章節 6: New Year’s Special: Part 2
On New Year's Eve of 20XX, Nine-year-olds Halley and Brandon were practicing their powers against their grandmother's wishes. Brandon got his power long ago and could control it easily, which was the exact opposite of Halley who spawned knives when she sneezed. Grandma Maya said it was fine, and that she'd "learn to control it with time" but Halley didn't want to wait until she was old and wrinkly to be able to properly use her power.
She wanted to protect Brandon. Grandma said that she would protect them, and Brandon swore to protect Maya and Halley, so who would Halley protect? No one. Not with the dangerously spontaneous power she had. Every time she tried to do something to help, she ended up hurting someone in the process. The same thing happened in the facility.
All newly contracted magicians were to report their contract to the nearest government center, so that they couldn't hurt anyone in the early stages of their contract. The first few times that magic is used by the magician are the most unstable and dangerous times. The workers in the facility usually measured MPOs before placing them in the appropriate building.
The same was done for Halley. She was moved to a building in the capital and had to stay there for a month before they eventually cleared her with a warning. She was stable enough to be in semi-crowded places, but she was still unpredictable. This meant she couldn't go to school with her brother until she was cleared by her doctor, a year later.
She remembered how a mean man came in on the first day of her stay and said really mean things to her and about her family. The man threatened to hurt Halley's family if she didn't release her power, but she couldn't do it no matter how hard she tried. The man tried to grab her by the throat once, but some police officers came in to stop him before he hurt her.
Halley never saw that man again, but he was replaced with a worse lady. Her voice was kind and gentle, but her eyes terrified the child. She had the same eyes as a predator stalking its prey. Conniving, dangerous, and ready to attack. Halley made eye contact once by accident and puked out her breakfast right afterwards.
The lady came once a day for an hour at a time. Her gentle voice soon turned eerie and her demeanor became more and more impatient with every passing visit. Halley wished she could do anything to get away from her. Anything. And one night, someone came to help.
Halley heard a "psst." outside her window one night, but she was too short to see the man seated directly below her sill. Regardless, he spoke to her in a calming manner. Unlike the lady's voice, he was calming and soothing. His voice reminded Halley of her mother's voice and how beautiful she sounded when she read her and Brandon their bedtime stories.
Halley remembered her mother and suddenly began crying. She muffled her sobs, fearing someone would hear her, but the man told her that it was alright. He apparently removed all sound from the room, so the only person who could hear her cry was him. He could've very well lied to Halley, but she chose to believe him and let all her tears out.
The man listened in silence as the nine-year-old cried out for her mother, father, grandmother, and brother. She wanted to be with them more than anything in the world, and she couldn't. She wasn't even allowed to see her brother. The man asked her if she wanted to see her brother, and she was willing to give her soul to see him again.
The man let her keep her soul and instead placed his hand inside the window. She held the pale hand with her own, and placed her head under it when she was instructed to do so. "This is going to be scary, but I know you can do it." was the last thing Halley heard before everything went black.
When she opened her eyes, Brandon was crying hysterically in Maya's arms in front of her hospital bed. She asked him why he was crying, and they both embraced the young girl. Apparently she had finally released her power and that took a load on her physically and mentally. She ended up destroying the entire facility, but somehow no one was injured in the incident.
A few months later, she could finally go home with her brother and her grandmother. She finally had the power she needed to protect everyone, but she couldn't use it. It frustrated her. She wanted to be stronger and did so against Maya's warning. She made a plan that was dangerous, but doable.
She set up a system of automatic knife throwers in her room and placed herself in the middle. The knives were thrown faster and faster after every throw and with more precision. She closed her eyes as the first knife flew and knew she had succeeded when she heard the thud from the knife dropping onto the floor. She smiled as she got the hang of the exercise, and grinned when she got every knife with 100% accuracy.
The last and final knife was a tricky one as it's path wasn't a straight one. It was meant to bounce off of platforms in the room and eventually attack Halley's blind spot. Halley squeezed her eyes shut as she heard the knife bounce from platform to platform, but she felt herself fall onto the floor instead of the knife.
She opened her eyes and her grandmother was holding her on the floor. She looked at her and pushed her off with an annoyed filled shove. She explained how she had ruined Halley's exercise, but her complaining was cut short by Brandon screaming in the doorway. He was pointing at Maya's leg and Halley almost threw up as she saw the blood flow out of her leg. The final knife had hit Maya's left thigh.
The kids panicked as Halley rushed for the phone, but Maya weakly warned against it. If the police found out that Halley had hurt her, they would take her away for good. Brandon ran into the bathroom to get the first-aid kit, and they managed to stop the bleeding and carefully remove the knife from her thigh. Maya was still in excruciating pain and Halley, feeling responsible, ran out the door.
Brandon helped Maya onto a chair before she told him to go after his sister. He chased her through the town and into the woods by the town. They had always gone to play there with their parents, so Brandon knew Halley would be sitting by the creek. That was where she always went when she was feeling down. He thought of how hard Halley must've had it.
Brandon wasn't in the facility for long nor did he have the scary men and women talk to him either. He had always been "stable". He wanted to protect Halley from the cruel world that took their parents from them, but that made her feel like she had to protect him in return. Brandon and Halley sat at that creek and just talked like the nine-year-olds they were. Something they hadn't been able to.
Brandon talked about how their dad would hit him once on the head every time he made her cry, and how most of the time it wasn't even his fault. Halley argued that Brandon would incite violence first by annoying her after seeing her peaceful. Brandon called it "having fun" while their mother called it "being annoying." They giggled at the memory of their mother scolding them, and they began remembering all the time they had with her. The five years they had before she was taken away. They tried to smile as they remembered her. They tried their best to.
However, Halley ended up crying, which made Brandon cry, and they just cried while holding each other's hands. The two of them cried beside the moonlit creek until they remembered their injured grandmother and went back home. On their way back, Brandon told Halley that his Magi, Apollo, had told him that Artemis loved to heal people.
Halley laughed at the thought of the goddess of the hunt healing someone, but she wasn't laughing after she placed her hand on Maya's thigh and healed her. She was just trying to prove a point. She didn't actually mean to heal her. At least, Halley didn't think she did. She wasn't what she did, but whatever it was, it made Grandma feel better, made Brandon smug, and made Halley believe that she could finally help others.
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After meeting the stranger, Rebecca's father (Mateo) couldn't even face his six-year-old daughter after what he had said and done to her. She noticed that he stopped buying alcohol and started buying healthier foods. He even started going to an online university to finish up his degree in architecture. He only dreamed about becoming an architect, but he had to drop out of college when Rebecca was born.
She felt guilty every time she saw him coming back home late and going straight onto his laptop for hours. She wanted to do something for him. Something to show him that she still loved him. Something to show Mateo that she wanted him in her life. That she forgave him. But what could a six-year-old do?
Rebecca decided to make her dad a New Year's card on New Year's Eve. She got up early and waved her dad goodbye since he never went close to her. She felt a little sting in her heart every time she waved him goodbye from a distance, but she never let it show on her face.
She ran through the small house looking for anything that would make a card that her father would love enough to look her in the eyes again. A normal piece of paper folded in two wasn't going to cut it this time. It had to be above and beyond. The only problem with that was Rebecca had to be the least creative person on the planet. However, there were two twins on the other side of town who were.
Brandon, Halley and Rebecca all went to school together, but school was out for the New Year's celebrations. Bran and Hall were the only people in the entire school who weren't scared of Rebecca. It's not that Rebecca was mean. She just had a naturally mean looking face. That's all, but no one except them knew that because no one was brave enough to walk up to her and ask.
The twins, however, had always been a curious duo and so were the perfect consultants for Rebecca's seemingly impossible task. Brandon told her to add a star globe into the card, but Rebecca didn't have that much money just laying around her house. If she did, they'd all be living on the richer side of Olympia, so that idea was also ruled out.
Halley told her to fill a shoe box full of things that she knew he would love and add a card inside of it. The idea was a winner and led to Rebecca hoisting Halley up and running around with her on her back. Brandon laughed at the dizzy Halley, who got motion-sickness easily, being spun around like a rag doll. Halley then whispered something to Rebecca's ear and they both turned to face Brandon.
He sensed the danger behind their smiles, but he couldn't escape the terrifyingly athletic Rebecca and Halley. They cornered him and dragged him outside before tying him to a pole and attaching it to two large wheels. He begged for forgiveness for laughing, but they dropped him on his side anyways and rolled him around their backyard until he got sick.
Their grandmother, who'd seen everything, invited Rebecca over for lunch. Rebecca always spent her lonely days with the Marksons. They all treated her like she was a part of their family even though they were so different from her and her father. She understood why her father was always working, which is why she was hell-bent on making this present for him.
Halley and Brandon offered to help her make the present as they all walked Rebecca home, but she insisted that she could do it on her own. They gave their final goodbyes of the year before continuing onto the store to buy groceries for their grandmother.
Rebecca closed the door behind her and immediately dashed up the stairs and stood in front of her father's door. She was never allowed into his room, but she thought there might've been something that could help her. She sat in front of the room for a while before deciding to look around the house instead of going into the forbidden room.
She collected little knick knacks around the house that reminded her of all the times she used to see her father smile. Before her mom left. She suddenly stopped taping the box down as she thought about how miserable her mother must've been to just get up and leave them. Rebecca thought about how her dad worked long, hard hours just for her.
She thought of just leaving again, but she worried him too much the last time she did. In fact, the last time he had touched her was after she came back from running away. He held her tight and apologized until he lost his voice. When he collapsed the next day at work, she realised he hadn't slept the entire time she was gone.
She thought of what kind of burden she was to him and contemplated running away again, but she convinced herself that her gift would fix everything. It had to. It just had to.
She then started on the card and just drew the first thing that came to mind when she thought of her father's happiness. Her small arms gilded across the paper, and her smile grew bigger and bigger with every passing stroke. Soon she stopped and held the paper up for examination. She tilted her head left then right before deciding it needed glitter. The only glitter, however, was in her father's room.
She promised herself that she would just grab the glitter and go without touching anything unnecessary. She slowly turned the door knob and entered the dark room. It was much darker than the rest of the house, and little Rebecca couldn't reach the light switch, so she slowly shuffled her way to the desk. She climbed up the chair and looked all over for the glitter, but she couldn't find it.
Where was the glitter? Rebecca looked up at the shelves that were screwed into the wall above his desk and found the glitter. She tried to reach for it, but it was too high up for her to reach. She placed one foot on the first shelf to test its durability and it held well, so she placed her second foot on the second shelf. Soon she was four shelves up and the glitter was riiiight there. Until it wasn't.
The entire shelf fell off the wall and crashed down onto the desk and floor below. Luckily for Rebecca, her barrier instinctively protected her from the crash. She looked at the mess, mortified, but deduced that everything was fine. She had time to fix everything. She just needed Halley and Brandon's help. She could fix this. Dad would never have to know.
As her luck would have it, Mateo didn't take the night shift that New Year's Eve and he arrived home in time to hear the shelf crashing down. He bursted into the room as Rebecca was trying to put her barrier away. He looked at the mess and the pot of glitter in the child's hand before mercilessly scolding her.
Rebecca held in her tears for the entire lecture because she knew it was her fault. Mateo yelled at her for breaking the rules and going into his room, which was strictly forbidden. Rebecca tried to tell him about the present she made for him, but he didn't want to hear it. That's when the voice in Rebecca's head split.
One was telling her that it wasn't her fault, while the other told her how much of a burden she was being. She quietly whispered that she wasn't a burden over and over again, only she got louder with every time. Mateo paused when he heard it the first time and told her to repeat what she had said. Her senses came back online at hearing the command, but she didn't know what he was talking about.
Mateo raised his hand to slap the girl, but he stopped himself in time to tell her to get out of his room. By this time, one of the voices in Rebecca's head had vanished. She lifelessly walked to her room and sat in her corner as she repeated to herself that she was a burden. She was a burden. A mistake. Everything was her fault. There was no doubt about it. Everyone would be better off if she was gone.
"Everyone?" A mysterious voice Rebecca had never heard before asked her if that was true, but the six-year-old jumped up and ran away to the other side of her room. She asked the weirdly dressed lady who she was and how she had gotten into her room, but she just giggled at the comment. Her name was Athena. She was Rebecca's Magi.
She was the one responsible for the random barriers that popped up and protected Rebecca every time she needed them to. The goddess explained magicians to the confused child, but it didn't help. She told her she was her guardian spirit, but Rebecca wasn't religious. To prove that she wasn't an intruder, the lady had Rebecca throw something at her.
She watched in amazement as everything she threw at her went straight through the goddess. The six-year-old's suspicion turned to awe at the goddess's existence. She asked her if she wanted to play, and Athena agreed. Rebecca then grabbed her present and placed it in front of her father's door before running to her backyard.
There, Rebecca asked the goddess how to make barriers for others, which pleasantly surprised Athena. She explained the process in which all she had to do was picture the barrier around anyone or anything she wished. Once she did that, Athena could string her power through her and make the barrier. The more Rebecca accepted magic the stronger the barrier would become.
Accepting it wasn't something she could do overnight. It was a natural process whose speed depended on the soul of the magician and the Magi. Luckily for Rebecca, her soul was a powerful one, so it would be easier for her to use more magic. As Rebecca was asking Athena all about magic, Mateo came outside and called her back inside.
Rebecca asked Athena to stay by her side, but the goddess assured that she would be fine before disappearing as quickly as she appeared. Mateo sat her down at their kitchen table and asked her how long she had been a magician. She answered truthfully and didn't say anymore than she needed to. He then placed her present on the table and thanked her for it.
She worryingly asked if he liked it, and he did. Rebecca's stone cold face bursted into a bright smile as she avoided all eye contact with her dad. He then apologized for yelling at her, which made her look up. The only time he ever apologized was when he was crying. She didn't want him to cry. Not now, but he wasn't crying. Instead he asked her for a hug.
Rebecca hopped out of her chair and walked up to her father before giving him a small hug. He embraced her tight and told her he loved her. She cried in his arms as she told him how much she loved him too. They paid no attention to the time as their hug lasted all the way up until the new year.
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Three-year-old Britney sat at her grandmother's dining table wondering what negligent meant on New Year's Eve of 20XX. Her grandmother had just called her parents negligent, but she couldn't understand what that word meant. Was it like cool? Did grandmother call mother and father cool? The young toddler wondered and as she did, she grew happier.
She barely saw her parents at the same time, and sometimes they both "went to work" and had to leave Nayeon behind. Adults always had something to say about the way her parents were raising her, but she loved her parents no matter what anyone said about them. She was bright. Too bright for her age, but she was duller than most children her age.
I don't think dull is the right word to describe her either to be completely honest. I think unorthodox fits a whole lot better. It may be because her parents weren't afraid of anything, but the toddler didn't find anything remotely chilling or intimidating. Spiders, bears, heights, knives. She wasn't scared of anything. Sure it's a great thing when you're older, but it's not that great when you're three.
Nayeon enjoyed going to the park with her grandmother every New Year's Eve, but she wasn't particularly happy with her parents for leaving her and going on an assignment. They stressed its urgency and claimed it as of the utmost importance, but she didn't care. In her eyes, they were just leaving their kid with her so that they could go on some vacation, and they didn't have the gall to say it.
Nayeon knew that if grandma was in a bad mood, then she wouldn't be allowed to go to the park. She had to do something to lighten her mood, but what? She tried being extra good while eating. She didn't even spill all of her peas, only half of them. When that didn't work, she went to her room and changed her clothes herself. She did a good job too, granted she looked like a character out of one of her colouring books.
Okay, she may not have done it well, but Britney managed to make her grandmother laugh. This was a win in her books! Or at least she thought it was. Her grandmother didn't take her to the park, but to the reading room to sleep. She was almost never allowed in there, so she ly in the room as her grandmother tidied up the room next to hers.
The quiet reading room with the sun piercing the windows made the room warm and comfortable. The perfect place for a nap, but Nayeon wanted to go to the park. She remembered the way to the park, all she had to do was get up and walk there. Since grandmother didn't want to take her there, Britney decided to take herself there.
It was still cold outside, so Britney tried her best to put on her boots and jacket. That was the easy part. The hard part came when she put on her gloves before she put on her hat. She couldn't grip it properly, so it kept sliding off her head. She eventually got fed up with the article of clothing and threw it on the floor before leaving. Britney always saw the adults leave a note before leaving, so she sloppily wrote one as well, but it was difficult because of those darn gloves.
Britney spent so much time in her grandmother's home that she became friends with practically the whole town. Everyone knew her and she knew everyone. So when her grandmother's friend saw her walking to the park by herself, she questioned where she was going alone. She told the toddler to go back home and to go with her grandmother.
Nayeon was an obedient child. She always did as she was told, and she never talked back either. She did turn around to go home, but a beautiful bird caught her eye and she followed it to the park and watched it land on a beautiful young lady. She ran up to the lady and asked her why the bird landed on her, and apparently that was her bird.
She also disliked children, so she instructed Britney to go play with the other kids at the playground. Britney went over to them and almost immediately befriended all of the kids there, except one. He was really mean to her as well, but it didn't bother her. Most probably because she was too dense to realize she was being bullied, but regardless he didn't like her and he planned to scare her off.
At first, he pushed her off the slide, then the swings, then off the play set completely, but Britney and her three-year-old durability were just fine. In fact, it increased her popularity quite a bit. He tried telling scary stories, but she couldn't understand what was scary about them.
The boy finally blew up on Nayeon and questioned what she was scared of while grabbing her collar. The other boys present tried to break them up, but one of the girls' screams took everyone's attention away from them. Why? She had just spotted a snake slithering about.
Everyone else screamed and ran away, but Britney walked up to the snake, which was stuck in the fence. She pulled the slithery creature out of the fence and carefully placed it back in the woods. She even waved it goodbye as it left her and went on with its life. She then turned back to the children, who were mortified. She just picked up a snake like it was nothing.
They asked why she did it, if she was scared at all, but she wasn't scared and she just wanted to help the snake. The mean boy took the opportunity to call Britney a monster. "Only a monster isn't scared of anything." he said, as the rest of the children followed suit by gathering around the three-year-old. They chanted "Monster! Monster!" over and over again until she just ran away from them.
She plopped herself down on a bench and cried at the thought of being a monster. She hadn't done anything wrong, so why was she a monster? It wasn't fair. A familiar-ish voice broke through Britney's crying and asked her why she was back again. Nayeon wiped her tears as she looked back up the beautiful lady from before. Britney suddenly got agitated from her question, jumped down off the bench and kicked her in her leg before hopping back on.
She blamed the lady, who was in pain, for being a monster. If she never told her to go play with those kids, then she wouldn't be a monster. She replied that Britney wasn't strong enough to be a monster. A monster wouldn't cry because they were called a monster. They would be proud, like she was.
Britney was mesmerized by the lady's short speech and asked her for an autograph. She laughed at the request, but offered her name: Python. Like the snake. She then proceeded to put her hat on Nayeon's head before getting up to leave. The child stared at her with star-struck eyes as she got up and walked away from her.
She was so captivated that she didn't notice her grandmother calling out to her. She was angry that she had left without telling her, Britney insisted that she left a note before she left, but it didn't matter. You know who did matter? Python. She told her grandmother about the beautiful monster lady named Python, but she thought that she was an imaginary friend of hers.
Britney argued that she was real. She knew she was real and she wanted to be just like her when she grew up. She wanted to be a monster.
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This last and final memory is the one of five-year-old Michaelangelo, who had just lost his parents only a few months prior to the new year. Aunt Clara did her best to explain that they weren't coming back in the most painless way possible, but she found herself crying as she told him her brother and sister-in-law were gone. Forever.
At first, Michaelangelo began crying because he thought that Clara was leaving him too, but he stopped crying for a moment when she explained that she was going to stay with him forever. He couldn't stop crying as he fathomed the fact of never seeing his parents again. He blamed himself for the ordeal. He thought it was because he had been a bad child that they left, but Clara assured him it wasn't his fault.
For the entire first week after the fire, Clara never let Michael out of her sight and Michaelangelo constantly clung to his only family left. They tried doing different things to take their minds off of it, but when one of them started crying again, the other began sobbing as well.
She had taken her grace time off from work to stay with Michael, but they never left the apartment. They never ate anything either. They just cried together day in and day out. It wasn't until Michael passed out from exhaustion from crying and not eating enough, that Elliot entered the conversation. Elliot had only dated Clara for a few months, but he moved in with her and Michael in order to make sure they were eating.
Michael liked Elliot because Elliot made the pain go away with warm food and hugs, just like his mom did. He helped Michael out of bed every morning and took him out on a drive in the early morning twilight before he headed to work. Michael loved the feeling of the cool air hitting his face. It made him feel like he was underwater, like the time he went snorkeling with his dad.
Everything. Michaelangelo saw a memory of his parents in everything he did. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't fill that hole in his chest that they had left behind in the young child. He just wanted one more hug. Was that too much to ask for? To Michaelangelo it sounded like a simple request, but to the universe, he wasn't an exception to heartbreak.
When Michael wasn't crying, he was sleeping. He had all sorts of dreams, but they all ended with the scene of his mother reaching out to him before getting trapped in their burning house. He always woke up shortly afterwards and muffled his tears as he sat between Elliot and Clara. If only he had- What? What could he have done? They were all protecting him. There was nothing he could've done.
Michael forced these thoughts to the back of his mind as he focused on the happy memories he had with his parents. He felt himself getting better until that New Year's Eve.
Aunt Clara had gotten up early for the first time in weeks and Michael even made breakfast for her with Elliot. She patted his head with a heavy sigh before saying, "What do you think of Michaelangelo?" He didn't know who that was. Clara giggled a bit before asking what he thought about the name. He liked it? Why did it matter in the first place?
Clara wanted to change his name. She was convinced that the people who took Michael's parents would try to find him as well, so she wanted to change his name. Michael didn't take the news well. First, they took his parents from him, now adults wanted his name? Why? It was as if Aunt Clara wanted to destroy every trace of her brother that she could find. Including Michaelangelo.
Elliot tried to break the tension with a light-hearted joke, but Michael told him he wasn't his father, so he should stop acting like he was. He then stormed down the hall to his room before slamming the door behind him. He couldn't understand why they were trying to take away what he had left of his parents.
He spent the entire day in his room cursing the universe and fate, until someone called him by his real name. He turned around and saw a grown, built man sitting on his bed. He also had on strange looking clothing and unnaturally silver hair that confused Michael. He asked him if he recognized him, and to Michael, he was the man that broke the fire hand that almost hurt Aunt Clara.
He went along with the title and asked the toddler what was wrong. He claimed that Aunt Clara and Elliot were trying to replace his mom and dad. They even tried stealing his name from him so that they couldn't remember them and so he'd eventually forget them for good. It was Michael's duty to protect the memory of his parents. That was the right thing to do.
The silver-haired man simply laughed at Michael's declaration before asking him if he could cook or clean. He could pour cereal in a bowl and lay his bed. Did he have a steady job? No. A place to live outside of the apartment? No. A car? An education? He did have a certificate from his art teacher. Bottom line was Michael couldn't survive on his own.
He needed adults whether he liked it or not. It wasn't like they were trying to replace his parents. He needed someone to fill those roles in his life. It was necessary for his growth. No one had asked him to call them mom and dad. No one had asked him to forget about his parents either. They were simply protecting him to the best of their abilities.
The weird guy made sense, but Michael still didn't want to give up his name. He loved his real name, and "Michaelangelo" sounded nothing like it. The man sat back as he was deep in thought. After a prolonged period of time, he announced a deal: he would always help Michaelangelo if he took on the new name. In addition, he would call Michael by his birth name every time they spoke, so he could never forget it.
The five-year-old contemplated the deal for a short while before agreeing to all the terms inside of it. The man then got up to leave, but Michaelangelo didn't want him to leave just yet. He called out to him using his given name and told him he'd be fine. "After all," he declared, "I'm positive this year will be a fun one for the both of us."
~END OF NEW YEAR'S SPECIAL~
~HAPPY NEW YEAR!~
^.^
每周推薦票狀態
-- 推薦票
榜單 
-- 推薦票