Hearts of Clay

Chapter 9

"......Once In Time, long ago, there were seven friends. They had almost nothing in common, but would play with each other because there was no one else their age, and became close.

Rina was the ringleader. She was normally the one responsible for creating havoc but had earned strong respect from her friends. She was apprenticed to the glassworks.

Her twin brother Crey was her second. They had a tight bond as twins, so tight, they could tell what the other was thinking. They still can sometimes. He was apprenticed to the sculptors

Tinca was closer to the middle. She was quiet, gentle, and would refuse to take sides in fights. She was apprenticed to the healers.

Seveya was in the middle as well. Smart, quick to act, she was a good friend except for her explosive temper. She was apprenticed to the weather watchers.

Arin was closer to the end. He was Tinca's older brother, and would sometimes act as her bodyguard. He would get angry quickly, but would always take the brunt of the work, quickly take the blame, and trusted his friends above everything else. He was apprenticed to the miners.

Faern was near the end as well. Being blind, he had been the brunt of a joke more than once. But by teaching himself how to read, he became the brains of the group. He was apprenticed to become a watch-guard but liked to catalog the stars.

The seventh whose name we are not allowed to say was last. He was quiet, shy, and didn't like to talk. He was apprenticed to the stonemasons.

In the year after we turned 16, there was a lunar eclipse in the spring. Since full eclipses only happen for seven days every seventy years, so unnatural from what we knew, we had a superstition that anyone who watched it would be cursed. So everyone was hiding in their houses, away from the sky.

Not us though. We didn't believe in that superstition. And we wanted to brag about being the only ones to see it.

So we snuck out. We all met on a hilltop and watched the sky. And while we were waiting, we fell asleep.

When we woke up, the moon was fully covered. And it was beautiful. We couldn't stop watching until the last drop of red had left the sky.

The next night we did it again. And again. Every night we fell asleep until the moon was fully covered, and then watched it fade away.

But we started changing. We despised the sunlight and would only go outside at dawn or dusk. We also became more talented at our skills as well. Our masters were confused. So were we. Rina was not supposed to be able to touch molten glass without getting any burns. Arin was not supposed to lift rocks three times heavier than himself. I was not supposed to bring a person back from the edge of death. Crey was not supposed to form perfect sculptures only using his hands. Seveya was not supposed to predict a deadly storm a month away. The seventh was not supposed to find valuable rocks by sensing them.

Faern was not supposed to be able to see.

But we kept going out. We kept falling asleep on the hill. And we kept waking up to watch the eclipse fade away.

And we kept changing. Some of us tried to resist it, but we would all end up on the hill, watching the moon.

On the seventh day, we fell sick. We were all brought to the healers, but they didn't know what to do. They had never seen anyone like us before.

We knew. The eclipse was causing us to shift, to change our very being. Into what, we didn't know. So we had to endure the pain.

That night, even though we resisted, we somehow dragged ourselves to the hilltop. And this time we didn't fall asleep. We stood and watched as the moon was covered in red. And watched as it slipped away until there was nothing left.

Then the pain became unbearable. As one, we collapsed to the ground. As one, we looked up. And the stars responded.

Beams of light from the stars came down and struck us. Our hearts. Our heads. Our eyes.

Our souls.

Just as fast as it started, it ended. We staggered back to the village, leaning on each other for support.

The next day, the healers said we had been cured of the sickness. They didn't know how. We didn't either. Our talents had gone back to normal, and we no longer felt the power of the moon. But some things were different.

Faern has gone back to being blind. We still couldn't stand sunlight. And we couldn't have children. But besides that, things were normal.

Two years passed. We were eighteen, graduated from apprenticeship, on top of the world, ready to live. We decided to celebrate, and went to the same hilltop, from two years before, but didn't realize it.

Then things started going wrong.

It was close to midnight. We were talking about what we were going to do in life, how we would be victorious when Faern collapsed.

We ran over and got him on his back. His eyes were glowing a bright silver, and he was talking in a voice that wasn't his own. He told us that we had been enhanced, gifted, by the eclipse. But we were also cursed. How he wouldn't say.

After that, we were worried. We didn't know what was happening, and we didn't want to know. So all we could do was wait.

A year had passed. Nothing happened. We thought that we had overreacted, and Faern had been wrong.

Then another year passed.

Then we stopped aging."

Hi guys! Sorry for the long wait. I started high school, and haven't had time to write this. I also unfortunately have writers block for this story. But thankfully, I have a few chapters in reserve, so I can publish those, while I work on this whole writers block thing. 

I also have another story published; it's a collection of poetry, check it out if you want to!

Always the DragonGirl,

RS