PROLOGUE
For countless years my beloved family has been under a curse, for lack of a better word. A vile sorcerer, who called himself Aki, enchanted twelve single men. A spirit that belonged to one of the zodiac possessed each one. Most of them moved away from Japan and died without having any children. When they died the possessed spirits moved on to the next unlucky family member born within their reign.
Unfortunately for me, I was born during the reign of one of the wandering spirits. Shortly after my birth my father left us; he was sick of having cursed children. I say children because I was not the only one born possessed. Both of my older sisters, Sayomi and Asuka, are also possessed. This is a rare incident. I pity my mother though. She raised all three of us as normally as she could, but once dad left she became over protective, or so I've heard.
When I was only three my mother decided to move from Japan to America, where she home schooled all three of us. We were happy but bored. One day Sayomi and I persuaded our mother to enroll us in a self-defense class. It was there I had my first true taste of our family curse.
You see there was a boy in my class who constantly picked on me, as all adolescent boys do when they like a girl. I got fed up with his constant teasing and confronted him. That ended up backfiring; instead of the teasing stopping it got worse. The entire class, excluding Sayomi, started persisting that I liked him. I got so overly emotional I ran to the teacher. To calm me sown he tried to give me a hug. That turned out to be a BIG mistake. The moment he had his arm around me I ended up transforming. Instantly I turned into a scorpion, which makes sense since the spirit of Scorpio possesses me. Yep, that's me, Sakura the Scorpio. Needless to say, the class and teacher had their memories suppressed and my mom finally explained the curse to me.
Whenever a member of the opposite gender hugs me, I end up transforming. The same applies to every member of the zodiac curse. My sister Sayomi has it easy, being Virgo the virgin. She becomes a virgin boy who is unable to have any intimate relationships. When we were growing up she dressed and looked like a guy, so no big deal. Asuka, on the other hand, is Aries; when she transforms she turns into a ram. I sometimes get jealous of Sayomi. I mean, she can hug guys and nobody notices the change. I do it and everybody freaks out.
When L was about thirteen, Sayomi came up to me and dragged me to a psychic named Cassandra. She gave us some interesting predictions. The thing that bothered my was that each prediction- was related to our family curse. The first one was about how another family would be the end to our curse. Not only that, but she also said we would be able to hug one member of the opposite gender from said family.
Next Cassandra informed us that the person we could hug would help end our curse. How that works, I don't know, but she is the psychic, not me. Then she warned us that we couldn't end anybody else's curst, only our own.
Her last two predictions have stuck with me the most. I constantly catch myself repeating her last prophesies like sacred chants. The first one is 'your struggles will strengthen you and help you defy all odds to overcome your curse.' I always remind myself of that when I have trouble at home. The other prediction is more like a promise. A promise that ensures me freedom 'The curse's end is nearing and you shall know that it is close, when someone near to you grows distant and someone distant grows near.' Until that comes true I know I shall never be a normal teenage girl.
Cassandra said the end is nearing but it could be years from now. Then again, now that mom moved us back to Japan anything could happen. Thirteen years after leaving my home country my mother randomly packs everything up and relocates us. That's weird, even for her.
It just goes to prove that something is going to happen and it is going to happen soon. When it does it will hit us head on, at full speed. What it is remains a mystery. A mystery waiting to be solved. You know what? I think that my family may just be the ones to solve this mystery.