Howdy Fellows. Is this chapter a bit late? I'm not quiet sure if i made my 12 day schedule or not. Also i failed to mention this last time around, but if you review i will message you in response in an attempt to connect with my audience. And if you leave an unsigned one, i will address it in the section before the next chapter.
Without further waiting, Here is chapter four of Shadow's of the L'cie
"You're weak Lucas."
The man shrouded by darkness said as he approached me, ready to kill. My katana laid far out of reach, my energy was gone.
The large sword of my enemy swung down on me.
I woke up. It was a horrible nightmare I've been having for the past two weeks.
Ever since we beat Nautilus, I've been having this strange dream. The fight itself varies from dream to dream, but it always ends with my weapon gone and his sword coming down on me. The man who attacks me remains a mystery, but he feels familiar.
I could be grasping at straws, but I think its a premonition. A vision of the future if you will. It feels too real to be my subconscious messing with me.
Things since the game have been going well, other than the dream of course. We had played four other games and won them all handily, despite me not being able to hit the broad side of a behemoth with the basketball. I was in a shooting slump, but it didn't matter. We were still winning.
Zane and I decided to start sparring every now and then for fun. To blow off some steam when we need to. We haven't fought since that day when the Sanctum recruiter was at the school.
Today was Saturday, I was still exhausted from the game last night and the after party. I groaned and got out of my bed, it was always better to be up before Serah came by to do it. Looking over to my nightstand, I saw the small digital clock that read 11:27.
"Damn, I slept in late." I said to myself as I walked out into the hallway. The house was eerily quiet.
"Serah is probably off with Snow, Claire is at work. Wheres my sister?" I asked myself as I crept over to her room. When I got to her door I saw a note that read "Out with my friend, be back soon!" I nodded and headed down the stairs.
Home alone and I had nothing to do. I grabbed my cell phone and dialed the number of a certain blonde haired friend.
"WHO IS CALLING THIS DAMN EARLY!" I pulled the phone back from my ear in pain and surprise.
"Dude, its almost noon." I said, my ears still ringing.
"Yeah, too damn early. So what's up Lucas?" Zane asked. I bit my bottom lip. Why was I calling?
"Do you want to hang out today? I'm just sitting at home alone." I heard his shout at his mom to ask if he could.
"Yeah sounds good man. Meet me at the courts?" He asked while still talking to his mom.
"Sounds good, I'll grab my board and head on over." I hung up before he could respond again and headed back upstairs to the bathroom. I took a speed shower and put on some jeans and a plain red t-shirt.
I grabbed my worn skateboard and headed towards the basketball courts. I saw Zane in black trip pants and a black t-shirt.
"So whats the plan Lucas?" He called out as I skated towards him. I stopped the board and got off once I reached him.
"Wanna hit downtown?" I asked as I noticed his own skateboard. Zane nodded and hopped on his.
"How do you skate in trips dude?" I asked as we started off toward downtown Bodhum.
"Practice." One word was all he needed to say I guess. I decided to stop asking questions for now. We skated and the scenery changed from the palm trees and laid back beach front to a scene of shopping centers and cars driving down the main road.
I turned toward the mall and the two of us skated inside and right past the rent-a-cops. The perks of being a high school athlete? Getting off without punishment for minor things. As long as we were winning that is.
The security guard didn't give a second look and just let us go. I hopped off of my board and waited for Zane to do the same. The showoff did a kickflip before getting off himself.
"So, now where to?" He asked as some little kid ran over to us.
"You guys are on the basketball team!" I nodded and crouched down to be at his eye level.
"You guys are awesome!" The kid was enthusiastic. He sprinted off towards his parents and Zane turned and started walking.
"Wait up bro." I jogged a few steps and jumped on top of his back.
"Get off of me bro-mo." He said, drawing out the 'mo' part. Hopping down, I stuck my tongue out at him.
"Sure thing, bromo-chacho." I said while heading towards the video game store.
"Dude! Last Legacy 13 was announced!" I turned back to Zane, an excited look on my face.
"You like Last Legacy too bromochacho-mingo?" He asked as he looked at the display poster.
"Your sisters pull off pink hair better than her." Zane said to me as he walked by to another part of the mall. I looked back at the poster and saw a girl with pink hair. She looked somewhat similar to Claire but not quite the same.
Shrugging it off, I ran after Zane.
"Dude, what are we doing here?" I called out to him. He shrugged and we decided to skate back to the basketball courts.
We played a quick game of HORSE till the sun started to set. Suddenly, I dropped the basketball and got on my skateboard. I headed off towards the beach. Looking back, Zane was hot on my tail. Ditching my board before I hit the sand, I ran towards the pier.
My stomach dropped at the sight in front of me. Snow holding Serah in his chest on the edge of the pier. I heard Zane's footsteps approach me, and I wished I hadn't come to the beach.
"You have feelings for her don't you?" He asked as he walked up next to me. I bit my bottom lip in response.
"She's like your sister dude." I clenched my fist at his words. Zane didn't know how deep his words were cutting me.
"Sometimes you should let go. She looks happy, you should be too." I lost myself and slugged Zane on the side of his face.
"SHUT UP! YOU DONT KNOW ANYTHING!" Zane shot up off of the sand and swung at my head. His fist connected and sent me sprawling on the ground.
"Chill the fuck out." He wiped his cheek to check for blood. Before he could do anything, I got back up and kneed him in the gut. He staggered backwards and started coughing.
"Dammit Lucas." He ran towards me and spun into a kick aimed for my midsection. His foot hitting me felt like getting hit by a cement truck. People were starting to notice us fighting. They were headed this way.
Snow and Serah remained oblivious to the two of us. Seeing them so happy on the pier fueled my anger.
"GO TO HELL ZANE!" I screamed as I tackled Zane onto the sand.
"LUCAS TIMOTHY KEEP! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?" I turned my head and saw Serah freaking out near the two us. It looked like she was holding back tears.
"YOU'RE JUST AS BAD AS HIM!" I ran. I ran home. I ran home and locked myself in my room.
I didn't answer the door for anyone. All three girls tried and I ignored all of them. Snow and Zane tried, their voices fell on deaf ears. I spent the weekend in my room, only coming out when no one was around or when everyone was asleep.
Late Sunday night I snuck out to get a bite to eat. I was downstairs going through the fridge, when I heard a throat being cleared. I turned around and saw Claire.
"Are you going to tell me what happened?" I didn't say anything and just kept looking for something to eat.
"Its Snow isn't it?" I refused to answer. Not even caring anymore, I grabbed a random container of leftovers and walked over to the microwave.
"You're shutting me out Lucas." I turned to face her and locked eyes with her.
"Its no different than what you do to us. So I don't see how you have room to talk." I saw the hurt look that appeared on her face for just a second. My attention returned to my food as I put it in the microwave.
"You and I are not going to school tomorrow. We are going to sit here until you tell me whats wrong." The microwaved beeped and I took my food out.
"Then we're going to be here a while." She sat down at the table across from me and watched me eat.
"You eventually told me what happened between you and Serah, you'll talk." I ignored her comment and started eating. We sat in silence until I finished my food. She remained seating as I put my plate in the dishwasher and she didn't stop me from going upstairs.
I couldn't sleep, I spent all night staring at me ceiling.
So many thoughts were going through my head, they all revolved around Serah.
"This would be so much easier if I didn't feel the way I did." I said it aloud. There was no one to hear it, but the words had to be vocalized.
Sleep did not come to me that night.
Claire was true to her words. She took Serah and Christina to school and came back home to attempt to get me to talk to her. I continued with the silent act, hoping she would just give up. She didn't. Claire was a persistent character.
I hadn't bothered changing out of my clothes from the night before, leaving Claire somewhat overdressed for our occasion. If she cared, she didn't let on. I couldn't take the tension downstairs anymore, so I went back to my room and sat down on my bed, wishing I could sleep.
A few minutes later, she knocked on my door. Against my better judgment, I opened it to face her. I stared at her for a few moments before realizing what she was wearing.
"Nice pajamas Claire." I smirked as I took in the sight of her in those pink pajamas covered in lightning bolts. If that bothered her, I didn't have time to find out as she threw me on my bed.
"You want to tell me why you and Zane were fighting?" I didn't want to tell her, mostly because I didn't know why I did it.
"I lost myself to my anger." It was a bad answer but I didn't want to think about it too much. Claire pinched the bridge of her nose and sat down next to me.
"Lucas, I know how you feel. She means everything to you, and it kills you that she doesn't feel the same. That gorilla doesn't exactly help either." She was rambling.
"We should get out of town this weekend." I interrupted her, and I didn't let her answer right away. I knew she would say something about her having to work.
"Take time off of work, I have a bit of money saved up. We can go to Palumpolum." I had some gil saved up from my old job. I never had a job during basketball season, it would interfere with practicing and games. If it did that, I would lose on a possible scholarship opportunity. I needed to save my gil for Christina.
I gave Claire a bit of a puppy dog luck and she caved.
"Fine, the four of us will go this weekend. I'll take Friday night off too. So I can see you play." She hugged me and I didn't hug her back. I couldn't move my arms. Part of it was excitement, another was of sadness.
I didn't know if I'd be able to play Friday. I didn't know how I would hold up mentally. Besides my own issues, we were playing East Eden High School this week, which means I would be guarding the number one player on cocoon.
Benjamin Anderson. He was always in the paper for his ridiculous stats. Scoring an average of 55 points a game, he put James Brawn to shame.
I pulled Claire down onto the bed and the two of us laid there. I'm not sure who fell asleep first, but we were awakened by a giggling Christina.
"You two look cute like that." I was groggy as all hell, so I wasn't sure what she meant by that. I rolled over and saw Claire's face covered by a deep red blush. Not caring at this particular point in time, I closed my eyes and tried to back to sleep.
"Lucas, your hand is grabbing my butt." I jumped out of my bed and landed ass first on the floor. Heat rose to my cheeks and Claire's face looked much like my own at the time. Christina laughed and was going through her phone.
"Lucas! She got pictures!" I jumped up and chased my sister through the house until I bumped into Snow.
"Move." I elbowed him as I passed and he grabbed my shoulder.
"Chill out dude. I need to ask you a question." I shoved him off me and got in his face.
"Fuck off." We glared at each other waiting for one of us to make a move.
"Cut it out Lucas!" I looked up and saw Claire staring at me from the top of the stairs.
"Whatever." I pushed Snow out of the way and walked outside. My thoughts clouded my head, I was on autopilot. Before I knew what I was doing I was at the basketball courts. The only sound was that of my footsteps as I jogged over towards an unused basketball.
I started shooting, the sight of the ball draining the net calmed me down. I don't know how long I was alone, but it felt like a lifetime.
"Lucas." I turned and saw Zane standing awkwardly.
"Zane." I passed him the ball and he ran over and dunked it.
"Sorry about Saturday." He didn't answer me. He just passed the ball and I ran towards the hoop. I launched myself in the air as high as I could in an attempt to dunk it. The ball collided with the rim and I was sent falling down to the blacktop. I saw a hand reach for me.
I grabbed it and let Zane help me up. We may not be on the best terms after that fight but Zane was willing to give me another chance. The rest of the night was spent with Zane and I shooting around. It was nothing but killing time.
"I need to get back home, Lightning and everyone are probably freaking out right now." Zane nodded at me and I took the short walk to my home. Christina was asleep when I got back. Serah was in the shower, and Claire was sitting on the couch running her fingers through her hair muttering to herself.
"I wish Lucas would open up to someone." Her words were quiet but I heard them. I walked right by her and up into my room, pretending I hadn't heard what she said.
"Goodnight Claire." I'm sure she said goodnight, but I didn't stick around to hear it. I needed sleep, it was going to be a rough week. The game with Eden was the only thing left to tackle before spending time with my family. Right now, for reasons unknown, the task seemed more daunting than it should have.
"Lucas can I talk to you?" I was just about to go to bed, when Serah got my attention.
"If its about the fight, then no." She looked down and turned around, not wanting to face me.
"Goodnight Serah." That came out with more venom than I would have wanted, but at the moment I didn't care. My feelings for Serah can basically be described as a love-hate relationship.
"I wish I could say that I didn't care." I said as I let myself fall into a dreamless sleep.
The first sleep without that horrid nightmare in nearly two and half weeks.
So how was it? I'm really setting things up for a long chapter next time around. With the rest of the week, the game, and the trip.
Like always i'll ask for reviews and say Peace out y'all
thanks go out to Rakivia for reviewing.