Shizuka woke up before sunrise the next day.
She didn't usually and while she hadn't gone to bed late the night before it hadn't been really early either, so she really didn't know why. It may have been some of the background sounds that she hadn't gotten used to yet or something. She wasn't sure.
Yawning, she sat up in her bed and scratched her eyes. She was just about to try to fall asleep again when she noticed something.
Her window faced east.
Coupled with the fact that it was only just before sunrise, the result was that she had font row seats to the already almost starting sunrise.
She got up from her bed and sat down on her chair – feet on the seat and head resting on her knees – and wrapped her arms around her legs. Sleep had no importance any more. Something deep inside her resounded with the sight of the rising sun and she ignored everything else while watching it.
***
Diana woke up around 12 and didn't leave her room for breakfast before somewhere after one. She ate breakfast in silence, still a bit too sleepy to realize that there wasn't anyone else in the room. Once she'd finished eating, she decided to find her brother.
The first to check out was obviously his room. Diana and Dylan's rooms were opposite each other at the end of a hallway on the ground floor. The lighting was sparse, as there was only a single narrow wall facing outside and people were so rarely in the hallway that they didn't bother with more than a single low power light bulb. The twins liked it like that. It gave them a sense of secrecy and safety.
She opened the door to her brother's room with a dramatic motion. Had he been there, he would have spun around in his chair and told her that he'd been expecting her while pretending to pet a white cat. Just because.
However, Dylan wasn't in the room and Diana was greated by an empty room. It was a mirrored version of her own and while they weren't furnished to be similar there were only so many ways to furnish a room when you wanted a desk, a bed and at least one bookshelf. There were differences of course: Hers was just a bit messier and his was just a bit more colorful. They kept the movies and CDs in her room and all the books and comics in his. They shared almost everything, so they kinda saw the two rooms as one big room requiring doors to get from one end of it to the other. And why have two collections of the same thing in the same room?
Since they shared the rooms in their waking hours, she had to check that he hadn't slipped into her own room during her breakfast before concluding Dylan wasn't home. Once that was done, she went to the living room which was where the stairs were located. Her parents spent most of their time upstairs.
"Hey, mom?" she called. She vaguely remembered that her dad was at work.
"Yeah?" came the reply. It sounded like she was focusing on something else.
"Do you know where Dylan is?"
"I think he went over to Stan's."
"All right, thanks!" With that, Diana turned around and walked towards the front door. She remembered after a couple of steps that she should say something more. "I'll be going as well." She was out of the house and had closed the door before she heard her mom's reply.
***
By lunch time Shizuka was dead tired. While Kichirou and their dad were getting ready to have a proper lunch together, Shizuka was sitting by the table with her head on it and trying to get a few minutes of sleep.
YOU ARE READING
Taken By a Demon
خيال (فانتازيا)When Shizuka moved to a new town, her main concerns were learning how to make friends and avoiding more bullies. She was not expecting the demons hiding in the forest or their plans to take over the world.
