Chapter One: Labyrinth
Bright lights that blare blindly bounce of endless walls of white. Panicked beeps and buzzes send nurses and doctors scurrying through the chaotic halls. The medic's frantic shouts warn everyone to get out of the way, but despite their haste, the patients' lives melt into a cruelly straight line
In one of the many intensely white painted waiting rooms of the hospital sat two brothers. These brothers shared a close bond that tied their very lives together. They were twins, and had been recently orphaned.
Roxas, who had been born two hours before his twin was pressing his silently crying, face into his brother's chest. His spiky blond hair was poking his twin's cheek uncomfortably, but the other seemed to be unaware of this, and wrapped his arms around the older boy. Sora's own eyes were tear filled, but he couldn't address his own sadness until his brother's pain was erased. What did mother used to do when Roxas cried? The same thing she did for Sora, tell a story.
"Once upon a time, there was a beautiful princess with hair of gold and a voice so lovely it brought happiness to all who heard it. On her ring finger she had a ring that was given to her by the man she loved. It was her most cherished possession and she would find time everyday to sit and admire the glint it made from the kiss of light. Her lover had departed for a perilous journey, and the only remembrance she had of him was this single ring." Sora paused in his story telling when he felt Roxas trace a finger over his lips.
"Continue," Roxas whispered in Sora's ear, and wound his other hand through his brother's chocolate brown hair. Sora was relieved that his brother had stopped crying. and he pushed his own pain into the far recesses of his mind.
"Time passed and the princess waited patiently for his return. The wait was long and she locked herself in a tall tower so that she would be the first one to see him when he arrived back home. Then, one day she saw him. She stood at her window waiting and willing for him to look up at her, but he never did. When they finally met face to face, the man told her that he had been in an accident and had lost his memories, but he hoped that the two of them were friends. The princess was heart-broken and to forget her pain she created her own reality. For the second time in her life she locked herself in the tower and waited for her love to come back. She convinced herself that the man who had given her the ring was not the man that had appeared. Right now that princess is still waiting by her window. She is searching the horizon for her lost love." Sora finished the tale and ruffled Roxas' hair.
"Sora, we have to tell her the truth," Roxas stopped tracing his fingers over his brother's lips and slowly stood up on shaky legs. "Let's write her a message."
"I'm sure she'd appreciate that," Sora answered. He didn't have the heart to tell his brother that the princess was just some made up character in a fairy tale. It was easier for Roxas to deal with the loss of their parents if he had something to occupy his mind. As long as Roxas was distracted from the pain; Sora was happy.
Roxas gave his brother a smile from his tear stained face, and made a silent promise to himself. He promised that he would become as strong as his brother and when that day came it would be him protecting Sora. He was the elder twin after all, he reasoned. It should be him wiping away the hurt.
The brunette was also making an unspoken promise with himself. He would undertake the responsibly of shielding Roxas from hurt. Sora couldn't bear to see his brother's face so forlorn, and he promised himself that Roxas would never have a reason to feel broken again.
Roxas reached out a hand to Sora, who grasped it, and was pulled up and off the ground. They held hands a little longer than necessarily as if by being connected by this link would seal their own private promises.
Eleven years later…
Roxas sped down the deserted country road. He hadn't seen his brother in two months and although he didn't want to admit it, he was getting kind of lonely. Earlier that day he had found a letter from Sora that had been hidden in the middle of one of their grandmother's red rose bushes, and although it was a pain to get out, he knew that he deserved the little pricks from the thorns for not telling his brother where he had disappeared to. Sora would have had no idea where to send the letter in the first place and their grandmother would have destroyed any evidence that she came across that could in any way shape or form help Roxas to find the current location of their new home.
The letter had updated Roxas on the whereabouts of his brother and that bitch, and the reason behind their sudden move. Sora had included a picture of the new house and directions on how to get there.
Roxas studied the picture Sora had given him. The house in the photograph looked like an old Victorian castle. As strange as that sounded. The white paint was cracked and stained, and the windows were black with dirt and dust from being neglected of a good cleaning. There was a tower with a small window that reminded Roxas of a story from his past, and according to Sora's letter there was a large garden that was some sort of maze.
Currently the photograph was sitting on his dashboard along with two other photographs that each held a little piece of his heart.
-xxx-
It was twilight, and the room was covered in a thick layer of dust, and gave off an old waffling antique smell. A queen sized bed tucked in nicely with light blue covers looked too comfy to ever want to wake up from, and the small face mirror that hung over the dresser was cracked like a spider's web.
Holding a pink feather duster and broom in one hand and a Windex bottle and a rag in the other was Sora. He let out an exasperated sigh as he looked about the room before him. It would take him more than one day to clean his deceased great aunt's house. Luckily, he wasn't doing this alone, or he would never finish.
Sora had never met his great aunt, and so her death hadn't affected him other than to cause him to feel sorrow over someone he never knew. It was the same feeling he got when hearing about a death of some stranger on the television. He felt worse for not feeling bad over the death than feeling bad about the death itself.
His reaction was a lot less heartless than his grandmother Mimi, who absolutely hated her elder sister and hadn't shed one tear. In fact when the news of her sister's death had reached her, the first thing she had said was, "Does this mean I get her house?" This remark resulted with a shocked lawyer who was acting as the executor and a thoroughly embarrassed Sora, but in the end the house had been given over to Sora and his twin brother. Roxas had been absent for the reading of the will. The reason for Roxas' nonappearance was unknown, and Sora was a little worried, but he knew that Roxas could take care of himself.
Sora and his brother were not yet eighteen and their grandmother was their guardian, and so they were unable to have full ownership of the house until the next year. Despite his great aunt's wishes the house still fell into her younger sister's hands. His great aunt was probably pissed that she hadn't lived for one more year when Sora and his brother would turn eighteen.
It had only taken two weeks for Sora and his grandmother to pack up their belongings and arrive at the front door of their new home. His grandmother had driven him like a slave, and he had been forced to work non-stop in packing up their possessions. At the time he had been muttering curses under his breath, but now he felt as if he had done a job well done.
Looking down at the cleaning utensils Sora uttered a groan; the work was still not complete. All of the rickety furniture had passed on to Sora as well, and his grandmother wanted to keep it, and thus she gave Sora the time consuming job of cleaning it, and making the house livable for the both of them. Earlier today he and his grandmother had cleaned the bedroom that was to be hers, and when it came down to cleaning the bedroom that he had chosen, she had conveniently disappeared. He knew that if he tried to question her about this she would start to complain about her "bad back" and he would be forced to listen to her recite the four hour story of how she had sprained it. Although said story became more exaggerated with each telling, Sora did not want to hear her repeat it.
There had been quite a few bedrooms to choose from. Sora's grandmother had informed him that the house was built with the intension of making it into a bed and breakfast. The first floor consisted of the entrance hall, dining-room, kitchen, and a waiting room. The second floor had a music room, a ballroom, breakfast room, and two bedrooms that looked like they had once belonged to servants. Six bed rooms and a sitting room resided on the third floor, and on the fourth floor were another sitting room and a large master bedroom. The house was huge, and Sora wondered if a place as big as this could ever feel like home for only two people.
"Sora, how goes the cleaning?" Sora muffled a surprised scream and awoke from his ponderings. He peered out the door to see his grandmother standing at the bottom of the stairs.
"Slow and steady, but I'm getting a little hungry." His stomach growled to prove his point, and hearing this, his grandmother laughed. Sora loved her laugh. To him it sounded like the twinkles of little fairy bells that were ready to whisk him off to some place unknown, but truly magical. He wondered if his mother had laughed like that, but he quickly dismissed this thought and immersed himself in the task of cleaning the house.
A cool wind breathed on the back of Sora's exposed neck causing him to shiver. Sora stopped his dusting and walked over to the window to close it shut. Or he would have, because he realized that the window was already shut, and now that he thought about it the window had never even been opened in the first place. If this was the case, then what created the wind?
The brief flash of headlights lit through the room from outside the vary window Sora had been pondering over. He heard the car's engine turn off, and peering out the window he could make out the dark figure of his twin getting out of his car. The car door slammed shut and with a sinking heart Sora knew that Roxas was in a bad mood. The cool wind was all but forgotten as Sora sprinted out of his bedroom and down the stairs.
-xxx-
Roxas stuffed Sora's letter and the directions to the house in his pants pocket as he made his way to the front door. The gravel driveway had created an extremely bumpy ride, and he hoped that driving over it hadn't messed up his car. He jogged up to the worn steps and knocked on the door after realizing that the door bell was broken.
If Roxas had been smiling, then the smile would have died on his face, and so instead he just glared at the old woman who had opened the door.
"What are you doing here?" The bitch asked him. Roxas knew she was silently cursing herself for not finding all evidence to their whereabouts and destroying it.
"You're not dead yet? How unfortunate," Roxas answered and he felt his lips form into a bitter smile as he pushed past her.
He was too late, his grandmother had already answered the door and by the look on her face Sora knew she was already pissed at something Roxas had said. Her light blue eyes were filled with heated anger, and her shoulders were ridged with stress.
"Hey Sora," Roxas greeted his brother with a simple nod of the head. He had already made himself at home by sitting in one of the large red chairs that matched the interior of the whole entrance hall.
"Roxas," Sora acknowledged Roxas with a small, but sincere smile, and tried his best to ignore the tension he was feeling between his grandmother and his brother. He wanted to ask his brother where he had disappeared to for the last two months, but he didn't want to be the one to spark the fire that would result in a fight.
"It's strange how great aunt Opal died so suddenly," Roxas was looking at Sora, but speaking to their grandmother. "The timing of her death couldn't be any more ironic than it already is."
Before his grandmother had the chance to retort, Sora quickly cut in hoping to delay the permissible fight. "Yes, we were quite lucky. Being evicted from one house then being freely given another home in the same week, this doesn't happen to everybody." Hoping to change the subject Sora concealed his uneasiness in a mask of happiness as he asked, "Will you be staying with us."
Roxas provided Sora with a smile that illustrated his appreciation, "Are you asking me to?"
"You are not welcome here." Their grandmother's voice was filled with abundance on this particular issue and she fixed Roxas with a glare that was overflowing with dislike.
The sincere smile Roxas had given Sora was replaced with a bitter sneer. "According to the will, half of this house belongs to me, making me a partial owner and you a delusional hag."
"At least I'm not selling my body to everyone I see!" Grandma Mimi's voice rose to a shrill shriek and she pointed an accusing finger at Roxas.
"That's because no one would buy your wrinkling and saggy body!" Roxas' voice rose as well and he jumped out of the chair so he could tower over her.
"Roxas, are you hungry?!" Sora practically yelled this, but he knew he had to intervene somehow. The two opponents of the current battle ceased their fighting, and the tension that had been eating away at the room suddenly vanished.
"I ate before I came here," Roxas shrugged, and Sora gave him a genuine smile. He felt a sense of relief that he had been able to stop the fight before it had gotten ugly. Usually his grandmother and his twin ignored him when he tried to halt their battles, and the aftermath resulted with grandma slapping Roxas, and Roxas taking off in his car to God knows where. Sora hated when this happened. It made him so frustrated that the two people he loved the most hated each other.
"Ate what? Some stranger's dick" The twin's grandmother puffed out her chest with her taunt.
"Grandmother!" Sora cautioned. He couldn't believe that another fight was picking up so soon.
"Yeah I did, and you know what? It tasted better than anything you could cook up!" Roxas' harshly replied at the same time Sora did, only his voice was raised high in anger, and left Sora's own plea on deaf ears.
"Why can't you be more like your brother?!" The twin's grandmother clenched her hands as if she was preparing to deliver her blonde haired grandson a blow.
"A virgin? Is that what you mean? If I had sex with Sora right now, right in front of you would you treat him the same way you treat me?!" As if to prove his point, Roxas advanced towards Sora.
"Roxas please stop!" Sora pleaded while taking a few steps backwards to avoid his brother's inviting arms.
"Shut the fuck up Sora! Why do you always take that bitch's side?!" Roxas hadn't meant to snap at his brother like that, but as he watched a heartbroken Sora run out the back door, he felt his own heart breaking.
-xxx-
Sora had run away from the giant and empty house, from his uptight grandmother, and his brother who…who had more sorrow in his heart than anyone else Sora knew.
He had no idea how long he was going to run, but he did have a vague recollection to where he was running. The high walls of the old house's labyrinth towered over Sora as he ran through the garden maze. The hedges were over grown from neglect and Sora tripped over a particularly large branch. As he tumbled to the ground a muffled cry escaped him. The fall unfroze his numbed feelings and the tears that filled his eyes became too much for him to hold back and they streamed down his cheeks. Curling up in a fetal position, Sora's body racked with his sobs as his mind tried to find some answer that would heal his inner pain.
Sora felt like his feelings were invisible to his family. Why couldn't they see that they were hurting him with their cruel barbs at each other? His heart was suffering from being torn in two. He knew that his grandmother just wanted the best for him and his brother, but she was so blinded by her sense of right that she was isolating Roxas from her love.
Roxas slept around a lot, and while Sora didn't approve of this, he didn't know how to stop his brother from doing it. His twin hadn't always been so edgy, something had happened to him, and with a sinking feeling Sora realized that whatever had hurt Roxas, he didn't stop it, because he had no idea what 'it' was. Sora had broken the promise, his promise. This realization brought new tears to Sora's eyes, and the despairing boy cried himself to sleep somewhere deep within the labyrinth.
-xxx-
A beautiful melody awoke Sora from his slumber, and as his sense slowly became more aware he realized the music was being made with a stringed instrument. Curious as to who was making the memorizing notes, Sora picked himself up from the ground and followed the voice of the haunting song that came from deep within the maze.
The center of the labyrinth was breath taking. Statues of angels guarded the edge of a deep pond. In the middle of the body of water was a white gazebo sitting on a small island. The decoration made Sora think of a stacked wedding cake.
At first Sora thought that the figure sitting in the white gazebo was his grandmother, but as he drew closer he felt a small blush creep on to his face as he realized his mistake.
Instead of a familiar old lady, there was a stunningly gorgeous young man who couldn't have been much older than Sora himself. His snow white hair looked as soft as a dove's feathers and his long graceful fingers plucked at the strings of an instrument that Sora didn't know the name of.
Sora would have spent the rest of his life staring at the picturesque scene before him, but alas all magic comes to an end. Time took place once more as the attractive man became aware of Sora's presence and looked up to lock eyes with Sora's. The young man's aquamarine eyes held kind smiles even though his mouth was set in a confused line.
"Welcome back, Sora." It was Sora's turn to feel confused when he heard the stranger's words, "You've been gone a long time. We've missed you."
