Entranced {Klance au}

Chapter 1

Keith's life has always been rather odd.

When he was barely a toddler, his father died, leaving him to fend for himself, for he had never known his mother. He was then bounced from foster house to foster house for the majority of his life, each one as unaccepting as the last, until he finally one day dumped on the steps of Garrison's School For Flight.

There he found an almost peace for the first time in his exhausting life, and in the meantime discovered he has an affinity for piloting. But all good things come to an end. The school's headmaster eventually discovered that Keith did not, in fact, have parents, and therefore, the money, to cover the school's intuition.

This incident lead to Keith's immediate relocation to a nearby orphanage, in which he stayed until he was able to scrape up enough money to afford a small cabin conveniently located near the edge of a secluded wood. Keith has lived alone and quietly for nearly two years now, only pushing himself to enter a nearby town when groceries were needed, and even when he visited he still avoided human contact as possible, for communicating had always been a struggle for him. To summarize, yes, Keith has gone through some weird experiences.

But he never could have expected this.

Like every Monday, Keith was walking back from his weekly trip to town, a small wagon of groceries in tow. But, unlike every other Monday, Keith had chosen to walk along the beach, straying from his regular path that zigzagged through the forest and choosing instead to enjoy the soft sand under his toes.   

Keith has learned to love these sort of things. The small grains of sand that felt soft and soothing under his aching feet. The sun's bright rays which envelope him in a tight embrace. The soft, calming, continuous lapping of water against land. Ever since he moved into his small cabin shrouded in bushes and trees, these little moments he used to take for granted had become the only things that brought him joy anymore.

Unable to contain himself, a smile spreads across his lips, and he stops for a second, soaking up how beautiful it is. But in the darkness his mind starts to wander, his thoughts traveling back to another time. A time when he had walked this very beach every day, when he wasn't yet alone.

He'd been but a boy back then, fascinated by every shell. He had made it his mission to collect every shell on the entire beach, for his father always told of how his mother had always complained about how they would cut her feet. He came to the beach every day, bucket and shovel in hand, and would set to work, scrounging every nook and cranny till he was called in for supper. It became almost routine; school, shells, supper, and then show. Every night Keith would lug his daily findings up the front steps of their blue, two floor home and up into his room. Then, instead of stories, his father told Keith about shells. He'd carefully pick up each one Keith had found, and inspect it carefully before identifying it and placing it aside. If on the rare chance that they came across a shell Keith had not yet seen, his father would dig into the depths of his memory and teach Keith everything he had ever learned about that certain type of shell. Keith loved his nights learning about the shells and he especially loved spending time with his dad. But that was before he left, before everything.

Keith's eyes snap open, allowing the light in and forcing the memory out. He sighs, his peaceful mood now dampened, and continues onward at a slow trudge, the once forgotten weight of the wagon now heavy on his back. Keith visibly slouches, his eyes falling to land on the sand. He keeps his sight trained downward, forcing himself to think about each grain he passes, for if he doesn't, unwanted memories will invade his brain. After only traveling a few feet he comes upon a shell, and before he can stop himself, he automatically searches his internal catalog for the it's name.

Arca zebra. Common name; Turkey Wing (Ark). Color is brown and white. They belong to the clam shell family. Its name comes from its resemblance to the wing of the wild turkey.

Keith's eyes scrunch closed as the sound of his father's voice fills his head, fighting the tears that threaten to spill. Slowly, Keith breaths in, and out, imagining breathing good thoughts in, and exhaling the bad thoughts out. He can almost feel as they leave his body, can almost see as they become lost in the wind.  Immensely more calm, Keith peels his eyes open cautiously, and prepares himself to continue his journey, before something catches his eye.

Curious, Keith squints his eyes, focusing on the small droplet of red in the sea of beige sand. Before he can put a name to it, he spots another, not five inches away from the first. And another one. And another one!

Now thoroughly interested in the mystery substance, Keith's eyes rake the surrounding area before looking down the beach and spotting an object in the distance. Before he can think his legs take off, speeding down the beach. The object is easy to identify as he grows closer. It's a surfboard. A thick blue stripe decorates its center and brings life to the otherwise ordinary surfboard. That is, if having a thick, red liquid running down the fin build into the underside of your board is considered normal.

An inking of an idea of what it might be itches at the back of Keith's mind, but he quickly pushes the idea away, not wanting to think worst case scenario. Still, as he continues each step's speed unconsciously increases until he's climbing up a bump in the sand at a fast jog, a sense of urgency working its way through his veins.

Keith pauses once he reaches the top of the small hill, the sight before he shocking him in stillness. There, at the bottom of the slope, the body of a teenage boy lays. His legs are long and lanky, his skin tan, swimsuit damp. He can't be more than a year older than Keith himself. But these details aren't the ones immobilizing his legs, it's the sheer amount of red that startles him.
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Lance is in the next one I promise.
Word count: 1091