||| Chapter 1 - Passing of Time

||| Author - Aki1

The view was blurry...made so by the thick curtain of endless rain that poured down before him, behind him...all around...

He heard the gunshot...

'No...'

He saw the eyes of the priest widen in surprise, before the elder's body fell limply to the slippery ground, drenched with the water and the blood, the blood...

The dead eyes stared up at him, as though promising to haunt him...as they did tonight - ***

"NO!!!"

Faye bolted upright, his hands clutching the pale white sheets that matched the color of his face almost perfectly. He trained his eyes around the view of his room, almost afraid that the apparitions that toyed with his subconscious, the same ones behind the reason his heart wanted to leap out of his throat, would materialize before him and shock him the rest of the way into an early death.

The teenager sighed, running a hand through his glossy black hair, made even more so by the sweat he was drenched in. The dream was back...the nightmare that plagued him before and did so now. Though he wasn't surprised...the priest's death had been horrible for him, though he had been told countless times what the priest had wanted to do with him: "offer him as a living sacrifice to wash away the countless sins of those in the capital", as Ortha had said. He owed his life to the latter, he knew and was made to know very well...

And yet...why did the death of the holy man who wanted to kill him bother him so?

He stood up quickly, noting the beginnings of early dawn sunlight streaming through the blinds. He walked over to the calendar on his wall, flanked by numerous posters and blown-up group pictures, swiping one of the oil pastels scattered all over his finished art project on the table. December 13...he drew a ring around the number in a thick, greasy blue line.

Faye frowned, confused as he flipped back through the previous months. There was no pattern he could find, no real sequence in the days the dream chose to appear...Ortha had told him to mark it, jot it down every time it did...something he had been doing so dutifully for the past 9 years, but then...it all seemed totally random. As though the dream just chose to strike when it did.

Maybe it didn't mean anything...

He shook his head. "Man, what a great way to start your birthday", he mumbled quietly, tossing the pastel back onto the messy pile of others like it and grimacing at the marks left on his thumb and forefinger. With a slight sigh, he picked up his towel and made his way toward the bathroom just outside his room.

______________________________________________________________________________________

"Come home right after dismissal. We'll have a family dinner out to celebrate."

"Will do. Bye, Dad!"

Ortha smirked at the endearing term as he watched Faye jog out the door, his bag slung over his shoulder and another one of those abstract art pieces he'd keep seeing wrapped in plastic and tucked under his arm. He'd never wanted a son too much; his late wife had not lived long enough to give him one. And yet, although that rainy day he'd taken in the frightened, tearful ten-year old with cryptic marks etched across his back was barely more than a fleeting memory, he'd reared him almost as his own.

"When will you tell him the truth, father?"

Though some things just would not change...

"Good morning, Lia." Ortha smiled at his daughter as she entered the living room, obviously on her own way to school as well. "Did you wish your brother happy birthday?"

"*Adopted* brother", she scoffed.

"That doesn't change the fact that he was born exactly nineteen years ago now, does it? By the way, I've already booked a reservation at that French place you like so much...I'd appreciate it if you *not* do overtime study today, okay?"

Lia blinked at him, then let out an exasperated sigh...this was one argument where her chances of winning were just too slim. "It's been two months since your linguists decrytped those tattoos on him, father", she pursued. "You have to tell him some time."

"I am protecting him", he insisted. "What he does not know will not hurt him, will it?"

The silence that ensued plastered the smirk upon his face, as it was followed by the sound of her footsteps shuffling toward the door. His eyes were trained onto the view outside the window as he sat on the plush couch set beside it, but he knew as she paused, her feet stopping as she had just opened the door, letting the frigid winter air into the house.

"The prophecy gave the world nine years", Lia said grimly. "Nine years before the inevitable would happen. When it does, what do we do?" Then without another word, she exited the house.

Ortha's face hardened into a frown as he heard the door softly close. In half an hour he'd have to get ready for work...and yet a part of him didn't feel like leaving this spot at all, transfixed by the solace he found at watching the dancing snow.

'When that happens...no, *if* it happens...I will not let it happen...'

Sometimes he regretted confiding in Lia at all.