PROLOGUE: Escape From Salvus City

JACK

In the universe consisting of galaxies of billions of different things, species of humans reside on Earth. It isn’t always sunshine and rainbows, and on the contrary, it isn’t always darkness and destruction. It’s unknown if life stretches further than the limits we have created. It is unknown what lies past the sunshine or what stays hidden in the darkness. It’s unknown if there is a world where the sun rises from the west or sets in the north. The world is unlimited. Beyond the reach of humans, and there is a lot to be learned to know everything.

*`*`*

It had been a long time since our dad left us. The fight that took place was a wreck that we couldn’t see. We were kids, my sisters and me. We didn’t know anything, and by the time we were old enough to inquire, it had been forgotten. It was after a long while when my mother recalled it. But with that, when the tragedy struck once again, she knew what was going to happen. However, if she hadn’t, our lives would’ve stayed mundane. That was the price of the omniscience of the past.

“Pack your bags, Jack. I won’t ask again!” My mother said sternly after shutting down my argument. She wouldn’t even listen to the plans I had to get back those we had lost. Mom made sure that whatever that had happened could be talked about later when we’re driving or staying in another place or country. She just didn’t want to talk about it right then.

“Mom, Rena—” I tried once again, but it fell on deaf ears.

“Your bags, Jack!” She yelled, turning, and walked away to Addison’s room. She was adamant about leaving as soon as possible. I had only stepped a foot back in the house when she scrambled around to gather the things she had wanted. She didn’t even explain why we were leaving. She just ordered us to pack up our stuff so we could sit in the car and drive to her friend’s house.

When I finally complied with her wish and went into my room, I found the book on the foot of the bed, opened to a new page where ink started to smear.

Leave the city to never come back, for the behind is often scarier than the front. If you stay, you face the horrors of the coming days when no sense is left, no conscience to warn. Beware, the descendant of Orion. The star shines above the battlefront.

I took a shaky breath, and it clicked why my mother wanted us to leave as soon as possible. I knew now what would happen if we were to stay. The book had given me what I needed to know to take action. It wasn’t supposed to be this way, but now that it was, I had to act upon it just so I wouldn’t make the same mistakes of the past once again.

The moment I started to assemble my things, mom came into my room and helped me zip them in the bag quickly.

“Mom, what about the book?” I asked after cornering her in the room. She simply said to bring it along as we would give it to her friend. I didn’t yet know what she was thinking, and the guilt kept churning. She was loathing me. How could she not? After the consequences of my actions, it was a miracle she was civil, but I didn’t want that.

I wanted her to shout, and I wanted her to scream. I wanted her to do a lot worse than what was happening, but not this. She wanted us to leave while I wanted us to talk. I wasn’t ready to go before having a conversation, but I didn’t have much choice.

I had asked her before doing what I did, but she hadn’t expected me to fall prey to it. She expected me to be sensible, but I had let her down. I had been stupid enough to believe everything that the book told me and asked of me. I was too deeply in before realizing what had happened.

My sister stayed the same. She kept lying on the bed in the same state, and there was nothing more that I could do. I wanted to use the book once again, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t bring myself to ask from it anymore. It had done all the damage it could, and I didn’t want to cause more destruction than I already had.

I went to the places I never would’ve gone on my own. The addresses the book gave me were towns away, and I followed them, thinking that it would do what it had promised. I didn’t ask for it. It presented the guidance itself. All I did was, become senseless to fall into the trap…, and I had just seen the costs of my actions.

Even if I wanted to tear the book apart—which I had already tried doing—I couldn’t. The book, the pages, the ink, nothing would change. It only bound itself to the way it was. It didn’t become shiny and new again. The look was rugged, the corners were coming off, but it remained firm.

I had thrown the book into the river too, but somehow it came back to me. It always came back to me, and I thought I was cursed. I was either bonded to it or under its spell. No other explanation seemed to make sense. All the other times, I tried to burn it at the fireplace when everyone would be asleep, but nothing damaged the book. The pages would return to their original crisp state, and it would sit on the bedside table as though nothing had happened.

Half the time, I would think that I had imagined doing whatever I did to the book, but then I started recording it and realized the book had the power to turn back time on itself. However, whenever it revived, it would always be in my sister’s room, the one who had discovered it in the first place. I knew why, but I didn’t want it to stay near her, so I would always bring it to my room. If only I had locked it away at the start, none of the disasters had taken place.

I never took my sister’s words seriously when she told me about the book. I always thought she was way in over her head for thinking about the things that weren’t possible. They very much were.

After a while, both mom and I put the bags in the trunk. Then I questioned her about the things we were leaving behind. She said not to worry about them as we could get them later on. It made me believe that we were coming back. No matter how long we stayed somewhere else, we were coming back, but the words of the book flashed in my head. If we came back, we could be walking into jeopardy. I wanted to warn my mother about it, but I stopped myself because there was a possibility that the book was lying. It had done it before; who's to say that it wasn’t going to do it again? Or maybe I wanted to come back to this place hence why I was finding excuses? I didn’t know, but I didn’t want to indulge the already bustling woman in more stress.

“Go on, dear, start the car. We’ll bring your sister.” She instructed my baby sister as we went over the other one to carry her into the car. She lolled against the shifting weight, but with a good amount of effort, we finally laid her in the backseat. Mom sat in the driver seat, and both my little sister and I crammed in the passenger.

“Where are we going, mom?” I asked my mother, who fumbled with the keys and pulled in the gear so the car would reverse from the parking lot. The car grunted back onto the road, and mom started driving towards the exit of the town.

“Outskirts.” My mother breathed and turned on the radio. I knew she wanted to lighten up the tensed air, but it only doomed it further when the news started to blare from the speakers.

‘Bringing to you live, the death of a doctor—’

Mom turned the radio signal so she could find any song, but the harm had been done. The news had already pierced my bones. My heart dropped hearing the report, the sound of the wailing girl, and the pleading of the doctor's wife. My heart cried blood tears as I gritted my teeth, hoping to gain power over the overwhelming urge to weep. I sobbed, unable to control it as it kept dawning over what I had done.

‘The heartbreaking tragedy has come across the Knight household—’

I shakily exhaled before slamming the off switch as my mother looked at me in shock. She recovered pretty quickly, but I saw the uncertainty flicker in her eyes. She might have averted her attention elsewhere, but I saw it. I saw the doubt that lingered behind those hooded eyes. She was unsure about me. She couldn’t control her insecurity. She thought I was still possessed.

“Mom, I screwed up.” The tears I had been trying to hold back suddenly unleashed. I saw how mom gripped the steering wheel so tight that her knuckles turned white. She clenched her jaw, trying to hold back her anguish as my sister hugged me tighter.

“It’s okay, brother.” She meekly said, trying her best to settle the stormy situation in the car. I gave her a weak smile as more and more tears poured out. How could I ever explain to her what I had done? My conscience was drenched in blood, and it was slowly drowning me too. I had nothing to blame on anyone else. It was my fault. All of it was.

“Mom…,” I called out to mother once again, sobbing. She hadn’t spoken ever since I came back except for when she ordered me to do something. The walk from the hospital to my house was a long one. It took everything in me to not just walk out in front of the car because my sister still needed help. I could take everything if it meant saving my family, but I couldn’t take the silence. It was the silence of my mother’s and my sister’s. The one who was asleep. The one unknown of the disasters that had occurred around her; the crime her brother had committed for her. She was unaware. I wanted it to stay that way.

“Jack, my boy, it wasn’t you.” My mother said quietly. I looked at her with a hardened expression. I wanted her to taunt me, to disown me, to slap me, to punch me. I wanted her to be harsh, not polite. It was way worse than the accusation.

“Don’t,” I said as I shook my head, sniffling. “Don’t justify it.” My voice stuck in my throat. I held my breath so I wouldn’t let the grief overpower all my emotions.

“I’m not justifying it.” She said. She hadn’t looked at me yet. She kept her eyes trained on the road. “I’m just telling the truth—”

“You haven’t even spared me a proper glance. The least you could do is look at me when you’re lying. I did it, mom, it was me! You can’t change that! You didn’t raise your boy that way, and I don’t want you to blame yourself, but…, I did it.” I gulped, looking out the window as I saw my mother’s reflection. She shook as she finally let out her tears. She was trying to be quiet, but the occasional sobs were out of her hand. My baby sister clung to me, hardening her grip. If there was anything we siblings hated, it was our mom in misery. There were times when she would cry to herself after dad had left, and so we made it our mission to wave all the distress away but right now, I couldn’t do it, and neither the body clinging to me like a koala.

When we had reached the ‘outskirts’, mom asked us to stay in the car as she went to the cottage uphill that was only visible if close enough. We obliged at first, but after a minute, I couldn’t sit still. I fidgeted, making my sister uncomfortable. So I asked her to stay rooted while I brought mom back. She protested at first but then gave in as we both realized mom wasn’t coming back soon anyway.

I was about to knock on the cottage door when I heard their voices from the window.

“Go there. There’s an empty house you could stay in.” I ducked out of view when I realized that we were never going to come back to Salvus City after all. My heart broke once again as I eavesdropped further on their conversation.

“Are you sure?” Mom’s voice rang in worry.

“I’m sure. I saw it through your child. She has the gift, you know.” The other woman said. She sounded old, as though she was in her seventies. I couldn’t see her face because she was wearing a hood and the window had tinted from the dust.

“That gift means nothing if I can’t protect them. Look what happened with the other two.” My mother sighed, and I could feel her sag her shoulders in defeat. My stomach clenched at hearing her dispirited voice. It was entirely my fault.

“It may be of no comfort, but Dolphin Square is the place where everything would be set right. It’s quite far from Salvus but within reach, and many others already reside there.” I felt my mouth go dry as I heard about the town where we were moving. Dolphin Square, the exact place the book manipulated me into destroying.

“The rest of the family is going to move there too. It will be okay, Carina, but you must set your children for the hardships that might come your way. I will aid you when needed, but for now, you must go.” Said the old woman as they walked closer towards the door. I took it as my cue to run away so they couldn’t catch me but, I couldn’t help blurting out about it when my mother sat in the car.

“We can’t go there, mom,” I said, my voice wavering. She looked at me in question at this, and I explained how we couldn’t stay in Dolphin Square and why so.

“How did you…?” Mom questioned before realization dawned on her.

“I’m sorry, Jack. But we have to move to Dolphin Square.”