Author's Note: I know everyone and their brother has tried to adapt Mother into story form, but I wanted to try something different. I wanted to try something darker, and as light hearted as things are right now, it's going to get.. Not so happy. And for a story about friendship and love, most people always go for the traditional canon of making Ana and Ninten fall in love while the other two get pushed aside. But for a group of kids who were different in their own special ways, I thought it seemed perfectly acceptable to make two of them gay and instead put Ana in the role of supporting friend. Besides the pairing change, there are going to be a few other twists. It'll be different, but I hope people enjoy it nonetheless. Remember to review!


Long before the tale of fate truly unfolds, there lived a couple by the names of George and Maria. They lived in a place no different than most small towns in southern America, and they were the epitome of what every other couple in Podunk strived to be. George was a journalist; one of the most well known in the area, while Maria was active in the scientific community.

Writers and other journalists alike were often amazed at the sheer skill that George possessed. Almost as if he had a sort of power unknown to man itself. George knew things, things that the common man wouldn't dare poke his nose into. He was very invested in the supernatural, but he kept his discoveries to himself when it wasn't involved with the paper.

Some would say that George and Maria's interests would lead to their disappearances, but some would beg to differ and try to pinpoint it as a simple coincidence of fate. The disappearance of the couple wasn't the first of the strange happenings, so it seemed nearly impossible that they had played a part in it, coming from an unbiased standpoint.

It had started on a day no different from any other, except that the normally clear skies were filled with a black haze. More specifically, the skies near Mt. Itoi. No one knew where these strange clouds came from, only that they had appeared from seemingly out of nowhere- and that they weren't going away anytime soon.

It was that even evening that a few hikers had went missing on the mountain. Hikers going missing was about as common as finding stray pennies on the sidewalk, so most people payed no mind to it. A few days later, the hikers returned, but with little to no memory of what had happened. They could barely remember their own names, or even what had happened before they decided to trek up the mountain. The general public blamed this on a head injury, and nothing more.

When people truly began to realize that something was wrong, dozens of people were already gone without a trace. Then days later, they would return at the bottom of the mountain with no memory of what had happened. Naturally, this strange cloud and it's affects fascinated George and Maria, so they were determined to investigate further. It would make one hell of a headline for the newspaper as well.

The two packed their bags and headed off to the mountain without a second thought, only to never be seen again. Their tiny hometown of Podunk gave up on their return shortly after the cloud had vanished weeks later. A small funeral service was held, despite the lack of any bodies. George and Maria's two children were crushed, especially due to their young age.

The odds seemed to be against them in every way, but their young daughter never lost hope. She believed that one day her parents would return home, safe and sound. No one believed her, but no one had the heart to tell her otherwise. Years passed, and the girl's hope began to fade as her and her brother grew older. She began to fill with the inevitable doubt, and gradually gave up her lifelong dream of seeing her parents again.

Then one day, George appeared on the doorstep. He didn't speak for a long time, and could only stare down at his remaining family with a blank expression. Finally, he demanded to be let into his study. His relatives were baffled, but they respected George's wishes. As time passed, George never revealed to him what had happened on the mountain on that fateful night or what Maria's fate had been. He only demanded that they let him study in peace.

Slowly but surely, George began to lose his mind. He mourned for his wife, and for the things he could no longer remember. No one in the family could help him, and they could only sit and watch as he faded into an old, senile man. Eventually, George was found dead in his study, only leaving behind his works that no one could manage to decipher. By that time, his daughter had given birth to a son, and had decided to stay in the home she'd lived in with her parents.

The next few years passed peacefully. Old generations died out, and new were born. Nothing in the sleepy little town changed, and no other strange things had happened. All was well, for the time being. George's grandson had gotten happily married, resulting in a son- and soon enough, two daughters.

The family expected a normal life, however- their newborn son was anything but normal. Perhaps that was their repayment for naming their son Ninten, after all. At first, it was impossible to notice that he was, to be frank- rather odd. He behaved like any other baby, until he was nearly a year old.

It started off with the small things; toys would be in totally different places than where she'd put them away, bottles would vanish from the fridge, etc. Small things that Ninten's parents would've never noticed, if it hadn't been for what occurred afterwards. Marcia was teaching her son how to walk, and had let Ninten try and stand up on his own.

She smiled and held her hands out, waiting for him to wobble right into her arms. The baby took a hesitant step, before falling flat on his face into the carpet. His mother gasped and reached down to pick him up, and when he was safely in her arms, she noticed that he'd scraped the side of his knee during the fall.

Of course, he began crying almost instantly. She rocked him gently and went to get a bandage, but when she'd reached down to examine the cut again, it was completely healed. She knew that it had been there, an injury that visible couldn't have just vanished. Letting out another surprised gasp, she quickly dashed into her son's nursery to put him in his crib. By the time she'd picked up the phone to call her husband, she was nearly in tears. All she could tell him was that something was wrong, very very wrong.

With a heavy heart, Ninten's father had to explain to his wife about the research of his grandfather, and how George had discovered superhuman abilities known as Psi. That was one of his most mind boggling discoveries, not to mention no more research had been done after his death. Since Ninten was still just an infant, they would have no way of telling what power he was capable of.

Like any good parent would be, the two were scared. They had no idea what their son's future would hold. All they could do was hide this secret until the time was right.


"Mom, I'm home!" A young boy called out, slamming the door before walking into his house. He tossed his backback into the floor, along with his dirt coated baseball bat and red cap. Said boy's mother walked into the living room, scowling at her son's appearance. For a fifteen year old, he sure knew how to make a mess.

"For the last time, stop leaving your dirty bat inside!" She scolded him. "I don't care how good you are at baseball, you won't be hitting any home runs in this house." Despite her words, the woman smiled at him and strode back into the kitchen.

"Sorry, sorry.." The boy said sheepishly, while rubbing the back of his head. Ninten was a smart ass when he wanted to be, but his mother was the only person he wouldn't be sarcastic with. He knew way better than to cross that line. Ignoring her protests, he left the bat alone and followed her into the kitchen, where his twin sisters sat at the table with coloring books. They were kicking their feet against impatiently, clearly waiting for dinner.

And as soon as he smelt the scent of prime rib wafting in from the oven, Ninten was impatient too.

"I thought you were mad at me mom, but you're making prime rib, just for me." Ninten shook his head and smirked. Both of his sisters shot him an annoyed glance, but went back to their coloring soon enough before letting out a simultaneous, "Is it done yet?"

"There won't be any prime rib for anyone if you kids don't scoot back up to your rooms and clean up before dinner." Their mother chided in. All three children rolled their eyes, but slowly trudged back upstairs to their bedrooms. Minnie made sure Ninten knew that she thought it was his fault, too.

When he got up to his room, Ninten ran his hand through his dirty black hair and flopped over on the bed. He'd had a long day, even if it was no different than any other. Get up, go to school, go to baseball practice, then head home. Not that he didn't enjoy his life, it just got kind of boring sometimes. There was nothing really special about him, except that he was the best hitter for his school's baseball team. That was only amazing because he had asthma. Playing a game without getting sick was more important than hitting a home run, in his opinion.

Then again, that wasn't really much of a feat- considering how most of the kids in Podunk were nothing but small town hillbillies who were good at sports, but not very good at anything else. Ninten was just...normal. Vanilla. Plain. Whatever you wanted to call it. Nothing interesting ever happened in Podunk either, save for the rare rainy days. Despite his life being pretty dull, he didn't mind too much. Boring was better than strange, right?

His thoughts were rudely interrupted by a rattling noise, which was coming from the lamp near his bedside. The lamp began to shake and rattle violently, until the plug flew right out of the socket and the lamp went hurtling toward Ninten. His eyes widened, and he had to quickly jump off the bed before the lamp could murder him.

"Well I'll be damned," He continued to stare down at the lamp in shock, not really believing what he was seeing. Lamps flying and attacking people wasn't really an ordinary thing. For a minute or two, he was sure he'd just been hallucinating, but then the lamp shook a few more times and levitated off the bed again.

This time, Ninten chose not to run like a coward and instead held out a closed fist. The lamp was flying towards him at blinding speed, so the collision between his fist and the object happened way too fast for him to really notice. His small fist busted the illuminated bulb and effectively knocked the shade off, sending the lamp flying across the room yet again. It hit the wall with a loud thud, and then the lamp was no more.

It lay in the floor in a million tiny pieces- not really that intimidating anymore. Still, he couldn't believe what had just happened. Ninten looked down at his hand, which fortunately had came out of the weird lamp ordeal a lot better off than he expected. There was barely a two inch cut stretching across his palm.

He'd sort of lied earlier, he wasn't really all that normal. Ever since he could remember, he was able to heal his own injuries, and could sometimes move things with his mind if he tried hard enough. Yeah, that wasn't really normal at all. It was just one of those things that couldn't be explained, not to mention something he was too afraid to explain to his parents. They'd think he was crazy.

Taking a deep breath, he concentrated his mind on the tiny cut. Usually he had to focus on the image of light, or something warm and comforting in order for his powers to take affect. He closed his eyes tightly, and kept the mental image of a sunny summer day. Soon enough, the warmth trailed down to his hand and the gash slowly faded away. When his brown eyes opened again and gazed down at his hand, it was perfectly fine. There was only a tiny spec of dried blood, but he wiped it off on his pants hurriedly.

What had just happened? Was this caused by his power, or something else entirely? But to be honest, Ninten hadn't used them in quite awhile. Today was the first time he'd tried healing himself in months. Just as he went to examine the broken lamp and try to make sense of it, there was a bloodcurdling screech from down the hallway. His stomach did a flop upon realizing it was Mimmie who'd just screamed.

He ran down the hallway as fast as he could and swung the door open at lightning speed. Both of the twins were huddled on the bed, their arms wrapped around each other in fear. Their chestnut colored pigtails were disheveled, and the bottom of their matching purple dresses were torn around the edges.

"Oh Ninten!" Minnie cried, pointing down at something that was levitating by the foot of her bed. "It's the doll, y'know the one grandpa got us?! It attacked us, out of nowhere!"

"Hurry, make it stop!" Mimmie added, biting her lip in fear. The doll was steadily crawling up the side of the bed sheets, no doubt trying to attack the girls again. Ninten was still in shock from the last incident, but he had to pull himself together, and quick. Even though he was still frightened, his sisters were depending on him and he couldn't let them down now. Even if they were annoying sometimes.

He quickly scanned the room for anything he could destroy the doll with, but of course there were nothing but toys scattered across the floor, leaving absolutely nothing that could help. He was just going to have to do this the old fashioned way again. Balling his fist up by his side, Ninten walked over to the bed and swung his fist behind his shoulder. One good punch would break the doll right in two.

It's beady little button eyes stared up at him, glittering with something sinister. Dolls were already creepy enough, however this one was just taking it to a whole new level. Ninten readied his fist and swung at the doll with as much force as he could muster. His fist slammed right into the sinister little doll, which stopped it right in it's tracks.

Much to his surprise, the doll didn't break. When his fist smashed it into the floor, the doll only stopped moving. There wasn't even a crack in it's plastic skin.

"Look!" Mimmie cried. Ninten spun around, with his mouth agape. The doll was right back on the shelf, where the girls usually kept it when they weren't playing with it. The glint was gone from it's eyes, and it's expression had turned back into the typical smile that the doll had before all the craziness happened. No one made a sound, as they were all just waiting for the doll to do something else.

It didn't move for a long time, but eventually the head popped off just like the cap would on a soda. One of the girls let out a shriek, while Ninten went over to look the doll over. This time, he stayed back slightly, and hesitated before putting his hand on the doll. It looked normal until he reached the spot where the head had popped off.

There was a tiny music box hidden, no bigger than a box someone would keep a ring it. Out of curiosity, he ran his hand around the sleek little black box, promptly jumping back when it began to play a tune. Of course, Ninten had never heard the strange song before, and it only played a few notes before the music faded away. He'd never heard anything like this in his entire life, yet it felt so familiar to him- like he should've known it.

Despite the creepy circumstances, he liked the song. It left a weird feeling inside him that was difficult to shrug off. Almost like homesickness.

"That was wild," Minnie said in disbelief. She'd finally crawled off the bed and joined her brother. Apparently the doll hadn't scared her as much as her twin, because Mimmie was still perched on the bed like the doll would jump at her at any moment.

"Did you hear the song?" Ninten asked, putting the doll back on the shelf. There was no way he was touching that thing again.

"What song? What are you talking about?"

"You didn't hear the song?" He raised an eyebrow. Maybe he had just heard things? But it seemed so real, and the music box was still sitting there right where he left it.

"No?" Minnie looked at him like he had gone crazy. "There was a box in the doll, but I didn't hear any music. You're weird."

"I didn't hear any either.." Mimmie said softly.

"Oh well, I'm gonna go check on mom. Something funny's going on." Ninten left and began to walk down the stairs, ignoring the worried feeling he'd had deep down. Something really wasn't right.

"You don't say!" Minnie hollered. He ignored that too.

When he reached the living room, his mother looked even more distressed. She hopped up from the couch and grabbed him by tightly the shoulders, looking into his eyes with worry. It hurt Ninten just to see his mother look so sad. Judging by her expression, she looked like someone had just died.

"Oh honey, are you hurt? I heard a crash upstairs, and I was just about to call your father. Did that poltergeist get you? Are the girls okay? Are you okay? Are y-"

"Slow down mom, I'm fine." Upon hearing that, Marcia sighed in relief and let go of Ninten. He rubbed his shoulders and winced. He knew she was worried, but did she really have to squeeze him that hard?

"I'm glad. I feared the worst when I heard your sister scream." She sat back down, and the worried expression began to reappear. Her lips twisted into a concerned frown, which for some reason seemed common lately. "Can you call your dad and tell him what happened? I don't want to interrupt him during a meeting, but he needs to know."

"Alright." He stood up and took the phone off the hook, and dialed the familiar number. Talking to his father wasn't something he got to do very often, as he was always working. This time it didn't seem like much of a treat though. After only a couple rings, his father answered the phone.

"Hello?" A gruff voice said.

"Dad? It's me, Ninten. I.. Uh.. Something happened."

"What?" His father's tone seemed nearly identical to the one his mother had minutes earlier. Ninten wondered why. "What's going on?" And so, he told him everything that had happened in the past hour, starting from the lamp going crazy and ending with the doll and the strange music.

"I was afraid this would happen." For some reason, this piqued his interest even more.

"What do you mean?"

"Son.." His father let out a deep sigh, before continuing. "Never mind. Your grandfather owned a journal, it should be down in the basement. There are several of his things down in a trunk, but don't worry about the other junk. Just the journal, it should give you some answers."

"But the basement's always locked!" Ninten protested. At the mention of the basement, his mother tensed up. For years, he'd just assumed his dad kept something valuable down there, and that was the reason it was always shut up tight. Or at least something like family photos.

"There should be a key somewhere. I'm not sure where I put it, but it's around there somewhere. Find the key, and all of this should make more sense."

"It still doesn't make any sense to me."

"Ninten," His father scolded. "Some things just aren't meant to be explained. That's just part of life. All I can give you is what your grandpa left behind, otherwise you'll be even more clueless than you are now. I know it doesn't make a lot of sense, but it should soon."

"Does this have something to do with.. Uh.." Ninten twirled the phone's cord around his finger and tried to stall. He dreaded asking this question. "Magic or something? I dunno how to put it."

"Magic?" It was then that his father laughed. "No, it doesn't have to do with any magic. You're a little too old to still be believing in that stuff anyway." He paused for a minute, and soon enough the somber tone was back. "Listen, I've got to run. Just find the key." And with that, the line went dead.

"Mom, where's the basement key?" Ninten asked. Her face immediately went a sickly shade of pale.

"You don't need to go down there!" She said in a near shout. "Just forget about this poltergeist business for now, I'm sure it was all just a misunderstanding." She was hiding something, it didn't take a rocket scientist to figure that out. Plus, she quickly changed the subject. "Dinner's ready, go up and fetch your sisters before it gets cold."

He did as he was told, for now. Yet, Ninten had a secret. There was still the secret of what was down in the basement, and he couldn't wait to sneak down there and find out after everyone else went to bed. Already, he'd made up a plan for getting down there after he found the key.

For once, things didn't seem so dull around here after all.