Of The Elements: Earth and Moon

"This year is... wrong..."

Alvin

Alvin woke up to his alarm going off, he fumbled around with his hand, mumbling "stupid alarm" repeatedly, trying to stop the alarm before it woke his sister up. But it was too late, his sister was up and least to say, she was in a bad mood.

"Alvin", she growled, "one more time your stupid alarm goes off and wakes me up, I am going to make your life a living, breathing hell."
"Sorry Amy, it won't happen again.", Alvin apologised halfheartedly.
"Of course it won't happen, 'cause I am going to give you one hell of a beating tonight.", she replied.
"Dad will be gone tonight.", she added with an evil grin.
Alvin gulped with fright, Amy was a champion at beating the living daylights out of people.
With this he concluded that his life could never be worse.

Little did he know, that was going to change. Soon.

_________________________________________________________

Alvin took a steaming bath, got dressed and went down for breakfast. Surprisingly without any interference from his sister.

He checked the calendar and it said it was 1st January 2021 today. He sighed, he didn't like holidays at all, winter break was nothing but a torture for him. Sure, last year was no where near good, and he should be happy that it was over, but he had a feeling that this year won't be much better. Especially not with his gift.

Last year he caught the flu, or that's what everyone thought it was. But he knew differently, the 'flu' had changed him, he could now sense auras. The auras were visible, and not everyone had them. Only a select few had a cloudy aura around them. It rose off their skins like vapours. And the people who had it, they were different, they were always scattered, they would stay in crowds, yet never mingled with anyone.

He had had this ability for about 7 months now. One thing he noticed about all those people who had the aura, they were all grey eyed. He had decided to call them 'them'. Pretty imaginative.

He sat on the table nearest to the counter, so that he wouldn't have to walk much. For a skinny, tall, 13 year old, Alvin had quite an appetite. One thing he didn't like about Alice's (the breakfast centre at the ground level of LMF apartments - the apartment he lived in) was that the plates were quite small, and he hated the way people looked at him when he went to the counter to get his fifth serving.

He got his breakfast, a weird combination of salad, pancakes, lemonade and ginger tea. He was half way through his third serving when one of them walked in. It was a girl, about 13 years old. She had straight, dark brown - almost black - hair, a thin face with a clear jawline, slightly full lips, a long and triangular nose, and her eyes were a brownish shade of grey. He could make out an aura around her as well. It was pearly white, just like all of them.

She was late for breakfast, so all the seats were full, except a chair at my table. She quietly settled down at my table, grabbed a plate full of pancakes, and devoured them down in less than five minutes.

Woah, she eats more than I do, and that too at almost double the speed!  Alvin thought in wonder.

"Hi", Alvin said awkwardly.

"Hi", she replied curtly.

"I am Alvin Marsh, and you are?", He asked politely.

He saw her eyes widen slightly as he introduced himself. He waited for her to reply, but she didn't. Within a few seconds she was done with her food, she got up and went to the sink to keep her plate.

Alvin followed her to the sink. As she turned to leave, she whispered, "Vinel Gonts", and left.

Intrigued, Alvin followed her, he noticed Amy smirking at him but he ignored her and continued, he saw Vinel meet up with three more of them. They were talking about something, and they seemed quite troubled. Though they conversed in hushed tones, he managed to hear one sentence.

He heard, "This year is... wrong..."