2: Cold Summer [Aya]

Since I was young, I've been told how lucky I am.

That we are fortunate to be living in Shimizu City, safe within Sector Three and away from the dangers that lurked Outside the Wall. My bedtime stories consisted of horrors that scarred a child's mind, rather than the fairy tale stuff my friends were told.

I wasn't allowed to know the luxury of happy ending stories nor was I permitted to think that there was anything but scary stuff outside; which is why the stories mostly consisted of human eating demons - the depth of its sheer terror and tragedy was meant to deter me from making the same mistakes.

Their failure was expected to be a lesson for me, to be soaked in as valuable information. In our clan, failure was never accepted nor forgiven. No matter the reason.

When I was four, I remember how my Father brought me to bear witness to what would happen to the deserters, those who had failed in a mission or attempted to run from the Clan. The man couldn't have been older than somewhere in his mid-twenties with messy dark hair, and a worn-out facial expression that was illustrated with fear of what he had gone through or seen.

Back then, I was unaware that it could have been better described as fear of Death.

He was screaming and thrashing against his captors, begging for mercy.

Someone's hand grasped tightly onto mine and when I looked up, I saw the reassuring face of my honorable older brother by five years, smiling down at me. I remember staring up at him with curiosity and a hint of fear, recalling the screams I'd heard the last time I'd played in the garden, while adults had gathered inside of a large hall. It was normally used for training purposes, huge enough to inhabit nearly sixty to one hundred people if needed (there were instances when it was used for ceremonial events such as this one).

"Don't look away, Aya," my brother's light amber-brown eyes, the same shade as mine, were glued on our Father's back as he whispered, soft and calming words to me. His voice was steady, unafraid.

My brother was tall for his age, making me feel like an ant in comparison. His ear-length golden brown hair was combed neatly against his scalp, not an inch out of place. He was an image of a perfectionist, according to our Mother that is, who had noted it with a hint of sadness in her voice.

Saying how a nine-year-old boy (her most precious child out of all of us) wasn't supposed to be so prim and proper - that it was time for him to enjoy his childhood, rather than to already be forced to learn politics, etiquette, and weaponry. Even the way he spoke was like an old man talking (a fact I always giggled at, finding it funny and weird).

"Father will be disappointed if you do."

And I didn't.

Not even as our Father approached the man, steps steady and intimidatingly confident. However, I couldn't see his face from where I stood. But it must have been frightening for as the man ceased his thrashing and in an instant, he was reduced to a sobbing, crying mass of a once-proud Hyuga Clan member. I never learned his name, not even as I watched Father beheading him with a sharp movement. It was the first death I ever witnessed, one that would never fade from my memory.

No matter how hard I tried - a small part of me, probably, blamed Father for showing a four-year-old child such cruelty and expecting me to understand the reason behind it (every child in the Hyuga Clan was shown their heritage and purpose of existing fairly early, our opinions and protests fell to the deaf ears).

I flinched as his head rolled towards us, his lifeless, wide-open eyes were staring at me in an accusing way (the mere memory of it brought on some nightmares for several years), body collapsed against the ground with a loud thud, and yet, somehow I still managed to resist the urge not to look away - not to throw up.

Father, I remember, had looked impressed. He even gave me a small nod and a pat on the head as he passed us, muttering how his children were truly Hyuga Clan material compared to those, who did exactly what I wanted to do - be a fragile child.

Perhaps, that was the reason why I wasn't frightened at the prospect of cold snow falling in the middle of hot, burning July. Not the way how everyone else was. That day, my Mother had taken me out for a play date with several children of her friends, outsiders to the Hyuga Clan, to a nearby park. She hadn't been pleased to hear that I had witnessed my first death at such a tender age.

I can faintly remember having heard them arguing when they thought that no one was around before he allowed her to give me something my brother lacked - a chance of a normal childhood.

At first, I hadn't even realized that something was wrong, not until someone nudged me and excitedly pointed at the previously warm blue sky.

Blinking, I turned my attention away from the messy sandcastle we'd been building, my eyes widened at the abnormal cold snow falling down in the middle of a hot summer (according to my brother, it was one of the hottest summers in the last ten years or so, something he'd tell me later).

My tiny body froze as I stared at the sight, unable to do anything other than simply watch and soak in the fact that it was snowing. Even when screams filled the area or as Mother picked me straight up and hurried away, shouting something I couldn't comprehend as my attention was solely on the sky.

Curiously and entranced, I opened my palm to allow a tiny snowflake to fall on it, watching it float for a brief moment before it melted. An exciting bubble of laughter escaped from my lips, wanting to feel more of it but was restricted due to me being carried away by my frightened Mother.

If I hadn't been so intrigued, I might have realized that something far more sinister was happening in the Nation that day...that it was the day, when my story truly began. The snow lasted for a mere couple of hours before it suddenly disappeared.

I'd later swear having seen a figure taking shape in the middle of this snowstorm, watching us with that twisted, beautiful smile on her cold face. I was almost unable to look away, finding myself pulled towards the woman's snow-like beauty. Her entire image screamed of being a Creature of the Night, like the one from my bedtime stories.

But no one believed me, saying that it was just a simple mind trick of a four-year-old child, even though I was one of the possible heirs of the Hyuga Clan.

They couldn't have been more wrong.