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Not all worlds are alike. So many different places have so many different stories, it can be hard to pick just one to tell. This story focuses on a world of fantasy. A world full of dense forests, overwhelming mountain ranges, and, dotted around the planet, some of the most advanced cities ever to reach creation. Many different creatures reside here: different kinds of demons, elves, and few humans are barely able to share this odd planet peacefully. It’s an odd place to encounter and the soul protectors of balance have struggled to stop a world war from breaking out.
These protectors are known as guardians. A guardian can only be detected in one way: a mark, soaked into they’re flesh while they are still a fetus, is found when they are born. It is believed that this is where their power and energy is stored. Once this marking is detected the children who possess such a gift are presented to the eldest of the guardians and she gives them a title. A title to show all the strengths and weaknesses she sees in the small babies. In most cases the children are given as a gift from the parents to the eldest guardian. Parents hope that if their child is raised with the guardians then the child will have a better chance of becoming something great, and something even stronger and more powerful than what is already expected of them.
“Why am I doing this? It’s so lame!” a young girl whined, flipping back her naturally silver hair that had fluttered onto her face.
“This is the single most important lesson I have to teach you, Kisha. Once you have mastered this you will be less than a year away of being a guardian,” a mature voice stated calmly from behind her. The voice belonged to Kisha’s instructor, the eldest of the guardians. She looked down at the girl, standing only knee deep in the lake before them. It was a famous exercise that a guardian must learn to enter this lake completely, and they would be able to see events passed. Only the best warriors were ever taught why and how the process worked, but all of the guardians were taught the basics on how to do this.
“But Madame! I wanna go hang out with my friends, It seems like I haven’t seen them in forever!”
The woman let out a long, surrendering sigh, “Taking the weather into consideration, along with your especially immature attitude today, we are finished with this exercise…for now anyway.”
“Yes! ‘Bout time!” Kisha shouted and ran past her instructor and into the dense forest. She knew the path by heart, so there was no reason for her to fret when she was there. Most people would have worried about the legend, “demons and monsters” that everyone thought lived in the darker areas of the forest. Kisha didn’t know or care if there were dangerous beings around her. She knew how to get home and that’s all that mattered to her.
It took her about thirty minutes to get through the tangles of vines, poisonous snakes, loose rocks, and other animals that lived near the path. It took her roughly ten minutes to find the slender gap in the mountain range that protected the guardian’s palace.
She ran towards the building, carefully crafted to appear like a castle. A castle crafted of jewels. Each brick was made of an emerald, diamond, ruby, opal, sapphire, or any other precious stone, so the building would have shone a rainbow onto the healthy grass surrounding it if the sun was out that day. Upon reaching the large metal gates she stopped for just a moment to catch her breath. It took her another twenty minutes to make herself look presentable. She took her time to make sure that her silver hair was flat, that her thick clothes weren’t tattered from anything in the forest, and that her pale face hadn’t become flustered and red from all the running she had to do to get back home. Her face pouted as she inspected her nails to find that she had chipped the one on her index finger. She took out a nail file to fix it and, when she was done, smiled at the perfection of her appearance.
Her hands pressed against the cold metal doors. They were coated with a thin layer of frost, but that didn’t faze Kisha. Through her layers of clothes the hourglass shaped mark on her shoulder began to glow with a silver light. The doors slowly open and Kisha gladly stepped inside and walked through the stretch of cobblestones and dim lights until her white eyes saw the cherry wood door, about ten feet ahead. She never liked this part of the castle. The stones were old, chipped, and gray. Cobwebs covered the corners of the hall and most of the lights flickered. It looked like a scene from a bad horror movie.
Before she could reach the door it swung open and two girls stood in the doorway. Both were only about twelve-years-old and each had a smile on her face.
“Finally, you’re back! It seems like Madame had you out in that stupid forest forever!” the first girl proclaimed. She only had a slight grin on her face, which wasn’t very easy to detect considering the horrible lighting. Her skin was tanned but the one of her eyes that wasn’t covered with tufts of thick hair was a crystal blue with a very piercing quality to it. Her blonde hair seemed unnaturally blonde, and ran from her head down to the back of her knees.
“What took you so long anyway?” the other girl asked curiously. Her skin was flawless ebony and her eyes were a piercing blue like the other girl’s.
“Renee! Missy! I’ve been waiting all day to hang out with you guys!” she giggled then flipped back her hair and rolled her eyes, “You know how crazy Madame can be with her training lessons.”
“I hear you on that,” sounding annoyed she put her hands on her hips.
“We know she’s tough but what can ya do right?” the other girl, Missy spoke cheerfully, “Anyway get your butt in here! It’s manicure night!”
“Okay!” Kisha said enthusiastically and pushed past her friends into the open room of the palace. Black marble coated the floor and white marble pillars surrounded the walls. Kisha ran towards the silver stairs twenty feet from the cherry wood doors she had entered through. “I’ll race ya to the top, first one to my room gets their nails done first!” she shouted with a large smile on her face.
The other two girls started racing after her and their giggles filled the room. Kisha was ahead until she got to the stairs and Missy pulled ahead of her.
“And it looks like Wisdom just can’t keep up with Strength this stormy day!” Missy yelled back at her friends as she charged up the stairs. The girls often used the titles they had been given as infants to describe themselves. Kisha was given the name Wisdom. She hated it considering she was only a young teenager. Wisdom didn’t sound cool or fun, to her it was boring so she didn’t mention it when she didn’t have to. Renee was Courage and Missy was Strength.
“Shut up!” Kisha yelled, her laughter clouded over the words though, so she didn’t sound at all serious, and she wasn’t.
At the top of the stairs there were four large doors. Each was black with a large symbol over it. On the left of the stairs was a door with a white hourglass on it, Kisha’s room. Next to it was one with two turquoise crescent moons facing each other, Missy’s room. On the right was Renee’s room, there was a large pink heart on her door. Then, at the end of the line, was a blank door. Nobody used that room and the girls didn’t have a clue as to why the room was even there.
Missy ran to Kisha’s room and grabbed at the door knob. She pulled the door open and proclaimed, “I win!” loud enough for the whole place to hear.
“Shut up, you’ll wake Nina up and then we’ll never get rid of her!” Kisha said sarcastically and walked past Missy into her room.
Renee followed after Kisha, “Man, I am not in the mood to deal with your little sister today, she’s so annoying.”
“Yup,” Missy added abruptly and closed the door behind her, “Anyway, I believe we had a deal girls. My nails are first to get done.”
“This was so not fair, you two know I hate running!” Renee whined as she grabbed a bottle of sparkling, soft green nail polish off of Kisha’s black dresser. Everything in the room was decorated in black and white. The walls were white, the carpet was white, but all the furniture was black. She even kept all the pictures on her walls black and white.
“Ya, ya, whatever, but I’m after you. I did almost win after all,” Kisha walked over to her nightstand and opened the drawer to reveal a multi-colored contrast to her bland, boring room. She pulled out a bottle of turquoise nail polish and walked back over to her friends at her bed. She had started to open the bottle when there was a light tapping at her door.
“Five bucks says it’s the brat.” Renee laughed.
“Probably,” Kisha giggled with her friends, “but shut up! She might hear you.” She sashayed over to her door and opened it to see her adorable little sister standing in front of her.
Nina was small, even for being only seven. She had a very petite frame that made her look extremely fragile. She didn’t seem to have much color in her skin, and her hair was such a light shade of blonde you’d think she never went outside. Today she was already in her small blue peignoir with her long hair tied up in a matching ribbon. She was like a cute little doll in every way but in her eyes. Her eyes were big and so full of emotion. They seemed so mature that sometimes Kisha swore her sister could read her every action with them.
A small voice came from the little girl, “Sissa…do you think you could help me brush out my hair, like you used to. You promised you’d help me with it soon. It’s getting tangled.”
Kisha thought back to when she had taught Nina how to take care of herself. She always did like it when Kisha had taken the time to brush out her frail hair 100 times each night while catching her up on the day’s events. That had been a while ago, though. Kisha had more important ways to spend her time now.
“Sorry, Nina, but I can’t tonight. I’m doing stuff with my friends. You can brush it yourself. You know how to, I taught you after all.”
“But…you said you’d help me when you got home from lessons with Madame.” Nina’s quiet voice was eerily calm and monotone as she spoke.
“I’ll help you later, Nina. Mabey even tomorrow, but right now I’m busy, alright?”
“Okay.”
“That’s my girl, now get off to bed,” Kisha patted her sister’s head and went back to close her door. Nina had begun to walk away when she heard laughing. The only one who laughed that loud was Renee, and she could tell when she heard her voice on the other side of the wall that it was, in fact, her.
“I can’t believe how lame your sister is!” she could hear her chuckles mixed in with her speech, “She’s so weird!”
“Ya, but she is a little young.” Missy’s voice came at her defense.
“So, you’d think she’s be able to get a little more confidence? I mean, come on, ‘Will you help me brush out my hair?’ That is kinda lame. The little twerp just doesn’t get it.” Kisha’s voice penetrated the wall loud and clear for Nina to hear.
Now, she could even hear Missy’s voice slightly chuckling, “Well, mabey she is kinda annoying.
“Kinda? She is so annoying! She always wants to tag along with us for everything! She’s no fun and so boring! She even looks creepy. I mean, she is so pretty, but she kinda scares me sometimes she’s so emotionless,” Renee’s words hurt, but Nina hoped her sister would come to her defense. She didn’t mean to be creepy, after all.
“Okay, alright, I get it. My sister’s a total freak. Let’s move on with our lives already.” Kisha’s voice stabbed Nina in the heart. Tears that had been threatening to appear since Kisha turned her down began flowing down her cheeks. She stormed down the staircase and through the giant room into the door that, just minutes ago, her sister had entered through.
The next day Kisha woke up around ten o’clock. They had all just slept in Kisha’s room in her queen-sized bed. It’s what they would usually do when they stayed up gossiping and talking all night in one of the girl’s rooms. She opened her eyes grudgingly and half sat up, half rolled off of her bed. She motivated herself over to the closet and pulled out her robe before yawning and moving over to her door. She opened it and was surprised to see that Madame was standing by the palace’s front door. She had her arms crossed and her body language seemed very nervous to Kisha.
“Madame!” She shouted, walking down the staircase as she talked, “What’s wrong? Why are you out here so early?”
“It’s your sister,” Madame’s voice was stern as ever when she spoke to Kisha, “When I went to wake her this morning to begin our lessons she wasn’t in her room.”
“She could be anywhere in this giant castle of a house, though.”
“I checked, she’s not. I’m afraid she’s left off somewhere, but I have no idea why she would do such a thing.”
“But, where would little Nina go?”
“I don’t know. I was hoping you might.”
“But, the only other place she could go is…with…I gotta go!” Kisha’s eyes widened with realization as she bolted out the door and through the chamber.
When she got outside the freezing, morning air hit her so suddenly that she almost sopped to go back for warmer clothes. Kisha was a determined girl at that moment, though. She didn’t stop for one second. She knew where she was going and she knew she had to get there as fast as possible. There was no time to waste, or Nina might be in danger.
‘I hope she didn’t run off to Ruby…’ Kisha’s mind was racing faster than her feet could carry her, ‘Why would she run off at all? What could have upset her so much?’
Kisha still didn’t realize how much Nina had heard her say, or how much those words had hurt her. What she did realize was what danger her little sister could be in. She feared for the worst as she ran through the woods. She was running to the lake she had been training at the previous day. Her other sister, Ruby, had always had an odd fascination with that place. Kisha was determined to find both of her sisters at that moment, and hopefully they would both be alright.
Kisha had been lucky enough to be born with her marking, the marking that made her a guardian. Nina had been born with that same luck, her own mark that made her special and unique. Kisha’s twin, Ruby, was not born with any such luck. She was born normal, but because Kisha was sent off to live with all the other guardians, they thought it would be better to send her and her twin. The older guardians thought it would be better. They said it would make them feel equal, but they didn’t count on Ruby’s envy.
Just knowing that she was supposed to be lesser in that great house had made Ruby angry. When they were only five or so Ruby would “accidentally” trip Kisha when she was running or pull her hair a little too hard when they were play fighting. Kisha started finding her glaring at her for no reason. When she was with Madame it was only worse. She started finding ways to get her in trouble when she hadn’t done anything wrong. Then there was the day she had gotten sent out of the house.
It was about a year ago on a night similarly cold and bland as the weather Kisha was currently running through. Kisha had been training especially hard that day, so she wanted to retire to her room while the others were having dinner. She opened her door to see Ruby sitting on her bed curled into a ball and sobbing.
“Ruby…What’s wrong? Are you alright?” Kisha had hesitantly approached her sister on the bed, “Why are you up here crying all alone?”
“It’s not fair, Kisha…It’s not fair…” she replied through sobs and tears, never removing her hand from her face.
“What’s not fair?”
“Life…this house…everyone here…it’s not fair…”
“But why are you crying? I don’t understand.”
Slowly, Ruby’s hands had left her face. Her eyes were supposed to be identical to Kisha’s, but that was one of the few differences the twins shared. Kisha’s eyes were light in color and full of life. Ruby’s eyes were dark and had become cold and distant as she got older. Their hair was also different, like their personalities Kisha sported a light silver hairstyle and made sure to take care of herself. Ruby’s hair was jet black and it was always a mess of tangles. Ruby’s breathing got deeper and heavier, like she was trying to calm down.
Kisha went to put a gentle hand on her sister’s shoulder and as son as she made contact Ruby slapped her hand away. Her mouth changed into an ugly scowl and her eyes focused into Kisha’s. As soon as she caught that glimpse of fear in Kisha’s gaze she lunged at her. Her hands clasped firmly around her throat and both girls fell to the floor. Kisha tried her hardest but she couldn’t pry her sister’s hands from her throat. She screamed as loud as she could but she soon ran out of energy to continue to do that. All she could do was lie there and watch the rage in Ruby’s eyes as she tried to kill her. The last thing Kisha remembered about that was hearing her door open and Missy’s voice shouting, ‘Oh my God!’ or something like that. Then she slipped into unconsciousness. The next day Madame had told her she would be okay, and that Ruby was gone and she wouldn’t see her again.
Nina had always missed Ruby, Kisha was afraid she had gone to find her. Ruby had almost killed Kisha, and now all Kisha could think about was getting to that lake. Somehow, she just knew that’s where Ruby would be. And then she heard a scream. A high pitched scream, but from a gentle voice. It had to be Nina.
Then she saw it. She broke through the trees and darkness into the morning light surrounding the lake. Ruby was standing over Nina’s frail body. A small blade was in Ruby’s hand and being held onto tightly. Nina was crying, she was dirty and her hands were clasped around her neck. It took a second for Kisha to see but there was blood seeping through her fingers. Blood. Ruby had done it, she had tried to kill Nina just like she had tried to kill Kisha.
Ruby’s cold eyes looked up at Kisha and a twisted smile appeared on her lips, “Oh, hello there. How nice of you to join us. What a wonderful family reunion we have here. The three of us sitting by the lake together. I’m so glad that, even though you two are so much more important than I am, we can still be here together.”
“Ruby…what are you doing? What are you doing?”
“What am I doing?” Ruby sounded puzzled, “I think you mean, what have you done?”
“What…what do you mean?” Kisha stuttered. She was so afraid, all she could focus on was Nina, and how she couldn’t get to her to help her because Ruby was standing over her with that knife.
“Last night, poor little Nina came running through the woods. She was crying and crying. She found me here, like I have somewhere else to go, and she was so sad. She said, ‘Sissa and her friends were so mean! They hate me! They hate me so much! I want to stay with you! I want to be loved again.’ She was crying so, so, so much.”
“What? No, that can’t be. I love Nina! I would never hurt her like you have!”
“That’s not what she said…” Ruby laughed in a singsong voice, like this was all a big joke.
“No,” Kisha was in tears, she could barely speak without sobbing, “No, I love her! I wasn’t to protect her, not hurt her.”
“Not what she said” Ruby sang out happily again. She pouted her lips, “She says you’re just a big meanie.” Ruby used baby talk that led to more laughter.
“Shut up! Leave her alone!”
“Don’t worry, she won’t die alone. You get to go with her. Then you two won’t be so special anymore…now will you?”
“Don’t kill her!” Kisha screamed frantically.
“What, you mean don’t do something like…” Ruby crouched down next to the body and pointed the already bloody blade to Nina’s wound, squeezing it between the small girl’s fingers, “this?” Ruby asked in a confused voice as she plunged the knife into Nina’s death. Blood spurted from her neck and her large pale eyes went blank. The emotion she had held on to secretly was dispersed in one moment, and the next she was gone. The life was just gone.
“No!” Kisha wailed, “You devil!” she dropped to her knees, she didn’t feel like she could move anywhere else, “You monster! How could you do that! How could you kill her!”
Ruby shrugged, “Oopsie. Gone now. And look, I got blood everywhere. Guess I’ll have to clean up after myself later, huh?”
All Kisha could do ways cry, “You devil! You b***h! You’re crazy!”
“Mabey, who knows…now it’s your turn.”
“No, no, no, no, no…No!” Kisha tried to get up, but she moved awkwardly and stumbled as she stood.
Ruby began to walk towards her slowly, “Yes, yes, yes…it’s your turn.”
Kisha tried to run back into the woods. Her legs were tired from her journey to the lake. They were slow and confused as she moved. They didn’t seem to understand how important it was for her to run. She didn’t seem to understand it either. She loved life and wanted to live, but all she could see was that knife plunging into Nina’s throat. All she could hear was Ruby’s laughter. Had her sister really died and had her twin really gone crazy? She didn’t seem to know anymore. It only took one moment of confusion for her legs to stumble and trip. Her eyes were blank, she was practically dead already.
Ruby laughed as she stood over Kisha’s body with the knife in hand, “Thanks for making this easy.” Suddenly, her voice went serious and she crouched down so she could whisper in her sister’s ear, “Are you ready to die now, sister dearest?”
Suddenly something inside of Kisha snapped. Mabey it was feeling that blade, covered in Nina’s blood, touch her throat, or mabey it was hearing those words whispered into her ear, but she snapped. Her eyes glared and she quickly smacked the knife from her throat and pulled out from under her sister. She turned to see the confused expression on Ruby’s face as she picked up the blade and pointed it at her sister. Now Kisha was standing with the weapon and Ruby was crouched on the ground in confusion.
“No!” Kisha yelled, hatred pulsing through her body and showing through her eyes. Her voice was serious and cold, it was even a little raspy, “Are you ready,” the knife pressed against Ruby’s throat, “Sister dearest?”
 Alatria · Fri Oct 06, 2006 @ 03:38pm · 2 Comments |
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