The Victimised Bloodline: Chapter 5

 It was dark. I didn't feel anything. It was all quiet. Was this what death was like? Just drifting off into a deep, endless void?

 There was no air to breathe. I couldn't move whatsoever, which makes no sense considering I was in presumably an endless vacuum. A weird sense of déjà vu struck me, as if I'd gone through this several times before.

 I couldn't even move, which was peculiar. It was as if my entire body had disintegrated, and only my consciousness was floating around. Actually, that would explain the darkness, since I had no actual eyes to take in light with... Oh well.

 Enough with my current theories. I experienced a sudden urge in... Hopelessness? Apathy? Honestly I'm not sure what happened. Long story short, I slowly opened my (physical) eyes, only to see a horrific scene unfold.

 I think half of me was buried under parts of rubble, but my memory of that occurrence is fuzzy and I couldn't feel my legs, so I'm not sure.

 My vision was blackened, but I could breathe and pain was starting to erupt all over my body, my chest in particular. I groaned, and stood up. Once my vision cleared, I saw the clouded sky through what was once the ceiling. The pain was intensifying, and I put up a blood covered hand to my chest, only to find a massive hole there. I looked down, and on the floor lay a large metal spike, covered in coagulating blood. If I wouldn't have such wounds, I would've gasped.

 I remembered what seemed like moments ago. This... Man had threatened Reece and forced me into the floor, however that worked, the concrete had suddenly released me, then the man just... Stabbed me. A large, metal spike had penetrated my chest, and suddenly I found myself here.

 I looked around, The walls, the ceiling, it all had collapsed onto itself until the cafeteria, and probably several other parts of the school as well. My eyes hurt as they moved, like salt was continuously dropping into them. I looked around the rubble. The man was nowhere to be seen. Several students who didn't manage to get out in time were unconscious, or... I rejected the thought of it.

 Beneath a plank and a few pieces of roof plating, there lay a short, brown-haired girl with a monochrome dress. Reece was barely breathing, and she had some nasty wounds around her ribs. Naturally, I was worried. I pulled her out of there, an action which caused her dress to rip in several places. I tried to drag her out, but my arms wouldn't obey.

 I tried again, but once again, the attempt drained what semblance of energy I had left.

 "... Esme?"

 The voice came from behind me. It was vaguely familiar, actually. It sounded like the person in question had swallowed several gallons of sand. It was coarse, and anything but deep. I sighed, knowing all too well the owner of it.

I turned with a groan, only to be met with the horrifying sight of... Alexander. The boy who'd been working on that one WWII group project a while back along with me, Reece and that one other girl whose name I forgot by now. The still-thirteen year old boy was looking rougher than ever, his face covered in dust and his sand coloured hair messy like after a long night's sleep. His once-cobalt jeans were ripped, showing small red cuts in the flesh here and there, and his forest green shirt looked more like an actual forest than ever.

 "What... What happened back there?" He asked me, his tone shaking with what seemed like nervousity. Or fear. Or both. Knowing Alexander, it was probably both.

 "No idea. Help me get Reece to safety before police arrive." I responded. Alexander sighed, but obeyed and soon we were both dragging the unconscious Reece to the nearby batch of forest. It was a small bunch of trees. The school had kept it as a place for children to play hide and seek. As it was, I could only imagine children playing hide and hope not to be found and murdered right now.

 However, low budgets and negligence of said forest had led to it spreading like a family of bunnies, quickly becoming a maze of trees and bushes and moss and rocks that spread stories of monsters among the kids. Not many people would imagine that as a hiding place.

 Once we'd managed to get Reece to a slightly uncomfortable moss patch, I collapsed onto the ground, breathing heavily. Then I remembered. I had a massive hole in my chest. How in the world was I breathing when my lungs had been penetrated by iron? I recalled the moments after getting stabbed, the voice I'd been hearing for... Almost two days now had spoke to me.

 Idiot child. I warned you about this. Remember these words when you return, Esme, I'll make sure you do. The words were still echoing in my empty mind.

 "Idiot child... Warned me? Did it really?" I mumbled to myself. In my head, I asked what claimed to be my subconscious, what did you do?

 It did not hesitate to answer. What I had to do.

 Yeah. No. This was definitely not my subconscious. I'm not charismatic enough to force stubborn Esme to shut up with five words.

 I sighed. "So you saw what happened?" I asked Alexander, mostly to break the silence.

 The boy nodded. " I didn't get out in time. The man came in, he talked for a bit, then..." I swallowed. "Then you literally blew up." He said, as if that was something that happened every day.

 I pretended to be surprised. I raised my eyebrows to the point of pain, said aloud "WHAT?" and raised myself to a sitting position, an action that felt like ice being poured all over my back. In reality, I expected that. Like I'd seen it time and time again... Like I'd lived through it several times. A shadow of concern was growing inside me.

 Alexander, who'd believed my semi-bluff, said, "Yeah. Some gold light erupted from you, and then... Well, It crushed the ceiling and I was sure it would destroy everything. And then... it collapsed. That spike you had in your chest just slid out. Both you and Reece fell unconscious from the explosion, and that man... He just vanished." I realized I probably knew the situation better than someone who barely knew what was going on, but I digress.

 At least I had a vague idea. Vague, but an idea was an idea nonetheless. 

 "Oh. That's... Yeah, I'm confused too." I admitted. After this, I needed a chat with my uncle.

 That was when Reece awoke, with, cliché as it may be, a cough. She tried to sit up, but relatably enough, she lay down again. She went back to her previous position with an "Ugh...", eyes closed. I exhaled in relief. At least she wasn't dead. That was something we hadn't lost.

 We. The concept of a we was weird. Me and Reece had been assaulted by a man who seemed to be able to put everything and anything under his command. Alexander was the reason Reece was still alive, how short-lived that may be. Alexander wasn't a part of the group, nor was he just a stranger. I didn't consider him our friend, or really just a companion. He was more so a useless package. Maybe if I hadn't been such a shithole, circumstances would be different.

 I'm getting off topic.

 She managed to get out a few words: "What in the world...?" Happened was the final, unspoken word, I was confident in saying. Still am.

 "I... Um... Have no idea." I responded as I lay in the wet moss, truthfully.

 I tried to sit up again. It hurt, but thankfully not as much as my last attempt did. With a groan, I examined my scratches and wounds. Some were just small cuts and stitches, but I had some nasty looking wounds on my right leg and well... A gaping, bleeding hole through my chest, where I'd been stabbed. The weirdest part was that it didn't hurt. It was just a hole through my chest, dripping warm, crimson blood and colouring my shirt red.

 "Wonderful." Reece said, being awfully uncharacteristic for the sweet, optimistic Reece I usually saw. "What's he doing here?" Emphasis was on 'he'. Alexander.

 The boy looked down. "I... Um..."

 I cut in. "He saw what happened. Helped me drag you here." I said, how ridiculous it may have sounded. The boy looked at me with thankful eyes. I rejected his gaze.

 "Oh. I see." Reece said as she got up from the moss patch, her dark purple eyes scanning the nearby surroundings. It wasn't much to look at. However, she stopped at what was supposed to be my liver; the mark from the iron spike. Her eyes met mine. "Your chest..." She didn't finish the sentence, clearly grossed out.

 I grimaced. "It's weird. Doesn't hurt, it's just.. there." I told her. She just nodded.

 Then she did something that didn't at all surprise me. Reece simply gave herself a hard slap across her cheekbone, leaving a red mark across her face. She mumbled and held herself there, noticing she'd slapped an open wound. Then she fainted, either because of blood loss, or because of the sheer overwhelming slightly incendiary event that just transpired.

 I sighed as I stood up. My legs hurt like a thousand nails had penetrated them, but I stood up regardless. There was something I had to do. Something that had been gnawing in the back of my mind. A fear, a worry. I needed to know if it was still true.

 I told Alexander to wait in the small batch of trees, while I struggled my way out of there.

 As I walked, I held my hand against my chest, both to keep the blood inside me, and to hide the gaping hole. I had a feeling I'd be taken directly to the hospital instead of where I intended to go if someone saw it.

 The local police station was about as close to my school as it was close to my uncle's house. I'm not sure how I made it there. Perhaps it was simple determination. Perhaps it was something keeping me alive. Regardless, I arrived there after what felt like years, but was in reality only half an hour.

 It was empty. It seemed everyone had gone to the calamity at the school, but that was up to discussion since I saw no one on the road. In spite of that, I walked a path I had only ever seen once. There was a row of cells, a corridor, if you will, a few meters left of the entrance, conveniently close to the interrogation room or whatever it's called.

 And, confirming both my suspicions and my worst nightmares, there lay a corpse on the floor, at the end of said corridor. The corpse of a slightly fat, dark-skinned man with apathetically empty eyes, devoid of life, penetrated by a large metal spike.

 That moment shattered everything. Everything I had known for the past five years, it was all gone. I'd be forced to move again, to someone capable of taking care of me. Who was I kidding? No one would accept some selfish and quite frankly rude Egyptian girl in their home. No one, except possibly my grandparents. Two old people with dementia, who could barely take care of themselves anymore. Suuure. While we're at it, why not just hang the poor little girl?

 No. I wasn't going through this a second time. I just wasn't. I wanted things to stay as they'd been for FIVE BLOODY SECONDS. Apparently, nothing, not even life, would give me something I truly needed.

 I'd lived mostly happy in London for nine years. Then, my parents were murdered. I moved to an uncle who didn't care, in a small village in the middle of nowhere. That had been my life since I was nine. Five long years, all spent in a living hell. And just as I'd gotten used to it, everything crumbled down on me, like it was some kind of joke.

 I was no joke.

 I buried my face in my palms, as I wept in grief over the corpse of my dead uncle.

The Victimised Bloodline: Chapter 4

Chapter 4

 I woke to the sound of absolutely nothing. It was quiet in the house. The rain from yesterday seemed to have stopped. I thought it was going to rain for a whole day, and so did the forecast.

I let out a yawn, and sat up for a little while, listening to the not so mild breeze outside. Actually, it was next to storm. If I'd been hearing rain, I probably would've assumed it was a fierce storm outside. Because of my scrub of a room, I carefully moved through the small space between the furniture towards the wardrobe in the corner of it and I got changed into a white teal-striped tank top and a pair of ill-fitting light jeans.

 As I saw myself in the mirror, I saw a fourteen-year-old girl who looked like she came straight from Egypt, with dark skin and black hair, arranged to fall past her shoulder on to her breast. She was slightly taller than most people her age, but only slightly. Her eyes, much like her father's, were a light amber, almost illuminating the dark of the scrub.

 I sighed, blinked, and slowly wandered up the staircase, hearing the familiar sizzling of eggs in a frying pan. My uncle was up and about, early morning as usual.

 "You're up early." He told me. "Again."

 "So what?" I returned, and immediately afterwards forgot about it as I had other things on my mind... Actually, no I didn't. My mind felt extraordinarily empty, like something extremely incendiary happened and I suddenly forgot all about it. But that wouldn't happen, my memory's excellent. So I've been told by several people, and considering I can retell these events so accurately I suppose they are correct.

 I gently sat down at a nearby chair. If you could really call letting go of your leg muscles gently. I think way too hard about these things, don't I?
The eggs were finished before I knew it, and breakfast began as usual: silence, half-decent, half-terrible food, and cheap apple juice.

 The weird things didn't begin until later that day, right after breakfast. Frank was getting ready to head for work, and as things turned out today was when school started. I could've sworn it was Sunday, but I was wrong as I ususally were.

 School wasn't far from home. In fact it was only a few hundred meters, depending on which way you took. Me being me, I took the shortest route and shortly caught up with Reece. We talked for a bit, mostly about wether or not our history teacher was sick but also about that time Coal snuck into my backpack and wreaked havoc during maths. It was a fun time, that one. The teacher started outright screaming because she thought he was a rat. Rats have tails, hamsters do not.

 It was History class, we were doing an assignment about World War II. A group assignment, to be more specific. I was working together with Reece, a suspiciously top-heavy blonde by the name of Sarah, and Alexander, a boy who looked like he'd just been buried in sand. I, personally, was starving and I'd never gotten much work done. Reece was researching like a maniac because she actually cared about this assignment, while Sarah was leaning uncomfortably close to Alexander, who did his best to keep her and her perversion at bay.

 I was continously banging my head into the table when Reece told me strictly to shut up and look at what she'd found. I leaned closer to her to see what she'd found. Wikipedia wasn't always a reliable source, but the title of the page caught my attention anyway.

 I didn't have the time to read it, because Reece did so out loud the moment I laid eyes on her computer screen. "The pyramid of El Sayed", she said. "That's your last name, isn't it? El Sayed?" She asked me. It was a rethorical question, she already knew the answer.

 I read the article further. Apparently, it was a pyramid they found recently a few miles from Cairo. How Reece found it while researching World War II, I don't know. She was probably intrigued because of her wish to become an archeologist. Anyway, the pyramid was a pretty small one. It'd been hidden under a sand dune until a travelling couple stumbled upon it. Efforts to get inside it had been in vain.

 The name they got from a few hieroglyphs inscribed into the pyramid's outer shell, obviously by the ancient Egyptians. The catch was that no known pharaoh in history had been known as El Sayed and because of that this find was quite revolutionary.

 "It could just be someone who they called 'el sayed'. It means 'the master', after all." I speculated. I'm not sure what my parents thought when they named me Esme. Maybe they just liked how 'Esme El Sayed' rolls off the tounge, or they were completely stupid naming me something that literally translates to 'beloved'. Silly, isn't it?

 Reece sat in silence for a few seconds before respinding. "You have a fair point." She returned to searching for more information about World War II, but I could tell she hadn't stopped thinking about the pyramid.

 Meanwhile, on Alexander's side of the table, the boy had almost fell off his chair. Sarah, being Sarah, noticed this and leaned back, giving him slight breathing room before she moved her chair significantly closer to his. Alexander turned to me with a 'help me' look. I ignored him.

 That was my first big mistake.

 Around ten to twenty minutes later (don't look at me, I didn't count), me and Reece were headed for the cafeteria. Reece had brought her own food, while I was to buy whatever they gave us.

 "About the pyramid..." She said quietly to me, confirming my suspicions. "Do you really think they referred to the pharaoh as 'El Sayed'? It doesn't seem... well, Egyptian."

 "Who knows, I might be the descendant of some old Egyptian pharaoh. So what? Ancient Egypt is no more. Now, it's just another country that happens to have a history related to the Bible." I said. I was an atheist, still am. I don't believe in some godly power controlling our lives, and the importance of religion was futile in my eyes.

 "Well... If you are, it would be a pretty big deal. Just putting it out there..." Reece said.

 "I'm sure it's nothing. El Sayed is a common name after all, it probably is just a coincidence." I couldn't help but wonder whether or not it had been an old pharaoh who ruled with an iron fist, and I'm his descendant. Probably not.

 The cafeteria was in bad shape, tiny cracks lay scattered on the floor and the wallpaper was scratched and miscoloured from thrown food.

 I stood in the queue while Reece was searching for a suitable table to sit by when it happened. With an ear-piercing noise, the large windows at the one side of the cafeteria shattered into tiny bits, almost like a frozen lake splitting intona million cracks. For a moment, the windows looked like ice on a sunny day, then the millions of tiny pieces flew into the room. It rained shards all over the place. I used a tray from a nearby table to shield myself, then headed for the nearest exit. Around me, people screamed in panic and fear. I suppose I did too.

 Then I remembered something...

 Reece! I didn' see her among the crowds. Scanning the cafeteria, I saw a short, brown-haired girl taking refuge beneath a table. I ran towards her to try and help her out, but I slipped on a shard and fell. I felt the pain of glass stuck in my face.

 Reece looked up, and I saw her eyes. They were panicked, and not just because of the glass. I looked behind me. No one there.

 "Someone's coming." She said. I noticed something about her eyes. They were emitting a faint glow, a bit like my eyes sometimes looked like they did. Usually, I'd thought of it as an illusion, but now...

 Barely a second later, I felt a shoe-clad foot push me to the ground. Reece gasped, but remained under the table. I swiftly exhaled and hoped the glass shards wouldn't bury themselves in my lungs. I had a feeling I wouldn't be so lucky.

 I think the foot was going to break my spine when I heard a familiar voice above me. It was an American accent, and it sounded like someone who had a heartburn. I'd heard it before, I just couldn't put my finger on where or when...

 "You've cost me a lot of effort, little girl." It said. The foot pushed me to the floor only harder and harder. I saw Reece, shivering in panic underneath the table. I don't think whoever this foot belonged to had seen her. I heard the man whisper something above me... I think I recognized my father's name: Omar.

 "Rest assured, the end of your bloodline will help... Well, humanity." He said after a few seconds. I was in fear, I was confused, I was... was that dissapoinment?

 I felt the foot slowly lose weight, and for some reason I knew I was going to die. I did not want to die.

 Have you ever had a near-death experience and thought 'oh god, I've lived a horrible life'? That was the exact colour of my train of thought at that specific moment. I remembered my parents' death, my time with my uncle, that one time Coal fell into a cup of tea.

  And then Reece went bananas.

 The table she'd just been hiding beneath shattered into tiny bits, and they reformed into a mess of wood and iron that I think was supposed to look like a sword. Not sure what a medieval weapon could do against a crazy murderer, but that's beside the point. The man laughed, and told me, "Stay still." And the floor came up and swallowed my legs, and before I knew it my lower body was engulfed. in the concrete and wood floor.

 I saw Reece holding her medieval infantry weapon with shaky hands. If I'd be able to ask a genie anything at that exact moment, I'd ask it 'what the hell is going on' and leave it at that.

 Unfortunately, no genies were around at the moment. So you'll have to make do with a description of what happened except without any skill in retelling.

 Reece attacked. I suppose she didn't have much of a choice, but that's beside the point. The point is, whoever the man above me was, he stopped the sword mid-swing, and it dissolved into some kind of brown-grey wind. Reece completely froze. She didn't move at all. She was barely breathing. She just stood there, like she'd held a sword or something mere minutes ago. Looking back, it was kind of silly, actually.

 Then something happened. I wanted to get out, for the ground to release its grip on me. And the concrete floor just simply melted away. I climbed my way up and my head reached just for my eyes to align with the man's neck. I readied a fist, but I, too, froze. It felt like claws gripping every part of my body, burying their sharp nails in my skin. I tried to get out, but couldn't move a muscle. It seemed vaguely familiar...

 The man almost laughed. "I told you to stay still." He said. And at that moment, a large metal spike suddenly pieced my chest. It hurt. It hurt like hell. The piece of metal burned as it was stuck there, slowly leaking crimson blood.

 And then it all went dark. The last thing I heard was someone calling my name... And then I passed.

 But despite just being penetrated through the chest with a large metal spike, I felt... Alive. Dissappointed. Very dissappointed. Why the hell was I dissappointed? I was dead. Killed by an unknown man, and Reece would soon join me. What the hell?

 And then I heard it. That damned voice.

 "Idiot child. I warned you about this."

 As you can imagine, being dead doesn't really let you respond to mysterious spooky voices from the back of your head.

 As you can also imagine, I wasn't really dead. Now that I know why, I'm not surprised but back then? Holy shit I was confused.

 "Remember these words when you return, Esme. I'll make sure you do."

 And with those words in mind, I blew up the school.

The Victimised Bloodline: Chapter 3

 Rain.

 Rain.

 Rain.

 Typical England weather today. Also very ominous. Seriously, why do all the sad chapters have rain in the background?

 I was only mere meters past Reece's house when I fell in a ravine. Inconvenient, isn't it?

 Say maybe fifty millenia ago. This area was unknown to whatever creatures that may have resembled humans at the time. There was a river, and there was a forest. The river slowly carved a ravine and a bunch of trees fell into it. Now, it's a mere creek in a smaller ravine, covered by a bunch of old fallen trees.

 So of course ants loved it.

 I'd slipped on a cone that had fallen from the nearby tree. Both luckily and misfortunate, I'd fallen right into a very large anthill. It could've been worse. I could've been concussed or even died. As it was, I was laying headfirst in a pile of ants and coniferious. It was itchy, and it hurt. I stood up. A whole bunch of needles and tiny insects moved themselves to make space for my legs.

 I brushed the ants and conifeious from my face, slowly eyeing my surroundings. It was as easy as to climb up. The slope I'd falled down was barely enough to prove a challenge for an amateur climber. So I climbed back up, but instantly fell when I lost control of my body, and moments later, my consciousness.

 You must realise, Esme, I'm telling the truth. Your uncle will die. Soon.

 Frank sat in front of his computer, presumably trying to win money in less than convenient ways. The chittering of fingers to a keyboard echoed unnaturally loud.

 He violently turned his head as he heard a door slam behind him. Someone had entered the house, and it wasn't his neice. He stood up, closing down the computer, then slowly turning around. He heard the intruder's steps, recognising the rythm tapping from his shoes.

 "So, it's time, huh?" Frank said, his tone anything but happy.

 The intruder was an old man, with graying beard and a somewhat brown hair that looked more like a crow's nest than actual hair. His clothes were simple sandals. His legs were hidden behind a grey robe, as were his chest and arms. The sleeves were long, keeping his hands mostly shadowed. His skin was a darker pale, almost making him look Asian. "It's time." The man said. He had a thick American accent, and his voice was shaky but controlled. His tone was so sharp, you could be able to cut through a rock effortlessly if it was concrete.

 "Killing me won't grant you anything." Frank said. His face was all of a sudden grim. He despiesed this man, clearly.

 The man looked away. "It won't?"

 "You said it yourself. Death is a burden on everyone involved. Killing someone grants you nothing but guilt. I am no exception, despite my heiritage." Frank said.

 "You are a threat to this world. One that must be kept at bay." The man responded.

 Then, the door opened again. Three men and two women clothed in a dark blue uniform came in. The woman in the lead said with a dominative tone:

 "You, my good sir are under arrest."

 The man turned to the police. He focused on the door. It creaked, and then, nothing. The man was shocked, but ultimately turned to Frank. "You... You don't even know the consequences of what you just did."

 Frank looked down at him, as if he was a noble judging a peasant. "I am just trying to preserve what little good there is in our world." He said as the police handcuffed the man and took him away. "Goodbye, old friend."

 I returned to consciousness in an instant. Gasping for air, I stood once again. It was quiet. The anthill was just about gone. The ants must've relocated or something. I sighed in slight relief that they wasn't here instead of crawling over my body like ants do or something. I haven't researched them, really.
 I staggered down to the river, trying to wash my face. In the end, it became a dripping mess of goo. I spat the small amounts of dirt in my mouth, and once again tried to wash my face. This time, I got relatively cleaner, and I proceeded to deduce that I would take a shower once I got home.
 It wasn't a long walk. In fact, it was a very short walk. I'd say it was probably about five hundred meters, though I'm not good at rough estimations, so I'd say maybe four hundred meters. Which is a rough estimation.
 I will not cease to make this story as ironic and self-contradicting as possible.
 After a not very long, but still refreshing, walkabout, I reached my uncle's house. It was a small one, made from what probably wasn't the sturdiest of wood and had a very gothly asthetic.
 It was also extremely small. Despite being its own house, it wasn't much larger than an apartment. It did have a basement, but that was basically just a washhouse and an old scrub remade to act as my room. As you can probably imagine, living in a room designed to be a scrub isn't all that pleasant. I suppose there's a thing with Fantasy protagonists living in a scrub, huh? Might be to make the beginning feel underwhelming.
 On the topic of underwhelming, what happened next was extremely so. Told you people always make the beginning of a story underwhelming, didn't I? Anyways, I walked through the wide open front door. On the floor, I saw muddy footsteps of about five or six people, according to a rough estimation of mine.
 I chose not to mention it and instead directly look at the analog clock in the hall. It was one of the few modern things in the house, with clean plastic glass and aluminum edges. The numbers were clearly defined with a midnight black colour, along with some very very dark grey hands. Yes, I can see the difference.
 Anyway, back to the underwhelming thing. My uncle was somehow not gambling at the moment, which slightly surprised me. He was, in fact, making an omelette for lunch, which didn't slightly surprise me.
 Yeah, that was the underwhelming part. Surprised?
 Frank turned to me and raised an eyebrow. He probably wasn't expecting me to arrive so early. I mean, it wasn't like I was almost covered in mud and conferious, right?
 Oh wait, I was. How underwhelming.
 I took a cold shower (there's been a problem with the , changed clothes, and returned to the dinner table, where lunch was now served and half-eaten. I was amazed of how quickly my uncle could devour his own cooking. His cooking was horrible, even by my standards. The bottom of the omelette was completely burnt black, and the bacon almost completely covering the actual omelette. It wasn't much of a problem, though. You get used to it when you've been living with him for the past five years.
 Oh god, five years. I feel old.
 My uncle had been completely silent  since I came back. He hadn't spoken a word, and there was some kind of tense atmosphere in the house, as if he'd been fighting with someone. Not literally, of course. My uncle wasn't very strong, so seeing him after a fight would either be accompanied with the sight of a distorted body because there would be a lot of burises or it would force me to cover him in bandages. Yeah, I'm exaggerating again.
 Anyway, my uncle was silent for the rest of the day, only speaking when he wanted me to do some menial tasks or chores. The rest of the day went on as usual, my uncle sitting by his computer on some shady website, and me doing whatever. It wasn't until dinner that something very very peculiar happened.


 Remember how people usually make a story underwhelming? Well, what happened next was not. I suppose this isn't a story in reality, huh? I was hoping I dreamt all that stuff.
 It was half past five. In the afternoon, of course. We were sitting by the kitchen table, a near buffet of egg-related foods in front of us. There were leftovers of the omelette and fried eggs from today, mostly.
 Dinner proceeded much like the lunch had. We ate in silence and mostly ignored each other.
 Then, the door slammed open. A cold, hard wind came rushing in from the rain outside, some drops of water splattering on my face, carried by the wind. A silhouette emerged from the dark outside. With unhearable steps, the silhouette slowly walked into the warm light of the house. It was a tall man, with grey beard and a crow's nest of a haircut. He was wearing a completely black cloak that seemed to be a part of the darkness behind him, and his eyes were shadowed by a hat. His voice was no less colourless than my uncle, and he spoke with a hick American accent.
 "Sorry for the wait, Frank."
 My uncle stood up in apparent and obvious shock. "What are you doing here?" Then he calmed down a bit. "You always were a devious man."
 I was confused, so I stood up too. "What is going on? Who is this?" I questioned my uncle. He ignored me, as he had the whole day. I decided to watch the conversation transpire.
 The man chuckled. "I always were." He said with arms crossed. "Tomorrow morning. I'll get you an excuse." He smiled deviously. I think my uncle was right.
 "Tomorrow what? Are you going to kill me?" Frank said. "You know that you can't wipe out our bloodline by killing us all." He said, his exression blank and emotionless.
 "I swear by my name and honour, I will not kill you in the coming twenty-four hours." He said with a bow.
 My uncle let out a snort. "Fine. What is it?"
 The man smiled. "We need to talk. I cant sustain myself here for long, so we better take it back there." He said in a calm tone.
 "Oh, well then." Frank said, and the man faded into nothingness. My uncle turned to me, and finally acknowledged my presence.
 "Are you confused?" He asked, in the same emotionless tone that he spoke to the intruder.
 I nodded. Of course I was confused.
 "Good. Keep being." He said. He looked me in my eyes, and for a moment I think I saw his iris gleaming. He then suddenly snapped his fingers, and everything went black.

The Victimised Bloodline: Chapter 2

 What would I do without tea?

 A good cup of tea was a cure to cancer in my opinion. Ah well, at least a cure to the knowledge that cancer is plaguing the world and multiple people succumb to the illness every day. Which would probably be the opposite of a cure to someone who actually had cancer, but that's beside the point.

 The point is, tea was the elixir of life in my opinion. It always had me cool down from a burst of anger. Which meant I drank tea almost daily.

 I wasn't sure where Reece's family had gotten their stash of tea bags, but they made for some excellent tea. Plus, I didn't have to pay. It was a subject me and Reece joked about constantly. I don't have to pay for the tea, but if I kept coming by maybe I had to. It had gotten a little stale in my opinion, but we still laughed at it.

 How humorous. The voice in my head said. It had spoken multiple times after my conversation with Frank. I'd always ignored it, and now was no exception.

 We were in Reece's living room. It was a lot bigger than Frank's, but still not the largest I'd seen. Not by a long shot.

 It had quite a lot of open space, as not Reece nor her mother liked reading. Her father usually kept his books elsewhere, as her mother didn't want books 'lying around doing nothing'.

 The walls were covered by a moss green tapestry, with the exception of a white painted wall with a smaller than average TV on it. The sofas were grey and comfortable, and due to the lack of other things Reece's mother had in the room, she'd spent her money on way too many of them and an absurdly big birch wood table. Except from sofas, tables, and a TV, one of the corners were filled with musical instruments to the brink of one's near incapabilty to even set a foot in that one corner. I believe half of those instruments hadn't been usen in over a decade. Reece's mother was very much of a hypocrite, if you'd ask me.

 Reece herself was a short girl, quite a lot shorter than me actually. Her skin was pale enough you could mistake her for a vampire, if not for the absurdly flat yet somewhat dirty teeth and her chestnut hair. Her eyes were a deep purple, one that was supposedly rare and a trait neither of her parents shared. I wan't an expert in human DNA and the inheritance of eye colour, but I was sure it was a rare occuence, like a point zero zero one percent rare or something.

 She was a woman of exotic style. She refused to wear trendy clothing, and instead mostly used outlandish and unique clothing. That day, she was wearing a black dress with incosistent length, a shirt that had sleeves that were neither long, nor short, striped black and white on one side and completely silver white on the other.

 "You were early today. Mom and dad barely just got to work." She said, casually. Her voice was clean and surprisingly deep for someone her height. I suppose height diesn't affect voice, but she looked much younger than she were.

 We'd been friends for about five years, after I moved to my uncle. In the beginning, new school hadn't been much of a difference. I used to have no friends back in London, so I didn't care much. Did my own thing. I read a lot.

 But Reece had been determined to befriend me. She was one of those people who couldn't stand others being excluded. She didn't know I preferred it, and when she did find out I considered her somewhat of a friend.

 "Yeah. I started my bickering by breakfast." I grinned. My anger was long gone, and so was my desire to punch my uncle in his unnaturally big nose.

 "Oh? You're usually too tired to speak by then." Reece stated. She, too, had a grin spreading across her face.

 "Eh. I had a nightmare. Woke up earlier than usual." I responded, my grin slowly fading into a more neutral expression.

 "Makes sense." Reece said. "I guess."

 I chucked. "That's why I went angry. My uncle thinks somewhat realistic nightmares equal death of one's guardian." Shaking my head, I said "What a stupid person."

 Reece tilted her head. "Stupid I wouldn't say. Superstitious, yeah, but not stupid." It was precisely what I called him a few hours ago.

 "Superstitious, then." I corrected myself. "Reminds me of that one character in a book I read... About three yars ago." I said for myself. I didn't want to pester her with the details, as she wasn't much of a book person.

 Over the years we'd known each other, I'd tried to get her into books. Let's just say, my attempts weren't succesful.

 "Gosh. We were eleven back then. Feels like so long ago." She said. It made me feel young.

 "Yeah." I said. The book hadn't been very child friendly. It was a harrowing experience.

 For a while, we sat quiet.

 I remembered the days before we met, when I lived with my parents in London. It hadn't exactly been a happy time, but it hadn't been absolutely trash, either. I stayed on my room with a book, or I was at school. Simple life.

 Then, that horrible day. I was in school, and some random, strange looking man came in and wanted to speak with me. He'd proceeded to tell me my parents had been murdered. At first, I didn't believe it. I asked for proof. I got to see their bodies. I was enraged. I believed I could find the murderer and have him arrested. I thought I could bring him to justice.

 Then, I moved to my uncle. My old life was over. I wished I could hace them back. I begged whoever was in control of the universe to give them back.

 No one answered, and I was left in a tiny city, with a lazy uncle and an old, crappy school. I cried every day of the coming months.

 Now, I'd accepted that they're dead. I'd accepted the new life I was given to by fate. I had a friend, a home, an education, all that stuff. I'd sworn myself to look at the good thing in life, and despise the others. You'd think this would work, but no. I'm still in grievance for what happened, but not nearly as much as I used to be.

 Damn, looking back made me feel nostalgic.

 Reece, being the restless girl she was, picked up conversation again. "So... Has he gotten a new job yet?" She asked. I shook my head. He'd been fired from the police station due to an 'unfortunate tendency' to be extremely rude to his coworkers.

 "He hasn't. Due to his... Previous experiences, people don't want him despite whatever skills he may have." I explained.

 "I guess that makes sense."

 I nodded in response. "It makes plenty sense, except when you consider the fact that he actually does have a stable income." I suggested.

 "He does?" Reece said, confused about my statement.

 "Yep. Apparently, the internet can get you a long way if you're lucky." I stated, somewhat sarcastically. "Which means that he's been gambling a lot lately and it's only a matter of time before he loses eveything."

 Reece's eyewhites widened. "He's gambling?" She said in shock.

 "Yep." I confirmed.

 Reece sighed. "You know, I kind of saw that coming." She said after a moment's brief silence.

 "You did?" I said. I hadn't suspected it at all until I saw him doing it.

 "He's been unemployed for over a year. I figured it'd be something like that." She chuckled over her own cleverness. I merely raised an eyebrow.

 "I suppose that's logical." I said after a few seconds.
 "It certainly is." Reece responded immediately after my statement.
 Sipping my long untouched tea, I thought of the changes that happened after I moved. I had a friend now, which was I believe somewhat decent. My uncle wasn't much. He felt like an old man, an empty husk doing nothing but feeding me and giving me a place to stay. Of course, he hadn't always been like that. When I was young, he used to be energetic and even playful. Now... Well, you read chapter one. Now he was a gambler without a job who lived on eggs alone. The town was much smaller than London was. At first, it had been werid. Now the tables had turned, as my last visit to London had felt weird as hell with the sheer size of the place.
 Goodness, I've really come a long way.
 "But really, he must have a very low income if he gets it by gambling." Reece said spontaneously.
 "Obviously." I said. "I've been living on nothing but eggs and water for the last few months." It was a bit of an overstatement, but not much of.
 "Goodness, Esme, you really need some food." She responded, being Reece.
 "Oh, I can wait till lunchtime." I informed her. "It's only quarter past... Twelve." I stopped when I saw the analog clock stuck to the wall. Had it been so long? I'd woken up, like thirty minutes prior. It couldn't have been more than ten o'clock.
 "Oh, don't mind. That clock has been displaying the wrong time of day for, like, ages now." Reece apologized. I was... Sceptical.
 "It was correct yesterday." I stated.
 "Huh. Well, it does at times?" She suggested, genuinely having no idea what was up with the clock.
 I looked back. It was now displaying quarter past ten. Much more logical. What wasn't logical was its sudden change from twelve to ten. Was there some kind of magnetic force or something nearby? I stopped caring after about five seconds, as I ran out of tea. An inconvenient situation.
 "It's possible." I muttered, no longer paying much attention to the conversation. I was looking for a spot to change topic. Luckily, Reece did that for me.
 "What kind of nightmares are you having, really?" She asked curiously.
 "Last night I was surrounded by nothingness, and that was it." I said. I didn't bother to explain the voice I'd heard in my head that morning. I'm still wondring if that was a good choice or a bad one.
 "That's... Interesting." Reece nodded in a slow manner as she spoke.
 "It is?"
 "Yeah." Reece didn't bother giving an explanation. I suppose she must've spent too much time near me.
 I looked down into the teacup. "I... Um... I ran out of tea." I said. Reece sighed. Because of course she did.
 "Well, we're running out, so I'm not going to refill for you." She said briskly and straightforwardly.
 It slightly disappointed me, but just slightly. "Oh. Well, I wasn't going to ask you to do so." I said, but it was bit of a lie. "I was going to state it was a good timing, because I should probably be heading back." I continued.
 "Is that so?" Reece said. "Well, have a good rest of your day. Good luck with your uncle."
 "I will. On both ends." I responded and I walked to the hall. Reece stayed in the sofa, sipping her tea. I pulled on my jacket and walked back out into the rain, unbeknownst to the events that would follow. The incidendiary event that was happening at that very moment, merely a few miles away.

The Victimised Bloodline: Chapter 1

 "You had a nighmare again, didn't you?" My uncle said on the other side of the table, his mouth stuffed with fried eggs and his eyes fixated on his plate with breakfast. He really had something for fried eggs, like a fetish, if you will. He was a man of simplicity, with a strong hate for overcomplicated patterns and unnessecary details. His face was wrinkled and boring, and his eyewhites bloodshot as if someone had been spraying schampoo into his pupils. In contrast to his graying black hair, his eyes were a light shade of amber. Much like my eyes, actually.

 "Yeah. I did." I responded, serving as a reason for waking up surprisingly early. Nightmares like this one happened somewhat frequently. The answer as to why was unknown to me, and I wasn't caring enough to find out why.

 "You really have to do something about them. You know what-" I interrupted my uncle before he could utter more of his superstitions.

 "I know that you believe my parents died because of similar nightmares, and I undersand that you're worried you'll face the same fate now." I stared him firmly in his eyes, with an attempt to look somewhat angry. "Shut up, you're lying to yourself, change the subject because this is creeping the hell out of me." I said, my tone judgingly strict. I wasn't sure if it was insulting or not, but I didn't care much about that. The important part was that I got my message to sink in.

 It didn't.

 "Esme, I don't think you really understand the-" He was once again interrupted, but not by me. Frank must've been one of the only people in the world to still have a home phone, and now was one of the few times someone actually called it. He walked up to it, answering. I heard someone speak on the other side of it but I couldn't identify the voice.

 "Why would..." He said, but was quickly interrupted. "Alright. Fine. I'll be there." He said as he hung up and walked towards the front door, taking a jacket that was laying around on the floor, collecting dust.

 "Where are you going?" I asked him, curious rather than worried.

 "The police station. There's some guy who wants to exchange words with me." He responded, his tone not implying lie nor joke.

 "Why the police station?" It was somewhat weird, having my uncle go to his former place of work to talk to some random person.

 "Apparently he was apprehended for breaking and entering, in belief that it was my residence." He said, seemingly not taking it seriously.

 "That's... Interesting." I said. In reality, it sounded like the person in question was an extremist or something. Maybe my uncle had debts to pay him? Probably not, as he managed to pay off all his debts after being fired from his job. Of course, he was being paid less than the average hobo now, but he wasn't losing money.

 Frank closed the door behind him, leaving me alone in the house. Always when I was, I felt like I was the owner of the house. The house's mistress, if you'd call it that.

 Clouds were gathering outside, casting a shadow over England. It was probably going to rain soon, so I was glad I wasn't the one who needed to go downtown.

 Do you want to know who it is? I heard a cold, hard, rattling voice in my mind. I violently turned around in belief someone was behind me, but no one was there. Ultimately, the momentum I built up while turning threw me to the floor, and I ended up with a bruise on my left shoulder. Groaning, I held a hand towards it to nullify the pain.

 Then I remembered the cause of my fall. A voice. "Who- where are you?" I asked out of thin air.

 No matter. It said, in a somewhat desperate attempt to avoid the topic.

 "Yes matter!" I responded, angrily and fiercely.

 I am a piece of your subconscious. A speaker from the depths of your mind. It explained, not sounding very trustworthy.

 "If you're a part of me, then why can't I shut you up?" I was confused, and angry with myself for being confused.

 I'm your subconcious. I was here from your birth, and I will be until your death. I'll always be a part of you, as you are a part of me. Its statements were much confusing. My own subconsciousness had a consciousness all its own?

 "I'm pretty sure the back of one's mind doesn't usually speak to one." I argued.

 Think about it. You have one friend, an uncle who barely cares about you, and two dead parents. It's logical for the part of you that isn't restrained by yourself would start talking. It didn't convince me. It was stupid.

 "Yep. It's very logical for one's subconscious to start independently talking." I responded. "Now shut up and leave my head."

 Silence.

 I attempted to stand up, but I couldn't. It was as if my arms were restrained to the floor by some invisible hands, except I felt no grip around them. I panicked, and in a frenzy scraped my wrists to the point of intense bleeding.

 Then, I passed out.

 Frank was following an officer, who judging by the tag on his chest went by the name Carl. They were in a narrow corridor, continously walking past thick iron doors on each side.

 Carl stopped. "This is it." He opened the door beside him to reveal a sleeping man, older than Frank, but not older than fifty. Perhaps a decade older than him, as Frank was in his late thirties.

 "This is the guy who wanted to talk to me?" He asked Carl, and the officer nodded in confirmation.

 "I'll wake him," he said, following it up with the most hilarious and probably not very appropriate wake-up speech Frank had ever heard. And with a somewhat sadistic teenager in his house, that was saying quite a lot. It will not be retold here, as it contained extensive swearing and very inappropriate insults.

 "Do you always treat prisoners like that?" Frank said, shocked after hearing the officer's words. He had a newfound respect for the man and his extensive vocabulary.

 "Not usually, no." Carl responded with a grin. He seemed to have enjoyed it.

 The prisoner sat up, slowly but surely. He opened his eyes, revealing a deep purple iris. "Frank Barlow. Honour to meet you." He said upon laying eyes on the man. Frank wasn't confused that the prisoner knew his name, as he had been the one to take extreme measures in an attempt to find him.

 "And you are?" Frank responded, seemingly unbeknownst to the man's apparent selfish grin.

 "I am your demise." He said, then out of nowhere came a dagger into his hand. It penetrated Frank's chest, and warm red blood was dripping down to the stone floor.

 This will happen unless you act upon it. I heard the voice again. It rang through my mind. What did I just see? I tried to stand up again, but realised I was sitting on an old and uncomfortable chair. The kitchen table was in front of me, in all its plain wood glory. My uncle's wrinkled face was a few meters in front of me, in all its wrinkled glory. I must've zoned out, as Frank's eyes were somewhat shocked.  "Esme? You there?" He said. I nodded slowly.

 "What happened? You just went kinda... stale for a few minutes. Didn't even blink." He sounded slightly amused when he said the last thing, as if it was merely a joke.

 "I... Don't know. Honestly." I said. Not five minutes ago, I'd talked to my own subconcious and seen my uncle get murdered by a prisoner using a knife that appeared out of thin air. I'd say my response was pretty truthful.

 Frank raised an eyebrow, but then left the topic as he didn't know how to counter my response. "Anyway, as I was saying, I had similar dreams before my parents died. When I heard you had weird dreams, five years ago, I wasn't concerned about it." He sighed. "Now... You're having these dreams again." Looking me in the eyes with a stern gaze, he said after yet another, significantly deeper sigh. "Guess who's your guardian now."

 "So.... You're implying that just because I'm having weird dreams, you're going to die?" Frank was full of superstitions. I didn't trust him much in what he said.

 "Precisely." He said, eyes closed.

 I couldn't help but laugh. Tirelessly hammering my hand onto the table laughing like a mad scientist at some superstitious assumptions based on a coincidence was both terapeuthic and insane. I felt satisfied yet disrespectful with my laughter, the former outweighing the latter.

 When my horrendous result of irritating and satisfying frenzy repeadetly adjusting my vocal chords to make a rythm of noises automatically interpreted in the human brain cells as laughter was over I spoke with a grin. "You honestly believe a stupid and somewhat tragic coincidence is going to convince me that you're going to die?"

 Frank looked at me as if the answer was obvious and I was just dumb. A clear 'yes', then. As predictable, Frank opened his mouth to say the aforementioned word, but I didn't allow it.

 "Just because the same thing happens twice it doean't mean it'll happen thrice." I said, angily. I was about to start furiously ranting again, and I would pester those around me. That included uncle Frank and my hamster Coal, whose cage had been placed in a cupboard for him not to escape. No, seriously, he was dubbed 'the greatest escapee ever', by almost every visitor we had. So essentially my cousins and my one friend Reece.

 "You have been living in angst and depression after your parents' death, and when your sister died, who also happened to be my mother, and her husband suffered the same fate, you started to connect bad dreams to death. You shut up with that superstitious shit now. Get over it! It's not gonna happen!" I was, as mentioned, furious. Mad, if you'd go as far as to call it that. Rants like these usually had me quite literally out of my mind. "Get your shit together!" I resumed my insulting, direspective, and furious scolding as if I was a teacher grounding a naughty child. "You obviously aren't smart enough to separate coincidences from tragic events." I finished in a cold tone. I was angry, to say the least. I needed to cool off.

 And so I turned my back on my uncle, walking towards the house's front door. I pulled on a raincoat, due to the intense consistent pattering on the streets outside. Just perfect. 

 And when I walked out, feeling the rain pattering on my coat, rinning down my back to the ground, where it embraced the earth to create new life, I heard it again. The cold, rattling voice in my regretful and furious mind.

 You know your uncle will die. You just won't admit it. I ignored it. It felt better that way.