Darkest Trilogy: Asleep & Awaken Chapter 1.

CHAPTER 1.

Song : Death and All His Friends-- Coldplay

Harsh sunlight burned down on the state of Nevada, toasting more freckles onto my already spotted skin. I dug my fingers deep into the newly watered dirt, clawing the roots of the lettuce out of the ground.

A football game that Dad had insisted on watching blared from the open windows of the house and out into the crisp garden patch I was working in, tickling my ears before disappearing on the wind.

I tossed the last head of lettuce into the plastic bowl next to me and hopped up from my knees, straightening my tank top and dusting the dirt off my jeans before walking over to the tomato plants and plucking the ruby red ones off their vines.

Dad and Kiki refused to commit to a garden even when I promised to do all the work, but since we never got over to the grocery store more than once a month, it was necessary.

“No! Pass it! He’s open!” Dad’s voice echoed out into the empty front yard and I rolled my eyes. His enthusiasm for sports was a favorite topic among our neighbors. Supposedly, you could hear him all the way in Las Vegas.

I checked my watch again--like I had every ten minutes ever since I woke up—and saw that I had about an hour to fix dad lunch and finish packing.

Plucking a few more cherry tomatoes off their vines and placing them in the bowl, I ran up the steps of the porch and through the open screen door.

I wasn’t exactly looking were I was going until it was to late and I clipped my side on the edge of couch and spilled some of vegetables. Annie—dad’s bird dog —dove out of her bed, munched up the mess, and then looked up at me waiting for more.

“Who moved the couch?” I rubbed my side and scooted past Annie into the kitchen while eying dad suspiciously. He grunted and pointed to the TV.

“Sorry, what was that?” I waved my hand across his face, trying to break his contact with the screen. He didn’t even blink.

Instead, He grunted again and put a finger to his lips. Huffing, I dumped my bowl into the sink and turned on the water. Kiki came running down the stairs with half her hair in a pigtail and the other flapping behind her.

“Alex! I can’t put the rest up and Aunt Kelly doesn’t know how to do hair to save her life!” Kiki held up her glittery hairbrush and turned around so I could put the rest of her hair up. I pulled her thin blonde hair into another pigtail and wrapped a rubber band around it. Kiki—or Carolina —and I took after either one of parents so much that it was hard to tell we were sisters. Kiki took after Dad, with her silky blond hair and glowing brown eyes. I supposed I looked like mom - onyx hair and pale green eyes - but she left when I was too young to remember what she looked like.

“So you’re going to leave it in pigtails for the rest of the year?” I handed her back her hairbrush and then started digging through the white washed cabinets for sandwich ingredients.

“No. Just how ever long they stay in.” She rolled her chocolate eyes at me and hopped up on the counter, watching me spread slices of turkey on mustard covered bread.

“And then when they fall out I’ll stick them in…a headband.” Kiki mumbled almost incoherently. I placed her sandwich on a chipped plate and slid it down the countertop to her, making sure she caught it before turning around and preparing another one.

“I was going to give you my headbands anyway Kiki, you didn’t have to sneak them out of my room.”

She grimaced and looked down at her food, deciding not to say anything. Kiki pulled the crust off the sides of the bread and tossed them into Annie’s bowl, earning a slobber kiss from the ecstatic dog.

I grabbed three grape sodas out of the fridge and tossed one to Kiki along with another sandwich. Popping open my soda, I took a sip, breathing in the fizzy bubbles. I was too nervous to eat.

“Dad! Do you want tomatoes?” I called from the kitchen, replacing my soda in the fridge and pulling out a forth piece of bread from the bag. I started slicing one of the bigger tomatoes before he even answered.

“Yeah!”

“Oh, now you talk.” I could hear dad sigh all the way in the living room and I snickered. Checking my watch again, I threw together another sandwich and ran it to the couch.

“We have to leave in twenty minutes Dad.” I reminded him and I handed him his plate.

“As soon as this quarter is over.”

“Dad! We have to leave before then!”

“Yeah, sure.” He turned his attention back to the TV screen where a commercial for diet coke was buzzing through the speakers.

“Twenty minutes.” I reminded again before running back to the kitchen and up the stairs to my room.

My room had always been pathetically empty for as long as I can remember. A bed and dresser were the only two pieces of furniture that sat on the abused wood floor (comma) and I liked it that way. The rest of the house was always so cluttered with ten generations of Orsinger family treasure. So it was somewhat of a relief to have a very blank room to sleep in.

Though now, there were dozens of cardboard boxes stacked against the wall with old books and a fair amount of large stuffed animals that could double as pillows popping out from the boxes ripped corners. I couldn’t take any of this with me on the plane so Dad was sending it by snail mail in a couple weeks.

Hopefully I could go a month without Patterson’s Ultimate Guild To Anything as midnight reading material.

Not that I would be staying up until midnight. As far as I knew, boarding schools had curfews. A fact that I was dreading to face when I finally made it to Philadelphia.

It seemed odd—even to me—that I was transferring halfway across the states to go to a school that was no better or had anything more for me to gain than my old school in Nevada.

The only reason Dad happened to pick this school was that it was the cheapest and could take me in the middle of the semester.

Dad had gotten a job up in Reno as a rancher’s assistance that required him to stay the entire cattle-herding season up there. Since he couldn’t leave his fourteen and nine year old daughters’ alone for that long his solution was to send me to boarding school and Kiki to our Aunt Kelly’s to be home schooled.

I had an anxiety attack every time I thought about it.

I knew I should probably be mad that my dad was forcing me to go to a school that I most certainly did not want to go to. Maybe even be throwing a fit and refusing to go. But all I could muster was a horrible edginess.

It wasn’t like sleeping over at a friend’s house. If you got scared, your Dad would come pick you up. I was stuck blank miles away from dad or any familiar face. If anything happened it would take days for Dad to get to me.

Despite the fact that I had always dreamt of trudging out on my own and having an adventure, I was petrified at the thought of having the chance later today.

I walked over to my closet and pulled out my tennis shoes, my eyebrows knitted together in worry. I tried slipping my shoes on while standing up but started hoping around the room one-footed until I knocked down a pile of boxes.

Webster’s Book of Legend and Myth tumbled to the ground with a resounding crash along with the other contents of the boxes. It was a thick book—nearly four hundred pages—and had taken some effort to put in the box in the first place. I was surprised it didn’t fall right through the floor.

I leaned down and wrapped my fingers around its frayed edges, heaving upwards and hurling it onto my bed where it bounced.

I tied the laces on the one shoe I managed to get on and walked over to pear into it’s pages. The fall had opened the book to the most dog-eared and abused two pages in its contents.

Looking upon the familiar watercolor paintings of beautiful men and woman with wings sprouting from their shoulders, I traced the cursive writing at the top with my fingers.

“Guardians. Said to watch over the mortal race and protect against demons.”

Of course, the idea of demons running amok and tempting mortals was completely absurd. I liked to think that maybe there was someone watching over me besides Dad.

I sighed, stroking the paper and wishing—that if I did have a guardian—that he would protect me from my awful fate.

Pippin—realizing that he was not alone in the room—poked his masked head out from underneath a pile of shavings in his cage on my bed. He was—unfortunately for him since I could never let him out—extremely curious for a ferret.

He squeaked, clawing the bars of his cage with impatience. I usually kept him in a little pouch that I tied around my neck while I worked around the house but I hadn’t have time today.

I reached out to touch his button of c nose just as my watch started beeping hyperactively, signaling it was time to leave. I jumped up, slamming my book closed and grabbing my suitcase and Pippin’s cage off my bed.

Turning on my heels, I ran out my door and down the stairs, feeling a tad guilty I didn’t stop to say goodbye to the house. I didn’t know if I would ever come back here.

I paused at the dinning room table, looking over Grandma Georgia’s vase collection and the wooden chairs paint spattered from Kiki’s last paint your own mug birthday party. Only now—when I was about to leave—did I realize I had never truly lived in here.

I mean sure, I had slept and ate here but it never really felt homey to me. I hadn’t even left a mark! If you looked around you wouldn’t even know I had spent fourteen years of my life in this house.

Dad honked the horn on the truck, sending my heart sputtering. I had to go. Quickly, before Dad could honk the horn again I reached down and scratched an “A” into the table with my fingernail. There, now unless somehow the table caught fire…

“Alex! Come one!” Dad barked—his voice so loud it echoed through the walls of the house-- and I sprinted outside, practically busting out of the screen door before tossing my suitcase in the back along with Kiki’s boxes and then hopping into the front seat in Pippin’s cage in my lap.

Kiki was squished in the almost non-existent back seat singing along to the radio station, using her hot pink suitcase as a drum. Aunt Kelly had promised to bring Kiki back here next summer so she could see her friends so she didn’t have any problem leaving.

Neither did I. I wanted a change of scenery and the independent feeling being away from home would give me. Or at least, I would keep telling myself that.

“You know Alex, for someone who kept nagging me to leave on time you sure were cutting it close.” Dad lectured as he sped down our driveway.

I hung my arm out the window along with my head and listened to the wind rushing along my eardrums so I wouldn't have to hear the rest of his rant. I took one last look at my used to be home. The faded blue paint of the sagging two-story house with poison ivy crawling up the side that covered my window like spider’s web stuck out the most to me. I would miss this.

“Your just like your mother.” Dad continued to compare me to the woman I had never met but as we turned onto the highway his words were lost to the wind. He was right of course; who else could I be like? But I didn't feel obligated to listen to him today of all days, when I only had a few hours left of freedom and sun.

Whoa yeah! 2nd edit and I think it defiantly better. I added some foreshadowing (thanks Sunny) and I really hope it’s not to blunt or confusing. Which I think it might be. Mwhahahaha! You think you know what’s going to happen but you don’t….

I highly recommend listening to the song I noted. It kind of foreshadows the plot for the trilogy. Kinda.