Dread
AN: Hey there guys! Yes, I know I promised to update stories and post some soon but I had to deal with projects and exams and loads of homework before I could sit down, sort out my thoughts and write a good story. So this is not something big but it's just to make up for lost time. As soon as I have more time, I will write more. And hopefully I can post the first chapter of my KilluaxOc fic. So enjoy the story guys!
Chapter 1
Lullaby
It was a cold December night. The sky was painted a pitch black and there were neither stars nor moon to be seen. The winds that blew through the bare trees howled up the porch and against the front door of a well-known orphanage. The only orphanage in the city.
The home of many orphans – children whose parents have passed away, children who were found in the streets begging and suffering and most of all, children who were unwanted.
These were children who needed a roof above their head and food to fill their empty stomachs. Children who looked through clear glass windows of a deli shop and captured by the scent of the delicacies inside but instead had to bear with what little they had. Children who stood by cozy houses that smoked from its chimney at Christmas Eve and ached from the sound of the merry laughter coming from a joyful family. They were children that desperately needed love and constant care and so much more than what an orphanage had to offer. Despite the efforts of the orphanage to provide for the needs of these poor children, they could not provide the kind of love and emotion a family could offer. That is why, at this time of year when the town is lighted up with colourful lights and ornaments that hang from the Christmas trees families decorate and await the joyous family gatherings, many various gifts and the overwhelming happiness the season brings, these children are crouching up under their blankets and silently suffering from the melodious tones of joy and laughter that constantly rings in their ears. A melodious tone that brings anything but peace and happiness to their hearts. Because despite the laughter and ecstasy they hear outside their bedroom windows, they cannot forsake the sound of the breaking of their fragile hearts.
On that particular night, a week from Christmas, a little girl lay awake in the dark. She tossed and turned in bed and clutched on to her teru teru bozu in the stillness and coldness of the night. A little girl whose ocean blue eyes searched endlessly into the depths of the darkness. A little girl whose tears fell silently, sinking into her pillow. She was one of them too was she not? An orphan. Like every other child in the orphanage. Alone with no family and forced to face a life of hopelessness. Because all kids here were the same. They didn't have any precious people close enough to them that could compare to that of a family. Instead all they had were countless questions. Questions like 'who are we' or 'why are we even alive'. They look at the people who are happy and live happy lives. They look at kids walking hand in hand with their parents, proudly presenting a smile on their faces. They wonder why they were even born and why they have to live with a punishment for something they didn't commit despite being innocent children. No one deserved this did they? Not children, not anyone, not even this little girl.
But this was the life given to them. Fate chose them. And here they are – living a life they clearly don't deserve. And this one girl. This tiny and fragile child's story which cannot be easily explained. A story that replayed like a broken record in mind and heart. An innocent child that was unwanted and abandoned by her parents. A child that was left by the world to fend for herself. A girl that never fit in a circle friends. All because of what she brought along.
The rain.
The only thing that accompanied her throughout her entire life. Through the little moments of happiness and the big amounts of sadness the rain was her only friend. No one dared venture near her because of the curse she brought with her. She was the ruin of everybody's ideal perfect, windless and warm sunny day. She was a laughing stock and a great burden to all those who came even within twenty feet of her.
Juvia Lockser – a girl named after the rain, constantly with the rain and bringer of the rain.
And once again, all these thoughts and vivacious memories rushed through her head and tugged at the center of her heart, leaving a large gaping hole that no one could notice. But the feeling of emptiness was there. She was nothing but a burden – a curse that everyone, even her own parents, shunned away. Tonight was no different. The nostalgia of the memory came to her like a great fatigue. It made her sick to the stomach and she couldn't sleep. Instead, she just let the tears fall. She let them fall with no restraint and no regret. It was all she could do. This was all the strength she had left and tears were all she could muster. Just like the sound of the bittersweet lullaby the rain brought into her life.
700 miles away in the north, another soul was grieving and cursing. Grieving for the people he had lost in his life as well. His parents and his master. The people he loved the most. The people who sacrificed their lived for him. Now he was cursing himself for being the sole reason they were all gone. But all his efforts of trying to blame it on himself were void. They weren't coming back and life was just as cruel as that.
And now here he was, walking alone in the dark of the night, trying to sort out his thoughts and find a place that would at least accommodate a soul like his. No, better yet, accept him. People who would willingly accept his brokenness and pain. People who would be able to deal with a person like him – cold, hard-hearted and tantrum-throwing.
And as he tread the path of dreary darkness and sorrow he realized that there were other people like him. There were people like him who have lost precious friends, family members and whomever they held close to their hearts – even if they realized that too late. People like the little girl with blue eyes, blue hair, and a blue personality back at the orphanage.
But even if he didn't know these people personally, he wondered to a great extent if the life ahead of him would ever lead to a fateful encounter with people like him. He wondered if he was really meant to meet people like himself – clearly suffering, obviously hurt and yet pretend like it doesn't really affect them.
Like that girl back in the orphanage.
And as he walked towards the unknown...
As she stared out her window...
The snow started falling.
And he looked up, never knowing that 700 miles south, an orphan girl's own blue eyes stared at the falling bits of snowflakes and frozen raindrops.
And she gazed out her window; she pressed herself against the glass and begged to see more of it, not knowing that a boy's tears started welling up his blackish orbs.
Not knowing that her own tears that had come so often before were again streaming down the pale skin of her reddened cheeks. But these weren't tears of utter pain and suffering. They were somehow tears of hope. A reassuring ray of hope saying that her life would lighten up. Somehow, someday.
And they were tears of hope because she knew that for once, when gazing out her window, she wouldn't always find the rain. The rain that was her lone friend. But now, she's made another one. One that may not come so often but one that will come to remind her that when faced with the impossible, she wouldn't always be lonely. She's made a new friend. She's finally smiled.
Because it wouldn't always be the rain.
It would be the snow.