Chapter 3
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I sat up groggily on my bed and rubbed my eyes before I looked over my surroundings.
The backdrop of the dawn rising over the horizon bathing the hilltop in sunlight's rays was replaced by white-washed walls and a nearly empty room. No posters of famous rock bands or hanged photos on the walls. No furniture for books or toy figures or computer consoles. Only a single mattress and a chair beside it for the stuff I'd need close at hand. My bedroom was Spartan—and that's just the way I liked it now.
I felt tired. Sleep was no rest for me as I spent that time awake in the Fayne. Half of my life. That was the deal all viseres made.
My eyes swiveled to the alarm clock on top of the chair. It was six in the morning. Sunlight peeked in through the gap in the window curtains.
I sighed. Another night had come and gone, and I was no closer to freeing Luca from the fairy realm.
I looked over to the lone photo propped up next to the alarm clock.
The photo showed four people smiling in front of a loose ring of tall grey stones. These were my parents, an eleven-year-old Luca, and twelve-year-old me. We'd taken this photo three years ago during our last family vacation. We were happy then. Our smiles were warmer and more genuine. We'd traveled to the U.K. because Dad wanted to visit the Stonehenge for research to help with writing his new book concerning the legends surrounding the stone circles scattered across the world. Specifically, the one about how they were actually portals to another realm.
That a rumor like that even existed was proof that some people knew the truth and were trying to warn others. It's too bad that I didn't pay attention. Things would have been easier if I learned all the fairy stuff sooner.
Dad never got to finish his book. He died in a car accident that same year. His body was so badly damaged that the only thing they could use to identify him was his teeth.
Dad's death sent our mom into a fit of depression that would last for months before she finally snapped out of it. Her psychiatrist always worried the depression would come back so he encouraged my brother and me to do our best not to agitate her. And we did, for a time. Luca and I excelled at school so mom wouldn't have to worry over us. I got top grades in my year while Luca did his best in sports and quickly became the high-school basketball team's star rookie. However, despite our achievements, mom fussed and fretted over us twice as much as before, especially with Luca. She seemed so worried that something bad might happen to him, almost as if she was certain it was a foregone conclusion. As the big brother, I did my best to assure her I was watching over him, and it felt like I was doing an okay job too. In fact, things were going pretty well until the night Luca disappeared three and a half months ago.
I remembered it like it was just yesterday. I was out with my friends that night. We'd join the line snaking the street outside Starlight City's biggest movie theater for Endgame's opening night when I got the call.
My mom was frantic over the phone, repeating over and over that Luca hadn't come home from practice, and that he wasn't responding to any of her calls or texts.
I checked my wristwatch. It was a quarter to midnight. Fifteen minutes before the biggest cinematic experience of all time would start. But I barely hesitated when I told her I would look for him. I put the phone down and explained the situation to my two best friends, Ty Cruz and Arah Tan, and neither of them hesitated when they offered to help. We each spared one last look at the poster for the movie sequel we'd been waiting an entire year for before we left the line in search of Luca.
The first place we visited was Edward's Chocolate Bar down on 5th Avenue. It was a well-known café that was the usual haunt for the jocks of my school. A friendly interrogation of Luca's friends there led me to the discovery that my brother left basketball practice an hour before it ended because he said he wasn't feeling well. This was strange for me to hear as I remembered seeing Luca bouncing on the toes of his feet that morning. After all, that day was his fourteenth birthday.
Arah, a pretty half-Chinese girl with glossy black hair she liked to tie in a ponytail who had grades that were almost as high as mine, suggested we check out the local hospital. Maybe Luca felt worse and had dropped in for a checkup. We followed her suggestion and visited St. Lucy's Medical Hospital at the corner of 5th Avenue and 32nd Street but the receptionist inside the Emergency Center told us no one with Luca's name or description had checked in that night.
We were outside the hospital, walking along 5th Avenue when Ty said something that sent cold shivers up and down my spine.
"Um… do you guys remember Ashley Johnson?" he asked.
I looked over to my friend. His buzz-cut head was bowed, but he was tall enough for me to see the contemplative look on his face.
I remembered Ashley but I couldn't say so out loud. I just didn't want to think about what happened to her now of all times.
"Sounds familiar… but I can't quite place the name," Arah answered. "Refresh my memory, Tiberius."
In case you're wondering, Tiberius was Ty's first name. His dad was a huge Trekkie fan who named his son after Star Trek's fictional captain of the Enterprise, James Tiberius Kirk, hoping Ty would inherit the adventurous spirit that Captain Kirk possessed. No such luck. Ty was a gamer geek who spent most of his time indoors while glued to a computer monitor playing Fortnite or Final Fantasy XIV. The only time Ty visited the outdoors was when Arah and I drag him out of his boy-cave.
"Well…" Ty started. "No, it's probably nothing…"
"Speak up, Tiberius, or I will smack you," Arah threatened, jokingly.
Ty glanced over to me hesitantly.
"Ashley was a year older than us," Ty said.
"Was?" Arah repeated, noticing Ty's word choice.
"She went missing two years ago… on the night of her fourteenth birthday," Ty revealed.
A moment of suspenseful silence passed before Arah smacked Ty on the shoulder with her fist. This wasn't easy to do as Ty, being just an inch below six feet, towered over the both of us.
"You jerk! Why the hell would you say that now?" Arah hissed.
"Because you insisted I tell you!" Ty countered.
"Well, read the mood, dude… Geez," Arah replied.
Now, before either of them could continue their banter, I said, "I remember her. Brown hair. Green eyes. Cute… You had a crush on her, right, Ty?"
"Dude!" he scowled. "That was like a million years ago… no need to mention it now… or ever…"
Arah laughed. It was the last bout of genuine laughter I would hear for a long time.
"She wasn't the only one," I continued. "Lots of kids have been missing in Starlight City over the years… Many of them about our age…"
There was another bout of awkward silence. No one knew how to respond to what I just said. Eventually, though, Arah would be the one to speak her mind first as she really hated uncomfortable silences.
"We're talking about Luca… Isn't he a black belt in several martial arts like you, Dean?" No one could just abduct him," Arah reasoned.
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She had a point. For as long as I could remember, my dad had been training me and Luca in all kinds of fighting styles. He never explained why but I remembered him revealing once how he wanted us to have the skills to defend ourselves from anything.
"Anything," dad repeated, placing a lot of emphasis on that last word like it held some hidden meaning.
Even after dad's passing, Luca and I kept up our training. We couldn't let go of it as daily training was the most time dad spent with us. Nostalgia aside, there was also a bit of rivalry between me and Luca. This meant a lot of one-on-one sparring sessions that resulted in plenty of bruises—mostly, for me. Even before our adventure in the Fayne began, I could never beat him in a straight-up fight.
"Yeah… Luca's probably just getting some quality time with a girl from his class," I joked, half-heartedly. It was all I could do to keep from panicking.
In response to my attempt at levity, both Ty and Arah gave me tired smiles.
We continued our search, and it wasn't until the sun was peeking through the eastern horizon when we finally stopped and admitted defeat.
The next few days went by in a blur.
After my failure to find Luca, mom finally called the police. Detectives arrived at our two-story townhouse in the suburbs and questioned both my mom and me about him, his habits, places he liked to go, and known associates. I hated how they hinted that Luca might be involved with some undesirable groups, and I insisted he was a good kid. He wouldn't hang with a bad crowd. This interrogation lasted the entire morning. Afterward, the detectives left and the search for Luca began.
As he was a rising star in our community—everyone being such big basketball fans—volunteers from both the school and the neighborhood turned up to help search the nearby forests and hills surrounding Starlight City for him. Even my classmates came out to support me and my brother. It was honestly very touching.
Three days after Luca vanished, Ty, Arah, and I, along with some neighborhood volunteers, made our way into Elfwood Forest, the deep forest reserve located south of the city and just a few miles outside the suburbs where my family lived. We trekked through dense foliage and wooden pines searching for Luca and found ourselves about five miles deep into the forest, arriving at one of Starlight City's most renowned landmarks, the Elfwood Circle Stones.
Like the Stonehenge in England, the Elfwood Circle Stones was a henge, a circular ring of standing stones roughly thirty feet in height each surrounded by a circular ditch about twenty feet away from the stones. Slabs of rock joined some stones together, forming a kind of uneven, flat arch roofs.
While the rest of the search party moved on after a quick glance at the site, I remained behind out of a sense of nostalgia. Luca and I spent many summers with dad exploring this place. As he was one of the top researchers on circle stones, the local authorities never minded whenever we visited. Today, however, something about the ring of stones caught my attention. I couldn't quite understand why but there was this feeling in my gut that Luca had been here.
I walked over to the carpet of grass at the center of the circle and glanced around me. while there was nothing to see except for the tree line, I noticed something odd. There was a strange vacuum of silence where I stood that seemed to banish away the sounds one usually hears in the forest. No noise from the birds or forest critters. Not even the fluttering of the wind in the trees.
Unnerved and frustrated, I screamed Luca's name to the sky. Then the strangest thing happened. I heard him answer.
"Dean!"
I wasn't entirely sure if it was a whisper or a shout but I heard Luca's voice in the wind like he was somewhere very far away.
I blinked. "Luca…? Where are you?"
There was no response this time. Just dead silence. It was as if the wind had gone and it had taken Luca with him.
"Luca! I'm here, Luca!" I yelled frantically.
Alarmed by my yelling, members of the search party returned to the circle stones. They found me kneeling on the grass with tears streaming down my face while I screamed for my younger brother to come back.
Yup, I had been bawling like a baby. But could you blame me? This was an emotionally taxing moment, and I might have felt like I was going crazy. After all, I did just hear Luca's voice in the wind. This was not a very sane thought to have, which is why I never mentioned it to anyone and chalked up the whole episode to a temporary nervous breakdown.
It was worse for my mom. After what happened in Elfwood Forest, I went home and found her in a catatonic state. She was sitting on the living room couch with her long, unwashed red hair draped over her face like a curtain. She'd been swaying from side to side while whispering nonsensical gibberish to the empty room. For how long, I didn't know. All I knew was not even the sound of my voice or the shaking of her shoulders could snap her out of it.
I called my aunt Lena—mom's younger sister—and told her what was wrong with my mother.
Aunt Lena arrived at our house fifteen minutes later in a haggard state embodied by the mess of short red hair which she usually kept waxed and styled. After she found my mom in the living room, she used the house telephone to call for an ambulance. Right after this, she strode over to me and gave me a hug like she used to do when I was a kid. She held me there in her arms for the full five minutes it took emergency medical services to arrive.
Now, I was already fifteen and certainly not the sappy, overly emotional teenager I became for that brief period in Elfwood Forest, but it was honestly nice to have an adult hold you together like that. At least for those five minutes, I felt like the world wasn't ending around me.
I let aunt Lena do the talking. I simply allowed the paramedics to lead me into the ambulance so I could sit next to mom while they tended to her. She didn't even twitch or make a sound after they'd stuck a needle into her hand for her IV drip.
That night was certainly a contender for the second-worst night ever. It was right up there with the night Luca went missing and the night they told us about dad's accident. Yeah, I'd been through the wringer these past few years. You'd think fate would let you catch a break once in a while, you know? Balance out good karma with the bad—but no. Fate was indifferent like that.
Hold on, what kind of terrible night did I have that trumped the list above for the title of the worst night ever, you ask? Well, that would be two month after mom got carted away in the ambulance. It was the night I learned the truth about my family and our curse. It was the moment I learned that Luca's disappearance was all my fault.
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I sat up groggily on my bed and rubbed my eyes before I looked over my surroundings.
The backdrop of the dawn rising over the horizon bathing the hilltop in sunlight's rays was replaced by white-washed walls and a nearly empty room. No posters of famous rock bands or hanged photos on the walls. No furniture for books or toy figures or computer consoles. Only a single mattress and a chair beside it for the stuff I'd need close at hand. My bedroom was Spartan—and that's just the way I liked it now.
I felt tired. Sleep was no rest for me as I spent that time awake in the Fayne. Half of my life. That was the deal all viseres made.
My eyes swiveled to the alarm clock on top of the chair. It was six in the morning. Sunlight peeked in through the gap in the window curtains.
I sighed. Another night had come and gone, and I was no closer to freeing Luca from the fairy realm.
I looked over to the lone photo propped up next to the alarm clock.
The photo showed four people smiling in front of a loose ring of tall grey stones. These were my parents, an eleven-year-old Luca, and twelve-year-old me. We'd taken this photo three years ago during our last family vacation. We were happy then. Our smiles were warmer and more genuine. We'd traveled to the U.K. because Dad wanted to visit the Stonehenge for research to help with writing his new book concerning the legends surrounding the stone circles scattered across the world. Specifically, the one about how they were actually portals to another realm.
That a rumor like that even existed was proof that some people knew the truth and were trying to warn others. It's too bad that I didn't pay attention. Things would have been easier if I learned all the fairy stuff sooner.
Dad never got to finish his book. He died in a car accident that same year. His body was so badly damaged that the only thing they could use to identify him was his teeth.
Dad's death sent our mom into a fit of depression that would last for months before she finally snapped out of it. Her psychiatrist always worried the depression would come back so he encouraged my brother and me to do our best not to agitate her. And we did, for a time. Luca and I excelled at school so mom wouldn't have to worry over us. I got top grades in my year while Luca did his best in sports and quickly became the high-school basketball team's star rookie. However, despite our achievements, mom fussed and fretted over us twice as much as before, especially with Luca. She seemed so worried that something bad might happen to him, almost as if she was certain it was a foregone conclusion. As the big brother, I did my best to assure her I was watching over him, and it felt like I was doing an okay job too. In fact, things were going pretty well until the night Luca disappeared three and a half months ago.
I remembered it like it was just yesterday. I was out with my friends that night. We'd join the line snaking the street outside Starlight City's biggest movie theater for Endgame's opening night when I got the call.
My mom was frantic over the phone, repeating over and over that Luca hadn't come home from practice, and that he wasn't responding to any of her calls or texts.
I checked my wristwatch. It was a quarter to midnight. Fifteen minutes before the biggest cinematic experience of all time would start. But I barely hesitated when I told her I would look for him. I put the phone down and explained the situation to my two best friends, Ty Cruz and Arah Tan, and neither of them hesitated when they offered to help. We each spared one last look at the poster for the movie sequel we'd been waiting an entire year for before we left the line in search of Luca.
The first place we visited was Edward's Chocolate Bar down on 5th Avenue. It was a well-known café that was the usual haunt for the jocks of my school. A friendly interrogation of Luca's friends there led me to the discovery that my brother left basketball practice an hour before it ended because he said he wasn't feeling well. This was strange for me to hear as I remembered seeing Luca bouncing on the toes of his feet that morning. After all, that day was his fourteenth birthday.
Arah, a pretty half-Chinese girl with glossy black hair she liked to tie in a ponytail who had grades that were almost as high as mine, suggested we check out the local hospital. Maybe Luca felt worse and had dropped in for a checkup. We followed her suggestion and visited St. Lucy's Medical Hospital at the corner of 5th Avenue and 32nd Street but the receptionist inside the Emergency Center told us no one with Luca's name or description had checked in that night.
We were outside the hospital, walking along 5th Avenue when Ty said something that sent cold shivers up and down my spine.
"Um… do you guys remember Ashley Johnson?" he asked.
I looked over to my friend. His buzz-cut head was bowed, but he was tall enough for me to see the contemplative look on his face.
I remembered Ashley but I couldn't say so out loud. I just didn't want to think about what happened to her now of all times.
"Sounds familiar… but I can't quite place the name," Arah answered. "Refresh my memory, Tiberius."
In case you're wondering, Tiberius was Ty's first name. His dad was a huge Trekkie fan who named his son after Star Trek's fictional captain of the Enterprise, James Tiberius Kirk, hoping Ty would inherit the adventurous spirit that Captain Kirk possessed. No such luck. Ty was a gamer geek who spent most of his time indoors while glued to a computer monitor playing Fortnite or Final Fantasy XIV. The only time Ty visited the outdoors was when Arah and I drag him out of his boy-cave.
"Well…" Ty started. "No, it's probably nothing…"
"Speak up, Tiberius, or I will smack you," Arah threatened, jokingly.
Ty glanced over to me hesitantly.
"Ashley was a year older than us," Ty said.
"Was?" Arah repeated, noticing Ty's word choice.
"She went missing two years ago… on the night of her fourteenth birthday," Ty revealed.
A moment of suspenseful silence passed before Arah smacked Ty on the shoulder with her fist. This wasn't easy to do as Ty, being just an inch below six feet, towered over the both of us.
"You jerk! Why the hell would you say that now?" Arah hissed.
"Because you insisted I tell you!" Ty countered.
"Well, read the mood, dude… Geez," Arah replied.
Now, before either of them could continue their banter, I said, "I remember her. Brown hair. Green eyes. Cute… You had a crush on her, right, Ty?"
"Dude!" he scowled. "That was like a million years ago… no need to mention it now… or ever…"
Arah laughed. It was the last bout of genuine laughter I would hear for a long time.
"She wasn't the only one," I continued. "Lots of kids have been missing in Starlight City over the years… Many of them about our age…"
There was another bout of awkward silence. No one knew how to respond to what I just said. Eventually, though, Arah would be the one to speak her mind first as she really hated uncomfortable silences.
"We're talking about Luca… Isn't he a black belt in several martial arts like you, Dean?" No one could just abduct him," Arah reasoned.
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She had a point. For as long as I could remember, my dad had been training me and Luca in all kinds of fighting styles. He never explained why but I remembered him revealing once how he wanted us to have the skills to defend ourselves from anything.
"Anything," dad repeated, placing a lot of emphasis on that last word like it held some hidden meaning.
Even after dad's passing, Luca and I kept up our training. We couldn't let go of it as daily training was the most time dad spent with us. Nostalgia aside, there was also a bit of rivalry between me and Luca. This meant a lot of one-on-one sparring sessions that resulted in plenty of bruises—mostly, for me. Even before our adventure in the Fayne began, I could never beat him in a straight-up fight.
"Yeah… Luca's probably just getting some quality time with a girl from his class," I joked, half-heartedly. It was all I could do to keep from panicking.
In response to my attempt at levity, both Ty and Arah gave me tired smiles.
We continued our search, and it wasn't until the sun was peeking through the eastern horizon when we finally stopped and admitted defeat.
The next few days went by in a blur.
After my failure to find Luca, mom finally called the police. Detectives arrived at our two-story townhouse in the suburbs and questioned both my mom and me about him, his habits, places he liked to go, and known associates. I hated how they hinted that Luca might be involved with some undesirable groups, and I insisted he was a good kid. He wouldn't hang with a bad crowd. This interrogation lasted the entire morning. Afterward, the detectives left and the search for Luca began.
As he was a rising star in our community—everyone being such big basketball fans—volunteers from both the school and the neighborhood turned up to help search the nearby forests and hills surrounding Starlight City for him. Even my classmates came out to support me and my brother. It was honestly very touching.
Three days after Luca vanished, Ty, Arah, and I, along with some neighborhood volunteers, made our way into Elfwood Forest, the deep forest reserve located south of the city and just a few miles outside the suburbs where my family lived. We trekked through dense foliage and wooden pines searching for Luca and found ourselves about five miles deep into the forest, arriving at one of Starlight City's most renowned landmarks, the Elfwood Circle Stones.
Like the Stonehenge in England, the Elfwood Circle Stones was a henge, a circular ring of standing stones roughly thirty feet in height each surrounded by a circular ditch about twenty feet away from the stones. Slabs of rock joined some stones together, forming a kind of uneven, flat arch roofs.
While the rest of the search party moved on after a quick glance at the site, I remained behind out of a sense of nostalgia. Luca and I spent many summers with dad exploring this place. As he was one of the top researchers on circle stones, the local authorities never minded whenever we visited. Today, however, something about the ring of stones caught my attention. I couldn't quite understand why but there was this feeling in my gut that Luca had been here.
I walked over to the carpet of grass at the center of the circle and glanced around me. while there was nothing to see except for the tree line, I noticed something odd. There was a strange vacuum of silence where I stood that seemed to banish away the sounds one usually hears in the forest. No noise from the birds or forest critters. Not even the fluttering of the wind in the trees.
Unnerved and frustrated, I screamed Luca's name to the sky. Then the strangest thing happened. I heard him answer.
"Dean!"
I wasn't entirely sure if it was a whisper or a shout but I heard Luca's voice in the wind like he was somewhere very far away.
I blinked. "Luca…? Where are you?"
There was no response this time. Just dead silence. It was as if the wind had gone and it had taken Luca with him.
"Luca! I'm here, Luca!" I yelled frantically.
Alarmed by my yelling, members of the search party returned to the circle stones. They found me kneeling on the grass with tears streaming down my face while I screamed for my younger brother to come back.
Yup, I had been bawling like a baby. But could you blame me? This was an emotionally taxing moment, and I might have felt like I was going crazy. After all, I did just hear Luca's voice in the wind. This was not a very sane thought to have, which is why I never mentioned it to anyone and chalked up the whole episode to a temporary nervous breakdown.
It was worse for my mom. After what happened in Elfwood Forest, I went home and found her in a catatonic state. She was sitting on the living room couch with her long, unwashed red hair draped over her face like a curtain. She'd been swaying from side to side while whispering nonsensical gibberish to the empty room. For how long, I didn't know. All I knew was not even the sound of my voice or the shaking of her shoulders could snap her out of it.
I called my aunt Lena—mom's younger sister—and told her what was wrong with my mother.
Aunt Lena arrived at our house fifteen minutes later in a haggard state embodied by the mess of short red hair which she usually kept waxed and styled. After she found my mom in the living room, she used the house telephone to call for an ambulance. Right after this, she strode over to me and gave me a hug like she used to do when I was a kid. She held me there in her arms for the full five minutes it took emergency medical services to arrive.
Now, I was already fifteen and certainly not the sappy, overly emotional teenager I became for that brief period in Elfwood Forest, but it was honestly nice to have an adult hold you together like that. At least for those five minutes, I felt like the world wasn't ending around me.
I let aunt Lena do the talking. I simply allowed the paramedics to lead me into the ambulance so I could sit next to mom while they tended to her. She didn't even twitch or make a sound after they'd stuck a needle into her hand for her IV drip.
That night was certainly a contender for the second-worst night ever. It was right up there with the night Luca went missing and the night they told us about dad's accident. Yeah, I'd been through the wringer these past few years. You'd think fate would let you catch a break once in a while, you know? Balance out good karma with the bad—but no. Fate was indifferent like that.
Hold on, what kind of terrible night did I have that trumped the list above for the title of the worst night ever, you ask? Well, that would be two month after mom got carted away in the ambulance. It was the night I learned the truth about my family and our curse. It was the moment I learned that Luca's disappearance was all my fault.
I sat up groggily on my bed and rubbed my eyes before I looked over my surroundings.The backdrop of the dawn rising over the horizon bathing the hilltop in sunlight's rays was replaced by white-washed walls and a nearly empty room. No posters of famous rock bands or hanged photos on the walls. No furniture for books or toy figures or computer consoles. Only a single mattress and a chair beside it for the stuff I'd need close at hand. My bedroom was Spartanand that's just the way I liked it now.I felt tired. Sleep was no rest for me as I spent that time awake in the Fayne. Half of my life. That was the deal all viseres made.My eyes swiveled to the alarm clock on top of the chair. It was six in the morning. Sunlight peeked in through the gap in the window curtains.I sighed. Another night had come and gone, and I was no closer to freeing Luca from the fairy realm.I looked over to the lone photo propped up next to the alarm clock.The photo showed four people smiling in front of a loose ring of tall grey stones. These were my parents, an eleven-year-old Luca, and twelve-year-old me. We'd taken this photo three years ago during our last family vacation. We were happy then. Our smiles were warmer and more genuine. We'd traveled to the U.K. because Dad wanted to visit the Stonehenge for research to help with writing his new book concerning the legends surrounding the stone circles scattered across the world. Specifically, the one about how they were actually portals to another realm.That a rumor like that even existed was proof that some people knew the truth and were trying to warn others. It's too bad that I didn't pay attention. Things would have been easier if I learned all the fairy stuff sooner.Dad never got to finish his book. He died in a car accident that same year. His body was so badly damaged that the only thing they could use to identify him was his teeth.Dad's death sent our mom into a fit of depression that would last for months before she finally snapped out of it. Her psychiatrist always worried the depression would come back so he encouraged my brother and me to do our best not to agitate her. And we did, for a time. Luca and I excelled at school so mom wouldn't have to worry over us. I got top grades in my year while Luca did his best in sports and quickly became the high-school basketball team's star rookie. However, despite our achievements, mom fussed and fretted over us twice as much as before, especially with Luca. She seemed so worried that something bad might happen to him, almost as if she was certain it was a foregone conclusion. As the big brother, I did my best to assure her I was watching over him, and it felt like I was doing an okay job too. In fact, things were going pretty well until the night Luca disappeared three and a half months ago.I remembered it like it was just yesterday. I was out with my friends that night. We'd join the line snaking the street outside Starlight City's biggest movie theater for Endgame's opening night when I got the call.My mom was frantic over the phone, repeating over and over that Luca hadn't come home from practice, and that he wasn't responding to any of her calls or texts.I checked my wristwatch. It was a quarter to midnight. Fifteen minutes before the biggest cinematic experience of all time would start. But I barely hesitated when I told her I would look for him. I put the phone down and explained the situation to my two best friends, Ty Cruz and Arah Tan, and neither of them hesitated when they offered to help. We each spared one last look at the poster for the movie sequel we'd been waiting an entire year for before we left the line in search of Luca.The first place we visited was Edward's Chocolate Bar down on 5th Avenue. It was a well-known caf that was the usual haunt for the jocks of my school. A friendly interrogation of Luca's friends there led me to the discovery that my brother left basketball practice an hour before it ended because he said he wasn't feeling well. This was strange for me to hear as I remembered seeing Luca bouncing on the toes of his feet that morning. After all, that day was his fourteenth birthday.Arah, a pretty half-Chinese girl with glossy black hair she liked to tie in a ponytail who had grades that were almost as high as mine, suggested we check out the local hospital. Maybe Luca felt worse and had dropped in for a checkup. We followed her suggestion and visited St. Lucy's Medical Hospital at the corner of 5th Avenue and 32nd Street but the receptionist inside the Emergency Center told us no one with Luca's name or description had checked in that night.We were outside the hospital, walking along 5th Avenue when Ty said something that sent cold shivers up and down my spine."Um do you guys remember Ashley Johnson?" he asked.I looked over to my friend. His buzz-cut head was bowed, but he was tall enough for me to see the contemplative look on his face.I remembered Ashley but I couldn't say so out loud. I just didn't want to think about what happened to her now of all times."Sounds familiar but I can't quite place the name," Arah answered. "Refresh my memory, Tiberius."In case you're wondering, Tiberius was Ty's first name. His dad was a huge Trekkie fan who named his son after Star Trek's fictional captain of the Enterprise, James Tiberius Kirk, hoping Ty would inherit the adventurous spirit that Captain Kirk possessed. No such luck. Ty was a gamer geek who spent most of his time indoors while glued to a computer monitor playing Fortnite or Final Fantasy XIV. The only time Ty visited the outdoors was when Arah and I drag him out of his boy-cave."Well" Ty started. "No, it's probably nothing""Speak up, Tiberius, or I will smack you," Arah threatened, jokingly.Ty glanced over to me hesitantly."Ashley was a year older than us," Ty said."Was?" Arah repeated, noticing Ty's word choice."She went missing two years ago on the night of her fourteenth birthday," Ty revealed.A moment of suspenseful silence passed before Arah smacked Ty on the shoulder with her fist. This wasn't easy to do as Ty, being just an inch below six feet, towered over the both of us."You jerk! Why the hell would you say that now?" Arah hissed."Because you insisted I tell you!" Ty countered."Well, read the mood, dude Geez," Arah replied.Now, before either of them could continue their banter, I said, "I remember her. Brown hair. Green eyes. Cute You had a crush on her, right, Ty?""Dude!" he scowled. "That was like a million years ago no need to mention it now or ever"Arah laughed. It was the last bout of genuine laughter I would hear for a long time."She wasn't the only one," I continued. "Lots of kids have been missing in Starlight City over the years Many of them about our age"There was another bout of awkward silence. No one knew how to respond to what I just said. Eventually, though, Arah would be the one to speak her mind first as she really hated uncomfortable silences."We're talking about Luca Isn't he a black belt in several martial arts like you, Dean?" No one could just abduct him," Arah reasoned.Find authorized novels in Webnovelfaster updates, better experiencePlease click www.webnovel.com for visiting. She had a point. For as long as I could remember, my dad had been training me and Luca in all kinds of fighting styles. He never explained why but I remembered him revealing once how he wanted us to have the skills to defend ourselves from anything."Anything," dad repeated, placing a lot of emphasis on that last word like it held some hidden meaning.Even after dad's passing, Luca and I kept up our training. We couldn't let go of it as daily training was the most time dad spent with us. Nostalgia aside, there was also a bit of rivalry between me and Luca. This meant a lot of one-on-one sparring sessions that resulted in plenty of bruisesmostly, for me. Even before our adventure in the Fayne began, I could never beat him in a straight-up fight."Yeah Luca's probably just getting some quality time with a girl from his class," I joked, half-heartedly. It was all I could do to keep from panicking.In response to my attempt at levity, both Ty and Arah gave me tired smiles.We continued our search, and it wasn't until the sun was peeking through the eastern horizon when we finally stopped and admitted defeat.The next few days went by in a blur.After my failure to find Luca, mom finally called the police. Detectives arrived at our two-story townhouse in the suburbs and questioned both my mom and me about him, his habits, places he liked to go, and known associates. I hated how they hinted that Luca might be involved with some undesirable groups, and I insisted he was a good kid. He wouldn't hang with a bad crowd. This interrogation lasted the entire morning. Afterward, the detectives left and the search for Luca began.As he was a rising star in our communityeveryone being such big basketball fansvolunteers from both the school and the neighborhood turned up to help search the nearby forests and hills surrounding Starlight City for him. Even my classmates came out to support me and my brother. It was honestly very touching.Three days after Luca vanished, Ty, Arah, and I, along with some neighborhood volunteers, made our way into Elfwood Forest, the deep forest reserve located south of the city and just a few miles outside the suburbs where my family lived. We trekked through dense foliage and wooden pines searching for Luca and found ourselves about five miles deep into the forest, arriving at one of Starlight City's most renowned landmarks, the Elfwood Circle Stones.Like the Stonehenge in England, the Elfwood Circle Stones was a henge, a circular ring of standing stones roughly thirty feet in height each surrounded by a circular ditch about twenty feet away from the stones. Slabs of rock joined some stones together, forming a kind of uneven, flat arch roofs.While the rest of the search party moved on after a quick glance at the site, I remained behind out of a sense of nostalgia. Luca and I spent many summers with dad exploring this place. As he was one of the top researchers on circle stones, the local authorities never minded whenever we visited. Today, however, something about the ring of stones caught my attention. I couldn't quite understand why but there was this feeling in my gut that Luca had been here.I walked over to the carpet of grass at the center of the circle and glanced around me. while there was nothing to see except for the tree line, I noticed something odd. There was a strange vacuum of silence where I stood that seemed to banish away the sounds one usually hears in the forest. No noise from the birds or forest critters. Not even the fluttering of the wind in the trees.Unnerved and frustrated, I screamed Luca's name to the sky. Then the strangest thing happened. I heard him answer."Dean!"I wasn't entirely sure if it was a whisper or a shout but I heard Luca's voice in the wind like he was somewhere very far away.I blinked. "Luca? Where are you?"There was no response this time. Just dead silence. It was as if the wind had gone and it had taken Luca with him."Luca! I'm here, Luca!" I yelled frantically.Alarmed by my yelling, members of the search party returned to the circle stones. They found me kneeling on the grass with tears streaming down my face while I screamed for my younger brother to come back.Yup, I had been bawling like a baby. But could you blame me? This was an emotionally taxing moment, and I might have felt like I was going crazy. After all, I did just hear Luca's voice in the wind. This was not a very sane thought to have, which is why I never mentioned it to anyone and chalked up the whole episode to a temporary nervous breakdown.It was worse for my mom. After what happened in Elfwood Forest, I went home and found her in a catatonic state. She was sitting on the living room couch with her long, unwashed red hair draped over her face like a curtain. She'd been swaying from side to side while whispering nonsensical gibberish to the empty room. For how long, I didn't know. All I knew was not even the sound of my voice or the shaking of her shoulders could snap her out of it.I called my aunt Lenamom's younger sisterand told her what was wrong with my mother.Aunt Lena arrived at our house fifteen minutes later in a haggard state embodied by the mess of short red hair which she usually kept waxed and styled. After she found my mom in the living room, she used the house telephone to call for an ambulance. Right after this, she strode over to me and gave me a hug like she used to do when I was a kid. She held me there in her arms for the full five minutes it took emergency medical services to arrive.Now, I was already fifteen and certainly not the sappy, overly emotional teenager I became for that brief period in Elfwood Forest, but it was honestly nice to have an adult hold you together like that. At least for those five minutes, I felt like the world wasn't ending around me.I let aunt Lena do the talking. I simply allowed the paramedics to lead me into the ambulance so I could sit next to mom while they tended to her. She didn't even twitch or make a sound after they'd stuck a needle into her hand for her IV drip.That night was certainly a contender for the second-worst night ever. It was right up there with the night Luca went missing and the night they told us about dad's accident. Yeah, I'd been through the wringer these past few years. You'd think fate would let you catch a break once in a while, you know? Balance out good karma with the badbut no. Fate was indifferent like that.Hold on, what kind of terrible night did I have that trumped the list above for the title of the worst night ever, you ask? Well, that would be two month after mom got carted away in the ambulance. It was the night I learned the truth about my family and our curse. It was the moment I learned that Luca's disappearance was all my fault.
