offered to let us stay with them until the repairs were done. They were the nicest people I've ever met. Even after the repairs were done they insisted we stay with them, we were all having such a lovely time. Throughout our stay me and Lucas hung out a lot, as did our parents. We did a lot of really fun stuff and I was very sad when it was time to go home. When we left, me and Lucas swore to each other that we'd stay in contact.

Every day after that we sent e-mails to each other and constantly called each other. Eventually our parents got us our own computers and mobile phones. There wasn't anything we didn't talk to each other about. We shared both the good news and the bad. I told him about my paternal grandfather passing away and he told me about his dad being enlisted and never returning. We comforted each other during times like these and tried to help each other the best we could.

I was ecstatic when my parents announced we were moving to Ireland. They had found a nice house out in the country and we would be going there immediately. Around the same time Lucas' mom decided to move too. And she just happened to decide to move to the same town we were moving to. I have a feeling I'm not the only one who stayed in contact with the Parker family. First day there and we discovered we now lived right next door to each other.

Since then we've spent virtually every day hanging out together. It's been awesome and quite frankly I don't know what I’d do without Lucas. He's like a brother to me and I hope we'll always be friends.

"Why not; I'll call on him," I think. "What better way to start the day?" And with that I head downstairs. At the bottom of the stairs I look into the living room and see my parents sitting there watching TV in the big, black leather armchairs we put in there last summer. Like always they're so relaxed. My parents never seem to worry. My dad's watching the TV through his round aquamarine eyes behind his rectangular glasses, and his smile has drawn his square jaw into a more rounded shape. Everyone says I take after my dad. I have his square jaw, his big, pointed nose and his round eyes. But I also see a bit of my mom in my face too. I have her big, lobed ears, her small mouth and the blue part of my eye is the same sapphire shade as hers.