Chapter 1: Beginnings.
Maxwell was the brightest mind in his school, excelling in all activities that did not include sports. He was the class president as well as the leader of the YSOF (the young scientist of the future). He was voted most likely to succeed and held a scholarship to any school he could imagine going to. On the outside he was brilliant and kind, with a sort of brain that could pick up on any subject on the first try and excel at any challenge with ease. However to those who knew him closely, he was shy and introverted. Oftentimes he would lock himself away in his room and read up on a new study or scroll through lists upon lists of historical facts before eventually going to sleep by the light of his desk lamp. He would hide there, from the harsh words of his father and the lack of attention from his mother and have dreams of someone being around who truly understood his situation.
Rosa was the quickest mind that she knew, achieving every unlockable trophy on her games within the week of their releases. She was the most loyal customer at her local Game Shop and the leader of the largest Clan on the online Gamebox community. Amongst her 'real life' friends she is known as the dare devil of skating. She is generally known as Sora, a name that rang with a gamer's alter ego if ever she heard one. She loves physical challenges as well as mental, which had made her the gamer that all her fellow students had come to enjoy the company of. She did care too much about others opinions, changing anything from her hair to her general mood only to get others attention. Her family life was bleak due to her parents absence from home. They were always off on some business trip or called away for a late night at the office. To her, her game systems and computers where her true family, and her mother and father where just means to keep them going and to keep food in her fridge.
These two have gone to the same school since they began their school careers. They never ran into one another or heard of each other through mutual friends. In fact the only thing that Sora knew about Maxwell was that he was the weird geeky kid in charge of the group of geeks in her grade. The only thing that Maxwell knew about Sora was to avoid the areas that she and her friends hung around during the day. In fact these two may have never met if not for a storm on a particular night that drove Sora next door in search of lights that her family had not given her for emergencies.
Maxwell was in the kitchen when the loud pounds echoed down the hallway from the front door. He heard his father grumbling loudly from the back room and a loud squeak of a computer chair as he hauled his large frame from it. He panicked, terrified of his position in between the loud banging and his father's steadily nearing anger.
"I'll get it!" he yelled as he slammed the door to the fridge and took off towards the front hall hearing his dad's angry comment on his shutting of doors in hasty manners. He was halfway down the hall when the squeal of his father taking his seat once again in his worn down computer chair reached his ears. He silently whispered his thanks to whatever was looking after him that night before grasping his front door handle and pulling it towards himself.
Outside stood a pale dark haired girl who looked soaked to the bone, as she was slamming her fist towards the wood of the door he had opened it, causing her body to fall forward and her fist to connect with his nose with a loud cracking sound that let him know that it was broken even as his vison faltered with pain.
"Are you okay?" He opened one eye to see a bright set of blue eyes staring at his own as the cold drops of rain slipped from her hair to soak into his own. She had ended up on top of his stomach as they had fallen into the hall. He squinted to see her as the image began to blur once again. He groaned and felt her weight slide from his form as he shifted to pull his upper body up. His hand connected with his sore nose as the bright red gush of blood dribbled down to his chin.
"Oh my god you're bleeding!" he heard her shout and the squelch of her boots on the floor as she squatted down before him. He opened one eye once again and almost fell back when his nose came a breath away from touching hers. She seemed to sense his awkward emotions and backed away from him. Her hand reached behind her to scratch the nape of her neck as she sighed," Geez, I'm sorry." She muttered almost to herself," I just wanted to see if you had a flashlight or some candles or something." He winced as he tried to pay attention to her words. The storm outside raged on bringing the situation to a dark clarity.
"Did your parents send you over? In this storm?" he asked through his hand.
"No I, I mean yeah, we live just across the road so they asked me to come get some lights since your house was all lit up." She stilted her head as she spoke, listening to the low groan that seemed to constantly echo through the house.
"Backup generator," He mumbled as he reached for a napkin from the dispenser next to the door and pushed the bright white cloth like square up against his nose. It soon turned a bright red but seemed to ebb the bleeding a bit," The spare candles are in the kitchen." He stated as he turned and waved his hand for her to follow. She did, slowly, as she gawked at the many ribbons and trophies that adorned the walls and shelves in the hall. More lined the cabinets in the kitchen, all seemed poorly taken care of as the layers of dust upon their surfaces varied from very thick to very fine. She was thinking over her discovery as seven brand new white candles and a box of matches where roughly shoved towards her.
"Hey! What are you trying to do, pay me back?" she asked as she snatched the candles from him and slipped them, along with the matches, into her coat pocket. A flash of lightning and a crash of thunder sent them into pitch darkness in the small confines of the kitchen. She cried out and jumped, bumping into him and knocking him into a table in the process. He reached out to grab her by the shoulders as she stumbled back towards the stool she had been sitting on. They were silent as a loud crash echoed through the house. His arm had bumped a cup full of silverware over and they clattered to the ground at their feet.
"I'm so sorry." She quickly stated as he hissed and bent to pick up the scattered cutlery.
"Don't worry about it." He stated with an aggressive tone as the lights flickered to life. She noticed him staring behind himself towards the back of the house as her vision came into focus.
"Are you okay?" she asked. He turned his sharp amber brown eyes upon her then. She sucked in a deep breath as the light bounced across his almost gold irises as they met hers.
"You should just go home." He stated coldly as a sounds like thumping drums began in the back of the house. He pushed her down the hallway and out into the rain as the sounds grew louder.
"MAXWELL! HOW MANY TIMES HAVE I TOLD YOU NOT TO BREAK MY THINGS?!" she heard the booming voice just before the door clicked shut before her nose. She stood there for a moment, the sound of the pounding rain cutting out any sound from inside the building before her. Her skin prickled as the cold drops of water seeped into it. She raised her hand to knock once more and check on the strange guy who seemed terrified of whomever that voice belonged to, but her hand fell back to her side as the lights from the upper story suddenly cut on.
"Weird family." She muttered under her breath before turning and running across the small stream that was forming in the road and up to her own front door. She slipped inside and closed her door with a loud click, never once looking back at the house she had just left. If she had, she would have seen a dark shadow of someone standing in the upper left hand window of the house.