QUEST

CHAPTER 1: TRAUMA

Little Zylphia'’s POV

I couldn’t wait for my mum to leave the house for where she always went. Not that I didn’t love her, I was already used to being alone in the house that it didn’t matter again. She always reassured me that she loved me, and was doing it for us. I didn’t understand but well, her unavailability earned me freedom to always be with Kyle.

Kyle.

“Baby, take good care of yourself, your food is on the table, don’t –”

“Open the door for strangers, go out unless its Kyle's” I chorused with her and she laughed with her jaws dropped. I couldn’t care less as I was busy fondling with my phone.

“Yes dear. I love you” she said and I heard the door slam.

“No doubts” I said and returned my gaze to the bracelet Kyle had given me. It was beautiful.

He had made it by himself and explained how it worked to me. Even thought me how he assembled it. I smiled at the memory.

“This represents my heart” he had said, shyly. He was never a kid with many words, but he was kind of great with the few words he always said.

Still studying the bracelet, I tried to nap off, waiting for our signal, through the bracelet, which signaled that I could go to his place at that time. Not that we didn’t have phones, it was just our thing, I guess.

Boom!

I heard a solid loud sound.

It sounded like an explosion.

Whoa-!

I exclaimed, taken aback by the shock.

I took sturdy steps to the sitting room, hoping the sound did not come from our house.

On getting to the sitting room, my gaze wandered in fear, and landed on the kitchen, not too far from our door.

Then I saw.

“Fire!” I exclaimed.

Exasperated, my gaze darted to the door, and I saw fire running there.

The fumes stared at me viciously, as if laughing at me, before swallowing me.

Then probably subconsciously, I felt the bracelet shine, warming my almost ice-cold hands. It would have felt my racing heartbeat and sent a notification to Kyle.

As he had explained.

Kyle. I had to escape for him. We still had to visit the roller coaster today. We still had to do many things together.

Then the bracelet beeped. And the beep gave me hope. Someone still wanted me. If I thought the bracelet shining was an illusion, the beep sure wasn’t.

And I was going to survive. For Kyle. For us.

I took a deep breath and closed my eyes. I tried to envisage an escape route or something.

And immediately, it hit me. The hole.

Now, the fire had almost engulfed the house as the flames neared me.

I scampered to the middle of the house and opened the cover, prepared to jump.

Without thinking twice, I jumped, my survival instincts taking over. It didn’t matter where I landed, it didn’t matter how. All that mattered was that I had landed, and it felt like hard ground. I had survived, and I was going to see Kyle. Again. Ride the roller coaster, visit the playground again. I wandered off in my head and shut my exhausted eyes.

After what felt like a split second, I felt small hands try to lift me, and a voice calling out to me, to stay. The voice felt strange so I tried really hard to open my eyes, and luckily they obliged. My eyes gave way and I stared right into a pair of emerald green eyes. They were beautiful. I heard him call my attention to his whole face, as if telling me to focus or something.

Focus? I was lost in those eyes, that too familiar set of eyes.

Kyle? My mouth stuttered.

The pretty eyes guy seemed astonished but I was too tired to explained. My eyes claimed their original position and I fell into a deep sleep.