The ball was big. And yellow. With an eye. And another eye. And a smile. And it hit me in the face. Then it was gone.
When I looked up from my place in the grass, I saw my twin sister, Kassandra, running away with the ball; our older brother, Jacob, chasing her, with our dog, (a husky mixed with a black lab) Nova, scratching at their knees.
I laughed, then pulled myself to my feet. My jeans were covered with rips and grass stains, and my black hoodie was covered with dry leaves and pine needles. I pulled a leaf out of my straight, dirty blonde hair, then darted after Kassandra.
Kassandra and I aren't normal. We just aren't.
Our story begins on December 24th, 2004, when Kassandra and I were born. Our mom was poor, suffering from cancer, and quite young, so sadly, several hours after we were born, she passed away. Our Aunt, a wealthy doctor, was there to take care of her in our house, since she couldn't risk going to the hospital with her illness. She had six young kids, so she couldn't take care of us, so she had to put us in a nearly empty orphanage for girls, where we grew up to finally understand the world at seven. At the orphanage, the housekeeper, Ezra, homeschooled us, and called us the miracle children, since there had been a great chance we wouldn't have made it.
Anyways, at the age of eight, Kassandra and I were reading in our room. There were about five bedrooms in the orphanage, and four bunk beds in each room. There were six other girls in the orphanage, but since they were self-obsessed butt heads, they didn't want us to share a room with them. So we took one of the larger empty rooms, happy to be separated from those snot-heads. Anyways, like I was saying, Kassandra and I were reading in our bedroom in the afternoon, when I heard Kassandra say, "EW!" Suddenly, a picture of a brain flashed into my head.
"What's ew?" I asked without looking up from my book.
"I didn't say anything."
"Okay…."
I kept reading. Then I heard, "OH MY GOSH!" I saw the brain again.
"What?!" I cried, flinging my book onto the floor beside me.
"I didn't say anything!" Kassandra's head leaned over the side of the bed, looking at me with an irritated expression.
I got up and looked at her. "I heard you say oh my gosh!" I said. "Then I saw…." I thought about the image harder. "...A brain."
"Well, I didn't say anything, I just…." Kassandra's face filled with worry. "I - I - I just thought it."
I looked around, hoping it was the girls pranking us.
"Wait, you saw a brain!" Kassandra exclaimed, grabbing her book. She held up a page, and there it was…. The exact same brain I saw in my head.
That's disgusting… I thought to myself, then shook my head.
"I know!" She said, putting down her book.
"Wait, what did I say?" I asked, my heartbeat thumping in my chest.
"You said it's disgusting…." Kassandra's voice trailed off. "You didn't say it, did you? You just thought it."
"Hold on a second, what number am I thinking of?" I thought, placing a number in my head. 51, 769.
"Fifty-one thousand, seven hundred sixty nine!" Kassandra shouted. "What food am I thinking of?" She paused. I swore I could hear her say "Cherry pie!"
"Cherry pie?" I guessed, grasping the metal ladder for support.
"Yes…."
I took a deep breath. For a while we both just sat there, talking silently.
"I think we're linked, Nicole…" Her voice echoing in my head.
"I think we are…." I replied, my voice echoing uncontrollably. We both curled up in our beds, staying there as long as we could.
A couple years after realizing our telepathic connection,we were adopted by a 27 year old man named Jason, who lived at a camping resort all year round. We didn't dare tell him about our connection, because we decided to keep it in our heads, where only we could see.
Later on, Jason decided we needed to find a house in the city so we could go to school. So we packed up, took the trailer to storage, and bought a nice house with two floors and a nearby school. I took a room in the basement, mainly because Kassandra and I were forced to share everything, even our thoughts, so this would be a time where the connect was lost. I put a three foot long and three foot wide box made with police tape in front of the door, because that's where the connection started. The walls helped the disconnection, and I finally had my own life.
We loved hanging out with Jason. We made up a game called smile ball, because for Christmas he got us a ball with a smiley face on it. All you really have to do is steal the ball and keep it in your possession as long as you can. Your allowed tackling, jumping, but no punching or kicking, cause that gets rough. We loved to play it at night. Sometimes Nova would play with us, jumping on people and crashing into the ball.
Nova is absolutely sweet. She has the build and shape of a husky, but the color of a lab. One of her eyes is a golden yellow, and the other is icy blue. We love her so much, and she seems more human than dog. She shows more emotion than most dogs, and one we're feeling sad, she'll curl up on our laps or sit on our foot, leaning on us. It's so awesome having a friend like that.
And that's pretty much our story up until now, where we're playing smile ball in our backyard.
I threw myself on top of Kassandra, unable to control my laughter as Nova crawled over Kassandra's stomach, nosing it out of her arms and over her head. She leaped over Kassandra's head onto the green grass, chasing the ball and nudging it between the trees.
We collapsed onto the grass, weak with laughter, Jason on Kassandra's other side. The sky was clear, bright with stars. The moon was full, almost an icy blue.
I turned to see Nova rolling the ball around the corner. She looked up excitedly, then crawled across my stomach, curling up between me and Kassandra. I looked up at the moon, gently stroking Nova's silky fur. I closed my eyes, feeling Nova's stomach rise and fall as her lungs settled into the rhythm of sleep.
When I opened my eyes, I saw big red balloons shaped like hearts drifting into the sky. I blinked, and they remained. I closed my eyes for a short amount of time, and when I opened them, there were thousands.