It's not long before the rain had me soaked to the skin but I'm not bothered by it. The rain is cool and it takes a bit of stress and fear off me. The whacky weather is lightening up, like as if it were some crazy, momentary storm to get me all winded up. I'm still shaky from the nervous attack and my legs feel weak as if they're about to give way or something. Seys and Hong are looking at me curiously, and their eyes are clouded with worry. I'm not ready to tell them though. If I let this secret out, I'll feel like a marionette on strings. Because I don't think I can fit right into the crowd if anyone knew about it; I don't want their wide-eyed sympathy and stony silence of empathic mourning. I need none of that.
The rain is dwindling and the stormy clouds are subsiding; yet the rain shows no sign of relenting completely just yet. I'm not so concerned about the umbrella now, I know I need to catch a bus. I don't stop to wait any longer because why bother? I'm drenched in salty rainwater, there's absolutely no point in waiting for the rain to cease altogether. I trudge on to the bus stop with Hong and Seys in tow; we're all wet and our clothes are plastered to our skin. It's uncomfortably clammy under the stuffy, heavy uniform but I don't take much notice.
On the bus, people stare at us as if we were carrying some kind of fatal, transmittable disease. We leave wet tracks down the aisle and when Hong flings himself onto a seat, his soaked clothes squelch embarrassingly. In the end, the three of us took to standing. The air-conditioned ventilation system of the bus is making me shiver as it gently blows frosty air at us. My teeth are chattering by the time Seys gets off, and I still have a long way to go.
When it's Hong's turn to leave, he's looking at me with kindled apprehension in his eyes. He looks a tad confused and he asks, "You okay?"
My throat has been tight with worry for the last 45 minutes since the pet store incident, and a lump is stuck in my throat. It's the kind of feeling you get when you know you're about to cry; yet you're still fighting back the urge and tears. I can't say anything so I just nod and try for a smile. The smile doesn't go all the way though, and soon I falter. He takes my arm and squeezes it, and awkwardly, rainwater runs down his fingers in rivulets as if Hong was doing a bad attempt at wringing my uniform. He smirks anyway.
"I'll see you tomorrow then," he says as he leaps off at his stop and he makes his way home.
As the bus disappears around the corner, I whip out my cell phone from my bag only to find that my bag has been completely soaked through and my notebooks, textbooks and all papery things alike were sodden and soggy. I grit my teeth as papers stick onto my hand involuntarily. When I fumble around in my bag some more and had successfully fished out my cell phone, I am in utter horror to see my hand slick with black ink; and I know one of my pens had a leak.
Even worse is my busted cell phone. It seems as if water has breached its metal encased system. Looks like I'll need a new one now.
ooOoo
Fear is pulsing through my vein haphazardly and I feel the need to hurl. I'm just a few miles away from home and I don't know what to expect. The rain has stopped and the grass blades are twinkling softly with drops of rain that still cling to the leafy blades. The air is fresh and a gentle breeze is blowing. Under normal circumstances, I would have enjoyed the atmosphere. But 'now' is not normal, 'now' is far from normal, in fact, 'now' can even pass off as scary. My teeth are clattering and I swear that if they don't stop anytime soon, my teeth will chip off until I'm left with nothing but short white stubs for teeth.
As I round the corner, my heart picks up speed again. It's past 7pm now. When my house comes into vision, it looks dead, dark and dissuading, as if threatening me to keep away. I know Sve and Den aren't home yet because the family car is nowhere in sight. But the lights in the houses are all off and I can't hear a single sound except for the engines of cars out by the main road. The house silhouette is waning and petrifying; yet I force myself onwards. I'm anticipating dead bodies and blood-splattered furniture as I slot my key into the keyhole.
The door's internal mechanical clasp clicks as I unlock it. I'm almost suffocating with the fear and I'm steeling myself for the worst. And then I push open the door and try the switch. The lights don't come on.
ooOoo
I practically jump out of my skin when Fin greets me by the door, holding a candle cradled in a porcelain cup.
"What are you doing?!" I splutter, my heart is thumping hard in my ribcage and I mentally kick myself. Because it's obvious that the house and my brothers are okay. So much for the sixth sense huh? But something is still nagging at me. I push it out of my mind.
"There was a power cut, see?" Fin says. He's giving me a jittery laugh and the little flame is throwing a timid circle of light around us.
"Have you tried restarting the generator or something?" I ask as I dump my bag and sodden garbage on the sofa in the living room.
Fin frowns. "No, you know the basement's keyed up. Only Den has the key remember? Nor's called for him already but he can only leave work at 9.30 so we've gotta wait for it. What happened to you anyway?"
I know I look a mess, and I'm feeling sorry about it too. I think it's time I throw out my 'sixth' sense, because it's terribly misleading.
"Uhm, I got caught in the rain." Fin's wrinkling his nose, I'm sure it's because he knows that much. "I wanted to catch the bus so I ran for it in the rain." I fib. But it's not exactly a lie. It was something like that. Not quite it, but close.
Finland nods and then he says, " The power's out but the gas stoves still work. Should we just start preparing dinner?"
"Oh okay." Though I think it's the craziest thing to do when there's a black out, I go along with it anyhow. "Let me just lay out my notes and textbooks to dry first. D'you think Nor would let me use his hair dryer to blow dry my stuff?"
ooOoo
When Den and Sve get home, the first thing they do is unlock the little latch on the floor and climb down to the basement. They don't want me in there, they don't want Fin or Nor down there either. I'm starting to wonder if it's stocked with junk they don't want us to see, like beer bottles or something. But these are my two, stock-annoying brothers and I don't think they'd go that far.
I'm not sure why they refuse to let us in. Upon entering our house and walking right down the hallway, you would reach a small common room. There's a rickety drawer tucked away at the corner and a little hat stand. To the right is the staircase to the second floor, to the left is the doorway to the dining room and further down is the kitchen. If you walk straight, there's a doorway that leads to the living room. But right before the doorway, a little near the staircase, is this small wooden latch door.
Den says the latch is to cover this hole in the floor, which is actually a staircase leading downwards, at the end of the stairs is a narrow linoleum walkway that leads to a door to the basement. There used to be rails that jut all the way out but Dad had it welded off. When Dad and Mum left, Den installed a little latch to cover up the hole and he locked it up with a padlock. He and Sve had spent many days of summer trying to install the little hooks and nodes for the padlock to fit through, but that was ages ago. If you think about it, it has been seven years already.
The generator is up and running by 10.30pm. And the rooms suddenly flood with bright, garish lights. It's late, so we give it a pass for dinner. When everyone's tucked into bed, I'm still in the living room, my books and notebooks all scattered across the floor with the ceiling fan twirling in slow momentum. I'm using Nor's hair dryer to speed up the process of drying but I still don't think I'll be able to get to bed before 12 tonight. At least, not with so much to dry.
ooOoo
It's already the fourth day of school, Thursday, and Seys is still pestering me on and off about what happened at the pet store. I can't really explain it, I'm not sure I want to make myself look like a fool because I don't think anyone my age is still suffering recurring nightmares from the old days. They'll tell me I'm traumatic, and I most certainly am not.
When I finally snap at her to knock it off, she does. I think she understands limit, but I feel kind of sour from all her provoking. I know she's concerned but sometimes pushing doesn't help. I'm grouchy for most part of the day. When it's lunch break, I set off to my locker for the books I need for period changeovers later.
I run into Fin on the way and it seems as if his moment of jitter isn't over since the blackout, because he is startled when I call out to him. He looks a bit hassled and his face is slightly pinkish, as if someone just blew his patience.
"Ice? What are you doing here?" He's looking at me with wide, violet eyes that gleam shiny with apprehension. I'm thinking if Fin's knocked his head on something and is currently suffering some sort of concussion.
"I study here?" I say slowly, making sure that Fin hears me loud and clear.
"I know that!" he snaps. I don't get why I'm not supposed to be here, so I just give him the most stoic and blanked out look I can muster, because I seriously have no idea why my presence here is supposedly out of the norm.
He looks at me as he holds in his breath. When I just return the clueless stare, Fin sighs.
"Is something wrong?" I prompt. But Fin just puts on this weird, cheeky smile. It's like his emotions just underwent some weird process where they go in negative and come out positive. If you know what I mean.
"Nothing, nothing!" Fin grins.
Now, I'm quite sure he's suffered a concussion. I make a mental note to tell Sve when I get home, I'm not sure how Sve will react, but I think Fin needs all the help he can get.
ooOoo
When I go home, I remember to replace my calendar. It's the 8th of January already and I've just gotten my hands on a new calendar. I've stopped by some small, almost-bankrupt bazaar shop on my way home and got my hands on this neat calendar studded with little cute drawings of arctic animals. Inside, there are beautiful photographs of the arctic animals; one photograph to one month.
I have a habit of marking down the days on the calendar and after hanging up the awesome new one I've got and throwing out the old crappy one I have, I start crossing out the days that have passed. Then I move on to indicating birthdays on the calendar. That's when I realize that Den's birthday is painfully close and I haven't given it any thought at all. There's still a good thirteen days left to ponder for a present. It seems like a long way. So I put that at the back of mind for a while as I continue to mark down the other important dates to note.
A/N:
Here's the next update for the story! I like writing things from Iceland's POV (: And and, I'll put up a character personality profile after I've hit the bench mark later. It'll give you a bit more insight on the characters and the story (: Well things are starting to swing into phase 1, so stay on! XD
PS: no one told me I used "gastronomically" wrongly! I'll change it when I find an appropriate world. Yes, you can laugh about it when you've looked up the meaning :B And there were adjustments made to the ages in chapter 1 so that the story will flow better (:
As promised, to the people who have given me reviews to respond to:
Springirth Dale: Hello! ^^ You remind me of another person on FF who reads another fanfiction I do (: You're both so encouraging ^^ Oooh, I'm curious to what I've inspired you with xD Thank you for reading (: I hope this chapter doesn't disappoint you!
OMG CATS: HEY, OMG I LOVE CATS XD And yes, I'd love to have Denmark as a brother (: Even if he's annoying and says dumb things ^^