"It's really sad how one day I seem to have everything going right, then the next day I lose everything so fast."
Warnings: Blood and death.
The wind was howling, the sky a dark grey and full of rain clouds. A branch was tapping against the window of the classroom as a beautiful, silver-haired girl with heterochromatic eyes —one blue-green and the other a dark gray— stared outside, bored out of her mind during the history lesson, the last period for the day, while chewing on watermelon flavored gum.
As Aella gazed at the trees moving with the strong wind, she couldn't help the sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach; the feeling that something bad was going to happen. She had it ever since she left her house that morning (maybe even when she woke up, but she hadn't been awake enough to acknowledge it), and no matter how hard she tried, she just couldn't shake it off.
Glancing at the clock, she noted that ten minutes were left. Puffing her cheeks in indignation, the girl turned her attention back outside to the brewing storm, the ominous feeling intensifying.
She sighed, doodling on her notebook, waiting for the boring class to end. Aella may have been a straight A's student, but that didn't mean she liked school or studying. Quite the contrary, actually; she was the rebellious one in her family.
"Miss Cassidy, What kept the Mongol leader, Kublai Khan, from being successful in invading Japan and when was it attempted?" Mr. Davis' gruff voice snapped her out of her trance.
Aella looked at him, not bothering to hide her boredom, and answered, "In 1274 and 1281. Due to samurai strength, strong feudal systems, environmental factors, and just sheer bad luck, the Mongols were unable to conquer Japan and their invasions were unsuccessful."
"Excellent, as always." He sent her a fake smile, trying to mask the irritation in his voice. Whenever he saw that Aella wasn't paying attention, he would ask her a question, be it related to the chapter they were studying or not, and she'd always answer it. Those were his futile attempts at getting her into trouble for spacing out, but they never really worked.
She returned his smile with a sarcastic one, "I know,"
Before he could reprimand her, the bell rang and she immediately shoved her belongings into her bag before joining the horde of students exiting the room, happily leaving the teacher behind. She headed down the hallway and down the stairs into the changing rooms to get into more comfortable clothes for her after-school training session.
As soon as she opened the door to the changing rooms, balloons of different colors greeted her with a bunch of people shouting, "Happy fifteenth birthday, Aella!"
She took a step back in surprise, a huge smile slowly growing on her face as her friends jumped on her for a hug. They all fell to the ground in a dogpile when she sidestepped, a hearty laugh escaping her lips.
A brown haired, green eyed girl, Blaire, looked up at her and pouted, "Meanie, we just wanted to give you a hug for your birthday... and for winning the first place in that competition last week."
Aella smiled fondly at them as they all got back to their feet, "Thank you guys, really. I appreciate it,"
"Well, what are we waiting for, let's eat!" A blond, sixteen-year-old boy cheered, smiling cheekily.
Blaire hit him upside the head lightly, shaking her head. "We still have two hours of training, Day. We'll eat afterwards."
Damon huffed, puffing his cheeks. Cole, a seventeen-year-old boy with black hair, brown eyes and a sharp jawline patted his shoulder, "Blaire's right. Everyone, go change and then head to the training room, the coach is waiting."
"'Ight, come on, let's get this over with so we can celebrate with Aella!" Lydia said. She was Blaire's identical twin sister, both of them being thirteen.
The girls headed into the changing room with Aella trailing behind them, feeling excited about the concept of fighting.
Training was done and everyone got their asses handed to them by Aella...again. They ate and celebrated together, along with their coach. Cole offered Aella a ride home, which she gratefully accepted. The ride was a relatively quiet one, with the boy driving and the girl quietly reading the new book she just received as a gift.
The car stopped in front of a two-story house. The silverette got out of the vehicle, smiling at the older boy. "Thanks for the ride, I'll see you on Monday."
"See ya!" He gave her a playful, two finger salute before driving away. Now that she was alone, the sinking feeling returned, making her shift uneasily. She frowned, shaking her head and moving towards the front door.
The first thing she noticed as she approached the porch was the uncharacteristic silence emitting from the house in front of her. Usually, her older sister, Raven, would be loudly listening to music while working on some painting of hers while their mother cooked. Now, there was no music, and there was no clinking and clanking of kitchen utensils.
Aella took out her key and put it in the keyhole, but, as it turned out, the door was already unlocked. The door was always locked, so just what the hell was up? Her scowl deepened as she pushed the door open.
Nothing could have ever prepared her for what she saw once she stepped foot inside the house.
The place was trashed, as if someone was looking for something. Broken picture frames littered the floor, some wooden floor tiles looked like they had been forcefully removed from their places, and pillows and cushions were everywhere.
But that wasn't what caught her attention. No.
What caught her attention was the body of a handsome man in his forties with chestnut brown hair laying on the floor in a pool of his own blood, a knife lodged in his torso, with his grey eyes wide open and face twisted in a pained expression
Aella's bag and book dropped to the floor as her hands shot to cover her mouth, letting out a muffled scream. Her eyes welled up with tears as she neared her father, lower lip quivering dangerously beneath her hand.
She fell to her knees next to him, shaking his shoulder as if that would make him get up and say 'It's just a joke! Happy birthday!'.
He didn't. His body was cold and limp to the touch as the tears started silently flowing down the teen's face. She tried to scream, but her voice was stuck in her throat. She put two fingers to his neck, trying to find a pulse, but she knew she wouldn't find any. Even a child could figure that out.
She swallowed the lump in her throat and shakily call out, "Mom? Raven?"
She was answered with absolute silence. With trembling legs, she stood up, cautiously walking to the kitchen. Its state was no better than that of the living room's, but no one was there. She walked up the stairs, ignoring the shattered frames, and followed a small trail of blood without thinking, almost instinctively.
It led to a bedroom. Her older sister's bedroom. Aella's hand found the handle of the door and slowly pushed it open only to be met with the corpse of a woman with silver hair and blue-green eyes, who had three bullet holes in her chest, sprawled on the floor.
Her hand froze on the handle, her breath stopping in her throat. Aella stood rooted to her place for a solid three minutes, her heart beating erratically and her body shaking violently. Her knees finally buckled and she fell to the floor, a heart-wrenching scream tearing through her throat. "Mom! No. No, no, no, no, no, no..."
She shook her head in denial, muttering under her breath. The door to the shared bathroom was open, but she didn't dare go check it out. She already had an idea of what she would find there, especially having glimpsed a puddle of blood near there when she entered the room.
A sob racked her body, another one following.
Aella cried until she could cry no more. No more tears were coming out. It took her over an hour to pull herself together enough to call the police before breaking down again at the sight of her sister, the person she was closest to, on the floor, a hole in her head, her brown hair fanned out around her head and a bloodied shard from the broken mirror in her hand.
Aella had also noticed three words from under her mother's bloody hands, written in a foreign language that the teen understood well. The message her mother left behind wasn't an identity or a request, it was a duty. Something that the Cassidy family had been doing for centuries.
In bloody figures, this sentence was written: 'Protect the crystal'.
Author's Note:
Hi, Supernovas!
New story up! What do you think? Please leave your opinion on the story so far. Was this chapter emotional enough?
I've had this idea for quite a while now, and decided that it's finally time I started writing it. I'm going to try my best to make this book good and improve my writing, that's why I need feedback.
I read over the chapter multiple times to locate and fix mistakes, but there are bound to be more. While I'm not half bad at English, it's still my second language (I can't say I'm any good at my first language, though. Arabic is freaking hard.)
Thank you for reading!