Candlelit Shadows

Chapter 2

When the pale spring sunlight streamed in through her window the next dawn, she should have simply rammed her hand upon the clock by her bedside, smelled the bacon sizzling in the kitchen downstairs, and heard her baby brother hollering at her to get her “lazy butt out of bed and off to work”. She should have groaned, as she always did, pleading futilely for a few more seconds, only to have him drag her out of the covers anyway, grumpiness and all. She should have had to pull a bent plastic brush through her uncooperative hair, splash herself with forever freezing cold water, and toss on some second-hand working clothes—though she never complained, it was virtually impossible to find second-hand anything in her profession—before slouching down the stairs, before the sight of her brother in aprons lightened her morning better than any amount of caffeine. As it always did.

      All that vanished the instant her hand fell into thin air.

      Suddenly the prospects of the same old routine before her, the day she had lived again and again for almost five years since she first decided to drop out of high school and make herself an honest living, seemed to alter just as her clock had done. Both were right there—just ever so slightly out of reach.

      She pulled the clock from the edge of her bedside table, back into its original, easily-rammed-into position. Yep, she was a routine type of person, through and through.

      With a headache unheard of since her not-so-wild teens, she dragged herself out of bed, trying to ignore the lingering metallic taste in her mouth and the equally annoying, nagging ache in her heart telling her things might never be the same again. The pain was lessened though, as yesterday’s memories came flooding back, and she remembered fully again exactly what she was doing here, in a room so achingly similar to her own, and yet so inexplicably different.

      It’s the warmth, she realized, shivering slightly. This place lacks all the warmth of the home I had shared with—

      And for one terrible moment, she couldn’t remember her brother’s name.

***

“— Which family do we belong to, Mom?”

      An affectionate smile, as warm as the day itself. “We are like this little fellow here. A butterfly, living its short but colorful life amongst the freshest flowers and coolest dew, sweetheart.”

      But when the girl tried to reach a pale, shaky hand for the creature, the butterfly spread its wings and took flight, gliding off to a place she could never reach.

***

The moment passed, as fleeting as a butterfly’s kiss, but it left her feeling weak and empty. This place, these people—if this was to become her new life, she was beginning to wonder exactly how long she’ll actually have one.

      Slowly, desperately, she closed her eyes and began to sieve through her memories, trying to remember everything and anything about her baby brother. His crooked smile, the way his eyes would twinkle when he laughed, how he excelled at Maths and hated History, his favorite color, the song he sang for her on her last birthday, the aromas of his cooking, the way he would blush whenever she invited her best friend Melanie over—

      When she opened her eyes again, they were alert and wary, but her lips had curled into a grim smile.

      Just like everything else in the gloomy catacombs, the room and all its details were so familiar, and yet so distant. Even the clock was only, after all, a few inches from where it usually would have been, within her reach. No doubt her escort last night had moved it slightly, so that it would not wake her too early the next morning.