Restricted

~. ~ Chapter One ~. ~

With one hand nocking the arrow securely on her bow, Aliyah positioned herself behind the shooting line and kept her eyes fixed at the target, waiting for the signal to be given before she released her last shot. In one swift motion, her arrow became in contact with the target, strong and secured with no means of falling off the target board. She grinned to herself upon seeing where her arrow had landed; Bullseyes indeed.

"Not bad. I'm impressed Aliyah. You have improved so much." Aliyah turned to face the girl who came to walk beside her after leaving the practice arena.

"I've been practicing, Susan. In order to be on par with your skills." Aliyah sat down on the bench, drenched and gulping down a bottle of water that was being offered to her by her friend. Susan Pevensie was the only one in her archery class in Saint Finbar's who is willing to talk to her although she is one year older than Aliyah. Many people found her character to be eccentric and introverted. No one cared to start a conversation with her because they knew she will just answer with a word of two and that marks the end of the conversation. Susan found it difficult at first to start and hold a conversation with her too however, it does not seem to be as difficult as it should have been thanks to one person in particular.

"Are you catching the last train with us today? Peter and Edmund are waiting for us at the train station." A younger voice came from the side. Aliyah immediately knew who the voice belongs to; Lucy Pevensie, the youngest of all Pevensie siblings who is two years younger than her and the first ever person that showed her there is still humanity in this dark world she lived in. She would occasionally drop by the archery arena to visit Susan and Aliyah whenever she has free time on her timetable.

"I am." replied Aliyah, smiling as she joined the two sisters as they made their way to the train station, "I wouldn't want to stay overnight in this old and daunting school."

Besides Susan and Lucy, Aliyah knew that they have two more brothers; Peter and Edmund whom she sees everyday as she travels with them back and forth from home to school vice versa. To her, Peter have been the brother whom she always wanted; protective and polite. From time to time, she envied both Susan and Lucy for having a pillar of support and strength in their family despite that their country is in the midst of a war.

That is a just yet another reminder to her that, she is alone.

On the other hand, Edmund, who is of the same age and happens to be in the same class as her, has always been so quiet and mysterious. Both of them did not even hold a proper conversation before despite being classmates with one another for nearly a year. Aliyah just concluded that he is soft spoken like her or he is just not interested in her like the rest of her schoolmates.

…

There was a beautiful house, a house that everyone dreamed of to live in for the rest of their lives. The living room was the first room when entering the house. The room was filled with very lively furniture. Comfortable leather couches, colorful rugs over the bare wood floor, and a large display case with pictures, books, and many memories of friends and family. Further down the living room came the dining room into sight. It was as if a perfect residence for anyone who dreamt of it. However, there goes a saying of 'Never Judge the Book by its cover'. The house maybe everyone's dream to be lived in but people would never know what was like 'staying' in that extravagant house of the Spenvesons, except for Aliyah.

"Aliyah Hurdwood!" yelled a voice of a woman from the dining table, "What a timing. Finally, you are back."

It was a Monday night and the Spenvesons were having their dinner together as usual and that was the worse timing that Aliyah hated to be back because she knew there will be tons of work waiting for her to do. Naturally, as if it is her own habit, she dropped her bag in her small attic room and went back to the dining table and nope, having her dinner is definitely not in her to do list.

She went on to stack all the used plates together, clearing up the table while the Spenvesons family moved themselves to the living room, none of them offered to help. Halfway through cleaning, one of the plates that Aliyah was holding slipped from her grip and fell onto the floor, producing a loud sound and the next thing she knew - there was a stingy pain felt on her cheek.

Aliyah wasted no time and looked up at the person who slapped her, "I'm sorry, Mrs. Spenveson." She spoke with no emotions as if she has immune to all the abuse given to her.

"Do you know how much that plate cost?" Mrs. Spenveson demanded.

Aliyah remained quiet.

"I am talking to you. You this parentless child."

"I know." Aliyah replied and she felt another tight slap against her other side of the cheek. Aliyah prepared for the worse to come but it was stopped by Mr. Spenveson who entered the dining room with a superficial smile on his face.

"Sweetheart," he turned to Aliyah whose face immediately scrunched up in disgust of the 360 degrees change of attitude towards her. She knew the meaning behind his friendly tone. Obviously the Spenvesons would not want anyone to know how they truly treat Aliyah in reality, wouldn't they? "There's someone at the door, looking for you."

Aliyah curiously turned and saw a familiar silhouette standing at the doorway. His face surprised at what he had witnessed a few seconds ago but tried to cover it up by maintaining a straight face towards the Spenvesons and Aliyah. "Hello, I came to return something." Edmund cleared his voice as he managed to catch everyone's' attention in the room.

With a sigh, Aliyah dragged her feet out the dining room and towards the doorway. She felt everyone's eyes on her as she approached Edmund. He held out a towel to her.

"Erm, Susan asked me to return this to you. She mentioned that you lend it to her during your archery lesson and said you might need it back." He too, felt uneasy to be in such awkward environment.

"Th-Thank you." Aliyah took over the towel and looked up to him. Brown orbs to brown orbs and they held their gaze for each other before Aliyah turned away. Great. She knew he had witnessed everything.

"You're welcome." said Edmund and he left the doorway and Aliyah went back to the house of doom where she had been staying for the past ten years of her life.

…

It was yet another normal day for Aliyah to head to school with the Pevensie siblings. As usual, she will be the first to wake up and leave the house, something that she thought of since she first started schooling; to refrain from bumping into any members of the Spenveson family. She would normally take the first and the last train to minimize the time spend in that household, especially to avoid that one particular person who causes her trauma that she never ever will forget.

"Aliyah!" Susan called out from behind as she approached her at the newspaper stand.

"Good morning Su. Where's Lucy?" Aliyah replied with a smile as she tried to ignore the tingling pain lingering on her cheeks. She silently hoped that Edmund did not share about what he had seen the previous night to his siblings as she is not prepared to answer any of the questions thrown to her by Susan or Lucy.

"She's queueing up for the toasts. She offered to buy for everyone. I'm not sure why she's into toasts these days. Maybe she missed Nar-" Susan quickly stopped herself and found Aliyah looked at her weirdly. "Maybe she's hungry." She corrected herself and was relieved that Aliyah took no notice of her slip as she continued reading the newspaper.

"You go to Saint Finbar's?" Aliyah heard a male voice and she looked up, realizing that a boy around their age had come to joined them at the newspaper stand.

"That's right." Susan replied, giving him a slight smile.

"I go to Hendon House. Across the road." he continued, feeling rather happy that he managed to capture Susan's attention. However, Aliyah thinks the otherwise as she looked at Susan who gave him an ingenuine smile. She looked down and muffled a laugh to herself after seeing Susan was tugging her skirt discreetly as if asking her for help to get out of this situation.

"I've seen you." said the guy, "Sitting by yourself."

Susan took the chance to shoo him off indirectly but politely. "Yes. Well, I prefer to be left alone."

"Me too!" said the guy, smiling happily and Aliyah cannot help but to roll her eyes at him. "What's your name?"

"Phyllis, maybe we should get going?" Aliyah quickly butts in between the conversation. Her eyes signaling Susan to take her bag which she gladly returned.

"Susan!" a familiar voice called out from behind and Aliyah felt her heart dropped. Oh no, Lucy not now.

Both girls looked rather startled after they were caught in an awkward situation like that. They turned and saw Lucy running towards them, one hand full of toasts and another holding her hat as she rushed towards them with an anxious look in her face. "You two better come quickly!" she told them.

The girls took at one last glance at the guy standing behind her, apparently who was still in shock, and ran off quickly with the younger one. The three girls ran across the road hurriedly and went into the train station. It was packed as usual, with students. They heard a loud commotion in front but it was too crowded to even see what was going on. Cheering and jeering can be heard from their ears and they already have sensed something bad just by listening to it. After being managed to squeeze through the group of students in front of them, three of them were shock to see what had just happened in front of their eyes. A few teenage boys were attacking one particular person, beating him, or trying to beat him up brutally and Aliyah immediately recognized who the person is; Peter. She glanced at Susan nervously as she shot her brother a disapproving look before he suffered another blow on his face from another student who happened to pin him on the wall firmly.

"Are we going to help him?" Aliyah asked realizing that things are getting out of hand when the rest of the boys continued to punch Peter in his abdomen.

However, at the next moment, before they knew what would happened, another dark-haired boy appeared from the crowd and went throwing himself to the group of boys.

"Edmund!" shouted Lucy.

The fight of kicking and punching went on and on as the crowd encouraged them more and more, louder and louder by each blow. Edmund was taking two boys on his own as he managed to wrestle them on the ground and Aliyah never thought that the same quiet boy she knew was capable of defending both his brother and himself. They were unstoppable until they heard a sound of whistle from behind, blowing hard at them, trying to disperse them while leaving the few behind as they continued to fight. The police managed to prevent the situation from getting worse.

"Act your age!" one of the police with a baton shouted at Peter when he was about to confront another guy.

With that, everyone went on their own ways and Aliyah followed the Pevensie siblings silently, walking behind them. They managed to find a bench for the five of them to sit on.

"You're welcome." said Edmund as he sat down at the side of the bench beside Peter.

"I had it sorted." Peter replied with annoyance.

"What was it this time?" asked Susan as Peter stood up from his seat and faced the four of them.

"He bumped me." answered Peter.

"So, you hit him?" Lucy asked in shock as Aliyah shook her head in disapproval.

"No Lucy." Peter explained, "After he bumped me, they tried to make me apologize. That's when I hit him."

"Really," said Susan, "Is it that hard just to walk away?" She was the most logical and mature person among the four siblings in this kind of situation although she is the second eldest after Peter.

"I shouldn't have to!" Peter argued back, "I mean, don't you ever feel tired being treated like a kid?"

"We are kids." Edmund reminded him, frankly.

"Well, I wasn't always." Peter told them as he sat down again, looking disheartened, "It's been a year. How long does He expect us to wait?"

"I think it's time to accept the fact that we live here." replied Susan, trying to knock some sense to her brother, "It's no use pretending any different."

Both Edmund and Lucy exchanged glances at each other. They knew how their older brother felt and honestly, it would be a lie that they did not experience the same mutual feeling their brother had from time to time but they were too engrossed in their conversation to even realize Aliyah was there with them. She sat down beside Susan, on the opposite end of the bench, observing the four siblings with confusion written on her face. Nothing made sense to her.

Susan turned her head after finishing her last sentence and saw someone she dreaded to see at that moment; the boy at the newspaper stand. She quickly turned back and faced her siblings and Aliyah. "Oh no, pretend you're talking to me." she told them.

"We are talking to you." replied Edmund, "Who else will we be talking to? The wall?"

Susan rolled her eyes at him, although knowing that he meant no offence.

"Ow!" Lucy shouted as she jumped out from her seat.

"Quiet Lu." Susan reminded her sister, gently as she looked around to make sure they are not gaining any attention again after the fight between her brothers and other students.

"Something pinched me!" said Lucy, pointing to the bench.

"Su, stop it!" Aliyah stood up from her seat too, holding her thigh as she looked at Susan accusingly as if it was her friend who decided to start playing tricks at her.

"Hey, stop pulling!" this time round, it was Peter who stood up.

"I'm not touching you!" said Edmund, defending himself.

"Look, would all of you just…what is that?" asked Susan, looking at something in front of her.

By that moment, all the Pevensies including Aliyah stood up side by side as they stared at the incoming train passing by in front of them in an extremely fast speed. Strong winds were blowing against their body and the lights above them were shaking vigorously as if it is going to fall off any moment. Something was simply not right.

"It feels like magic!" exclaimed Lucy, excitedly.

"Are you sure it's magic?" Aliyah questioned her, loudly, "More like we're under attack! Do you think they might want to bomb the train station?!"

"Quick," Susan urged the rest of them as she grabbed Aliyah's hand tightly, "Everybody hold hands."

"What?! Are you out of your mind, Su? That's the solution you can think of?" Aliyah looked at her in disbelief and she could hear Edmund's voice over the bench shouting at Peter.

"I'm not holding your hand!"

"Just do it!" Peter's words were cut off as the wind grew stronger as if they were going to be blown away from their feet.

Papers began to fly everywhere while the Pevensies and Aliyah looked around. To Aliyah's surprise, no one in the train station seemed to be affected by the wind, except them. It was beyond weird. She looked up at the ceiling and found out that the lights were going to collapse and tiles were going to drop down on them any moment.

That's it, she thought, this is how I end my life, holding hands with my best friend, Susan Pevensie.

But how wrong she is.

Peter, Susan, Edmund, Lucy and Aliyah looked to the front where the train was still passing by at its full speed until they saw something unbelievable; ocean. They stood rooted to the ground, trying to digest the whole situation as hope once again came back to the Pevensie siblings. They knew they were not in the railway station anymore, but a cave and the train were the last thing that disappeared from their sight when they were brought to this serene world in front of them.

The Kings and Queens of old are back.

Restricted