Alaric wandered in the grey fog. He felt like he was stepping on solid clouds. He could see a large white door radiating a bright light.
From the other end of the door came relentless banging, growing louder and louder. "Alaric! ALARIC! ALARIC!"
The door flung open, and Alaric woke up drenched in sweat. His hand was still shivering from his mysterious dream.
"Get ready, or you'll be late for school," Audrey said, leaning on his bedroom door. Audrey was a girl in her mid-20s with long, lustrous black hair, a tall slender figure, and beauty that could make any jaw drop.
In another life, she'd have been a world-class model, but now she was an older sister willing to sacrifice anything for her younger brother.
Alaric was enrolled at your classic elite high school, filled with egotistical, entitled kids and their hardworking scholarship student counterparts.
Alaric fit into none of these categories, estranging him from both and essentially making him a loner.
From his classroom window, he noticed a black van outside the school gate. A few students glanced at the van, then immediately forgot it the moment they looked away.
One man, dressed in a strange suit, who had been standing outside the van, noticed Alaric's curious gaze.
Alaric's heart raced. All his senses were screaming at him that he had seen something he was not meant to see.
He immediately looked away and tried to act calm, but his body may have betrayed him. He was sweating profusely and barely able to control his shivering. "It must have been nothing," Alaric lied to himself to calm down.
Bell after bell rang, but Alaric stayed trapped in his own head. First it was that weird dream, now it was a creepy van that everyone refused to acknowledge. Or worse, they could not acknowledge it.
The last bell rang, and crowds of students mindlessly left the premises. Alaric stayed back to clear his head before going home.
After an hour of pondering, he finally packed his bag and left school. He kept telling himself he was just overreacting.
Each step he took after leaving the school made him feel uneasy.
He could not shake the feeling that he was being watched. Every few steps, he looked back, but each time he was the only one in the whole area.
Instead of comforting him, this only made him more anxious. For a split second, he saw a figure similar to the one that had been outside his school.
His heart pounded as he tried increasing the pace of his strides. The feeling intensified beyond anything reasonable.
Finally, he heard a voice in his head—not a thought, not a memory, but someone's voice: "RUN!!!"
Alaric had no time to question what was going on. Running would be the only normal thing for him today.
With no certain destination, he ran faster than he had ever run in his life. He circled the neighborhood, refusing to go home until the feeling passed.
His throat burned, his muscles ached, and his eyes stung, but not once did he think of stopping. Whatever he was running from felt more dangerous than the pain he was enduring.
After what felt like eons, he finally stopped running. Alaric did not want to catch his breath nor lay down and relax. All he wanted to do was go home.
He knocked thrice, glancing around anxiously in case his imaginary pursuers had caught up.
When the door opened, he opened his arms, trying to embrace his sister in a much-needed hug.
His hug was met with a stretched arm gently pushing him away. At that moment, Alaric was beyond confused. "Why would his sister do that to him?"
"Excuse me, but who are you?" Audrey asked, with a puzzled look on her face.
"What do you mean who am I? It's me, Alaric, your brother. Stop playing games," Alaric said desperately.
"I'm sorry, but I think you have the wrong house. I do not know who you are, nor do I have a brother," she said, a bit more concerned for the confused boy in front of her. She kept massaging her temples, as if every word Alaric said gave her a headache.
"Audrey, it's me. I had a really bad day. Please don't say sad jokes like that," Alaric barely managed, holding back his tears.
"I have absolutely no idea how you know my name, but if you go on like this, I'll call security," she said, trying her best to hide her shaking arm.
"I'll have to ask you to leave." Once she made eye contact with Alaric, she seemed to be overcome by some sense of guilt. "Do you have someone I could call, perhaps?" she asked, trying to be nicer.
For a moment, she seemed like she was going to stretch her hands out for a hug, but in the end, her logic won over compassion.
"No... Please... I'm sorry if I made you... mad. Just don't... don't abandon me like this," Alaric barely managed to say, in between stifles of tears.
"I'm sorry," Audrey whispered. She hesitantly closed the door and did her best to avoid Alaric's gaze.
Alaric sat on the porch, broken. His own sister and guardian had just abandoned him. Not only that, she had pretended not to know him, and he had absolutely no idea why.
His eyes lost all light. For a moment, Alaric questioned whether anything really mattered anymore.
"I could feel the bad vibes from miles away. Must be tough, huh?" a man, well-dressed in a black suit, said with a whimsical smile.
From the quality of his suit, it was obvious he was either very rich or an elite in the government.
"Go away! I don't need anyone to laugh at my abandonment," Alaric said with a very sharp tone.
"I get it. You have been abandoned by your beloved sister, and you are in your feelings and hate the whole world. Am I right?" the man said, with a smile that looked like he was holding back a laugh.
"What exactly do you want from me?" Alaric asked, in monotone.
On any other day, he would have strongly argued, possibly even fought the man, but as for today, he lacked all energy.
"I want you to come with me. I'll be blunt: you are being pursued by DNAs, and they want you dead. Come with me, and I'll protect you," the mysterious man said, with a cunning smile.
"I'd like them to do me that favor, actually, so get lost. I don't need your help," Alaric retorted.
"What if I told you your sister didn't abandon you, but instead there was external influence involved? What would you say then?" the man said with a small chuckle.
"What do you mean by that?" Alaric said, jolting up, the light returning to his eyes. Even if there was a slight chance that he was not abandoned, he was willing to take it.
His brief spark of hope was crushed by the strong anxiety from before. He knew this meant he wasn't safe anymore.
"You'd better hurry with your decision, because they are already here," the man said, with a wicked smile, stretching out his hand to Alaric.