7 Skips

Prologue

Clement

It was a few days after mom had gone, and Vin was nowhere to be seen. The house was empty, with a still sense of melancholy hanging over everyone. Sibyl was still asleep, her white hair draped over her face as her body rose up and down so quietly. I felt an empty dread in the bottom of my stomach, pulsing bigger and bigger as I breathed slower. My limbs were hollow, my blood cold. The house was frozen in a moment of unspoken terror. I was alone. I felt like I would only ever be alone.

I heard something down the hallway- a scraping noise, something heavy against the floorboards. I got up, fiddled my top few buttons closed and choked myself back up with the collar, and breathlessly eased my way out the bedroom door. 

Fear kept me going. The scraping did not stop. There was something in this hall, something big, something living. Unease crawled it's way up and down my spine. The windows were all closed and locked, but an early-morning blue still flooded in. 

I pushed my thumb against my wrist- my pulse was wild, too quick. Even little me knew that my body was on the verge of breaking. I kept my lips together tight; whoever was there was not one I wanted to hear me breathing. 

I heard a explosion then- piercing and soaring, my mind left me and I turned the corner in a dash, the glass sparkling and shattering across the floor. The curtain's framing the window were thrown open, the window nothing but a few broken pieces of glass clinging onto the frame. I stood in that empty hallway for a long moment. The air outside was bitter and cold. Whoever was here was gone.

I navigated around the maze of glass, my delicate feet oh so cautious around the transparent shards. The wind bit at my face as I met the gaping window, the world that same dark blue. The world didn't seem real, like some sort of copy. "This is fake," I whispered to myself, my voice faded with the wind. 

I heard a sound then. Voices carried from the cold outside. I leaned as close as I could to the window, closed my eyes, and listened. 

"It is a shame, isn't it?"

I pinched my eyes shut. A boy. A meek, shy voice. There a moment of nothingness, then the return of the boy. 

"It doesn't need to be this way. We can fix it, we can find a way to move on-"

His sentence sliced. I began to unveil the world, my eyes open, my breath thin vapor. 

"I will miss it."

I hung onto every frail word. So much so that I didn't hear the pacing from behind me.

"Clement, what are you doing?"

I twisted around to see Sibyl, her restless face and tired eyes. I hopped over the glass and her small hand wrapped around mine. "I heard noises," I returned.

"It's early. Mom's dead so we can sleep now." Her eyes- the same unending blue as the early morning sky. 

"You're right." The two of us latch our hands together as we pace down the long, still hallways. I looked at my sister, the exhaustion and determination that she wore so confidently, the silver cross hanging from her neck. Her eyebrows as white as her skin. 

If only I knew tomorrow.