Prologue
At the strike of the bell, excited chatters and shouts of elementary school students flooded the once empty and quiet corridors. Before long, children streamed out of classrooms by the hundreds, some started chasing each other up and down the corridors and others raced toward the school gate prioritizing their exit over anything else. It was the last day of school and the last school bell that had just went off marked the start of their summer vacation.
Forty odd days without spelt freedom and that always meant endless hours of unrestricted fun, ice cream, beaches and adventure when you are a child. A new game, at that time, had evaded the minds of curious young television audiences – a game that embodied adventure; a game that proved one more grown-up than everyone in their groups of little friends.
The summer vacation was their key to standing before their friends, gleaming with pride and glory while they could only watch in awe and envious. They might even get a few laughs out of the annoying ones quivering while huddling up close with their kind.
Yes – fun awaited. He could not wait for the sun to go to sleep.
"Oi! What have you done?" shouted a scrawny figure whose face was obscured by his own shadow, his silhouette clearly defined by the scarce moonlight that reflected off him.
"What do you mean me? You had a share in this too!" a voice hoarse with fear sounded from a similarly rotund blackened yet outlined with moonlight figure.
The two little children stood with the moon directly behind them; their heads were hung low while they stared at unblinkingly, unable to comprehend what they had just done. Their eyes then shifted onto her. The girl that was just laughing and jostling around with them was now kneeling on the ground crying her eyes out, muttering incoherent words they could not make out. She raised her head and their eyes met. Her eyes spoke the words she was not verbally capable of. Her brown eyes that shone in the moonlight radiated an abysmal melancholy that should be found only in those who have seen and lived much longer than she ever had. The tears that threatened to spill glistened in the moonlight as if to further heighten their guilt.
"Help!" the weakened girl managed to choke through sobs and hiccups. The boys' hearts froze with her words. It was as if the night wind had whipped them across their legs, the knees buckled and gave way. They fell flat on their bottoms – for the first time that night, the girl saw their faces. The melancholy that had formerly plagued her eyes was replace with utter confusion. She could only stare and wonder why while the culprits half crawled, half scampered and disappeared off into the midst of erect cold, grey stones that served to further illuminated the embodiments of betrayal.