Natdia: Chapter Three

By NostalgieMalaak

Warnings: disturbing content

Disclaimer: don't own

I'm not sure how long the two of us stood there looking at those sad little mounds of earth. Long enough to know there was something terribly wrong about the whole thing though.

The wind began to pick up and dust blowing off the pine trees was getting into my eyes. Looking up I noticed that the sky had turned an ominous black. When had a storm come in? We couldn't have been out long enough for it to creep up on us so unnoticed.

I whirled around to tell Trowa about the storm but he had obviously already seen it. His small feet were pounding against the ground in an effort to get back to the house before the storm hit. I took off after him worried that he was going to trip and fall over the uneven ground or go tumbling down the steep slopes that cropped up out of nowhere.

Soon enough my fears were realized and I saw him tumble and fall to his hands and knees. His back and shoulders were heaving with exertion but with his face away from me I couldn't tell how much pain he was in. Catching up to him I placed a hand on his shoulder and let my own labored breathing even out.

"Tro? Trowa? You ok?"

"Ya, just fell. I'm ok," he panted out.

"Let's take it slower ok? We shouldn't get too wet in the trees anyway." I hoped not anyway. The trees didn't seem to be cutting down the whipping wind that much. I doubted that the frail looking pine and aspen trees would protect us from a heavy rain.

"Can you get up? Do you need me to carry you?" I asked.

"No, I'm ok. 'Sides, you can't carry me. I'm too heavy." He grimaced a little as he stood up.

"I could carry you if I wanted. Look, your knees are all scraped up. Get on my back, I'll carry you."

"No, it's ok. I'm fine." Trowa insisted.

"Come on! You're hurt and I can carry you. I'm not a wimp you know!" With that I knelt down and motioned for him to hold unto my shoulders. He did so reluctantly. Getting back up with Trowa ridding piggy-back was another matter. Finally after several long agonizing minutes I got my feet underneath me and heaved myself up. Trowa was a lot heavier than I thought he would be. Not only that but our difference in height wasn't as great as I thought it was. Even with him gripping me with his knees his legs dangled almost to the ground.

We only made it a little ways before I realized there was no way I could carry Trowa all the way home. He was just too heavy and I was still unused to the change in altitude.

"Tro, get off. You're too heavy," I said, frustrated that he had been right after all.

"Told you so."

Stupid brothers. He could have at least thanked me for offering to carry him.

I couldn't be mad at him though. His legs must have been hurting because he kept bending over and pressing his hands against his knees. Through the tears in his pants I could see a little bit of blood. I just hoped we would get home soon. I didn't know what to do for him.

That hope for reaching home seemed more and more remote the longer we kept walking. We should have gotten back a little while ago. I didn't remember the trip out being so long.

"Trowa? You know where you're going?" I finally asked.

He didn't answer or even turn around to acknowledge me. Guess that meant he knew where he was going.

With no warning a bright flash of light followed almost instantaneously with a resounding crack filled the sky. I cried out a little in fear and saw Trowa drop to the ground ahead of me. Following his example I threw my hands over my head and lay belly-down in the dirt.

Then the downpour began.

The rain had started just as we were passing through an empty meadow. I got up quickly and darted towards the tree line on the far side of the open area, Trowa not a foot behind me. Within thirty steps the two of us were soaked. The hems of our pants were caked with mud from the rain and dirt being churned up under our passing feet. There was a slight intake of breath behind me before I felt Trowa grab desperately onto the back of my shirt and haul me to the ground as he fell. We ended in a tangle of mud and prickly weeds. Squirming around so I was no longer on top of my brother I saw that he had tripped over his shoelaces that had come loose.

A wild urge to giggle at the sight was stifled when I looked around us.

We were back in the meadow with the small mounds.

"Cathy! Get off, you're squishing me!"

I distractedly moved off of one of his legs that was still pinned under me. His head snapped up as he too took in our surroundings. He moaned low in his throat like a sick dog and his face crumpled up.

"How…? How did we get back here?" I shook his shoulder as I asked. We were both trembling and filthy and rain continued to beat down on us. It was stingingly cold, more like the temperature of snow than rain.

"Cathy, let's get out of here!" Trowa moved to stand up again. Just as he had gained his feet a chill went through my entire body and an invisible force shoved him roughly to the ground again. His body landed near mine with a small thud and an instant later a stroke of lightening hit a tall tree on the edge of the meadow. The force of the electricity even as far away as it was forced me back to the ground. I cried out as I felt my whole body tingling with more than the sudden cold spell.

I didn't know how I knew, but I felt it in my bones that had Trowa been standing up at the time, the lightening would have struck him instead of the tree.

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Sobbing and miserable, Trowa and I curled up beside a huge boulder resting a ways down the meadow from where we had been when the lightning struck. We were out of the wind but the rain was still coming straight down on top of us. I was too afraid to try and reach the trees. What if another lightening bolt struck the forest? How far did electricity travel? I really wished that I had paid attention in my Earth Science class.

At least from behind the boulder we couldn't see the dirt mounds. I don't know why but they gave me a chill just looking at them.

"Cathy?" Trowa asked, raising his voice above the storm.

I considered not answering him. If he was going to complain to me about how this was all m fault I didn't want to hear it.

"Cathy?" He tried again. The plaintiveness in his voice made me look up at him.

"What Tro?"

"Did you see him?" He asked simply.

"See who?"

"The little boy that pushed me to the ground."

"Wha…what little boy Trowa?" This was fast turning into something I didn't want to hear about. I had always known that Trowa was…well…unique, but if he started talking about seeing people who weren't there I wouldn't know what to do with him. Trowa wasn't crazy. He couldn't be. No way.

But….what if he was? What would Mom and Dad do? Would they send him away to some insane asylum? Trowa was only eleven; surely they only sent adults to places like that.

"You ok Cathy?" Trowa asked. I couldn't see most of his face. His wet bangs had plastered themselves over his face and were completely covering one eye.

"Ya."

"So you didn't see him?" Trowa asked a little impatiently.

"No, I don't know what you're talking about Tro!"

"The boy in the meadow! He pushed me down right before the lightning hit that tree. He had on some sort of white dress or something," Trowa's face scrunched up in confusion.

"There was a boy in a white dress out in the meadow?" I was having a hard time connecting everything Trowa was saying. It was like half his words were in a language I didn't understand.

"Ya, that's what I just said! He had blonde hair and blue eyes and was wearing this white robe thingy."

"And he pushed you down?"

"Ya. Right before the lightning."

"Trowa…I didn't see anyone there."

"He was right there! I'm telling you! He pushed me down and then he smiled at me!"

"I was looking right at you and there was no one there Trowa!" He must be crazy. There was no one there!

"Yes he was! Yes he was!" He was starting to get a little hysterical now, twisting his soaked shirt around and around his hands.

"Oh ya? Then where did he go?" That stopped him. Trowa's eyes got really big and for a horrible moment I thought he was going to break down and cry. His face was so white I could see the small veins in his cheeks and the black smudge under his one visible eye. The pained expression on his face made me want to weep apologies to him. I didn't though. Anger was so much easier to deal with then fear.

I was angry too. It was like he was saying these things just to scare me. Couldn't he see that I was soaked and dirty and scared as it was? I certainly didn't need this crazy talk added to it all.

"I saw him, I know I did," he whispered, bowing his head. I couldn't tell if the streaks on his cheeks were tears or rain.

We didn't talk for a long time. The storm eventually tapered off and we shakily climbed to our feet. I was so cold I couldn't feel my hands. I roughly shoved them into my pockets and started heading back towards where I thought the house was. There was no way I was going to let him lead this time.

After only about twenty minutes of walking I caught a glimpse of the roof of the mansion rising over the tree tops.

I breathed a sigh of relief and turned to smile at Trowa. It was like all of my anger and anxiety from before had evaporated when I saw the house.

Trowa smiled back a little. All was forgiven between the two of us. That's always the way it was with us. Both of us were too stubborn to ever out and out apologize to each other.

We made it half-way through the clearing in front of the house before my mom came running out, letting the front door smack harshly into its frame as the wind whipped it shut.

I could tell we were in trouble before I even got a good look at her face.

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I was back in the meadow with the graves. Overhead the sky was a strange green-gray color and everything was deathly still. Turning around in circles a few times I realized that I was alone. Where was Trowa? Hadn't he been here with me too?

Shaking my head in bewilderment I turned to walk home but I couldn't get any closer to the tree line. No matter how fast I ran towards the forest it always stayed the same distance away. I knew I was moving though because the placement of the grave mounds changed slightly the more I ran. It was like going around in circles even though I was running in a straight line.

Panic started to set in when I realized there was no way I could reach the edge of the creepy meadow.

Another thing that bothered me was the lack of sound. Since coming to our new home I had been constantly aware of the sound of wind through the trees and the call of birds and insects. I glanced at the sky above me. Maybe it was the calm before the storm? I had always heard of such a thing but never really experienced it before.

The storm never came. The sky stayed that same flat greenish-gray color that had been since I found myself in the meadow.

Finding the boulder Trowa and I had hid next to I jogged over to it. It was a lot bigger than I had first thought it to be. After several minutes of walking around it I found the least steep side and set myself to climbing up it.

Several scraped knees and hands later I managed to half claw, half pull myself to the top.

Now what?

From the vantage point on top of the huge rock I could see the layout of the graves better. They were lined in five rows, six graves to each row. I couldn't tell the difference between them at this distance, they all looked completely uniform.

Puzzled and letting my curiosity overweigh my fear I slid down from my perch and approached the first row of small mounds.

They looked so sad close up. If they were graves (which there was little doubt in my mind that they were) then there was no way to tell who was buried in them. No headstones, no markers of any kind what-so-ever.

Squatting down next to one I picked up some of the earth from the heap and let it sift through my fingers. It was very fine, more like dust than dirt.

Just like the first night at the house and again in the meadow with Trowa during the rainstorm I felt a chill creep over my entire body. The hairs on the back of my neck lifted and I knew without doubt that I was being watched again.

Standing up I brushed my hand against my pant leg and as calmly as I could turned around.

There behind me stood the very boy Trowa had described to me.

He was very young, no more than five or six. His hair was white-blonde and made his dark blue eyes seem infinitely deep. He was clothed in a strange white dress. It looked like an over-sized long sleeved shirt that reached his ankles except that it seemed to fit him perfectly. It reminded me of the costumes the guys had to wear in our Christmas show when they played the shepherds or the wise men. It was very strange to see it on a little blonde boy.

Bringing myself out of scrutinizing him I noticed that he was staring at me intently. Like he wanted to say something but couldn't.

"Hello?" I said very quietly. He didn't look very afraid of me but I was afraid that any loud noise would startle him.

The corners of his mouth turned up in a little smile. He raised a pale hand a pointed to somewhere behind me, towards the middle of the plot of graves.

Turning around to look my heart stopped in my chest. Behind me a hellish looking bonfire burned in the sudden night. In the light of the red flames I could see a tall man holding a wickedly curved knife in one hand and the outstretched hand of the same blonde boy in the other.

In one swift move the man had slashed a deep gash into the boy's arm. The blonde didn't seem affected in the least. In the firelight his eyes looked clouded over, like he had been drugged.

The blood from the little boy spilled into a small bowl on the ground. An eternity later the man picked up the boy who went limp in his arms like a rag doll and carried him to the other side of the blazing fire. I crept around to the other side, not believing in my head that this could be real but knowing in my heart that it was real, that it had actually happened.

On the other side of the fire was a small rectangular box that the man was reverently laying the boy into. He gently arranged the boy's arms over his chest, staining his bright white robe crimson with blood.

When he picked up the lid to the small box I realized in horror what he was going to do next. Unable to move my body I watched as the tall man fixed the lid onto the box and then gently lowered it into a hole in the ground beside him. Shudder after shudder raced through my body as each shovel full of dirt landed on top of the coffin, securing the tiny boy inside, burying him alive.

Finally able to move my weakened limbs I did the only thing I could do. I screamed.

Tbc

Comments and questions greatly appreciated.

-Nostalgie