FAKE BROTHERS (on hold)

1. Calm before storm

Ah, the nightmares. All is in a mess, all is jumbled up. One scene soon replaced by another. Who is it? What's going on? What is happening?

Why is all this happening again?

“I don't need such a sister! I want to have a brother! I need a brother!” — the voice of a little boy echoes again. 

A dark room in an unknown building, somewhere behind doors in a distance you could hear people screaming and shouting in panic, running to escape the chaos that broke out, trying to save their lives, but dying almost instantly, within minutes. Through the window of the room the left wing of the huge luxurious mansion was already engulfed in red flames. Some people are still carrying water buckets to try to rescue what possible.

Soon the fire will reach this room. You could already see some fog trying to slip trough closed door, like someone just light up some incense next to the door, not a fire.

Need to escape. Will be soon too late, but too scared, not when all this commotion going on behind the doors. Seems like some armed crowd stormed the building unexpectedly during the party and all hell broke free.

Some servant lady grabbed the little girl and pushed her in one of the rooms a bit further away from the dining room where the party was just a minute ago.

She said something to the girl before leaving and locking her in the dark room, only to be stabbed by someone immediately as some sharp bloodied tool even gone through the door. The intruder tried to open the door to check the room, but as it was locked, he maybe thought that servant tried to hide, but couldn't as the room was locked, so likely no one is inside.

The little hands of a girl, that was covering her ears, were desperately trying to muffle the noise and clamour that was going around, all those desperate screams of pain and tries to survive. But that wasn't really helping much. The more noises were muffled, the more little girl could hear her own sobs that were turning now into hiccups. The salty tears like a little rivers on her rosy cheeks were streaming down mercilessly, some falling into a mouth, that were swallowed together with bits of smoke, that made tears a bitter taste rather than salty. The smell of smoke in the room couldn't cover the stench of a blood that was spilled outside this room anymore.

The door were making noise again. The little girl nearly shouted out loud, but quickly covered her mouth with both her little palms. She has to stay quiet no matter what. Someone trying again to enter the room. The heart  threatened to leap out of her little chest. She can't stop shivering and now that her hands covering the mouth, all those awful noises are more loud and clear. Will it ever stop?!

“Ariel... Ariel... Ariel… ” a voice was getting closer and louder each time it called… 

The boy named Ariel,around 16 years old, sleeping, sitting on the grass under the tree, his back touching its rough surface, leaning on it for support. He lifted his head and opened his heavy eyelids only to close them again and try to squint as the sun was really blinding him at the minute, shining right at him.

“Hey, wake up already ” called a familiar voice, but Ariel was still confused and couldn't make out who it was, for one sun was shining behind the person and second the boy was still half asleep. "I am always amazed by how you are able to fall so deep into dreamland during 20min break ”

Ariel lifted his hand to cover a bit his  hazel coloured eyes from the sun to see the face.

“Alex?” finally recognizing the silhouette of his identical twin brother.

“Are you having that nightmare again and crying in your sleep?” Asked Alex and with his left thumb wiped a tear from brother's cheek. Alex knew that his brother is plagued by nightmares quite often, but Ariel always avoided talking about it. He only knows that it is related to fire Ariel encountered at some point in his childhood probably, because it's the only word that escapes from Ariel's lips in his sleep "fire".

“It's just the sun blinding me, I'm not crying ” Ariel was quick to deny hiding his embarrassment. “How old we are now for me to still cry in my sleep ” and brushed his hand away.

The nightmares were always the same. Always about the same events. Always appearing without warning. But as soon as Ariel woke up, he couldn't remember anything, but when he had a nightmare the next time, he knew that he saw it in the past, that it is repeating again. But why couldn't he remember it? What was blocking it?

He just smiled lightly and rolled his eyes like trying to say “Yeah, sure, whatever floats your boat, but we both aware of the truth ”

He stood up and outstretched his hand towards Ariel inviting him to stand up as well. 

“Let's go, a class is about to start ” he said when Ariel was already on his feet and Alex started to walk through the academy park towards the old building.

Ariel pat himself round to remove anything that could be on his school uniform while he was sitting on the grass in a shade of an old oak, which probably was older than the building itself and made his way to catch up with Alex.