p id="docs-internal-guid-5e9d86c8-a6a5-8d28-5e9f-670fe87c7aaf" dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 27.5165px; font-family: Arial; background-color: transparent; vertical-align: baseline;"Death Twin Chronicles/span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 27.5165px; font-family: Arial; background-color: transparent; vertical-align: baseline;"Chapter 3:/span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 27.5165px; font-family: Arial; background-color: transparent; vertical-align: baseline;"The twins silently ran through the woods hidden beneath the cover of night. Hand in hand they ran from their broken home vowing to never return. The twins felt a weight being lifted from their shoulders the farther away they ventured from their home. /span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 27.5165px; font-family: Arial; background-color: transparent; vertical-align: baseline;"Not once did the twins look back as they ran through the forest and did not stop running until their lungs burned and their ached. Ayao and Aker leaned heavily against the trunk of a tree in an attempt to regain their breath. Ayao raised her head to stare upwards at the stars willing her body to stop heaving. Ayao's snow white hair caught the thin beams of moonlight and gleamed in the night, a stark to the rich chocolate of her skin. /span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 27.5165px; font-family: Arial; background-color: transparent; vertical-align: baseline;"Her black eyes roved the expanse of the inky blackness wondering what it would be like to exist simply as a star in the sky. Ayao looked to her twin Aker who was similarly entranced by the sky. His skin was the same rich chocolate and his eyes were just as black but his hair was black like his eyes./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 27.5165px; font-family: Arial; background-color: transparent; vertical-align: baseline;"Ayao put a hand on the solid trunk of the tree, using it to push off into a standing position. Ayao was unaware of the decay spreading through the tree from her touch. She was also unaware of the decay spreading through the grass beneath her, greying the grass making it as stiff and brittle as the grass of Asphodel. /span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 27.5165px; font-family: Arial; background-color: transparent; vertical-align: baseline;"Aker however was not quite as unaware as his sister, he frowned at the dead grass and watched as the decay slowly spread. He stood upright and turned to inspect the tree he had been leaning against only to find it entirely dead./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 27.5165px; font-family: Arial; background-color: transparent; vertical-align: baseline;""Ayao…," Aker spoke haltingly. "This tree was alive when we first rested against it correct?" /span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 27.5165px; font-family: Arial; background-color: transparent; vertical-align: baseline;"Ayao rolled her eyes, the tree was alive when she lent against it./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 27.5165px; font-family: Arial; background-color: transparent; vertical-align: baseline;""Obviously, we would have noticed it before we used it," she spoke without turning around to look at her brother./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 27.5165px; font-family: Arial; background-color: transparent; vertical-align: baseline;"Aker didn't speak further instead choosing to stare dumbfounded at the now dead tree, how did the tree die between the time he and sister saw the tree through now. Countless questions swirled through his mind but one question was louder than the rest, was he responsible for the tree's death?/span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 27.5165px; font-family: Arial; background-color: transparent; vertical-align: baseline;"Ayao was annoyed by her brother's silence and turned to discover the source of Aker's silence. She looked at the tree and was stunned to discover that the tree was indeed dead, the trunk and branches had greyed and became almost skeletal in appearance. Ayao watched as all of the leaves fell from the skeletal branches to the earth./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 27.5165px; font-family: Arial; background-color: transparent; vertical-align: baseline;"Shocked, she looked down at her feet to find greyed, brittle grass under her feet. Was she responsible for the tree and the grass?/span/p