Chapter 1:
I had always been one to take charge. Not bossy, but able to lead, to have control. After all, this was something I did every day, as I feed my entire family of six. Of course I have my mother, but she doesn’t help –She’s just another mouth to feed. Tarren, my seventeen year old brother, always wants to help, but he’s been ill for months, and stays in bed most of the day. I’m next in line after my mother and Tarren, and since they’re not doing anything to provide for our family, I have to. I’m fifteen now, but I’ve been helping to provide for our family since I was eleven. Only now, I haven’t got Tarren to help me out, and it is a full time job. So I guess you can say I've got my whole world on my shoulders. Delia is next in line at fourteen, and she brings in a little bit of money to the family through handiwork like sewing, which I’m no good at. Then of course came the young twins, Aria and Devlin. Luckily, they’re still young, and don’t eat much, but of course, they’d grow up soon, and I haven’t figured out what would happen then.
I wake up, feeling a sharp pain of hunger in my stomach. I had slept through it last night, trying to ignore it, but now I know that I couldn’t. Yesterday was an unlucky business day for me, and it can’t happen again. I get up, and slip off my thin and worn sleeping clothes to dress in my hunting clothing. Feeling groggy, I slipped in to Aria and Devlin’s room, and pecked them on the cheek with a kiss. The sight of Aria clutching her stomach made me shudder. But of course, this was normal for us. We were a big and poor family living in a poor place, and where we lived, no one could spare food, not even the mayor, so I had to find it on my own, or my family would starve.
I heard a knock at the door as I was slipping on my boots. I peeked through the window, and saw the familiar face of Rayan. I motioned for him to come in. “Miss me, sweetheart?” he asked, flirtatious as always. Rayan seemed to always forget that the two of us were never together. But I always went along with whatever he said or did, because he did it so often, that it took too much effort to correct him every time.
“Sure,” I laughed, rolling my eyes.
“Well, Taeva, we better leave. Wouldn’t you say?” He said, holding out his arm for me to grab hold of.
I giggled, and took his arm. Rayan always lifted the tension of hunting. I had always taken hunting so seriously because I had the whole family relying on me for food that day, but he was able to joke around. It wasn’t that Rayan didn’t have the responsibility of feeding his family. He did. His father had gotten sick years ago, and passed, leaving him as the man of the house. It was around the same time that my father was killed. I wasn’t sure how Rayan always did it though; forget the stress of the situation, I mean. I wasn’t the kind of person who was able to joke around under pressure.
