Okay again - CH. 3

"Death is as long unreal until he shakes our hand for the first time." - Unknown

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It had been a normal day. Like every other day. A fine day, to be exact. I was walking down the street under the sun that warmed not only my skin, but my heart. Chill music played from my Tyson's phone as we walked down streets, yet the background ambience was quiet and calming, dancing with the fragrance of the sunlight.

I was on my way home as I had just been with Tyson who helped me to solve some mathematical applications, when my mum called, and told me to come home immediately. That was untypical for her. My mum never called me.

And I already had that weird feeling. Though I felt happy and certain, I felt lost and confused. Parts of my feelings tangled with the other, impossible for me to unwind them to understand its origin.

I had packed my bags and asked Tyson if he would drive me home after the call, and he nodded, we walked the quiet street back up and he grabbed the silver-grey keys.

And when we were back home and entered the living room, the weird feeling in my chest intensified. Parts of my feelings weren't only tangled no more, they were intertwined with one another, but with seemingly no beginning nor ending. The origin was what I was unsure about, but it served its purpose. I now knew that something was off.

And as I looked through the open living room, I realized that everyone was there.

Jace did not have his beaming smile as usual when he saw me, the corners of his mouth only twitched slightly as he saw me entering. My cousin Trey did not talk endlessly as he usually did, but was silent. Not even a slight greeting left his mouth.

Lydia, my second cousin, just looked at me full of concern, just like her mother Alice did.

And Blayke looked serious for a change.

Lydia stood close to Jace, consoling him silently. Consoling him? What did he need Solace for? Jace never hurt a fly, neither could he bear anyone else being hurt. We were fine, weren't we? So why did he look as if we would never see each other again?

I focused back on the general situation I was having in front of me, and realized that everyone else was staring in the exact same direction.

Suddenly, there were these people. They all wore pitch dark- black-coloured clothes, their heads shaved.

They all had these dark eyes. But not the kind of dark that told you about their deep-down fear, and their lovely soul. Rather they were representing darkness, that swallowed you up, without the chance of escape.

They all had the same symbol on the coat that covered their whole bodies. And I did not know them. I did not know who they were.

And I did not know what they wanted.

All I knew was that Mum was crying and had to lean on Dad so she would not fall over.

Something had happened.

I did not want to see Mum so sad. In her eyes was a sadness that only a mother could bear a home for.

I did not want to see her crying about something that could probably be fixed easily. I did not want to see her burying her face more and more in Dad's olive-coloured T-shirt, like it was able to hide a dark truth from her.

I noticed how my father swallowed a few times, his eyes tired but not as if he hadn't been sleeping, more like as if he wasn't able to deal with this no more. He felt at least as bad as Mom.

And then he looked at me and swallowed again.

I looked at Trey and realized that he was fighting tears. He told Lydia some words I couldn't understand, and she, too, started to cry. Jace did not look at me. Like he was afraid I could not handle the pain in his eyes.

Looking back, I saw Mom screaming at the strangers with the eyes that hid so much darkness, and then she raised her hand, but Dad held her back, and she buried herself in his shirt again as if she was too tired to still feel anything ever again.

I didn't want her to get so worked up.

I wanted to run towards them, and shout at these people that they should leave us alone.

I wanted to run, but then something held me back, grabbing my wrist from behind.

Warmth suffused my body.

Jace held me tight, but did not say anything.

I turned and looked into his hazel brown eyes.

I wanted to yell at him, tell him to let go of me, tear me away or run away, but all these feelings were ended by the look on his face.

The eyes were dull, the lips clenched. I saw that his eyes were shining in a way eyes could only if they were watered, but he did not cry. He only looked at me, sadly. He swallowed several times, as if it would help him to keep me at his side.

Then he let me go. His eyes remained attached to mine.

I just had to hug him. To hold him and be there for him, even though I didn't know why.

And I noticed him closing his hands behind my back.

I didn't care what made him so tired. I didn't ask any further. I just wanted him to feel better again.

And apparently the origin of his sadness was this group of men.

Jace tried to hold me tight, clawing at my arm, but what was he able to do when I was this furious?

Blayke whispered some words that got lost in the distance between us, but Tyson understood them, and a sudden key drop on the floor made everyone in the room turn around and gaze at me.

A fair-haired man with blue eyes stepped in front of the others and looked down on me as if I was worth nothing in his eyes. By stepping forward he made himself the person I hated the most in this room.

"Are you Melea Aldridge?" he asked and his voice lowered itself when he said my name, "who wants to know that?" I answered impertinent.

I had to get used to these eyes. Eyes were the centre of a person's heart. In his eyes, there was no love, no empathy, no warmth within. They were just dark.

"Do you know why we are here?” he went on without answering my question. I shook my head.

Jace growled, "leave her alone, bastard."

"Jace!" my mum admonished him softly, letting him shut up.

For a moment, the self-appointed boss of this group of weird, bold-men had turned his head to Jace's direction to give him a bold stare, then looked back at me and his eyes softened. Softness in his eyes? No, no that was a wrong accusation. He faked these soft eyes.

"We are here for you," he smiled, even more fake, "it is time," he then added with a confident smirk.

I swallowed.

"Why?" I simply asked, my face rigid. Slowly building up a façade between the two of us.

"You know why," he whispered, and his face turned to my father.

No. No, he was lying. My father said they would never get me. They promised him they wouldn't take me away from him. Never.

I imagined this. I always had the cruellest nightmares - people screamed, were tortured or torn apart. And this was just one of them. I hated nights. I hated the thought of being in a state of not being able to realize anything; you were too vulnerable for this world. I hated it.

"We had a contract," my dad hissed, while still holding mum. A small scream came out of her throat.

"That contract was made with the old head of the department. I'm here to change up some things," he replied slowly, with his eyes still staring at me, the corners of his mouth smiling. I was disgusted.

Time to wake up.

I mustered up my entire strength, closed my eyes as if it was easy to close my eyes from the game that was played in front of me. Wake up, wake up.

But no.

This could not be a nightmare.

Then I wouldn't feel like I hurt myself as my fingernails were drilling themselves into my thigh. I wouldn't hear Jace calling my name.

I wouldn't notice how he kept doing it. How I stood there, trying to process what he had just said. I wouldn't notice how Trey shook me, how the man asked me if everything was alright.

No, this was not a nightmare.

It was all real.

"That is not right," my voice suddenly came back, and in an angry rage I did not know my voice in, "you have no right to do this!"

He smiled cruelly, "Justice has been hurt. You are not an exception young lady, you are a rule-breaker. Adjust yourself to the situation you're living in. It's easier for all of us then."

"I'm young, I never intended to hurt anyone. I did not even know him. And this won't bring him back!"

He gasped. Stupid me. I had found his breaking point. That was not only my mistake, but my once and for all downfall.

He gripped my arm, his peers building a circle around me as if I was an attraction in a circus. Ready to accommodate me to their torture houses as I call them.

I heard Mum's sobs and when I turned around, she collapsed.

"Stop!"

Tyson, who had been quiet all along, broke off the tension between us as he screamed, and everyone turned to the fair-headed guy that had been silent all along.

Tyson grabbed the leader's neck with his right hand while he was pressing with the other one against his chest. He let go of me.

It all happened so fast that I wasn't able to even do anything else than simply stare.

There was a crack and a scream. A cruel crack. A crack that would be resonating in my nightmares forever.

"No!" I screamed as my face now held a home for the water in my eyes, and I started to run, but Jace came from behind and grabbed my arms, holding me so I could not get to Tyson who was only inches from me.

I started beating him, hitting Jace hard in the stomach, and though I saw the way the corners of his mouth twitched in pain, he did not let go of me.

I had a voice, but I wasn't able to talk. There was a scream, right inside of me that I hid, a scream, that was automatically suppressed by the aching of my heart. I tried to let it out, to fight my body, but it wouldn't let me.

I saw Tyson's eyes over the leader's shoulder.

Tyson's beautiful eyes staring into mine, "I'm sorry," his lips formed.

"No!" I screamed again, and I couldn't feel my face no more. Jace tightened his grip.

There was a terrible tearing and tugging, Tyson's tortured scream resonating as an echo through the room, as I saw the bloody stick, that was in the right hand of the man of darkness when he turned around.

I screamed.

Behind him, Tyson fell to the ground.

The men smiled full of mischief. In-between his hip and his hands, Tyson's detached head.

I woke up. Sweat was running all over my body, accompanied by the shivers and goose pumps all over my skin. A real-life nightmare. This replay of my memory replayed itself in my dreams like a best friend accompanying you a life long.

I sighed deeply, and hoped this would help me to calm down, but it wasn't. I turned on my night light and grabbed the glass of water that was on the tiny bedside table next to my double bed, and emptied it all in one.

Tyson was Jace's big brother. My family from my father's side wasn't from San Francisco like my mother's, they originally came from a small town near Abingdon in Virginia. When I was younger, we used to visit my relatives every summer and winter, such as my aunt Alice and Lydia and Trey, my two cousins. We stopped visiting them ever since. Jace was my only friend there.

My father's business was clean, at least what I knew about it. But when my uncle took over the company, my dad was still in college. He did business with some pretty bad people, mostly dealers. The market crash hit my uncle pretty badly; he began to loan money from dealers, barkeepers, anyone strange in general.

My uncle had always struggled with financials as far as my father had told me about it. He had been having trouble saving money since their childhood days. This turned out to be a real issue, as the money my uncle had loaned from these people were spend on unimportant things such as fancy dinners or cars. It didn't matter whether or not he could afford something – it was bought anyway. And if he wasn't able to, he loaned himself more money.

After a couple of years, he wasn't able to repay the people he owned money to no more. My uncle and the brother of one of the dealers he loaned money from got into a fight: the other guy tripped, and tragically drowned minutes after.

They said that they wanted the money back, but the real reason why they kept following my family was revenge.

My father found out, paid them off, and in exchange my grandfather signed over the company to him. I never saw my uncle again after that.

My father never wanted the company, but he wanted to help his brother, so he took grandfather's burden and the company changed his own- membership. My father had loved college – management always intrigued him, but Jura, or law enforcement in general, had been something he had always been passionate about. But due to my uncle's mistake, he wasn't able to follow this dream after all.

By taking over the company and paying the strangers off, he put his brother in jail by mistake. He didn't want to, it just happened. My father told some relatives, they told the police. None of them were still talking to my uncle.

I was the only one. I never saw him again, but kept in touch with his friends. There were numerous of things my uncle had been robbed off, and he needed some of them back. Stuff that belonged to him but one of the strangers he loaned money from took away- he often send me a partner, usually masked. "That should help with your order".

I never disappointed.

I never saw Jace again either. They kept Tyson's death a secret; the dealers wanted my death in exchange for the brother's death. But as they murdered Tyson, they stopped following us. They left me and my family alone.

The water I had just drank finally showed some of its usual effect and awoke me from my sudden dark thoughts.

I was still able to picture Jace's complete face in that moment by only closing my eyes. His lips trembling, his fists clenched, his eyes full of pain. Would it ever go away?

I was 12 back then. Four years and I still had these nightmares.

I lied back down on my bed, as I had been sitting straight up for the last couple of moments. I didn't know how long I had been sitting there, maybe an hour, maybe only a couple of seconds. I lost feeling of time when my thoughts were surrendered by guilt a long time ago.

Flashbacks from the dream began to occur in my head, so mixed up that I had to close my eyes for a moment to be able to function again. I still sometimes talked to my aunt and my two cousins. They weren't responsible for his actions, my aunt divorced him and they had left separately long before any of that had happened. My uncle was nowhere to be found, and if, he was probably in a small town somewhere in Australia or New Zealand; his favorite places when he didn't want to be found.

My thoughts kept on coming back to my dream, and the dark feelings I got every time I closed my eyes left me awake.

The crack of Tyson's neck was the cruellest sound I knew. No, not only knew, I couldn't imagine a sound crueller than it. The way it played with my mind was more than cruel – it was mind-losing.

Over time, it got better. Time enhances healing wounds, but does never fully cure them.

I found myself lying back down in my bed before I had awoken from my thoughts entirely. And I asked myself if they would ever stop, though I knew the answer.

I just had to be able to survive the night, tomorrow, everything would be okay again.

Okay again.

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