Crystalline

01

I've never given much thought of how I would die. It was not like I had a reason to think about it. Death, for me was just like any other five lettered word in the dictionary. Thinking about it was trivial and insignificant, so I never thought nor feared of the way I would one day leave this world.

I lived my normal life as the seventeen-year-old teenager I was. Well as normal as it can be, when you are living with an adoptive father and brother. But hey, we all take what life has given to us. So, aside from my weird family situation I was just like any other student trying to keep up with studies, friendships and just surviving high school.

Some would ask why I was having those thoughts about death in the first place. You would have them too, if you were moving in the place I was.

Our hometown Dark Mist, lived up to the spooky name it had, being constantly covered by dark clouds and rain. With the population of only five thousand three hundred and five, or as of today ... and eight, was the last place that I wanted to be. And it was the place where my family had lost everything.

Why we were moving back, after living happily away all these years? I had no idea.

• • •

"Maya, Mino we are nearing. Isn't our hometown the best place on earth?"

Yeah right, I almost laughed under my nose when my eyes looked out the window once again, only to be greeted by more mist. My father's unstoppable blabbing had invaded the small space of the moving vehicle in which we were sitting. My brother Mino had his head leaned on the window side, with his blondish bangs shadowing his eyes and his headphones on, he was walking in dreamland ever since we got in the jeep. To my misfortune that left only me, to listen to my father's rumblings for the last four hours. Four hours, people - you should give me some credit for that.

Was our hometown the best place on earth? Of course not!

Starting from its terrible name, to the old wooden welcoming sign that showed the population number and the heavy rain making the visibility almost impossible, it was anything but that. Don't get me wrong, I'm not one of those people who hate small towns or have a problem with the weather, but this one is an exception.

My father Rikkard couldn't stop talking about the place where we were headed to. And who could blame him, when the town in which we were moving was the place where he had grown up. His origin, just like ours, was from this town. It was the place where my life had begun and I had a feeling that it would be the place where it would end.

Chills run down my spine each time I thought of it. I know that my father was somehow sensing my nervousness and that he was only blabbing to destruct me. It was not really helping, but I was still thankful for that. Although we weren't blood-related, Rikkard Reed was more than just a father, he was everything to me.

Rikkard had adopted us, me and Mino when we were still little. My story had begun that one winter morning when he found me on his doorstep, curled into a ball wrapped only in thick blankets and fast asleep. "You were such a little and fragile baby, that I couldn't restrain myself from taking you in", he would always say.

I'll never be able to pay back for the greatness that my father had done for me. He was a father and a mother at the same time, a best friend who had guided me through my childhood and now my teenage days as well.

Four years after I started living with him, Mino had joined us. My father didn't found him on his doorstep like he had found me.

Mino was my father's best friends' child. His parents died in a terrible car accident when they drove off the road and the car fled off a steep hill. Strangely, but luckily the only one that had survived the accident was Mino. He was barely five when he lost both of his parents.

I still remember the day when he arrived. I was only four, but that image would never wash away from my memory. Sitting on the sofa in our living room, he looked so pale, so lost and afraid. His hands were cold, his lips purple and he was uncontrollably shaking. His eyes hidden behind his blond bangs, and with his head bowed, I couldn't see his face.

Seeing him like that caused an unfamiliar feeling to build inside me. I didn't know what it was, or why I acted the way I did, but before I could stop myself - I ran to him. Snaking my little arms around his small body, I hugged him tightly. In my heart he wasn't a stranger, but someone I wanted to protect.

He stiffened from my sudden movements and just sat still for at least a minute. Being only a four year old, I thought that I had frightened him and just when I shifted to let go, he moved slowly. I felt his cold palms hovering over my back. He held me so lightly, almost as if he was afraid of it.

'Thank you.'

Quietly, almost as a whisper, he spoke for the first time. His voice sounded so broken and that was when I felt his warm tears on my shoulder. He was sobbing, muffling his hurting sounds in my hair.

He cried for so long, maybe even more than two hours. While patting his head and holding him tightly, I had lost track of the time. I didn't even feel when he had fallen asleep in my embrace, or when our father had moved us from the living room to our bedroom.

All I know is, after that day we were inseparable. We were the living proof that you don't have to be blood-related to someone to love them unconditionally. Sure we fought just like any other siblings, but with Mino I knew that I always had someone to count on.

Sometimes I even envied him. At least, he had a memory of his parents, something that I didn't have. I was just a little baby when someone left me on my adoptive father's porch. Why would my parents leave me? Why would they leave a little baby outside in the cold winter? If my father hadn't saved me that day, I would've been dead right now.

I asked myself those questions all the time. But I could never find a logical explanation or an answer to them. Maybe I could finally find my long wanted answers now that we were moving back.

We had left Dark Mist soon after Mino's parents had an accident. I thought that our father wanted us to live away from that place. I thought that he wanted us to start a new life as one family and leave behind the things we endured in that town. I assumed that the place held bad memories for him as well, since he had lost his best friends there.

But thirteen years later, he changed his mind.

One day, out of nowhere he informed us that we were moving back. He said that he already got a job as a history teacher in the same high school that we are going to enroll in.

I wonder what changed his mind. What had caused him to change his decision all of a sudden?

And why did I felt like this? Why this trembling and uneasiness? Why was my heart pounding so fast when I thought about that place?

Well, I guess we will find out once we arrive.

• • •

N O T E :

Chapter one is finally here...

I've had this hidden for so long, but I couldn't wait anymore. I really hope that you'll like it, because I adore it. I'm not going to talk much right now, because it's only the first chapter, so I'll only say that this story will have a rough path.

Thank you for giving it a chance!
Take care and know that I love you.

THIA