AnnouncementHello to everyone reading this novel of mine! To any current readers, this is relevant for you but probably not for future readers. (I'll forget to get rid of this announcement that's why.) The current release schedule is a chapter every other day, I pn on slightly increasing it in the future but not by much, I'd rather have a stable release schedule that's slightly on the slower side than burn myself out (sweats in my 2 chapters a day, 4k words, olden days, on other sites. I'm new to this one). Anyway, thanks for reading and I hope you enjoy this work of mine!"Uygoo!"
My voice encouraged my sister's brightly steaming red face.
Her back muscles contracted as she began her thirtieth attempt at sitting up, and in response I cpped my hands to encourage her as well as I could.
Go on, you can do it!
Her bzing golden eyes trembled in concentration and the fat on her face jiggled oh-so adorably.
So cute~
So adorable~
So pretty~
Using every word I could remember from my 'thesaurus', I cheered vigorously as she squeezed herself up!
"Agooo!"
"Ugyoooooo~!"
We both ughed in delight, hers was certainly more joyful than mine but I digress. We could finally both sit up and hold ourselves in pce; a developmental pace I don't believe a normal human baby can keep up with.
Four months.
That's how long it took us to go from being newborns to sitting up on our own.
And now I was on the verge of being able to stand up, and crawl, with my sister remaining close behind my unsurprisingly superior progress.
When will everything change?
When will this monotonous life stop?
When can I breathe?
Spping my face under my bewildered sister's gaze, I quickly swatted away those rising thoughts.
I need to find something new to focus on, something to distract my mind from this madness. I don't know if I should be jealous of my sister for her ck of intelligence, but I am. I need something, now.
Right now.
Something.
Anything.
Keep me occupied.
Squish.
A pair of hands delicately wrapped around my cheeks.
Tenderly pulling my face, my sister's eyes glued themselves to mine. Her whole world was focused on me and only me.
Your right.
She's right.
Let's just py.
Py, py, and py some more.
Anything to curb my smouldering emotions.
And in this case, I'll be smothering them with the tender emotions of love.
...
We pyed.
...
Slept.
...
Got tended to.
...
Pyed.
...
Slept.
...
Pl-
...I.
It's growing.
Like a virus.
Spreading, splitting, infecting, and taking over.
Every cell in my body, every iota of rationale and consciousness, all of it:
Two emotions have taken over.
Horror.
And.
Love.
...Back then, I don't think I realised it;
The extent of it.
The madness of that man.
Ironic.
I knew of his madness.
Yet I was stupid enough not to contempte the meaning of it.
I was pathetic.
A bumbling mess of uselessness.
And then, almost 6 months after our birth, it happened.
Everything changed.
The monotony.
The agony.
The cycle of nothingness.
It crashed into pieces, never to be seen again.
That day, she awoke.
Her hypnotic golden eyes singed the ceiling with cracks, fmes and with something I could not comprehend.
The crystal hanging above us shattered apart, raining down its shards upon us; at least, they tried to rain down upon us. Instead, the shards were flung into the distance and stuck into the walls of our room with tearing wind sounds.
An unbearable heat emanated from her body; a combination of heat and-
Crackle!
Zips of imperceptible cracklings of lightning.
My face back then was stunned and filled with pride.
If only I knew.
If only.
But what was I back then?
Nothing.
I knew nothing and understood nothing; and was nothing.
But naive as I was, I cpped and celebrated.
Giggled and danced.
...Unaware of the guillotine lowering upon my neck.
...Unaware of what was coming.
...Unaware of the meaning of the madness.
-----
Wow.
That's all I can think of at the moment.
Like come on, who would have thought I'd get to see a 6-month-old girl abruptly pull off powers I'd only dreamt of in my fantasies back on Earth. Awe flooded my chest as an inexplicable sense of pride and joy clung to my flesh; I almost felt like encouraging her to do more, but-
It's getting hot.
Her powers are affecting me too.
The situation is less than ideal.
But, suddenly:
Something.
I.
I heard.
I definitely heard.
Certainly.
...I.
Did I hear?
I heard something?
I heard?
When?
And when did my sister fall asleep?
Lifting my gaze to the ceiling.
No damage.
My eyes turned to the bedding beneath, to the singed bedding; the burns created by the heat.
No damage.
Left, right and centre; every angle revealed an orderly, undamaged room.
...What?
Bewildered, I fell on my bottom as the series of events continued, uncaring of my emotions. The door to our room clicked open as the maid revealed herself from behind those jarring doors; the doors I've wished to go through for months now.
Her dark-blonde hair was a mess, scattered across her shoulders; her maid outfit was also wrinkled and fresh out of the undry.
Those stern, dark eyes were quivering with emotions I struggled to capture in my confusion.
How did the room return to normal?
Why is my sister asleep?
Questions with no answers erupted in my mind.
And once again, the intimate caress of horror tenderly stroked my face, running its fingers across my sensitive skin, down my chin and-
Grip.
It choked my neck.
Suffocating me.
Mocking me.
"The Master's orders are, once again, the epitome of perfection." The maid mumbled as she approached our crib.
Her grubby hands twitched as she hesitated to reach for my sister. Not once did she care to look at me, to check if I was okay; her vision stuck on my sister like an uncomfortable glob of slime.
However, she stopped herself.
She kept a solemn distance from my sister;
Her eyes swirling with infinitely unfamiliar emotions, ones that I'm failing to recognise amid the horror consistently tightening around my neck.
I think I'm going faint.
My mind is being blended with no regard for my well-being.
This feeling of horror.
This primal fear in my heart; in my soul-
It's not coming from me.
But what is it?
What's making me so afraid?
What's making me feel this crazed apprehension?
Yet, once again, I don't know. I know nothing.
And just as suddenly as it came-
"Ha~!" A glorious breath of air sucked itself down my throat.
-the horror went.
Leaving me sweaty, exhausted, and helpless in a puddle of cold, sticky sweat.
I didn't have the energy to check on my sister, to listen to what that maid was mumbling to herself, or to imagine what she pnned to do to her.
Slumping onto the crib's bedding, my eyes began to shut against my will.
Unfortunately, I'm too young to fight the drowsiness.
And like that, I fell asleep once more.
-----
My slumber ended with the fluttering of drowsy eyeshes.
Parting my eyes to the fresh air cloaking over me like soft fabric; incomprehensible baby grumblings slipped out my mouth as my body uncontrolbly stretched its limbs.
Tiredly gazing around as I awoke, my sister was the first thing I searched for in this new resting pce.
As, no matter how hard I searched...
Where is she?
My slowly panicking heart pounded at the thought of losing her.
In that agitated state, I failed to recognise the most important point of my relocation.
Only when my bare skin came in contact with the warmth;
Only when a firm, tender hand wrapped the back of my head;
Only then did I notice the sapphire gemstone-esque eyes looking down at me with unfathomable warmth; familial love.
Embracing me beneath her modest chest, the dy with waves of chestnut-coloured hair lifted me close to her face. There, she squished my face into her cheeks, rubbing our skin together with the apt warmth of a-
"I've wanted to see you for so long, my sweet, sweet Alora. My baby."
Her hazy, sorrow-filled voice lingered in my ears.
6 months after my birth, I finally met our mother.
In response...
Drip.
The pitchy darkness sticking to my chest;
Drip.
The despair lingering in the back of my throat;
Drip.
...All of it drained away with the tears naturally coating my face.
I don't know why I'm crying, nor for what reason this is happening, but:
My heart is blossoming with tender-hearted emotions; affection beyond all other affection—peace.
Mother's hand wiped my face from its tears, but the salty liquid wouldn't stop dripping no matter how many times she wiped it. Eventually, she gave up and let my tears flow, staining her hand and dripping down her wrist.
Holding me close to her mellowly beating heart, the overflowing emotions began to slow.
"Feeling better?"
And just as she said, after my tears ceased, I felt a sense of lightness I couldn't have imagined to be possible mere moments ago.
A heavy weight has been lifted off my chest.
Our mother didn't say much after that.
She kept ahold of me on the terrace while resting on a reclining chair; the sun bore down at us with the heat of spring while the chirping of sparrows echoed relentlessly from a distance. This choir of peace...
...Can we finally rest?
...Will peace find its way to our lives?
Ruminating in mother's gentle embrace, the hints of a bright future lit the dying embers of hope in my heart; setting them abze once more.
Ouch!
Suddenly, a short, sharp pain flitted across the back of my neck as my mother stroked my head.
Holding back the instincts to cry, I immediately heard mother's voice quip from above:
"Sorry! I forgot to trim my nails, don't cry sweetie Alora~"
Retaining my maturity, I quietly nudged her hand as though saying:
'Don't worry.'
Absorbing mother's regretful rubs on the back of my neck, I basked in the light of a hopeful future; perhaps our lives won't be dictated and toyed with much by that personification of madness.
Perhaps, just maybe, something might change.
Still...
Where is my sister?
