The Flower Children

Chapter One

The present

Maia shot up in her bed, in what was presumably the middle of the night, to the sound of blood-curling screams coming from her brother's bed, which was directly opposite of the very one that she lay in currently. Pushing all the sheets off, she rushed to Micah's bed side where he was thrashing about and frantically murmuring incomprehensible words at the top of his voice. He was sweating profusely, his curly mop of dark brown hair sticking to his forehead and his eyes were tightly shut,  totally oblivious to the amount of pain seeing him like this caused Maia. This happened almost every night, and almost every day Maia would pray and pray that somehow Micah's nightmares would go away. But sadly, she knew that it was not possible.

In fact, she had reason to believe that with time, they were becoming more frequent and more violent than before. The nightmares were slowly killing her little brother, completely sucking the life out of him. Six years. For six years he had been suffering from nightmares. Ever since they came back from the flower field by their grandparent's farmhouse, Micah wasn't the same anymore. He barely smiled, barely ate, he was almost... vacant.

Intense therapy, multiple visits to psychologists and doctors and once a neurologist were simply not enough  to save her brother, he barely responded to anything. Except her of course. He would speak to her about the night terrors that he had sometimes, possibly because she was there when the incident happened and also because she wouldn't call him crazy like their parents did when he first brought them up. Maia was there to comfort him when he woke up from the terrors. She would hold him as he bawled his eyes out onto her nightgown and she would squeeze him in her arms as his body racked and shook with sobs until he exhausted himself and went still and tonight was no different.

Maia climbed into the tiny space next to him and tried to restrain his flaying limbs. He was speaking in a  strange language, their language, she thought bitterly, and it took her quite some time to finally get him to settle down and wake up. When he did, he looked up at her with his big glassy brown eyes. "Maia," he said. She nodded and pulled him against her, trying her best not to cry. "It's okay, I got you,"  she reassured him, but he shook his head against her. "Maia," he said again, this time with more urgency than before.  She pulled back and  looked at him. He looked quite perplexed, more than usual after he had these dreams.   "Maia, they're coming". "Who?" she  asked, becoming more confused by the second, as Micah rolled out of bed and began pacing  around their small bedroom.

"The reapers. The reapers are a step closer to finding Enchantia. Maia they're going  to  kill the Flower Children and then they're coming after us all."

*****************************************