The sun burned in the sky, on a particularly hot day, making the young boy and girl who walked under its mighty radiance pant.
'Damn it. damn it all!'
The boy glances back at the girl with disdain.
The girl, two years younger than the boy, has her head lowered, unable to open her eyes from the salty sweat that climbs down her face.
"Allen!"
The girl draws out his name.
"How much longer? I'm going to dry up like a fish and wither away."
Allen turns, forgetting about his fatigue, his face quickly scrunching like a squashed sponge from the growing heat that's not caused by the sun but by his own boiling anger, brought from the idiotic question of his younger sister.
"How much longer?! Are you serious? We were given a simple task: pick up the spices for Mom. You have been on more outings than I, so I figured that she knows what she's doing. I should let her take the lead, but by some miracle, some divine power or blessing that I should call a curse, you have the same sense of direction as a snail."
Allen's younger sister's posture changed from slumped shoulders to flat like a board, as she began her retort.
"How would you know the sense of direction a snail has? Have you been one? No? Then why do you have the thinking power of one?! Because if I recall, we wouldn't be on this, oh so fun expedition if it wasn't for you forgetting to check and tell Mom that we were out of spices!"
Allen wanted to retort, but he couldn't as fear gripped his heart, making his knees weak.
His sister, noticing the change she walks closer to him, her anger replaced with worry. That fear increasing in her heart as he
places his hands on her shoulder and his knees buckle, making him fall.
He looks up at her, his face drenched in sweat, from fear or the heat of the sun, Allen himself is unsure. His lips part, and he mumbles a single phrase that instills fear into his younger sister.
"We are going to die here."
That phrase should have angered her, but it did not, as she herself thought about their current predicament. She came to a very frightening realization, that they may stay lost forever to live as beggars, or potentially just slump over and die on the road.
"H-Hey now what do you mean die. We can't die I.. I mean we have so much to live for. Now come on, siblings help so help me not die!"
She turned around to look for something that might be recognizable among the building, but was pulled back towards her brother when he spoke her name.
"Milice."
Milice looks at her brother, eyes filled with desperate hope.
"I have an idea."
He pauses looking around, as if he planned to commit a crime.
"But you can't tell mom."
Milice has no time to ask her brother anything, as she is immediately pulled to the nearest alley. Allen looks around once again before kneeling, causing his sister to give him a questioned look.
"What are you-"
She pauses as she watches the dark shadow under his feet begin to move and rise, coming out of their two dimensional shell and breaching into theirs.
She takes a step back in slight fear as humanoid silhouettes made of darkness rise, their only discerning feature is their permanent wide white smile that almost looks like a crescent moon.
"Quickley grab me."
Hearing his command she did not hesitate, wrapping her arms around him just to feel the ground under her feet vanish, making look down in wonder. Looking down she sees hundreds of the same look shadows all with different silhouettes- some taller, some small, some female, some male.
This was of course her brother's strange power- or curse. Their mother was horrified when she found out, forbidding him from ever using such a dominic ability yet that never stopped him. Every chance he got in private he would use it- he was a very curious boy after all- which would lead him to be forbidden from leaving the house, just so no one would see him use it- she felt he was untrustworthy- till the day he turned 16 and was finally deemed responsible enough to be let out.
But look at him now, using his gift to propel them hundreds of meters into the air just to find home. If only he could see the wide grin on his face, it was almost as stretched as that of his shadows.
As they reach a higher threshold they could almost see the entire town- the entire town could probably see them as well.
"Over there!"
Allen shouts and points a finger.
Milice turns her head to see it, their salvation, their home.
The shadows begin to bend making them plummet at a frightening speed, but Milice was not worried, not at all, in fact she felt joy. The view of the town was gorgeous and breathtaking, something she would have never seen in her life unless she had a brother as odd as Allen. Plus the smile on his face was something she rarely saw from him so it warmed her heart dearly to see it.
Even if she'd never say that out loud.
The siblings soon find themselves just a few meters from the ground, and before they can plummet and be squashed like bugs, more shadowy figures appear just at their landing spot catching them completely, dispersing their previous momentum.
Allen quickly stands up and sighs before dusting his clothes off.
Turning to his sister- still grinning like a mad man- he stretches out his arm allowing her to grasp his hand and be pulled up.
Allen turns and points down the road on the left side, before saying:
"Our home is just this way."
They begin to move walking down the streets in silence.
Milice looks over in his direction to see he no longer wears the blissful smile he had on just a moment ago, and is instead looking down at the ground with a somber expression and what looks like pain in his eyes.
She could already guess what might be the issue, It's the use of his strange gift. He must worry that she might tell mom about what happened. It's quite understandable if it took him till turning 16 to be able to leave home, then she can only assume how long he would be kept inside for his recent actions.
Their mother is not a cruel god ofcourse she is just too over protective. Milice had even heard her once when she thought her children were asleep.
She heard her mother pace back and forth in the kitchen as their father attempted to consult her.
"Oh god do you think she saw."
Their mother said in a voice full of worry, it almost sounded like she was about to have a panic attack.
"No."
Their father said.
"If she did, they would have already acted by now. She couldn't have seen."
Their mother grabs onto the man, as he struggles slightly to support her weight without falling.
"Oh god, oh god. What if she's reporting it now? What if they take my baby away?"
Milice could hear her mother begin to weep, even if she tried to cover up the noise.
Milice -like any child- couldn't bear hearing the sound of her mother cry, attempting to drown out the noise by covering her ears.
She isn't sure what happened after, refusing to listen to the rest of their conversation, she just knows that their father managed to calm her down and finally take her to rest her body.
Milice never told Allen about their parents' conversation, she saw no reason to tell him and she simply wanted to pretend to have never heard it, after all the gnawing fear of her brother being taken made her shiver.
Looking at Allen she sighed and spoke, breaking the intense silence.
"Im not going to tell mom."
Allen snaps out of his daze and looks at her before smiling.
"Oh I know you won't."
Milice paused and cocked an eyebrow.
"Huh, then why do you look so gloomy."
Allen rubbed his temple with two fingers and sighed, like explaining it caused some immense strain.
"Well I've never used my ability in such a way and well, I think there might be drawbacks, because I have the worst migraine I've ever had in my life. And every second it feels like it's getting worse."
Milice chuckled at the reasoning for his distress, like it amused her giving Allen all the reason he needed to scowl at her.
She wanted to speak up, but was interrupted by Allen instead.
"Ah, finally were home."
Looking up Milice didn't even realize that they had reached their nest.