Neon Lights

Nova stands still, staring blankly at the boy who is smiling suspiciously at her. His black hair is blowing in the wind and his movements are very slow, almost elegant.

"Interesting. I had no idea looking into your eyes would make such a difference. I've known you for a while now, not personally, but you can't blame me."

The boy slowly approaches her, Nova immediately flinches and closes her eyes. She grits her teeth and waits for what will happen next. But all she hears is the sly laugh of the boy standing behind her. His fingers slowly touch her warm skin and Nova can feel his cool fingertips on her cheek. She nervously turns her head towards him and looks into his golden eyes. But she feels nothing but worry and fear.

"What the hell do you want from me? You've been following me all this time?!" she asks in a sharp tone.

The boy jumps away from her and returns to his original place.

"Ah yes, my fault, I didn't even introduce myself. That's not nice. Kalen Emrick. We finally meet Nova Faraday. I didn't think I'd have to wait this long, but maybe it was worth it. It's a pleasure" he replies bowing to her.

He still had the same smirk on his face that he had given her a few minutes ago. He doesn't look dangerous and it doesn't seem like he wants to hurt her, but that didn't change the fact that he followed her all the way here. He knows her name and for some reason, he is looking at her as his prey.

"You must have heard it from your grandmother already. She probably tried to explain how you should hate all of us. I honestly admire her for still worrying about someone like me after so many years. Don't blame her, it's not like I was being good to her in the past but it's not like I had a choice."

The whole time he was shaking his head back and forth and throwing his arms around. What he doesn't notice is Nova's expression. Her expression changes from fear to one big question mark. How does he know her grandmother and why does she feel like her grandmother forgot to tell her the most important part of her story? It must have been a mistake, he must have mistaken her for someone else.

"What the hell are you talking about?" Nova says with a little more determination.

Kalen sighs, his smile fading from his face. He stops throwing his arms around him and looks into her emerald eyes again. He slowly approaches her, strands of hair lying on his shoulders and a few of them covering his eyes.

"I've told her several times that it's behind me. I don't want anything to do with them. It's not that hard to get, but as I understand it, you have no idea who your grandmother is. Who I am or who you are." he says calmly.

"I've been around for a while now, you and your friends having fun every day carefree without having any idea what is going on here. Did you know you're quite different when you're not with them?

He pulls away from her again, this time turning his back to her.

"I'll see you again soon. I'll always be around, remember that."

Nova is confused. Cold sweat is still running down her temples and she feels weak. She places her hand on her chest and takes a deep breath. She watches as Kalen slowly walks away and in a moment he was gone. She couldn't see where he went, there is only darkness around her with a few lights from the street lamps, but they didn't help her to see where the unknown boy was going.

But his sentence shocked her. That she has no idea who the people around her are and neither who she is. Right now, everything started to feel strange to her, as if she had forgotten what she had been through with everyone here. It was all so ridiculous, why would she doubt 18 years of her life? Just because someone told her to? And that someone is some weirdo she met on the street.

She wants to believe herself, but his voice was so convincing. At that moment she gets scared by the sound of her phone. It's her mother.

"Yes mom, I'll be home in a bit-"

"Nova…We just got word from your grandma and grandpa's neighbors…Nova, I don't know what to say…T-There was an accident there…Someone broke into their house…It was too late and-"

Her mother couldn't finish the sentence. It was clear that her tears were preventing her from doing so. Nova's eyes widened, panic, and cold engulfing her body.

Her throat slowly tightens and she feels cold tears running down her cheeks. She opens her mouth and wants to answer her mother, but all that came out were unintelligible sounds and sobs. Nova grits her teeth, hangs up the phone, and instead of running home, runs to the opposite side where her grandparents live.

Tears flood her eyes so much that Nova can't even see the road. She gasps and adds more speed until she finally reaches the house.

Already in the distance, she can see the neon blue and red lights reflecting off the wet road. She sees several people standing around, policemen and paramedics walking here and there. Nova stops in the middle of the road and stares in disbelief at the whole situation. Only when she notices two people in uniform carrying a gurney covered with a black sheet out of the house. Tears welled up in her eyes again as she runs towards the house again.

"What happened, who did this?!" she screams with tears in her eyes and all over her face.

"Wow, what are you doing here? Civilians are not allowed to enter!" an older man in uniform shouts at her.

He belongs to the local police. Nova pushes him and doesn't stop screaming. The man moves her aside so she wouldn't get any further when at that moment two other men begin to carry a second gurney out of the house.

"It's my grandparents! Get away from me!" Nova shouts.

However, the man did not listen to her, he just pulls her aside and tries to calm her down.

"Hey, hey that's enough. What's your name?" he asks her in a calm voice. Nova looks into his eyes.

At this moment, she doesn't care if she would behave nicely or if she would turn to violence but she chose not to cause another scene.

"N-Nova Faraday. she replies, finally calming down a bit.

"Alright Nova, I'll go see what we can do for you. We've already contacted their family, but we'll do it again just to be sure, okay?" the man puts his hand on her shoulder and looks into her eyes.

Nova just nods and looks away from everything. She doesn't want to see anything else, she doesn't even want to imagine what happened. It must have all happened when she was on her way home when she was looking around and wondering what was haunting her.

Her eyes wander to the old tree she had been looking at while sitting in her grandmother's kitchen having tea earlier today. At that moment, she was filled with anger. She catches sight of the mysterious boy again, Kalen.

He is leaning against a tree with his hands crossed on his chest, watching everything with a blank expression on his face. He looks quite uncertain. Nova doesn't care what he could do to her. She doesn't care who or what he truly was.

Angry and with tears in her eyes, she made her way to him, her expression showing only anger.

Kalen's eyes slowly turn to her, but his stance doesn't change. He expected her to notice him and he also expected Nova to show up. Nova approaches him, grabs him by his jacket, and begins to shake with him back and forth.

"What are you doing here?! What the hell did you do to them?!" she screams at him.

She is slowly losing her voice from all the screaming and crying, her eyes are red and swollen yet she was looking at him seriously. Kalen didn't expect this, he rolls his eyes as he grabs her arms which forced Nova to stop tossing him from side to side.

"This is your fault!"

"Hey, watch it. I know you're feeling...some sort of emotions or something like that, but I had nothing to do with this."

"It happened right after you left or before you stopped me. Y-You definitely wanted to buy yourself some time so I wouldn't find out, is that right? Just wait, you won't get away with this. It's cool to follow me every day. Make fun of me and let me think that I'm going crazy, whatever, but this? What did my family ever do to you?!"

Nova gets away from him and heads back toward all the cars and the police. Kalen just frowns and reaches for her. He grabs her arm and tries to stop her. Nova quickly turns towards him and tries to free herself.

"Nova. Neither of us has a clue who the other one is, but trust me, I had no reason to hurt them. I would never leave such a mess behind. Not again."

When they first met, his eyes were golden like citrine, but now they are full of darkness. He is unsure and it was certain that something is wrong here, they both knew it, but each of them had a different reason for this feeling.

"You have five minutes to give me an explanation or I'm going back and you're going to pay for this," Nova says, pushing away Kalen's hand that was gripping hers.

"And don't touch me. You monster."