A Game With Fate

Chapter 1: A Trip With Fate

Now I know that my life isn't filled with disaster or mishaps, or that I have cancer or ebola, but I know that my life is hard. With my mother constantly 'out and about' and my younger siblings continually getting into fights at school, I know that my life isn't the easiest to live through.

It's bearable, but not livable.

Now, I know people live just like I do and that their siblings getting into trouble at school may be a daily thing, but when you're the one who has to go to the principal's office to resolve all 'complications', then life is more than just 'hard'. To back up my claims some more, I only see my mother twice a month. Into the house in three seconds and gone in the next. It's like she's some sort of ghost that terrorizes me whenever she feels bored.

The hardest part about living my life is the lonely nights I spend. Being diagnosed with anxiety at an early age and having to do all these grownup stuff is what stresses me out the most. If I were a normal person, with normal emotions, then maybe I could live through this hell. But because of this, all I feel is the prickling feeling of failure and all I hear is the whispers of discouragement.

Thankfully, my Aunt Alena, bless her soul, was always there for my family whenever we needed her. Like, when mom had her first meltdown in front of my brothers and she had to come over to 'assess the damage', as my mother described, as if we were some sort of broken toys that needed fixing.

Aunt Alena was the person we turned to when we needed reassurance.

And that's what I was doing, turning to my Aunt Alena for some help.

There I was, marching courageously to her doorstep with my brothers following like little soldiers taking the orders of their commander. They were my anchor to this world, and honestly, without them I wouldn't have gotten out of the house.

Once we made it onto Aunt Alena's doorstep we made an abrupt stop at the same time.

"Do you think she's home?" Dino asked, tilting his head to the side, his black hair falling sideways.

Cam shrugged his shoulders, his brown hair bouncing along. "I dunno, but we gotta try. Genie, I command you to knock on the door!"

I rolled my eyes at Cam's impolite order but did so anyways.

"Aunt Alena?" I called out. I tried to peer in through her window but all I saw was her long hallway that led to the kitchen.

"Are you home?" I tried again.

"Aunt Alena!" The boys yelled in unison.

I quickly shushed them, afraid to disturb the neighbors.

"What if she isn't home?" Cam asked Dino with a huff.

Dino smiled excitedly. "Then let's play in her backyard!"

My eyes widened at Dino's statement. Knowing Cam, he'd say-

"Yes! Let's go!"

And before I could stop them and scold them for their behavior, they were gone. In a flurry of excitement and girly squeals, they ran towards Aunt Alena's backyard and towards the forest that lay beyond.

After a long debate of whether to be responsible or make a missing persons report, I groaned and chased after them, yelling desperately for them to come back. And after a few minutes of running around that forest like a maniac, my yells started to sound more threatening instead of 'please-come-back-before-my-head-gets-chopped-off-by-our-aunt-and-or-our-mother'.

I watched as they entered the forest, and as they ran deeper and deeper, between trunks of trees and over ditches, under branches and over small streams. But I wasn't panicking then, no, I began to panic when I realized that I couldn't see their figures anymore, when I realized that I couldn't see the exit or the entrance, and when I realized that I was in the middle of the great unknown.