Prologue
My family was always happy for as long as I could remember... The perfect family. We had everything you would call a normal lifestyle. A middle-class family living what everyone dreams about. We had that warm and welcoming house with that cliche white picket fence, lights in every room consuming every speck of darkness, food that made our skin glow with color, protection, fresh and clean air, and finally each other. We were a beautiful family of five, something you only hear about in fairy tales.
Our Mama was the most beautiful women in the entire town perhaps the world, a real snow white just like in the Disney movies I loved watching. She had long curly raven hair that flowed down her back that shimmered under the shine of lights. I remember she always smelled of lavender and the lavender smell always seemed to linger even after she left a room. It was a soothing and calming scent.
Her eyes were bluer than any sky and they were always so soft and gentle. Eyes that were full of understanding and love... Then her skin was just like ours, pale and clear resembling that of my porcelain dolls. She was of French descent unable to hide her accent and it always came out thicker when she scolded us when we found trouble or trouble found us.
Then there was our Papa whose hair was blonde nearly white, cropped just above his ears and gelled back neatly. His eyes were a sleepy gray and he always had dark circles under his eyes from how much he had to work. I often called him Papa raccoon, the dark circles under his eyes reminding me of a raccoon's face. It was all fun but I knew he worked so hard in order to support his family, a family whom he loved dearly, especially Mama. He spoiled her with gifts every month from overseas and sometimes even us.
After that, there was the three of us their children born from there love. The oldest child, my brother was Levi and just like our parents he was perfect. The perfect grades, the perfect mannerisms, and the perfect social skills. His eyes and his hair were a mix between our two parents. His hair was jet black like mother's but lacked her curls while his eyes didn't have that sleepy grey color of fathers or Mama's sky blue eyes. His eye color often shift colors resembling mother's eyes when he happier and then they resembled Papa's eyes when he was unhappy.
Levi was never a child, always an adult from what I can recall. He was four years older than me so he should still act like a child... He was a small adult sticking to mother's side. He might have the perfect social skills but he never had any true friends. True friends the people you share your feelings and thoughts with.
Then there was myself, the middle child Avril. I had father's beautiful blonde hair but mine was wavy unlike father's. I preferred keeping my hair up in a ponytail and out of the way. Besides my hair and eyes I didn't look like Papa but more like Mama, our faces were almost identical. I used to love it when Papa told me how pretty and beautiful I looked just like Mama, how we could practically be twins. The only difference between our faces was that I had fat to my cheeks that Levi made sure to point out to me. Mama didn't have a single ounce of fat on her. I had sleepy grey eyes not a single spec of blue in them like Levi's. William was the luckiest having the same eyes as Mamas. I was so envious of both of them.
Speaking of William he was the last member of our family of five being the youngest. He was very young only six years old compared to Levi and I, Levi being 16 and I being 12. He resembled our mother the most out of all of us. He had her curly black hair, her pretty sky blue eyes, and her face. He even picked up a slight accent when speaking he picked up from her which was was the baby and he loved everyone, Mama, Papa, Levi who he called Lev Lev, and finally me. He clung to everyone, never being one to like being by himself. He was well behaved for a child who was 6 and never caused an ounce of trouble like I did.
And one day our happy family of five collapsed all from a simple thing such as a fire. A fire that changed everything, orange blaze of hellfire. It changed and affected each one of us. If I was watching William that day like I was suppose to none of what would occur would have happened. Our home like our sweet childhood would never have been burned to anything but ashes in the wind.
I will never forget the scene or the smells of the day our house burned down. The smoke choked my lungs but still I stood and watch it crawl higher and higher bringing the whole house down to rubble and ash. I saw Levi crying that day for the first time as he grabbed the front of my sun dress spatting and spitting out hatefully, ''How could you of not been watching him you fool! Now we have nothing! He could have got hurt! I could have got hurt!' and he shoved me to the ground wiping at his face, soot covering his cheeks and hands.
I remember being in tears but those weren't the only tears I would shed. Shortly after those events transpired, our family of five was down to a family of four. Papa with all the stress couldn't handle the bills of our much smaller home after losing his job and he slid his pocket knife along his wrists in his office chair at home... Levi was the one who stumbled upon our father's corpse and after that, he was never the same...
It wasn't a slow change, when he stumbled to the kitchen to where Mama was cooking and humming he whispered, 'father's dead.' It was pure horror as he stared at Mama who did what every wife would do in her situation screamed and passed out in shock after running to her husband's side. Levi after that became hateful and resentful towards me, blaming me for not watching William that day, blaming me for our father's death. He got quiet and gloomy always hanging around mother.
We drifted apart and we became further and further apart as the days progressed but it wasn't until the basement we would become closer again...
Authors note: This story is inspired by Flowers in the Attic but will have different aspects than the book/movie. So you can expect heavy incest from this story. lol~