Guardian of Mortals

Chapter 1

Anen

The damp, foggy, morning was nearly silent except for the soft thud of heavy earth falling into the empty hole and my sister’s heart-wrenching cries. I could feel the moistness of the fog sinking into my clothes, making them damp.

Lila clutched my hand and buried her head in the crook of my elbow, her tears seepinginto my black jacket that she had made me wear. She was sniffling still, but her cries were more tame now.

“I,” she started to sniffle again, lifting her head from my arm to look at me, “I miss him so much.” Her words were barely audible as she began to cry again -louder this time- with more tears than before, which streaked down her face, leaving wet trails behind them.

“I know Lila,” I told her, trying my best to be feel how she felt. “But he was just a cat, all pets die sometime.”

Her brown eyes looked up at me, red-rimmed from her crying. If she hadn't been so upset over Fluffy's death, I'm sure her eyes would have been slits, and the phrase, 'If looks could kill', surely would’ve applied, but she was too upset to glare at me right now.

“I-I loved him!” Her crying intensified in volume until I was sure the neighbors thought that someone was killing her out in our backyard.

I sighed before her hand left mine and she walked by the upturned earth as Dad chucked the last shovelful of soggy dirt over the makeshift grave. Dad picked her up and she buried her head against his collarbone, her blond hair standing out in contrast to the black clothing she had made everyone wear. Her own clothing was hanging off of her frail frame. Mom looked at me from across the grave and gave me a small smile, which I didn’t return.

I could still hear Lila's sniffling cries even when Dad began to carry her away from the grave. I prevented myself from rolling my eyes so many times this morning and now was just one more time. It was a cat, for crying out loud, not anything human. Yet she was crying like Mom and Dad had both died right in front of her.

I turned and walked away; Mom followed behind me. Soon she caught up and was walking beside me. Her footsteps matched mine step for step.

“I know you think this whole thing was silly, but it means a lot to her,” she said, her voice low in case Lila could somehow overhear.

“Mom, it was a cat,” I told her, twirling a piece of my light brown hair around a finger. “I mean, if this is how she acts now, I don't want to see her when a family member dies.”

She put a hand on my shoulder and looked at me with her piercing brown eyes. “To her, Fluffy was family, and now he's gone.”

I kicked a rock that had appeared in my path. “I guess so.” We kept walking, but neither of us said anything else. I walked into the house, feeling like I needed to be wrung out because of the foggy morning air.

I headed up the stairs, avoiding the squeaking step at the top. I opened my door and walked into the familiar space. Throwing my jacket on a chair in the corner of the room, I picked up a brush and ran it through my now frizzy hair. I glanced into the ornate wall mirror and saw my reflection looking back at me. My light brown hair was slightly damp and still tangling at the ends. I stared into the startling color of my eyes, which were sea foam green, a very rare eye color. I can’t even tell you how many times people have asked if they were contacts. And how many times they scoffed when I said they weren’t.

After I finished running the brush through my hair, I fell backwards on my bed, staring at the ceiling above me. Faded glow-in-the-dark stars stared down at me, absorbing light so they could glow faintly during the night.

I closed my eyes and tried not to think about the fact that my little sister was crying her eyes out in the next room. Maybe Mom was right, that I should be more sympathetic towards her. But it was a cat. I didn't really feel sorry for the evil little thing.

I remember the first day that Dad had brought it home; he had saved it from the streets. It wasn’t that much sooner than I had picked it up that it had yowled and bit me. Which would turn out to be the first of many times it would have bit me, mostly for no reason.

I heard the squeak of floorboards outside my door before I heard the knock that followed.

“Anen, we're leaving for a little while, Lila's coming with us,” Mom said from the other side of my door. I mumbled my okay and rolled over, putting my forehead against my forearm.

I heard the sounds of shuffling feet down the stairs, and then the car started and left. I opened my eyes, seeing only the shadows of the creasing of the sheets below me.

I sat up and looked out the window at the dismal gray that hung over everything. In a week school would be starting up again -I would be a junior- yet I would still be living in the shadow of my older sister, Sarah.

Sarah had been the valedictorian of her class and all the teachers had loved her. Living in her shadow wasn't easy. They expected me to be just like her; perfect grades and all. That’s where the problem was, when I got a ninety-eight percent in a class that she had taken, odds are she’d either gotten a ninety-nine or a higher percentage.

The teacher’s still asked about her often -how she was doing in her life- and they were just thrilled beyond belief to find out that she had majored in that brainy thing she majored in, and was now living her dream life, with her dream job, with the perfect husband and a little boy who was going on age three.

Just thrilled, weren’t they? And all the while, I had sat there, fake grinning like a ninny, wanting strangle those stupid teachers for making me think about how well she was doing in life and how I was going nowhere with mine. Sure I was smart, but where was that going to get me in life if I had no idea about what I wanted to do?

Yeah, I’ll be the smartest hobo ever; living homeless because I didn’t go to college because I couldn’t make up my mind about what to do with the rest of my life. Everyone in my grade seemed to have it all figured out, from what they were going to do to how many children they were going to have.I was happy for them, but where was my sudden revelation of where I was supposed to be in this world, where I belonged? I don’t believe it is anywhere really. Because this isn’t a fairytale, and even if it was, not everyone gets a happy ending.

I let out a sigh and flipped back over so I was lying on my back, once again staring at my ceiling, and I stayed that way, looking up at the glow-in-the-dark stars and listening to the soft patter of rain falling against my window until I fell asleep.

* * * (One Week Later) * * *

I walked into the school, which was already filled with clusters of people that were screaming and hugging friends they hadn't seen all summer. I walked to my locker -which had no locks on it- and opened it, shoving my bag and notebooks into the tiny metal space, before heading to homeroom.

In the classroom there weren’t many people -just three- and one of them was my best friend, Amber. She looked at me, an immediate smile spreading across her freckled face. She pushed a lock of her brown hair behind her ear and motioned for me to sit down next to her.

Without as much as a glance towards the homeroom teacher or any of the other students, I walked over to her and sat down in the desk.

“So, how was your summer? I totally didn't get to see you as much as I wanted to,” she blurted out, talking only the way Amber could. “I mean, with your parents not letting you have a phone, or go anywhere really. I'm just so happy to see you!” She let out a small squeal, and the other two people in the room turned to look at her.

We ignored them and I shook my head at her. “I know, I know,” I told her, “But there's nothing I can do about that. My summer was pretty boring, and Fluffy died; Lila gave him a funeral.”

“A funeral?” She gave a small giggle, “But it's a cat.”

“Yeah, tell me about it. She was dead serious and everything. She made us all wear black clothing, and she played sad songs, even made Dad give a speech. It was ridiculous.”

“That's pretty insane,” she agreed, staring at one of the students coming in the room. “Although,” she turned her attention back to me, “I would love to have a little sister.”

“You can have her and Sarah too for that matter.”

“No, you keep Sarah; I wouldn't want to be living in that shadow.”

“Tell me about it.”

She gave me a small look of pity before turning her head towards the door again. That's when her jaw dropped. “Who the holly hell is that?”

I turned and saw a boy walked into the classroom. He had long black hair that fell into his electric blue eyes, making it almost impossible to see them. He also had a scar that ran from his temple to his ear, which marred his otherwise unscarred face.

“I'm guessing that it's a new student,” I told her, and she smacked me with the back of her hand across my upper arm.

“Thank you Anen, I never would have guessed,” she rolled her eyes at me, and glanced back at him. Her eyes began to take on a dreamy stare and she gazed freely at him, completely unashamed.

“Amber, you're staring.”

“I can't help it. Wonder how he got that scar, maybe I should ask him sometime, along with some other things.”

“Like his name, maybe?”

“Yeah,” she said dreamily, her light brown eyes locked on him. I rolled my eyes and turned to look at the teacher who was beginning to take roll call.

“Levitson, Anen.”

“Here,” I said, raising my hand as I did so. The new guy turned to look at me, his blue eyes glancing at me curiously, with the slightest of smirks on his face.

I forced myself to look away from his eyes, just in time to hear his name. “Lawson, Skye.”

He turned to the front, “Here.”

The bell rang for first period, which was the only thing that finally tore Amber's eyes from Skye.

“Did you see him staring at you?” She sighed, her voice all dream-like. “I wish he would stare at me like that.” She sighed again, which was more of a self-pitying sigh than anything else. I rolled my eyes at her ability to fall into a crush so easily.

I tugged on her arm, pulling her to our first class. She moved sulkily, dragging her feet. “Are you really sulking about the fact that he looked at me?”

“Most people are,” Skye was standing directly in front of us, his arms crossed over his chest, leaning against my locker with a smirk on his face.

All Amber could do was stare at him, and his smirk grew even larger, like she was boosting his over-large ego, which I could tell was about the size of Jupiter.

“Do you always act like that? Arrogant and cocky?” I asked, while Amber continued to stare at him.

“Yes, it's one of my many flattering qualities, among which, my devilishly handsome looks come above all the rest.”

“Right, whatever. Come on Amber,” I grabbed her arm again, and started pulling her towards math class.

I walked past Skye, whose eyes I could feel boring into my back the entire time that I walked away, tugging Amber behind me. I couldn’t help but wonder if he knew somehow that the locker he was against was mine, he didn’t did he? Surely it was just a coincidence.

But honestly, I just wondered what his problem was. I tried to shake off the odd feeling I had about it as I entered the class, and made Amber sit down next to me. “I can't believe he actually talked to m- yo- us.” She said, her eyes becoming normal again for the first time since she had first set her light brown eyes on the boy named Skye.

I rolled my eyes at her and turned my attention to the front of the room, only to see Skye standing in front of my desk.

I’ll admit it freaked me out a little, but I managed to keep my composure together long enough to make a smart comment at him, “Are you naturally a stalker, or do you have to work at it?”

“It's a bit of work, especially with the ones who just can't stay in one place. I mean moving around that much? Someone may think they were hiding from something.”

Any remark that I had to counter him with died on its course from my brain to my mouth. Was he serious? Like honestly, freaking serious? He gave me a smirk, and then sat down in the desk in front of mine with a single fluid movement so I was left staring at the backside of his head, covered in his black hair. I wanted to slap him across the back of the head, since it was so conveniently sitting in front of me.

I let out a small sigh, which I hoped he couldn’t hear, considering that would just bring that irritating smirk back to his face, and tried to ignore the drool practically falling from Amber's mouth and her dreamy stare, so I stared right past Skye's head and at the board, where the teacher was writing down her name, and picking up papers, which were the syllabus’ for this year.

Skye handed me mine by turning around and handing me the piece of paper, but the weird thing was when his hand touched mine he shocked me. The even stranger thing was that it hurt way more than it should have.

I made a startled noise that was a combination of and ‘ow!’ and a frustrated groan.

“Careful, I hear that when sparks fly, things get hot.” I could almost hear the smirk on his face when Skye said it. That irritating little smirk that I would have loved to smack right off of his face. I know I barely knew the guy, but he was rather irritating, and wouldn’t leave me alone.

I growled, loud enough that he heard and laughed silently, his whole body shaking from laughter. I grabbed the papers from him, and I silently passed them to the person behind me, after taking one for myself.

“This is the outline for our Calculus class this year, as you can see...” Our teacher’s voice drifted off in the background as a note landed on the middle of my desk, from Skye. Of course.

Man, he would just not stop, would he? To make my statement loud and clear, I tore the paper in little shreds, then dropped it back over his shoulder when the teacher had her back turned, making the paper fall in small little cascading flakes in his lap.

He shook his head, and brushed the note into his hand and into his pocket. I could see the grin spreading on his face, and he left me alone, for the rest of the class period at least.

The bell rang after class and I said bye to Amber as she headed to her next class, which was on the opposite side of the school from mine, meaning I wouldn’t see her until lunch; an hour and a half from now.

Walking there alone felt weird, as I was always used to having Amber by my side. Then I wasn't alone anymore, which really irritated me, because I would have rather been alone than with him.

“That was really rude you know,” Skye said, not looking at me. “You could have at least read it.”

I sighed, and in my mind, I began to count. One, don't hit him. Two, Mom would kill you if you hit him.

“Oh, the silent treatment, huh?” He gave an amused laugh, making me grit my teeth in annoyance.

Again, I didn't answer him. I just kept walking, hoping he would leave me alone.

He opened his mouth to say something else, but I stopped him. “What do you want with me? I don't even know you so just buzz off won't you?”

He didn't even look stunned, he just simply laughed and when he stopped his was grinning. “You know, I really like you.” And with that, he walked away, still grinning as he did so.