I play with the heart of deceiving the deceiver, but no harm do I ever wish to come to those whom fly on amity's broad wings. I play with the spirit of fighting the fighter, but no harm do I ever wish to come to those whom lay in kindness's arms. I play with the mind of killing the killers, but no harm do I ever wish to come to those whom dream in sky's broad blue.

When we got back home, Wei suggested that I lie down and get some rest. I did as he said, but after an hour of tossing and turning and generally doing nothing, I went to drink some water and I felt my hands tingle a bit when I touched the glass. Even the water didn't sit well within me and I soon found myself crying though I couldn't remember why. Remember probably wasn't the right diction, because to remember would have meant that I'd forgotten something, and in this case, something important. This was life, and in life, I vowed never to forget anything, I swore it to my mother, before. They were probably the first words I said in coherence after I learned how to talk with a moderate amount of clarity. And, even in my mother's death, I would keep that promise. Forgetting wasn't an option. It never would be. Despite how much I might think that forgetting would be the answer to erase the scars of my past forever, because I'm sure that I'm the only one that remembered it still.

With these thoughts in my mind, I ended up not sleeping a wink, and before I knew it, the sun rose above the horizon and gleamed brilliantly in the sky. Sunday finally was here, but it was still my birthday, because I hadn't fallen asleep yet. My mother used to tell me that my birthday would be over after I woke up, and if the day that I awoke was not the day that I was born. So, until I fell asleep today, I wouldn't turn a day over eighteen, and if I never slept again, I still would only be exactly eighteen years old. She said that the reason people got older was because they slept, and that sleep was addictive, more addictive than any drug or smoking could be, combined. We need to get older as kids, to become as fit as we could be, but then we didn't suddenly know how to stop aging, didn't know how to stop sleeping so suddenly, and would soon grow older and older until we died.

My room only had once clock in it, and it was a circular clock, unlike any other in the world. It was a twenty-four hour clock with one tick against its rim to every minute of the day. The readings of actual numbers were written for every quarter hour, and I set it exactly to an atomic clock that kept time accurately to the picosecond, though my clock was only accurate to the millisecond. Anything more would have been excessive. This clock read that it was exactly seven in the morning. For a long time, I just stared as the second hand moved along the surface. Birds started to tweet soft songs outside, though they sounded dreary and downcast this morning rather than bright and happy like they usually did.

"I feel the same way, little guy," I whispered when I got up to open the window to hear the song better. The wind was fair, but the trees looked like they were deprived of water or something equally important for some time. Nature didn't usually look that way, even if it was the start of a heating period. The sun was bright – usually things would be happy, not downcast.

My body still felt weak enough that I didn't want to leave the confines of my room. Wei was probably still asleep, so I had not much to do except to read a book. I grabbed one at random off the shelf, The Picture of Dorian Grey, and began from the first page. The fantasy and supernatural genre never thrilled me much, but there was something about this book that always said something different. It wasn't something I could pinpoint, it was just more of a feeling that I got whenever I read the words of the man that had a picture age in his place. So many people nowadays would think the idea a luxury befitting only of royal blood, which was until they read the story and found out what a curse it really was. Then they would wish the curse to be over, but too much of cowards they would be to cut up the painting and end their own lives.

I just didn't like the fantastic and the magical because it conflicted with science and logic that seemed proven to work in modern day. Magic never worked, or if it did, it couldn't be explained in any way, its explanation was more of comparing things to something understandable by even a little kid. And no one could say otherwise. Besides, even if I did believe in magic, the world wouldn't believe it with me, it was moving far too fast in the forward direction for me to still believe that fairytales and folklore were still the norm to tell children. But there were still days, like yesterday, where I could half-believe that unexplainable things still roamed this world, not yet destroyed by the lack of belief in society. Both my parents were queer, because my mother would tell me stories of old lore from the place she came from, because she wasn't from the main lands like most others, she came from a small island that she wasn't allowed to leave for many years. My father's oddity was fairly clear what with the fact that he probably could have pleaded insanity in court and gotten away with it.

"Don't cry with the rain," Mommy whispered into my ear as she hugged me. "It's there so that tomorrow will be sunny and green outside. It's there to make you smile not be sad."

I shook my head, still sobbing. "The rain is rain. There are people standing and crying. Sad something happened. Shena," I said, listening to the voices in the rain. Mommy might not hear them, but they were sad, and they made me sad. They cried for Shena, or at least I think they did. They spoke sort of funny. It was hard to know what they were saying really. But something bad happened, otherwise they would be happy.

Mommy pulled away and raised her eyebrows. "If you listen to those voices, they'll take you away some day, and Mommy might be able to protect her little babe. They'll lie to you without lying, and then trick you to going with them. But you mustn't make a deal with them, you mustn't listen to them."

She wiped away my tears with her thumb and then stroked my hair while staring into my face. "Do you understand me, honey?"

I nodded, but then I heard the voices again. They said, "The soul and blood of the half and pure will help. One has already been located. But it is heavily guarded by the royal. Not for long." Each stop, the voice I heard changed. I wanted to look at Mommy again to ask her. But I never got the chance. Daddy came in the room just as the rain stopped and asked us if we wanted to go for a walk. Mommy took my hand and we walked out of the room, following my father.

I blinked. Maybe daydreaming wasn't the best way to pass my Sunday either. Church was no option, either. I hadn't gone to that place since I was five, having believed that God must have thought I did something that needed to be asked for forgiveness for, something I didn't even know I did. I did nothing wrong and he still made me want to die so much when I was so young. But why would I suddenly remember that part of the day? For years, I only remembered the park bit, the part that still replays in my mind every night when my lids close shut – but I never once before remembered that part of the day. I knew it was real, but I never thought of remembering it.

My mother also didn't believe in going to Church, not because she was forsaken or anything, but because she said that she came from an island range that didn't believe in God. She said that where she was from, they believed that there were lots of gods, not just one. Some of the gods were good, and others were bad. And just like the gods, the people were separated between good and bad. The bad gods cursed the good people to forever be depressed. The good retaliated with making the bad unable to tell lies. Eventually, the good died out from the depression of its people and the bad took over. Then the bad started to fight amongst themselves, because some of the spawn held different ideas than their kin. They separated again, and the gods that used to govern the good people became the gods of the rebel spawn.

I'd asked my mother whether she was part of the good or the bad people that couldn't lie, and she laughed. She was from another island that was near the island with the drama, but her island believed in the same gods. She said that she was born into the family of the high priests and priestesses, and that she was given the choice of loyalty to the gods or banishment. Obviously, she chose banishment. "I didn't leave because I didn't love my gods," she'd said to me one night. "I left because I wanted to see the world, and I would not have been ever allowed to leave, to go exploring if I chose to stay then."

Her name was Carmen, as well. But I remember that she almost never introduced herself to people by that name, she always called herself Kana Tis, or something that sounded like that. I guess that meant that she changed her name when she relocated here.

Remembering wasn't a good idea today, because I was so sleepy that I might fall asleep and dream real dreams about these sorts of things, and I guess that would not be a good way to end a birthday. Crying or thinking sad things on birthdays was generally not a good thing. But I managed to do it every year without failing. Because every year I used to wake up early and try to surprise my mother that would come to wake me up to another year of life, and every year since then, no one ever did that, I wouldn't let anyone do that except for my mother.

I pondered for some time before glancing at the wall clock. An hour passed by since I'd looked last. Dark clouds started to converge, almost unrealistically quickly. If it were a storm, I was glad that I wasn't outside today. Flash storms and floods weren't normal occurrences in this part of the world, and they sure scared any biotic thing to death here. Especially if it never actually thundered or rained – it was though the only reason for the clouds was to darken the Earth.

Screams came from outside. The birds opened their beaks and made wretched sounds as an accompaniment. And then they showed up.

They weren't real people. My mother and father were both there, amongst a slew of others, the many I didn't recognize, and at least those two were dead. For being dead, they seemed so different. I could tell that my mother was dead, she looked like a ghost – a real ghost, like the kinds that look just like people, but ephemeral. My father looked unlike that. He was…

"Lunch is on the table," Wei called up the stairs from the kitchen. He knew I wasn't asleep. Figures. I looked away towards the door at the sound and when I looked back out the window, the sky was clear and nothing was in the street. Maybe I really did fall asleep. When I got up to make an appearance and eat, an eerie chill fell through my blood stream.

"Happy belated birthday," Lucinda, my best friend practically since birth, called out with a smile. "Sorry we didn't do anything on the weekend; my parents dragged me to a wedding on Saturday, and made me stay for Sunday because they wanted to catch up with some long lost relatives." I laughed softly. "But I did manage to find you the perfect present," she said, handing me a small wooden box, its lid encrusted with a crazy amount of sparkling stones. I raised one eyebrow at her as I lifted the lid. Inside was a large deep blue pointed pendant. "It's called blue goldstone, but I thought it looked like the night sky during a new moon. You can even see the stars."

"It's okay that we didn't hang out on the weekend. I was kind of wiped once Saturday was over. Wei let me get the tat," I really wanted to show it to her, and to tell her about the crazy stuff that went on before, during, and after of the things from Saturday, but we were suddenly joined by two others, Davis and Ben, who both had presents in hand for me.

"Did I hear that you got your art?" Dave asked as he came up beside me. "Happy birthday," he said, shoving a present into my hands, which then became the present underneath Ben's as he plopped his into my hands as well.

"Sick, I don't think my present will suit you though, if you got your tat, that means you're already badass enough," Ben said with a cheeky grin on his face.

I rolled my eyes but opened their presents, Ben's first. He gave me brass knuckles, a martial arts club membership card, and a really pretty blue pearl bracelet. I put the stuff down to give him a hug. "Thanks, though I don't think I'll ever need to know martial arts. But, I guess better safe than sorry, right?"

Ben laughed in my ear, hugging me back before letting me go to open Davis's present. Davis gave me an entire set of sixty-seven bottles of nail polish in every colour of the rainbow, some in metallic, with sparkles… I swear I would never run out of nail polish for as long as I lived. I gave him a hug too, but I couldn't help laugh at how crazy his gifts always were. Every year since I met him, he's always managed to give the most humorous of gifts out of everyone that gave a present – his parties were always the best as well.

"We'll have a part this weekend, even if it's after the big day? Just the four of us, we'll make it a date. It can be a double date even," Ben smiled. "Show you how to really celebrate being a woman, what do you say?"

I nodded with a grin. It was obvious he was trying to push Davis and Lucy in that direction, and this was no subtle push into it either. Davis seemed like a good match for Lucy, since they seemed to like each other, and I know that he's liked her since a few years ago, when he confessed to her before school. Back then, it was the time when girls didn't see guys that way, and it might have not been the same the other way around. "Double date sounds good. Ben, you can be my escort, and Davis can be Lucy's. All settled, pick us up on Friday, boys."

Lucy sighed but smiled behind me. She didn't say anything because it meant that I wouldn't shove myself into a hole and count the days until summer hit. Besides, I figured that she would try to hook me up with Ben, and I really didn't mind that so much. He was a friend, and he made me feel just as safe as anyone I was close to. I could do worse. And Wei would have no ability to complain about the sorts of boys I dated if it were Ben because he accepted Ben already as a friend. Wei acted too much like a dad for his own good.

A day and a half later, I learned why my classmates were avoiding me. It wasn't even Friday and my closest of friends were MIA. They were all in the hospital for one reason or another. Quite a few others were with them, and everyone was catching on that I was the one who caused it – because those others were people that were near me within the last two weeks or so. Most, if not all, of the hospitalized students were in some sort of coma or unconscious state. But, I could not find how I could have caused their ailments by just being me… The only thing that changed was…

If my eyes could do that weird silver flashing that Wei's eyes did, they would have. The only real change was that I turned eighteen. And that I got the tattoo. And I, because of prompting, I said that weird wish. It must have been one of those three things, with the higher of the likelihood as being one of the latter two. But they all happened at nearly the same time, and in any case, I didn't see any of my friends over the weekend, I saw them on Friday, before my birthday, and on Monday, after my birthday and tattoo, so there was no way to determine which was the actual cause, thought I'd place my bets on the last one.

"Where are you going, Miss Dedt?" Mr. Banner called after me as I left the room just before he walked in.

"I have to go ask a question. Don't hold up the lesson for me, I don't know when I'll be back," I said, walking backwards down the now empty hallway of the schoolhouse. With my book bag in tow, I ran down the busy streets towards my house. The morning shopping crowd was heavy enough that I bumped into a person on my way, and their reactions to me were more acute than my friends'. The man, approximately fifty by his features, suddenly had a pain stricken look upon his face before he clutched his heart and fell. I ran away as fast as I could, avoiding touching anyone else. This was far too surreal and so was the day that I got my markings. Damn them to hell if they caused this! I never wanted any of this! They're acting like the Fey stories my mother used to tell me, not lying, but never telling the truth. Like… the voices in the breeze. CRAP!

"WEI!" My voice carried through the house, even if he was sleeping because he was a night guard. He was nothing even human if my hunch was correct. I stormed into his room, ready to throw him out of his bed if he was still asleep. He wasn't, he was quite awake, waiting for me at the end of the hallway, blocking the stairway.

"Yes?" He said calmly, probably ready with some sort of lie he could feed me to explain all of the weirdness.

"You may appear to be human, but you aren't, are you?" I said to him, not breaking eye contact.

"Where did you hear that from, my dear?"

"My mother, but really, it's not that hard to figure out. You are a fey."

"But your mother is dead! How could she tell you anything?" His eyes flashed silver for a moment.

"Don't you dare try to change the subject! I know what I'm saying, so tell me the truth! Tell me why your eyes are silver sometimes, tell me why you lie without lying, and tell me why you're trying to hide this when I already know the truth; tell me everything, or may you be damned by the gods." My words were starting to become snippy now, but I wasn't about to give this up. I could tell what he was trying to do, and I wasn't about to let him do it, no matter how mad I might have been, or how many times he would try it. This was somewhat of a last stand for me. I needed to know what was happening, maybe then I could save my friends or make the man with the heart attack better again.

He chuckled. "You really won't give up with this talk will you? No, I know you far too well; you'll stick to me like a shark sucker until you get the answer you're looking for. Well, in any case, you're my artling so I guess you should know what's happened to you.

"Basically, your tattoo ink had a daub of my blood in it, tying you to me until your deepest desire is fulfilled. At which point, I am allowed to demand something from you, anything that you might ever be able to give me. The process could take centuries. There are some that take millennia, which is a tad too long, if you ask me. We cannot lie, because if we do, we have a gland that can be stressed and it adds a toxin to our systems that is nearly fatal to us. The only way to break the art without fulfilling your desire is to kill me, which isn't easy, many have tried without success.

"My kind and I are called sidhe, split between Dywn and Lygt, and I am the Dywn sidhe Wexyeil. I need to make abominations like you in order to keep strong, I feed off of your using the artling powers to put it simply, and you've already given me plenty of food, using it on your friends, and that man on the sidewalk.

"And now you want to reverse everything you've done to these people, am I right? I bet I am. The only way to do that is to fulfill your desire, then anything that has happened in the past involving you would be rewritten, most likely to never have involved you. But, if your kill is direct, and you will know what that means in due time, nothing can be done, and that death shall not be changed. As a fair warning, because of the wording of your desire, I suggest you not touch anyone accidentally or without saying 'you have my permission' or the likes."

He grinned then, rather devilishly before vanishing in thin air.