The Chronicles of Time - Book 2: The Book of Flames

Chapter III: Skye's Sky

Chapter III: Skye's Sky

Soon after the settling of the attack and the "meeting," which turned into one big mission initiation for us, Nicholas simply told me that I should let Skye show me Second Cloud as the they, the almighty Pri-Guardians will discuss about things. Great job, Nicholas. Make me spend the day with the girl who I will be sharing a house with. I doubted that Skye's parents actually agreed. I mean, I never met them, but I had a good guess that they're the overprotective parents type.

A few steps from the Starbucks café, Skye's mood instantly turned sour. "Idiot," Skye muttered, walking faster than me.

I caught up to her. "What now?"

"You're a big idiot. You know that, right?" Skye stopped walking and she stared at me, her hands to her hips like a dissappointed mother. She eyed me relentlessly; I felt like she was trying to shoot laser beams from her eyes. Then her eyes started watering and she dropped to the ground- er...cloud to a kneel. She put her hands to her face and started crying.

"Um, ah..." I looked around and sure enough some pedestrians were looking at me suspiciously. Maybe they think I hurt her. Maybe they think we're a couple and we got into a fight. I didn't really bother to guess more when Skye started wailing--literally. She let out a muffled Aaaah! into her hands, took a deep breath and shouted again. She did this repeatedly: shout, take a heavy breath, pause and repeat. I was really at loss there. I didn't exactly have experience with girls. Heck, I never even had a girl as close as Skye before. The only female I knew who cried was mom, and even then I didn't know what to do. I knew I had to do something, though. She looked miserable, crying in public. I could see tears flowing between her fingers, dropping onto the cloud-sidewalk.

I was about to kneel, put a hand on Skye's shoulder and ask her what's wrong when a thought passed in my head, making me freeze.

My mom...Kyle. Where-?

The words evaporated instantly from my mind when an old lady hit me on the stomach with her handbag. "Young man, can't you see the mess in front of you?" She said, looking at me disapprovingly. She hurried off, loudly muttering, "Juveniles these days. When I was young, boys were much much more polite and caring and..."

I instantly got down and got my head on Skye's level. She was still wailing and her shouts weren't exactly better up close. I tapped her hand. "Hey." No response. Louder crying. "Hey." Still no response. "Hey!"

Skye's head snapped up and what I saw was probably the worst image of Skye in my life. A fragment of her cloud-white hair was stuck to her cheek with something wet, which I assumed was merely saliva (I never really discovered whether it was Skye spit or Skye snot or Skye tears that made that adhesive), and her sky blue eyes were puffed up and slightly red. She was having a really bad runny nose situation, but she stopped wailing, which was nice. Although, she was still sobbing terribly.

"A-Ah..." she tried to talk, but her voice kept on choking her and shaking. "I a-ah-"

I tilted my head, pointing my ear to her. "What?"

After a moment of shaking and sobbing, she said, "A-Ah...Anthony-" more sobbing. "-I-I'm really...I'm s-so...sorry..."

I faced her and looked at her. She was trying hard not to meet my gaze. She was probably embarrassed, and not angry at me. Jeez, girls are confusing human beings. I thought she was mad at me for something. Turned out, she was sorry. Well, for what, Anthony? I asked myself.

"Why? You didn't do anything wrong," I said, doing my softest tone as possible.

"It's my fault," she said, calming down a little. "It's my fault your powers are gone. I couldn't get you there in time. I should've ran faster. I should've-" she buried her face in her hands again and resumed her cry.