4 Chapter 4

Fares woke up the next morning all energetic. Stretching, he got out of bed.

After freshening up in the bathroom, Fares went downstairs only to be met with the lovely smell of his favorite breakfast, sausage, and eggs.

His mother, wearing an apron, smiled brightly upon seeing her son for the first time in what appeared to be ages ago and asked him to prepare the table and go wake up his brother and sister.

After preparing the table for the five of them, Fares went upstairs to his brother's room.

His brother was nowhere to be seen though, but Fares knew where he was. Going into the room, Fares passed by the bed to see his brother scrawled on the floor at the other side of the bed, so that the bed blocks the view from both the door and the sun rays entering from the window.

Thinking of an evil idea, Fares grabbed his phone, opening the flashlight to maximum brightness and shining it into Zayn's eyes.

Zayn frowned heavily and turned to face the other side, only then did the frown fade slightly.

Seeing this Fares went to the other side to do the same thing again. At this, Zayn snapped his eyes open, only to close it again at the intense light shining into it.

"What the hell Fares?! It hasn't even been a full day since you got back, and you're back to those childish pranks again?" Zayn said while cursing at his brother and getting up to grab his arms, but of course, Fares knew what was to come and quickly pulled his hands away and ran out of the room laughing maniacally.

He hasn't been home for a while and missed playing pranks.

When he reached his sister's room, he banged on the door loudly, when he heard no response he directly went in. He immediately saw his sister sleeping soundly at the end of the bed with the bedsheets off.

Face palming, Fares thought of the old-school prank he always did to her.

He spread the bedsheets on the empty side of the bed and pushed his sister onto the blanket, rolling her along with the blanket into a cocoon shape. Still not waking up, Fares sighed he thought she'd outgrow her sleeping defenseless habit; going to grab a cup of cold water, and splashed it onto Layla's face.

Layla gasped for air waking up, after jumping up and down and screaming profanities for a while, which only looked like a worm crawling on a leaf, she realized what was going on and stopped.

Glaring daggers at Fares Layla said gritting her teeth "Get. Me. Out. Of. This. Blanket. Now. Or I will kill you!" while shouting that last part out.

This only made Fares fall on the ground in laughter holding his stomach. She looked like an angry caterpillar, which was anything but intimidating to him.

After a few seconds of laughing while watching her struggle to free herself, he got up to his feet wiping a few tears from his eyes, and went to help her.

As soon as she got out, she smacked Fares on his back hard screaming "GET OUT!" with a red face.

Before he could realize it, Fares was pushed out of the room with the door slamming behind him.

When he made his way back downstairs he saw his parents waiting for them. When they saw him, they exchanged a meaningful look and smiled at him proudly.

"What?" Fares was confused as to what were they smiling about.

"Nothing." they both said in unison, smiling mysteriously.

Fares felt chills going through his spine, thinking to himself 'oh god, they're synchronizing again. This can't be anything good, right?'

Whenever his parents did or said the same thing at the same time, it never ended well for him.

'Is it because of the pranks I played on Zayn and Layla just now? No, I don't think so, they never meddle with any jokes or pranks I or my siblings play on each other. Then what could it be ?'

Fares' brain was in a trance, and he froze a few seconds on the spot trying to figure out whether he's doomed or not.

Smack.

Only when he was smacked on the head, did he sober up tearing a little at the pain?

"Don't block the way. And don't think too much about it." Zayn said, giving him a meaningful look before pulling his hands away.

"Idiot brother," Layla said walking past him while poking her tongue out at him.

Fares smiled at this, I have a wonderful family' he thought 'It doesn't matter what happens later, let's just have fun now.' before sitting beside his sister at the table.

Breakfast could only be described as food wars between Fares and his sister, as whenever he went to grab a sausage his sister would get it before him and smiling mischievously at him, so he took it as a declaration of war and started doing the same to her, while the rest were just laughing at the sight.

After finishing the food, everyone sat on the couch talking about what's been happening to them lately.

Then, Zayn drove everyone around the old places they used to visit as kids. It brought back memories of Fares which he missed dearly.

After the quick drive around it was already nighttime, they stopped at a famous restaurant, reserving a private room, and had a lovely dinner with no fighting this time around. After dinner, the lights in the room suddenly turned off.

A second later a dim light appeared in the distance, looking at it Fares understood.

The source of the light was a candle on top of a chocolate cake with cream as the frosting and strawberries on top, written on it was the words 'happy birthday and three lines of writings after it saying 'Son!' 'Fares' 'Idiot brother' from up-down.

Fares was so focused on the cake and his feelings that he didn't notice two carts driven behind it, with a box on each of them.

"Happy birthday son!" his parents said again in unison, shocking Fares out of his thoughts, only then did he realize that two boxes were coming his way.

One was a small cream-colored box with hieroglyphic engravings on it.

The other box was huge, about 1.5 meters in length, 1 meter in width, and 1 meter in height. It was crimson the color of blood with golden engravings on it.

Seeing this, Fares forgot about his birthday and the cake got curious about the two boxes.

Seeing this, his parents smiled, and his father explained "This crimson box had been passed down in my family for what appears to be thousands of years, yet nobody could open it. I even tried using the tools at the workshop and my father even used a gun and a bomb, and it was unscathed."

Fares was awed at this, 'What the hell is it made of? This got my interest' he thought with stars shining in his eyes.

His father continued pointing at the other box "And that box had also been passed down in the family, though it was given from your mother's side of the family. I only found out about it after we got married, so I don't know much about it."

Samira caught on "It is a necklace given to me by my ancestors, it is said to have some mysterious energy in it that makes us age slower than normal. Although I didn't believe in this stuff at first, it was stolen during a bank robbery a few years ago, and mysteriously appeared back in the box.

According to what's passed down about it, whether it be selling stealing, or even losing it returns to its owner, it could only be passed down to blood relatives."

Opening the box, Fares saw a beautiful necklace with the appearance of the sun. It was in the shape of a circle with slightly curved blades arising from it, it shone bright golden colors and had the face of an Arabian desert eagle on it.

Fares grabbed the necklace and were surprised, even though the box was cold to touch, the necklace is really warm, 'It is as if it's emitting heat.' Fares thought turning it around curiously, only to find nothing special it didn't even have the eagle head on the back.

He couldn't wait to return home to check out his presence in more details, but for now, he had checked out the presents from his sister, which was a t-shirt with his favorite football team on it, and his brother, which was… well a handwritten 'coupons' for asking his brother for any favor at any time.

It was obvious his brother forgot about his birthday, but he didn't mind he found it would be useful as it was not easy to ask for his brother's favor while he was focused on work.

After having the cake for dessert, they went home and Fares returned to his room to check out his gifts.