September 1st, 1907, Morning

When I opened my eyes on the morning of September 1st, 1907, the last thing I expected to see was a green-skinned lady.

My dreams were never normal. A few days prior I had dreamed of climbing lava walls, a month ago it had been about fairies, and that night I had dreamt of a flooded city with purple people, but none of those dreams had ever come close to reality. Now, as I looked out of my window, I couldn't dare to believe this was not still a dream.

The moment I sat up, the lady disappeared, making my mind fix back into place. It had probably been an illusion of my still-tired brain.

As I dropped down my bed and slipped into my clothes -- a simple shirt with buttons loosened after generations of wear, and a pair of denim pants with scratched knees from labour -- the bedroom walls rumbled. This made me change even faster, it could only mean a fight was happening down in the lunchroom. It would be fun to watch.

"You ain't EVER calling her that again!"

"Why do ya' even care? Not like she's yer sister anyways."

Christopher and Oscar exchanged barks, leaving Lily by herself as she silently ate the boys' breakfast. Chris left his basket with newly bought resources over the table.

"Oasis is only a child, but I can't wait for the day she gets to kick yer-" Chris' eyes drifted in my direction, and that made him go silent. Oscar used the opportunity.

"Aww, how nice to see the older Marull take care of the younger Marull's ears." He crossed his arms and sat down loudly.

My name is Kalila Oasis Marull, yet I was always called differently by everyone on the house, almost as if it was a family tradition, but Oscar constantly made it clear we were not family. Christopher had called the home an orphanage countless times, but I thought of those as cold places. This house was warm.

"'Lila, pass the water jar." Lily used her soft voice for the first time in ages. It was almost funny how it contrasted against her appearance. She had curly red hair, and was as space-consuming as any 14 year old would be, but she barely spoke or interacted with the rest. She was my favourite sister. Well, I only had one sister, but you get the idea.

Chris was faster than I was. He was the one to pick the jar and hand it to Lily. He even served her glass himself, but Chris received no 'Thank You's from his sister.

"Marull," Oscar spoke loud enough I would have sworn I heard the chickens outside react to his voice. "I believe the other Marull over here would like to share some news with you."

Even I was confused by Oscar's speech sometimes, but I managed to understand his words. Oscar called both Christopher and I by our last name, 'Marull', since we both shared the same one, yet that didn't mean we had been birthed by the same mother. We had just been found the same night, close to the same place. My skin was tanned, but Chris' was definitely darker. His hair and eyes were black, but I had light brown hair and blue eyes. Oscar always whispered how it was odd, nobody else had bright eyes in the house, but Chris made sure I wasn't bothered by it.

"Shuddup, Grey," it was almost aggressive how my siblings called each other by their different last names, trying as hard as they could to make it clear we were not related. Chris took a slice of bread and bit it.

"Filling yer mouth to avoid conversation? C'mon, tell yer sister how you plan to leave us all."

Christopher sighed, which I found odd this early in the morning. Had he not rested well? My mind easily drifted away during the conversation, but only Oscar seemed to notice. He liked to pay attention to people's flaws.

"Kalila, I'll go search for wood to make a big fire, alright? Ya can get some matches to light it, right?"

Chris shook my arm to make sure I was listening, but he didn't need to do it for long as I immediately started nodding. I love big fires.

I jumped on my feet and sprinted towards the kitchen. Halfway there I remembered I hadn't eaten anything for breakfast, but I figured I could pick something along the way to the kitchen. As I reached the kitchen door, I heard how Oscar was now picking on Lily. "What's wrong with your hair? Are you trying to join Marull with the weird colours?" But Lily didn't even turn her head as she drank and ate, proud of stealing Oscar's food.

I turned and opened the door.

Behind the kitchen door, it felt like another house. Mother Elisa was already cooking lunch, but I doubted she remembered to put eggs into the recipe which surely needed them. I shrugged it off. Chris could get me fruit from the trees outside, one of the benefits of living on a farm. I kept moving deeper into the kitchen, but I no longer sprinted, I carefully tip-toed behind Mother Elisa's back. The old lady was almost deaf, and thankfully her puffy hair didn't help since it completely covered her ears, but we children still took measures to avoid her. Chris had said he found it sad, how this old widow was not taken care of by the children she and her husband had saved from the streets, but he didn't help her either so I followed that example.

My mind drifted off into thought again, that happened often.

This time, Mother Elisa's grey flowing hair prompted me to think about the waves that roared the night I was found. I was just a baby, and shouldn't have been able to remember a thing, yet there the memory was, as detailed as a recent thought or a painting.

I was staring up at a stormy sky, my eyes had to blink away raindrops at a faster speed than my eyes could move.

I raised my hands to reach for a hug, but only thunder answered.

I remained that way for gods know how long until a thin hairy figure appeared in my sight. It ran towards me and, while picking me up, I could see he was a white young man wearing a hairy coat. Next to him, a small black-skinned boy looked at me with concern. I only laughed when I felt the warmth of the man's coat.

I might have fallen, since the deaf old lady I had for a mother heard something, and when I started thinking again I was kneeling over some food cans.

"Kalila? Is that you?"

Mother Elisa fixed her glasses, but anyone who saw her milky eyes would realize it couldn't fix her sight at all.

"Oh, yes. Yes, it's me, Mother Elisa."

"You know you can just call me mum, right?"

Mother Elisa turned and kept on cooking, I used the opportunity to sneak behind the counters and seek the shelves for matches. Mother Elisa constantly reminded the kids she wished to be like a normal mother, but Oscar always whispered - soft enough so that Mother Elisa couldn't hear - how she would never be their mum.

I found the matches. I picked the box and put it in my denim pockets, with not much care, and tiptoed my way back out of the kitchen. As I closed the door, I could hear Mother Elisa telling the story of how she and her late husband had met, with no one around to hear.

When I reached the fire-place, Christopher was sitting over a log. Well, not a log, more like his log. There were five logs around a stone circle, one for each kid. I had once wondered why there were five if the children were four, but nobody had ever answered. The only thing I learnt was how fast gloom could appear in everyone's faces.

Chris was almost done with filling the stone circle with wood, but he had taken a seat. I assumed it was a small break. I approached him, and the closer I got, the easier it was to notice water falling from his face. Was it sweat? Or were those tears?

"Chris, I got the matches."

I approached carefully. If there was a good thing about the fireplace, the best thing, it was surely how feelings were expressed. It might only be that grim feeling that loomed over all of my siblings, but it did calm all of them down. Lily spoke, Christopher frowned, and Oscar went silent. I sat down on her own log and waited a few minutes before speaking.

"Do you want me to light up the fire?"

"I'm not letting a six-year-old light up a fireplace."

"I'm seven today!" I complained. We didn't celebrate my birthday. Chris had never liked the day he had lost his parents.

The young man's emotions drifted off as he took the role of an older brother once more. He snatched the matchbox from my pockets, and open the box with the ability of a pyromaniac. Yet when the lid opened, the box was found empty.

"Oasis, you mixed the boxes again."

"What?" I stood up to look at the box, not able to believe I hadn't felt the was empty.

"I got them from the kitchen as always!"

"You know Oscar and Lily don't care enough to throw away the empty boxes," Chris threw the empty matchbox into the woodpile, "I'll go get another."

"You lookin' for these?" Oscar spoke before Chris had managed to stand up, playing with a pair of matches in his hands.

He walked towards us without any other comments, odd for him, and kneeled next to the wood he was attempting to light. He never raised his eyes.

Once the fire rose, Oscar stood and sat on his own log, staring at the fire but never at Chris and me.

Chris broke the silence.

"What's your deal with us here? Did ya just want to listen to a story, or do you really have an objective here?"

Oscar turned to face me, his eyes empty.

"Do you know the story of when you were found?"

I didn't know it. I only had the odd memory of being a baby and being found near the shore, but no one had ever spoken to me about it. Only Chris rarely mentioned it since he had been found the same day as I had been. That's why we shared our surname, Marull. From the sea. I looked at Chris, asking for permission to hear the story, but he refused to look back. He only stared at Oscar, defiantly.

"You are only fifteen, you wouldn't know about that night."

"Chris, you're only two years older than me, and you were found at the age of ten. An eight-year-old remembers things." Oscar turned to Kalila as if to say 'Except this kid. Age seven and she still barely remembers her name.' but the grim feeling from the fireplace might have calmed him down.

"Marull, you were found as a newborn. When Mother Elisa's husband brought you in, you were all red, delicate. Your face was wet from old crying. You were disgusting," Oscar chuckled. "Chris, you were a scared little boy, I don't know your story from before the storm, but I know your life after it, and you've always been stubborn. You didn't surrender to the storm that night, and since then you never gave up on anything. "

"Get to the point, Grey," Chris complained.

I was worried by how much of a goodbye speech Oscar was delivering, but I had no words to add to the story. I only remembered my life since I was five, and that was just two years ago. Exactly two years ago. The only exception was that stormy night, and I was sure it had just been a realistic dream, for there was no way I could remember a night so close to my birth.

"Oscar, what are ya trying to say with this?"

"Chris, yer going to leave tomorrow, right? All that you said about wanting to find love, a wife, and have a family and a job. But that's not it, is it? Even if you're turning eighteen today, whatever your actual birthday is, you don't want to leave the nest. That's not it. You're afraid of this place. I can hear you pray at night while she sleeps."

Oscar pointed at me but quickly pointed at the log. The one that was always empty.

"You can't hide it. The scars that grow over your skin every night when you leave the house have to be done by something, someone. When Kalila wakes up late, when she moves in her bed more than usual, those nights you leave with just a shotgun and a knife. Christopher, what are you hunting?"

The silence was long enough for my mind to start drifting away.

I tended to have dreams once or twice a week. At least the vivid, realistic dreams I could remember in the morning. Yet every time I had one of those dreams, Chris went to the market, or the dock, or the pharmacy. I had not taken note of it until then. Did he go hunting? What would Chris have to hunt?

"There are creatures, monsters…"

Chris began to speak when his eyes opened widely. He reacted no more and instead fell down face-first into the grass, dangerously close to the fire.

Oscar might have been a jerk, but he would never let his brother- no, his friend die. He did what I couldn't do with my little arms and picked Chris up. That was when I noticed the silver arrow stung on his toe. It wasn't a large arrow, it was closer to a dart than anything, but it was dripping with a white liquid down Chris' foot.

"Oscar…" I kneeled next to Chris with fear of what had happened. I had never heard of people falling asleep so easily.

"What the hell happened?"

Oscar looked towards the forests, searching for whatever had thrown the arrow. I did as such but saw an equal looking dart going towards Oscar's direction. He didn't react fast enough. The dart hit his shoulder, and he fell back just like Chris.

I didn't think they were dead. Chris' eyes were shaking rapidly, no dead animal ever did that, but I still was unable to move, wondering if they may be.

A sound came from the forest, like a branch being broken, and the green-skinned lady from my morning dream appeared under a tree.

"I got the males." She shouted back towards the forest. That meant there were more like her.

"Will report after taking the demigoddess."