28 December 2012
Umm okay I'm new to opuss, so this is kind of a work in progress (is this app similar to wattpad in any way?) :D
Prologue
Emma-
Empty. That's the only way to describe how I felt for ten long years. I still found it difficult to comprehend the truth: that I had one parent. Not even that, really. Dad is all but gone. Since my mother's brutal death, the man has been drastically changed. I guess losing the love of your life does that to you. Breaks you, twists your mind beyond repair. Causes you to lock yourself away in your office and leave your then four year old daughter alone in the world. Well, not completely alone, I suppose. There would always be Nat.
My father used to be a great man. Back in the days of his youth. But now he was nothing.
I remember the day he changed- I was with my mother when it happened. I remember every detail. The blinding light. Mum's piercing scream. The room collapsing around us. And then Dad burst in- screaming her name, trying to shake her back into the land of the living. It's not really the sort of thing you forget. Despite being four, I knew the difference between life and death. And seeing the cold lifelessness in the person I loved more than anyone was clearly enough to drive anyone mad.
Nat always said I deserved credit- I had managed to stay together thought it all. I hadn't retreated to a life of solitude, nor did I break down in fits of sobs. My argument was that I was too young to understand the extent of it all; not quite grasping the concept of her being gone, forever. But Nat and I both understood that this wasn't true.
Mum's funeral, walking up the church aisle, I remember that all too well. Clutching a half-wilted tulip in one hand, and holding Nat's trembling one in the other- because they were good friends, so I believe, and Nat was deeply saddened by her death, though not as much as Dad and I. Climbing those steps to where she lay wearing her best dress, the shimmering purple one that I had adored, as beautiful in death as she was in life. That walk back down the steps was unbearable, hearing the pitiful whisperers of my parents' friends and family, most of which I would never know, yet somehow they knew me well enough to understand my innermost feelings.
"I feel sorry for the girl, to lose a parent at such a young age..."
"...The child will go mad, like her father. Just you watch..."
"....Poor kid. All of this, after what happened to them last year... such awful luck for one so small."
It took me a very long time to realise this, but I understand now that it wasn't just bad luck. Because of what my family are, and who I am. Of course, at the time that this whole thing started, I had yet to discover the truth. I didn't like it, but as a great person I know once said,
"The truth might hurt, but pain is sometimes necessary."
Do I agree with this? No. Not really. No one deserves to feel the pain that we did. But I can see how some people might choose to live by this. Anyway, it was ten years before I plucked up the courage to sort things out.But enough about me and my slowly-dying father. This story isn't about me. It's not even about my dad. It's about him. The boy who changed my life, just before everything in it was taken away.
Thomas Herring.
He's the important one. Not just to me, but to a lot of people. It wasn't hard to find his address and his number. I toyed with the idea of meeting him for a while, but when Nat informed me that he was in danger, I saw it as a chance to help/talk to him. And he needed to know everything. Why he was important. Who I was. What was going to happen to us both.
So here we go.
I slowly picked up the mobile and dialled in the number. I was hesitant to press 'call' but Nat yelled at me that there wasn't much time left until the monster found its way into his home. So I couldn't put it off much longer. The phone rang twice and then someone answered. This was it. My heart hammered.
"Hello?" I asked.
................ 1- Tom-
I had always known how different I was. Perhaps not extraordinarily different; but I stuck out enough. For a start, there was my appearance: my eyes were a vivid green- too bright, really, they could be very unnerving, so I was told. Of course, this had its advantages. I could pull off such an intimidating glare that it almost made up for my lack of height. My hair was a messy affair; charcoal grey in colour, almost black. It stuck up in uneven tufts, and no amount of hair gel seemed to hold it down. And maybe I was attractive- I don't know- that sort of thing had never really mattered to me. It would explain how my female classmates seemed bizarrely interested in me. It made no sense, as I never spoke to anyone much at all. Whatever they saw in me was a mystery. Anyway, none of the girls were my type, so to speak. However, this sort of thing didn't make me different. It was my apparent memory-loss that was strange.
What I mean is, most people can remember being really young, three or four years old. But I couldn't remember anything at all before I reached the age of five. There was probably nothing worth recalling, though. I was adopted, abandoned by my parents at a few weeks old. Whoever they were, I don't care- they clearly didn't care about me. I don't remember the orphanage at all, so it can't have been great. According to the Internet it was closed down five years ago for health and safety reasons. Kerrie and Michael Herring rescued me when I was almost five. They were nice, yes, but perfectly normal, although this was by no means a bad thing. Kerrie was, at the time of my adoption, expecting twins, though she only found out a few months later. Maddie and Josh were like smaller versions of their parents. It was very obvious that we weren't biologically related. They all had brown hair and eyes so I stuck out like a sore thumb even in my own family. Of course, I had no idea what my parents looked like. Sometimes I wished that I could remember something- anything- about them. It was not love or longing, just curiosity. However, there were no photographs of them anywhere. If there were any at the orphanage I wouldn't have known, because it felt like there was a huge block in my brain. I tried and tried to remember things from being little, but it was no use. Not even a hint of an old memory surfacing.
I overheard Kerrie once noting on how I never acted normally for my age. I guess this was true to a degree. The usual hobbies that someone in my year tended to do just didn't interest me. And while school itself bored me, I thought it was kind of important to learn things. And I was smart. The teachers passed me off as one of the quiet ones, and most people decided I was cold and unfriendly. In reality, I just never had anything to say in class. Small talk seemed a little trivial, and I never had much in common with everyone else. I wasn't the popular one, though of course I had a few friends. But it irritated me when Kerrie said I was 'not normal' because, of course, there was no such thing as normal- at least, that's what I'd thought. However- if you're not particularly similar the majority of people your age, you are branded as many things; a loner, a nerd, a freak, or just 'not normal'. I'd been called all of these things at least once. Not quite an outsider in the school community, but just... different. It was obvious what the kids in my year said behind my back but I tended to just ignore it. Whatever anger I might have been feeling at that moment would usually subside quickly, and I told myself that there was no shame in being unique, one of a kind.
But I never knew just how 'one of a kind' I was until that day- the day my life changed forever.
It started off dull enough; a Wednesday in the middle of April. School had been uneventful. The twins were downstairs playing on the computer. I was attempting to tackle the endless mountain of homework on my desk. Michael, Mick as he was known, was at work. Kerrie was out shopping. She'd recently developed a thing for pineapple, which was great, but not in large doses. It had been added to our list of essentials, along with milk and bread. The pineapple obsession was the most noteworthy change to our lives, to be honest. Ridiculous in itself, but kind of entertaining.
Maths wasn't difficult, but it was still taking a while to get through the problems. Bored, I put down the pen and headed down the stairs to check on the twins. I was supposed to be watching them while Kerrie was out, after all. They were still in the living room, almost exactly how they'd been an hour ago- playing video games. Two zombie-like figures transfixed on the television, their faces illuminated by the screen. I wasn't needed in any way here, so I stopped procrastinating and reluctantly headed back upstairs. At that point the phone rang. I didn't expect either of them to acknowledge the ring, but I heard Maddie pick it up and put it to her ear a second later.
"Hello?"
I raced to the hall, where the other phone was, but Josh beat me to it. Snickering, he listened in on the conversation.
"What?" Maddie asked the caller, "You want to talk to my brother? Okay."
Maddie appeared in the doorway and handed me the phone.
"A girl," She announced, "Who wants to talk to you."
I raised my eyebrows at the two children in front of me.
"She said it's important and you need to answer right away." Maddie insisted.
"A girl? Are you sure?"
"Yeah." Maddie said, tucking her mousy brown hair -exactly the same shade as her twin brother's- behind her ear. It was sweet the way she did it, trying to act so grown up. I wished she would just enjoy being young. I knew for a fact there would be plenty of time for her to act grown up later. The next thing I know she could be borrowing Kerrie's make up and prancing around in high-heeled shoes.
I ran through a list of all the girls I knew in my head. Not many. Well, I knew a lot from school but not well enough to call friends. I decided
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