Shining Hill

Chapter 1

It was not the first time Annette and Zander had met their aunt and cousin, but it had been a very long time since they had seen them. Even then, Annette and Zander had never seen their home, nor visited the small town of Shining Hill.

Zander claimed that he remembered them vividly, but he didn't, and Annette knew that he didn't, just like she wasn't able to. All Annette remembered of her aunt and cousin was the smell of lavender and giggles made of sunshine. Zander could only remember the soft rustle of leaves on a warm day and cold water proceeded by laughter.

The bus ride took longer than they thought it would have, but Annette didn't mind. She watched the landscape roll by meditatively, her mind wandering to things that have passed and to the scene that danced across the widows. Zander slept next to her, Annette being able to hear the music thump from his earbuds.

She wondered how he could sleep with such loud noise screaming in his ears. Zander found it meditative in its own way.

The bus didn't stop in Shining Hill, there was no transportation that went straight into town, but it was a little way out, about a twenty-minute drive from where they were. At least, that is what their aunt said. Annette could not find a reference online about the town of Shining Hill, and she had some doubts that it existed.

Annette didn't voice her troubles, but Zander couldn't help but feel annoyed at the whole situation.

"I can't believe we're being sent out into the middle of fucking nowhere! Can you believe it?! Not even the mother-fucking internet knows where we're going!" Zander had yelled when Annette's search had received no results, him pacing back and forth in their old home.

Most of the things had been packed, the house being empty except for a bunch of boxes and the sleeping bags that they were using. A lot of the stuff had been sold off, which their aunt had made sure went into a college fund for the two of them. Some went into storage, and the rest was going to their aunt's.

Zander has wanted to destroy it all, but Annette knew he didn't really want that. He knew that too, but the thing that twisted inside his chest threatened to strangle him, and he couldn't handle that. He couldn't handle seeing the things that were once his life.

"Mom wouldn't want you to use that type of language," Annette said softly, trying a different phrasing of words in the search bar.

Zander glared at her, his face turning bright red. A lot of things ran through his mind, things that would hurt, but he restrained himself.

"Well, she ain't fucking here, is she?"

Annette was quiet, pausing in her typing, and then finishing what she was writing before hitting enter. Zander pretended he didn't see that as he continued pacing.

"'Ain't' isn't a word, and I don't want you to use that language."

Zander paused, scrunched up his nose, raised the middle finger of his right hand at her.

"It's in the dictionary, so fuck you."

Annette didn't want to continue the argument, so she stayed quiet. This pissed Zander off more and he left the room.

As they pulled into the station, Annette shook Zander awake. Zander breathed deeply and blinked his eyes open as he squinted at Annette.

"We're here," Annette said.

They were the only people on the bus, and they were the only people at the station when they had gotten off the bus. No one waited for them at the station, and this made Annette uneasy. She did not like being in a bus station, nor did she like being in a place she was unfamiliar with.