Burning

Chapter 2

CHAPTER 2

Azure's POV

It was the middle of the night. I had an essay due the next morning. My room was dimly lit by the small candle that flickered on my clay desk. We didn't have many resources to build these sort of things where we lived; the only wood we had went to the rich, which I sure wasn't. I enjoyed candles, especially when they were scented. I liked the way they warmed my face and lathered it in the chosen scent. This time, it was cinnamon. I closed my eyes, taking a deep breath of the soothing scent. Candles weren't very common down here either, but every chance I got I would take them, even if it lead to stealing. There was just something about them that fascinated me in every possible way.

I started collecting them when I was six. Now, the majority of my closet was filled with candles, and only some of them were scented. I savored those, and now it felt like a good time to use the last of this one.

I twirled my chair around my finger. The one thing we had a lot of, charcoal. We used them for writing, wrapping them around in hardened clay and using our fingers as erasers. My grandmother used to tell me stories about when there was a pink substance that erased things like magic; now it only smudged. But now my grandma barely talked, as if she was struggling to cling to the last bit of memory of the past.

I shut my eyes in frustration. Nothing popped up in my mind about the Great Landslide of 3054. That was the year my father died, when I was six. It's been a decade, and we still don't understand how it happened. That's why the south side of town is restricted, because of the unstable chunks of dirt that fall from the sky and the rubble that has been left behind. That's also the year when my grandmother turned silent and my mother went crazy and my brother left home. Let's just say that was the year everything changed. Now, I live with my grandmother and grandfather. My mother is currently at a mental hospital. They say she's going through a recovery process, but I'm pretty sure it doesn't take ten years to face your family after a disaster. It only took me a week to come out of my room for the first time, after all.

I finally wrote down "The." Then "Great Landslide. Of. 3054.."

Maybe I couldn't write about it because it hurt me. Because it hurt to much to remember the day everything went wrong. Because whenever I think about it, I always think 'Why me?' That was it. I had the last straw of it. My teachers didn't know about my past. And I'm sure they didn't care. And they had absolutely no right to assign me-

I was interrupted from my thoughts as I heard a gentle knock on my door. I scrambled to blow out the candle and jump into my bed, covering my head with my cotton blanket, trying to pretend I was sleeping. I heard footsteps as the door creaked open, and I could sense my grandfather's eyes burning into my unmoving corpse under the blanket. I mean, I was pretty sure it was my grandpa. My grandma wouldn't do that. All she ever does now is stare blankly into nothingness. She doesn't cook for me, doesn't care for me. That's my own job now, though some nights my grandfather will do it.

I hear him inhale. That is something my grandmother never does. She never registers the beautiful scent of candles. Honestly, she doesn't register anything. "I smell the candle, Azure. I know you're up."

I squeezed my eyes shut, silently cursing before throwing the blanket off my head. "Fine, you caught me." I offered a weak smile, my ice blue hair hanging limply at my sides.

I could tell he wanted to smile and brush it off and joke about it, but he frowned instead. "This is the fourth time I caught you staying up this week. Why aren't you sleeping? He asked, his unusual dark blue eyes almost glowing in the dark. If I squinted my eyes, I could just make out the concerned wrinkles forming on his forehead.

"Why aren't you sleeping?" I asked, sitting up and folding my legs into a criss cross position.

Most guardians would be mad that a minor disrespects them. But Lapis is different. Lapis Magnus Zorrel. That's his full name. I never fully understood him. He's always had a two sided personality, and I've never known how to act with him. I've learned to be careful around him. "I came downstairs for a snack when I found your grandma up and about." He gave a frail smile, and that was only when I realized how old he had gotten since the incident. I never really payed attention to how he walked slower or how his back always until now. A pang of grimness hit me as I realized what life would be like without my grandfather's support and encouragement. "Then I went to check on you."

I sighed. "Well, I'm in bed now, don't worry." I grin reassuringly, throwing the covers back over me once again. I was surprised that he didn't notice I still had my clothes on; black jeans and my favorite red hoodie from Alham Mud Park, our local mud park. It was named after the capital of our world, Alham. Little did he know, I wasn't going to sleep for a while yet. I had things to do and places to be. I felt guilty lying to him, and old man who just wanted the best for his granddaughter. But I had a feeling he wasn't ready to accept the fact that I had grown up, just how I wasn't ready to accept the fact that he'd grown old.

Lapis nodded. "Goodnight, Azure," He glanced at my dog. "And get that dog out of here. You know I don't like it when he sleeps here." Pitt payed no attention to Lapis, but I knew the only way to get my grandfather to leave was to listen to him.

"Pitt, up. Come on boy, follow Lapis." I snapped a sharp command; that was the quickest way to get them to move. The half asleep dog stumbled to his feet and followed my grandfather out of my room. I sighed when the room was quiet again, besides the constant scratching on my door. Credit to the dogs. My brother, Dominicus, got his dog Pittacus, a brown and black mutt with the same blue eyes as all of us, on his tenth birthday. They bonded quickly and Pitt used to hate everyone but my brother. This was four years before the landslide, when I was two. My brother left, as I had explained, but he couldn't bring his dog. My grandfather promised he would care for him. But my grandfather couldn't handle Pitt. He was too wild, out of control. So I took him in, trying my best to be patient with him and trying to train him to the best of my ability, Now, he listened and responded to me as if he were my own from the start. I sometimes wonder if he remembers his past owner. I barely do.

I took a deep breath, closing my eyes for two seconds before getting out of bed. I pulled my hair into a ponytail and grabbed my dog's leash before opening the door, stuffing my arm in Pitt's mouth as he opened his mouth to bark. "No Pitt, bad dog. No barking." To any stranger, I could guarantee Pitt would have snapped their arm in two, but not to me, I was sure of it.

I crept downstairs, cursing as I bumped into a chair. It screeched and fell. I winced at the loud noise and quickly put it back upright and clipping the leash onto Pitt's collar. Pitt was very much capable of walking beside me without a leash, but I couldn't take any chances, not during the night, I sprinted for the exit of the house, and there was no better feeling than the cold wind that blew on my face as I opened the door.

20 minutes later, I was behind the city dump. It wasn't too hard to get around at night. The lights that hung from the roof of the city were turned off at night to save power and on during the day for us to see. I normally hate the dark, but when I'm trying to travel through the city unseen, it's pretty useful. I fiddled with Pitt's leash as strained to hear footsteps in the echoing alley. Two men appeared out of the shadows

Chapter written by: https://www.wattpad.com/user/moma_cat