Midnight Walks

Chapter 1

"Every saint has a past, and every sinner has a future."

-Oscar Wilde

"Zia, you're the older brother, you should be the one defending him, what's going on with you?", his parents yelled.

Zia stood there, trying to explain to them, that they couldn't let Amir get away with everything. He didn't want his younger brother following the path many of his friends had followed. He couldn't stand there and just look. 

"Mom, Dad, don't you see what's going on? Don't you see how he's gonna end up if he keeps doing the things he does?", Zia reasoned. 

His mom looked him in the eye and with a cold, almost inhuman expression, she let words out  he hadn't expected to hear at all.

"If you aren't happy with us, then go" she said with an emotionless tone.

Zia didn't know what to say or do, he just needed to leave, so that's what he did. He walked towards the door, opened it and looking back at his parents he couldn't help it but say:

"Don't wait up for me, you should even be surprised if I come back, at all."

Zia began to walk towards an alley but at some point, he ended up next to the lake he had loved when he was a kid. What he didn't know was, that he wouldn't be the only one ending up there.

One city away, a girl named Amaya had taken the bus. She needed freedom and she thought, that maybe, trying to find freedom in an unknown city would be easier for her than to find it where she had started to feel trapped for the first time.

She didn't have to give any explanations, her father spent most of the time working and couldn't even look at her since the day she had killed her own mother...

She had decided to sit at the front part of the bus so she could see everything as good as possible without anyone bothering her (at all). The next day, she would have to move in with Kyla, her best friend since middle school. They had rented an apartment for both, near their university, so they would be close, but not too close, nor living with random people from campus. She lived alone anyways, therefore she wasn't scared of living "almost alone", but she didn't want to leave her dad alone in the house where they had lived as a happy family years ago.

After noticing she had zoned out for a moment, she decided it was time for her to leave the bus and take a walk in that unknown city before going back to her house, where she had left a homecooked dinner for her father to enjoy.

So, she stood up and left the bus, while following the signs that led to a lake. It was almost 11 pm and she wasn't expecting anyone near that lake, or anywhere. She was surprised when she heard a male's voice yelling near her. 

She thought about turning around and going back to the bus stop, but she was too curious, she loved the thrill of not knowing what was gonna happen next, but at the same time, she loved that adrenaline she felt when she learned something new and of course she loved taking risks for people who needed her help.

As she kept walking, she noticed there was a silhouette walking up and down, kicking things, and even falling to the cold ground.

"Hey, are you okay?", she asked.

"Yes, I am, are you?", he tried to distract her.