Cursed - Prologue

Cursed

Prologue

His name is Kyden, and I have a sneaking feeling he doesn’t like me very much. Now you might think I’m exaggerating but trust me when I say there are signs, and they all point to dislike.

The first sign was the evil looks he kept giving me since capture, and then the maniacal glee that seemed to light up his face when a girl handed him a piece of rope and asked him to tie my hands behind my back.

Well, either it’s glee from him hating me, or some sort of weird fetish. To be honest, I’m hoping for the former, I could deal with him being happy about tying me up because he hatred.

Sadly the soft pink hair the guy was sporting left it up for debate.

“Where should we put him?” The girl asks.

"Down a pit?"

"Kyden…" Which if anyone is remotely curious as to how I even know pinky’s name, this is how. I was still trying to learn the girl name, but the guy wasn’t as loose with names as she was apparently.

"Alright, fine. We'll just sit him on the log.” I fell forward as pinky’s foot connected to my back and kicked me towards the log sitting on the other side of the small camp fire they’d built up before I’d gotten there.

"I can walk.” I snap out as I try to not eat the ground, I just barely manage it as I stumble my way forward and sit down.

That was the second sign by the way.

“Look,” The girl starts as she sits down beside me smiling wide, and looking like she didn’t have a care in the world, she could sit here on this log with me all night if she needed to and it wouldn’t bother her one bit. “We don’t mean to be rude, it’s just we’re a little wary of strangers… and you also…”

“I almost drowned you.” I interrupted her. I didn’t need the situation explained to me, I knew what happened. I had been the one to do it after all, only I hadn’t meant to. I’d been searching almost all day for any source of water when I’d stumbled upon a river. I’d stopped to get some fresh water and stock up on my empty supply when pinky popped out of no were and started to attack me with a sword.

Like magic the water rose up out of the river from behind me and surged forward, trying to drown him.

"… Ya, really curious as to how you did that, and also we're you are from."

“I don’t know how I did it, I can just do it.” I told her quietly. “As for where I’m from, it’s Georgia.”

"Georgia?" Kyden asked frowning as he silently repeated the word to himself.

“Yes Georgia, as in one of the 50 states in America, which would make since to you if I was there, but I’m not.” I finished lamely. I wasn’t home, there was no United States of America, or a place called Georgia.

"What do you mean?"

“I mean I was running and the water sort of swallowed me up. When I awoke I was here.”

"Here?" The girl asked pointing around them.

"No, as in here." I said as I pointed to all around us. "Meaning this 'world'"

"You aren't… from this world?"

"Aero." Pinky said in exasperation, letting the girls name slip at last. "He's playing us."

“I don’t think he is.” The girl, Aero, said slowly. She stared at me, a look of wonder and curiosity on her face as if I was some exciting new toy she’d discovered at long last. I couldn’t fault her excitement; I’d probably be giddy to if someone had just told me they came from another world. “Can you explain from the beginning?

"The beginning?”

"Yes, the beginning, um… how you got here.”

“It’s not exactly a short story.” I warned her. There was no way I could sum up how I came to be here in a few short words. I wouldn’t even know where to begin to explain it. “I’ll have to start at the beginning.”

“We have time.” She assured me, even as Pinky snapped at her that it’d be getting dark in a few hours. “So?” She asked turning to look at him as she spoke. “We have a fire going, we’ll be fine.” She was patient; she didn’t snap back or show she was remotely irritated at being snapped at by Pinky.

He made a small retort back and it soon turned into a full out bicker fest back and forth between the two, or as much of a bicker as it could be with Aero polite replies.

I sighed as I looked up at the sky, amazed at how massive and clear it was. I’d been on the move so much I hadn’t had a moment to even look up and study it. It was so different from the sky back home; filled with so much pollution you couldn’t see the stars.

It was nice to know that somewhere out there was a place that hadn’t been tainted by our human hands, and the need to expand and be bigger, better, lazier. We had so much technology we were literally becoming lazy.

It was sad.

I swallowed past a small lump in my throat as a sudden need to explain everything that had happened so far over took me. I need to get it out, or I was going to explode. I could suddenly understand why people went to therapy.

Sometimes you needed someone to talk to, even if you had to pay them to sit there and listen.

I opened my mouth, ready to tell them to shut up so I could speak, and the words started spilling out. I’m not sure I had their attention, I didn’t really care. All I know is once I started, I couldn’t stop.

Ever since I can remember I’ve been cursed. The people around me would either end up hurt, or dead. My own parents had drowned when I was 5, their car swerved off the road one night on the way home from the movies and crashed into the river.

I don’t remember any of it. I couldn’t tell you if they’d screamed, or panicked, or just accepted what would happen. The police and doctors didn’t think they’d died instantly, I’d survived after all.

I was a tiny 5 year old child strapped securely into the back seat of the car, and half asleep. It was only logical one of my parents had heroically saved me at the expense of their own lives.

Humans like the logical. We like to be able to explain the unexplainable. Magic doesn’t exist; it can’t exist because if it did then we wouldn’t be able to explain it.

I survived because they saved me. To the doctors, the police, and my relatives there was no other way.

We believe the things we can accept.

I went along with the stories, who was I to say differently. I didn’t remember it. All I could recall of the night, even to this day, is the feel of the water surrounding me, trying to smother the air from my lungs and furious that it couldn’t, until it finally seemed to accept me and instead of trying to suffocate me it embraced me.

It’d felt warm, loving. Home.

After that I’d ended up being fostered upon my Aunt. I went to a regular school, graduated, and then went to college and started working full time. I tried to live out a normal life, but sometimes things happen.

Sometimes someone would push me one step to far, I’d get angry.

People ended up hurt, people ended up missing.

Thing is, no one blames the nice helpful kid, the one who is always willing to lend a hand, who’s always smiling and polite.

At least, not until the kid Aunt ends up getting hurt. Suddenly that nice kid is the guy with the tragic past, whose parents had drowned, and he had mysteriously survived. He’s always quiet to, and seems to stare.

Don’t the people who get hurt, always fight with him before hand?

I started running, and I never looked back.

That's when life got weird, but of course to explain the weird parts I guess I might need to go back even further. I mean, not to the tragic beginning, I couldn’t even begin to tell you how all that came about, no I’m thinking more of the before, when my Aunt was still nagging me six ways to Sunday, before she got hurt.

Before I started running.

End Prologue