"Gramma!"
"Hello, you two!" An old yet jovial voice responded to the joyful cries of two children.
"Now, now, settle down kids!" chuckled a man with a tall and thin frame as he set his coat down. "You don't want to accidentally knock your Grandmother over, do you?"
"I'm not that fragile you know," replied the old woman with a hint of petulance. "Only 20 years ago, I was running 10 km every single day!"
"We know, we know," A golden-haired woman stood by the shoe rack taking her high-heels off, amusement dancing in her fiery-gold eyes at the scene playing out in front of her. "You don't have to keep reminding me, Mom. I saw you go out almost every morning for a run!"
"Well I can't have my grandkids thinking I'm some frail old woman who can't take care of herself, can I?" she countered. "I'm telling you, there's still a lotta energy left in this old lass."
"Tell us a story, Gramma!" a 7-year-old Lucy cut in, jumping excitedly.
"Yeah!" Agreed the equally young Ethan.
"Alright, alright both of you, settle down," a smile was plastered on the grandmother of the twins as she saw their vigour. "One story, coming right up!"
"Once, there was a flock of peaceful ostriches living in the savannah. They lived off the land and took only what they needed, supporting each other in their time of need. But one day a cast of hawks arrived from a distant land. "We are superior," They claimed. "For we can take to the skies and soar to incredible heights, while you are confined to the ground!" They demanded that they be shown complete obedience.
The ostriches, having never been able to fly and wanting to live peacefully, obeyed. Over time, the hawks began to get greedy and asserted more control over the ostrich flock, breaking up groups of ostriches they believed were not obedient enough and taking what belonged to the flock for themselves. The ostriches were then left without what they needed, but what could they do? They could not reach the nests the hawks had made for themselves, nor did they want to provoke their wrath.
But one day, an eagle flew into the savannah, looking for a new place to call home. The hawks did not like that an outsider of one of their kind had come to threaten their authority. So they attacked the eagle and cast it down to the ground. It was injured, but alive nonetheless, and it spoke with the ostriches. It learned of their plight and inspired them to confront those who restricted their freedom. When the hawks, drunk on their authority, caught wind of the eagle, they tried to stop the flock from rebelling, but they did not know that ostriches would fight to the bitter end for what was theirs when threatened. Together, the eagle and the ostriches drove the hawks away and regained their freedom once more."
Applause sounded throughout the household at the end of her animated telling.
"Tell us another one!" Lucy was jumping up and down with excitement now, despite her parents' attempts to calm her down.
"Wait," Ethan cut in. "What does 'assert' mean?"
"When you use confidence to make others believe they should listen to you," answered the grandmother. "You should really do that more often you know. You're always too quiet and obedient sometimes!"
"Assert myself…" Ethan's 7-year-old mind thought about it for a moment. "Why would I need to do that?"
Their grandmother sighed. "When there are people who tell you to do something that isn't right, you can't just obey them. You need to take a stand, Ethan, and fight for what you think is right."
"You have a minor oblique fracture in your arm." the doctor approached Ethan after his x-ray. "You'll need to wear a cast for a few weeks, but it shouldn't take more than two months to heal."
Three breaths of relief came from behind him at that.
"It's a darned miracle, really," Lucy remarked, still somewhat incredulous as to the diagnosis. "I mean, considering what it was that hit you, or, what you hit, you should have been way more injured than that."
"Well, the level of injury when getting hit by a car depends on how fast the car is moving," Crystal shot Lucy a warning glance from the corner of the room. "Luckily the driver was paying attention."
"Thank god," A black-haired man dressed in a rumpled suit and tie sighed once again. "But I don't understand. How was it you got hit?"
"I, uh, crossed the street when the light was red. Wasn't paying attention." Ethan recited the story he had rehearsed beforehand. "I guess the driver wasn't doing that either at first. But the guy spotted me early enough that I only got a minor bone fracture."
"Honestly…" a golden-haired woman sat in a chair beside them. "I keep telling you kids to stop staring at your phones all the time. Now look at what happened!"
"Uh, sorry Mom." Ethan apologised, feeling guilty not for his fabricated slip-up but for the fact that he was lying to his parents about something as big as this. "I'll be more careful next time."
Expecting another scolding, the injured blond was caught slightly off-guard when he felt a pair of arms wrap around him, taking care not to touch his fractured arm.
"I'm just glad you're okay."
"Me-me too, Mom."
"Hey," the voice of the twins' Dad came from behind them. "Don't forget me!"
"Oof-Careful Dad."
"Group hug!" Lucy exclaimed as she joined in.
As Crystal watched them tackle each other, her lips turned upwards at this show of affection. Family, she thought. Something to fight for, to protect, and most importantly, to cherish. And yet, among the liquid mixture of emotions she had felt during the course of this situation, a thin layer of invasive sadness diffused through all of them. When was the last time she had felt the protective embrace of family? When was the last time she had felt unconditionally loved by someone, truly cared for?
She shook her head, dispersing the rain of negative emotions that were partly her namesake. Someone named Wan Ganyu, 'sweet rain', shouldn't be this depressed. She had told the two twins not to tell anybody, but considering who their parents used to be, they needed to know too…
"Excuse me, Mr and Mrs Moss," she called out after they had returned to the waiting area. "There's something I need to discuss with you…"
Crystal spoke in hushed tones, all three participants in the conversation occasionally glancing at either twin. While the twins sat oblivious to what they were talking about, they could see very clearly the shock in their parents' widened eyes and suddenly tense postures.
"Heading home…found…"
"…have to…can't be serious…"
"What…do? …not…safe…them"
"…must go…safety"
"No…will not…danger"
"Jeez, what are they mumbling about over there…" Lucy wondered.
"Probably…just about the accident," her injured brother drowsily replied. "Nothing special…probably."
"Why would they be so secretive then?"
"Dunno. I'm tired, don't wanna think about it…"
Lucy stared for a moment before rising from her seat. "I'm going closer," she began, but the three were already coming back.
"It's already quite late, and you two still have school tomorrow," Crystal approached the twins. "It's best that you head back home and catch some rest."
"Good idea." Ethan concurred, his body now a hundred kilograms of lead that threatened to topple over at any moment and fracture his arm even further. "I'm-" His sentence was interrupted by a large yawn as he struggled to keep his eyelids open.
"Woah!" Lucy caught Ethan's left side before he tumbled to the ground, reacting with the speed of someone who had done this many times before. "Jesus, are you that tired?"
"Mom. Dad."
"Yes, honey?"
"What were you talking about with Ms Wan?"
Ethan was sound asleep, snoring the night away. Good. Had he been awake, he would have objected to this.
"She was just…discussing some details of the accident with us. That's all." It was only for a fraction of a second, but Lucy sensed hesitation in her mother's voice. "There's nothing more to worry about, really. Just get some rest, alright sweetie?"
"It didn't sound like that. I heard what you were talking about. Well, only a small fraction of it anyway. But enough to know that we're in danger somehow?"
Her father sighed. "Listen, honey. Now's not the best time to talk about this. Your mother's right. You don't need to worry about anything for now."
"I think we definitely need to worry about this," the blonde responded. "If you're saying another accident could happen again, we need to know."
"We don't think anything will happen anytime soon. There's no need to trouble yourself with all this." Her mother deflected.
"But if this concerns our safety, doncha think we should know?" Lucy argued. "How am I supposed to keep myself safe out there if I don't know what it is I'm supposed to be looking out for?"
"Please, honey. Just get some sleep. We'll talk about this later."
"I can't wait 'till later! That monster hurt my brother, your son! How-" Her golden eyes widened as she realised what she had just said. But she noticed that her parents hadn't asked what she meant by 'monster'. Which meant–
"You know what really happened, don't you? That's what Ms Wan was talking to you about."
"We-yes, we do." Her father finally admitted, placing his elbow on the table and his head on his hand. "She told us what happened to you, and we were discussing what to do after that."
"But why'd she tell you after she told us not to tell anyone?... Forget it, what's all this about us being in danger? Are there gonna be more of those things? You can't just leave me in the dark when it comes to my own-"
"That's enough, Lucy!" Her mother snapped, raising her voice. "This isn't something you want to know!"
An awkward silence overtook the room. Lucy stood there, unable to conjure up the right words to say after her mother's outburst. Her father too said nothing and lowered his head as if he was disappointed that it had come to this.
"Mom…" A hint of guilt and perhaps bewilderment coloured her voice.
Lucy's mother took a deep breath. "I-I'm sorry, honey" she apologised, massaging her temples. "I'm just tired and stressed from everything that happened today."
"I think we all are," her father added. "So why don't we all just calm down and go to bed?"
"We'll definitely need it." Agreed both mother and daughter.
"So they knew…"
The twins walked along the pavement, their school entering their view as they approached.
"But they wouldn't tell me anything more than that. I still only know part of what they were talking about. Whatever it was, it seemed like a pretty sensitive topic."
"Well I hope the worst is over," Ethan replied. "Even if we really are in some sort of danger, it can't get any worse than yesterday, can it?"
"Who knows?"
"That's not a very reassuring answer."
"I'm just sayin' that anything is possible, bro!" Lucy threw her hands up. "I don't know what else to say when I don't know anything about it. That's why we need to find more information!"
"I don't know about that," Ethan responded dubiously. "If Mom said prying into it too much would be a bad idea, we shouldn't. I don't want anything more to do with whatever attacked us yesterday."
"This isn't like those stories you read where 'the more you know, the more danger you'll be in'!" Exasperation coloured Lucy's voice. "The more informed we are about something, the more we know what to do in case something bad happens!"
"But-"
"Ah, ah, no buts." the schoolgirl interrupted. "We needa find out all we can. Mom and Dad won't tell us anything, so we'll ask Ms Wan next."
Ahead of the twins lay Ark International Academy, a grand steeple-like structure, surrounded by concrete walls, standing tall and proud against the glare of the unusually scorching morning sun. All around them, identically uniformed students entered through the pointed iron gates towards the wide path that covered the distance between the gate and the main building. A hedge containing a variety of colourful wildflowers lined both edges of the path, beyond which lay fields of vibrant green and oak trees standing tall and proud in the grass like guards at a coronation. From the numerous trees and bushes came the chirps of countless types of wildlife, from the singsong warble of songbirds to the chattering mating calls of the cicada. At the end of the path lay the front office, where Crystal would be.
"You said that you would talk with the secretary," Ethan started as they passed under the shade of one such tree. "But I think she made it pretty clear yesterday that we should not discuss it with anybody and just forget what happened."
"I'll make her talk. Just watch me."
The two blond students stepped through the glass doors to the front office and found Crystal typing away at a keyboard and speaking into the phone simultaneously. "Yes, we will have to send your son home for today," she spoke to whoever was on the other end of the line. "It would be best if you checked if he was feeling well before he came to school…"
As they approached the desk, the secretary's eyes flitted from the computer screen to the twins for a brief second, when they lit up with recognition, before turning back. "Yes, you'll have to send someone to get him. He's being looked after by the nurse for now. Alright. Good day." There was a brief click as Crystal placed the phone down before she turned to the two students. "Hello," she greeted as she did any other student, as if she did not know them. "How can I help you?"
Glancing sideways and leaning in, Lucy spoke in a hushed voice. "We want to know what the heck it was that happened to us yesterday. What was that thing?"
Crystal sighed. "I cannot discuss that with you," she rejected. "I've told you to keep this quiet. Even if I were to tell you, I couldn't do that with all the people here. You two should head to homeroom."
"Look," Lucy began. "You can't just keep us in the dark about this. If we saw someone else get attacked instead of being attacked, that would make sense. But that's not how things are. What if something else comes?"
"This is for your own safety," Crystal reasoned. "Trust me. The more you know about this, the more dangerous it becomes for you."
"How can I trust you? As far as I know, you're keeping pretty vital info from us."
"This is in no way vital to you. You don't understand."
"Of course I don't! I don't know anything about this, which is why I'm asking you!"
"All you need to know for now is that knowing anything about this could put you in more danger."
"But how does that make any-"
"Oi. Lucy." Ethan tapped his sister's shoulder and gestured at the line forming behind them.
Lucy looked back and let out a quiet groan. Leaning in again, she said something that sounded like "I'll be back" before walking away, her brother in tow.
"Remember to complete pages 376 to 383 for homework! Have a nice lunch!"
"That was a pretty confusing topic," remarked Ethan to a student with long, flowing black hair next to him. "I can tell that I'll hate revising for this later on."
"Well, whenever I find something hard to understand, I just try and come up with a story or analogy that makes it easier!" Hu Tao replied. "For example, I think of evaporation as water molecules dying and going to heaven!"
"Uh…" Ethan contemplated this strange analogy. "And when they condense, they come back to life?"
"As ghosts!"
"…Okay." Turning his focus back to attempting to stuff more books into his brick of a schoolbag with one hand while trying to keep his bad arm from hitting anything, he glanced at the clock on the wall, the hands pointing to one and twenty-one. "Shoot. There's probably a long line at the cafeteria by now." It was amazing, the boy thought, how such long lines could form only one minute after class ended. No matter. He could still get there. He said as much to Hu Tao before dashing out of the classroom towards the cafeteria at the speed of an Olympic runner and then remembering that doing that with a fractured arm was probably not a good idea. Doing his best to weave through the throng of students crowding the hallways at recess, he jogged with Hu Tao towards the lunch line where he caught sight of his friends at the back of the line.
"Jesus Christ," The slightly irritated blond huffed as he approached. "Why is the line always so long?"
Lucy turned around. "Probably 'cause some teachers let their classes leave earlier. Like those bratty middle schoolers."
"Yeah, they're real annoying!" Itto agreed. "Damned kids don't know what 'staying quiet while others are having lessons' means. But kids will be kids."
"They act in a manner quite similar to you," observed Sara.
"What?!" Itto exclaimed, livid that anyone would dare question his grown-up maturity. "I'll have you know I am the most mature, grown-up, and–uh…" The white-haired delinquent failed to find a third word to complete his list of three. "Anyway, I'm pretty much a role model for the younger years."
"Not a very good one, if the behaviour of the 'younger years' is anything to go by." Hu Tao countered.
"Not you too! Ugh, no one truly understands me…"
"Psst. Ethan. Over there."
"What?" Ethan glanced up in response to his sister's prompt and swept the area for what she might have been referring to.
"There's Ms Wan…" The aforementioned secretary appeared to be walking through the area.
"You're still trying to ask her?" Ethan inquired. "If it wasn't clear she didn't want us to discuss this anywhere before, it should be now. Both our parents and Ms Wan are telling us to forget it. Shouldn't that be exactly what we're doing?"
"And that's exactly why we should be doing the opposite!" the female student argued. "They're both trying to cover something up, something that definitely has something to do with our safety. Are you just gonna leave this situation be and let something break your other arm?"
"No, because that probably won't happen–"
"Y'know what, since we're not getting lunch any time soon, might as well chase her down and ask her a few questions. Let's go!"
"Huh–wait!"
"Wha-where are you two going?"
Grabbing the slightly confused blond by his good arm, she attempted to drag her twin towards the secretary when another wave of students burst through the doors, forcing them both to try and navigate the human flood while keeping track of Crystal.
"Jeez!" Lucy huffed in annoyance as they emerged. "Right when we were about to go after her…Where is she anyway?"
"I think I saw her go through there."
"Then let's go!"
The twins attempted to chase her down, but everywhere it seemed there was something that blocked them from catching up. From tripping over a can that just happened to be in the middle of the hallway to getting tea spilt on his uniform, Ethan had never experienced so many mishaps in his life than in the space of the few minutes they had been attempting to grab Crystal's attention. All throughout the 'chase', the unfortunate boy was reminded of the situation yesterday, where they chased a hooded figure through increasingly uninhabited surroundings. Of course, the surroundings this time around were much more familiar than before, but for some reason, he felt slightly uneasy about all of this. Chalking up to deja vu, the student continued on.
"Oh come on!" the double doors that they had seen Crystal walk through previously now refused to open beyond a certain point, groaning in protest and staying stubbornly jammed when Lucy attempted to pry them open.
"What do we do?" Ethan glanced around for anything that could help them get through the doors when he noticed that the area around them did not seem familiar to him. "Where are we, by the way?"
"The back of the school building," Lucy replied, wiping the sheen of sweat off her forehead. "There's not a lot here, so there's pretty much no one coming here every day."
Ethan pondered the fact for a second. "What's she doing back here?"
"I don't know," Lucy kicked through the equipment and cleaning supplies haphazardly scattered across the floor, looking for something to use. "But I know that wherever she's going to has something to do with what happened to us yesterday!"
"Or," Ethan added. "Maybe there's an office or storage room back there we don't know about, and it has absolutely nothing to do with that."
Lucy stared at her twin, her expression shifting to one of exasperation. "You really don't think it's a coincidence that we get attacked one day and the next Ms Wan is going somewhere strange? You said it yourself: What's she doing back here?"
"Nothing special, I'm sure."
"You'd have given up already if you thought that." the girl sighed as she stood up to survey the mess of supplies, hoping she would find something she missed. "Let's just focus on gettin' that door open before we think about anything else. Is there anything here that could help…Aha!" The blonde fished out a snapped broom handle lying on the floor against the wall, previously hidden by everything on the floor.
"I don't know. That looks pretty fragile."
"It'll work. Trust me!"
Lucy jammed the handle into the crack between the doors and pulled with all her might. With multiple loud creaks and groans, it slowly gave way until there was a crack just wide enough for both to slip through.
"Alright then, let's go. Just be careful of your bad arm…"
Taking care not to shake his arm around too much, Ethan slipped through the crack and took a look around. They had emerged into a hallway identical to the one behind them, with the difference being that it suddenly cut off ahead into an outdoor area. From the hallway, the twins spotted multiple racks holding potted plants against a wall like the one that surrounded the school. Innocent as the place seemed, however, Ethan began to feel something that felt like dread welling up in his throat, knots beginning to tie themselves in his stomach. Looking at his sister, he knew she felt the same fear though neither commented on it.
"This is it. I've only been here once, I think. Don't remember what I came for." Lucy commented as they advanced outdoors and came across the option of turning either left or right.
"Well, do you remember which way to go?" Ethan asked, glancing both ways to see if they held any indication as to where they were supposed to go.
"I feel something from over there…" mumbled Lucy, staring to the right. "I feel like I don't want to go there, for some reason. Just thinking about it makes me nervous."
"Same here. We should go left."
"No, idiot. If something's stopping us from going right, we go right!"
Turning right, they continued along a small path that didn't seem to feature anything other than the walls on either side and a lone door, an inspection of which revealed nothing more than a regular room containing stacks of paper and spare chairs and tables. Nothing revealed itself but the increasing dread and urge to leave this place he felt overtaking his being.
"Th–there doesn't seem to be anything on this side," Ethan stuttered as they strolled, the strange feeling inhibiting even his speech. "No need to check the other side I think. Let's just go-"
"Wait! Over there! At the end!" Lucy hissed quietly.
Ethan's eyes followed Lucy's finger, pointing directly at the figure of Crystal the secretary who was staring at the wall.
"Why do we need to be quiet-"
Lucy shushed him once more before turning back to Crystal, who now planted her hand against the concrete in front of her. For a moment, nothing happened. The secretary stood there, hand against the wall, eyes closed in concentration. What exactly she was concentrating on remained to be seen, up until that moment. Then, it happened.
"Epkasor!" she chanted, quiet enough that it should not have been audible to the twins but also so loud that the word seemed to come from everywhere at once. It was as if a shockwave was released when she said that strange word, jarring Ethan to the very core and leaving him reeling backwards yet rooted on the very spot he stood. From the spot that her hand touched, luminescent runes sprung outwards, adorning the previously featureless wall with a circle of elaborate, foreign patterns and winding glyphs. They were no ordinary drawings either, Ethan noticed. With every pulse of light that came from the runes, the glyphs seemed to writhe and shift like a tortured snake and the patterns would twist and contort into a completely different yet totally unrecognisable shape. "Anoeke!" she chanted once more, and the runes burst outwards into a mass of glowing blue motes, suspended in the air like an abstract art piece. The wall in front of her was now no more, plaster and concrete all collapsing inwards to reveal a shadowy passageway through which the secretary disappeared into.
"…" For a moment no words passed between the twins, each both stunned and left confused by the spectacle they had just witnessed. The first to recover was Lucy, who grabbed Ethan by the arm and shook him out of his stupor.
"Come on! We gotta follow her into there!"
Ethan gawked. "G-go in there?!" he protested. "But we don't know what's in there! For all we know, we could be walking right to our deaths!"
"Like I said, too many novels." The blonde rolled her eyes. "Where's your sense of adventure? Isn't this what happens to all the characters in the stories you read?"
"Reading about them and being them are two different things!" the frightened boy argued. "I'm in no hurry to die–"
"Jesus! If you won't go, then I'll have to!" Lucy rushed ahead, straight into the passage where the darkness appeared to swallow her whole as soon as she ran in.
"Wha-wait!" Entirely focused on thinking about whether he should follow his sister or not, Ethan failed to notice 4 pairs of footsteps behind him.
"Woah! I don't remember a giant hole being here!"
"What in the world just happened?"
"A gateway to hell?"
"…Huh? I don't remember coming here just now…"
Ethan whirled around to see his motley group of friends, scared just as much as they were in awe at both the opening of the passage and Lucy running straight in.
"You guys?!" the confused student exclaimed. "What are you all doing here?"
"Well, you know, we thought that since lunch was gonna take a long time, might as well see what you guys were up to…" Itto trailed off.
"I…did not expect to discover something like this," Sara commented, her composure momentarily broken. "What do we do now?"
"Go in, of course!" Hu Tao jumped in, a serious, determined expression on her face in place of the usual mysterious smile. "Our friend's in there; should we not go and help her?"
"G-go in?" the tall delinquent stammered. "Yeah, I mean, that's fine and all, but, maybe we should, you know, not go into the dark scary cave?"
"Oh?" Hu Tao drifted over to the rapidly sweating Itto. "Are you perhaps…scared?"
"What? Pfft, no! Obviously not," He attempted to wave it off like the cool guy he was, though his shaking hands and stuttering voice made it somewhat less convincing. "I'm just, you know, worried that the rest of you guys might be…"
"For once, I agree with him," Sara voiced her rare assent with the 'macho' student's opinion. "The last thing I would do in this situation would be to go straight into a cave with an unknown number of dangers, especially since just a moment ago it was, well, not there."
Ethan would also have voiced his agreement, had Lucy not just rushed in. What to do, what to do…
…And he had made his decision. Ethan summoned up all the courage he could and plunged headfirst into the all-consuming darkness, leaving the cries of his friends telling him to come back behind.
"Now he's going in?!"
"Oh, what now…"
"Weren't we not supposed to go in there? I don't want to fall asleep in a place like that…"
"If I must go to the great beyond, then so be it!" Hu Tao too dove in.
"Uggh! Why do you guys want to die…" Now that even Itto himself was going in, the rest followed.
Where exactly he was supposed to be going the blond student did not know, running and stumbling forward through what seemed to be an opaque veil weaved from the shadows themselves. All he heard was the sound of his trainer soles slapping against the smooth rock of the passage and his own ragged breathing. He realised that the paranoid feeling from before had returned in full force, now one of the only things that propelled him along the eerily silent corridor as he listened desperately for any sign of his sibling. Somewhere off in the distance, he heard voices, whispers he understood despite them being in a language he did not understand. Leave, they seemed to say. You are not supposed to be here. Everything in his mind vanished, just as it did when he was faced with that beast yesterday. He didn't even really know why he was running anymore, only knowing that he had to get to the end…
But just as Ethan was beginning to think it would never end, the darkness abruptly dispersed, the shadowy veil ripped from his eyes to reveal a mixture of blurred lights and muffled sounds. It was as if he was trying to make out what was in front of him after being suddenly thrown into a pool of water. The lights, almost like bioluminescent creatures swimming peacefully throughout his vision, stayed in the distance. But the sounds grew louder and less muffled as a group of formless blobs appeared all over his vision, slowly growing larger and more audible. One even became large enough to fill most of his vision.
That was when everything went black.
A/N: Hi guys, thanks for sitting through my cobbled-together folk story about birds if you've made it this far. This chapter might seem a little boring compared to the last one, but I'll be revealing more about the world in the next chapter. Until then, remember to leave a like (or kudos, or whatever they're called). As always, criticism is appreciated. See you in the next chapter!