The Protagonist

Picking myself up from the edge of the bed, I began formulating plans through which I would be able to make the best of the knowledge and power that I had at hand.

-Knock. Knock.

"Hurry up! We're gonna leave without you otherwise!"

'F*cking hell! How many times is that now!?'

I don't know if it was a trope that my life would now be following, but I've been disrupted amongst my thoughts more times in the last few hours than I probably have in the past 5 years.

"Yeah! Just a minute!"

Fishing out whatever clothes that didn't seem scrunched from the pile atop the chair at the corner of my room, I hurriedly dressed and rushed out of the door, through the hallway, and out the main door, locking it on the way with the keys dangling from the lock.

"Took you long enough!"

"Sorry..."

Apologizing to the hoarse voice, I finally observed the five people standing in front of me in the white terrain.

A tall and robust man, with white long flowing hair and eyes a shade of blue deeper than mine stood next to a petite youth with platinum blonde hair bundled up into a bun and hazel eyes that glistened with a touch of gold, on the left side of the parked silver minivan.

'Jacob and Trish...'

Tears almost burst from my eyes at the sight of my elder siblings, whom I was meeting, from my perspective, after an eternity.

'Mom, Dad, and Leah...'

On the right side of the vehicle was the middle-aged couple, who even though seemed to be getting on in their years, had an aura of youth that I had been used to since birth, one which couldn't I be more glad to see, and between them, kicking at the snow was a young child of maybe 6 or so years old.

Mom had wavy black hair that reached the small of her back, dazzling amber eyes, and a smile that illuminated her surroundings, and Dad had short white hair and dull sky blue eyes that reflected his age whilst his rimless spectacles emanated the aura of a scholar.

And Leah, oh Leah...the only one in the whole world that I could talk about for several hours and still not completely portray the magnanimity those large heterochromatic eyes held, nor the exuberance that was confined in that small frame of hers.

Just looking at the dancing of the black hair as she became occupied in her own world, fluttering about like a butterfly, notwithstanding the desire to protect, one would be left in a trance, feeling content with the life they'd lived, and not bat an eye even if asked to sacrifice themselves to keep that sparkling smile on that small round face of hers.

"Hey, you ok?"

Shifting my line of view back towards the left side, from where the soothing voice originated, I found Trish inspecting me with wide eyes.

"Yeah...I'm fine, just give me a moment, I've been absentminded cause I had a nightmare..."

Rubbing my puffed-up eyes I slowly dragged my feet to the vehicle and got on from the left side before Trish.

"You sure you're fine...? We can go any other time, you know."

"Yeah, no, I'm fine...plus, Leah's been waiting 'patiently' for this for a while now, I can't possibly delay Her Majesty any longer, now can I?"

Responding to Mom's worry-filled question, I glanced at my right side where she sat with Leah on her lap and reached out and ruffled Leah's hair with a slight smirk on my face.

When everyone had gotten on Dad finally began reversing the car out of the parking space and we set off for our destination for the next few days.

'This time, I won't let what happened, occur again.'

With a resolute mind, I made myself comfortable in the seat, and as the drive went on I slowly drifted off whilst listening to the sound of quiet chatter and the melodious classical songs Trish put on.

***

-Huam.

Stretching out my limbs, I got off from the right side of the minivan and took in the grandeur of the snow-covered mountains in front of me.

'Okay...Let's go...!'

"Bwuther...?"

"Don't worry, I feel great. Rather, you don't seem to be in that good of a shape...didn't get enough sleep didya?"

Looking at the droopy eyes and slow movements, I could clearly tell that Leah was tired. So I picked her up by the armpits and rested her head on my shoulder and followed my family into the cottage-style resort.

"Reservation for Mr. Savant...ah, yes...cottages four and five...here you go, the keys...and, you can leave the luggage here if you wish and we'll have it sent over in a jiffy."

"Thank you, and it's fine, we'll take our luggage there by ourselves."

With a courteous reply, Dad accepted the keys and we dragged the three large red suitcases back out.

Making our way down the 5m wide path that had been cleared off of snow and flattened, we found the cottages that Dad had previously booked amongst the six that were behind the main one which acted as sort of a reception room, some hundred meters down the path and were almost covered by thick snow-covered foliage amidst the innumerable large trees.

On the right side, which was on a less steep area, there were five large cottages with the first four numbered 1 to 4 and the last one was seemed to still be under construction, and the only one small one on the left, which was on a far higher platform, with the number 5.

Mom took the already asleep Leah off my shoulder, and along with Trish and Dad, walked into the fourth cottage that was on the right side of the path, whilst my brother and I went off into the only one on the left side of the path which was directly opposite their one.

"So, which room do you want? Or do you wanna rock, paper, scissors for it?"

"I'll take the one on the left."

'I must. Because only I know what's about to happen.'

-Beep. Beep.

Looking at the phone in my brother's hand, I went over the messages he'd just received.

---

[Dad]

[We're gonna rest for a while and we'll join the campfire at 8.]

[We're planning on going skiing at dawn, so don't plan on staying up too late.]

---

-Blink.

---

[ 19:13 ]

---

"Guess we've got some time to ourselves...what do you wanna do?"

"Huh? You don't wanna get some rest? I took several naps on the way so I'm fine, but I know for a fact that you didn't...plus, you only ate a single sandwich during lunch, so..."

"So what? I'm fine as well...in fact, I've never been better!"

My brows wiggled, and a puzzled expression took a hold of my face. I could tell without even having to recall my memories that the conversation I was having was not the one that I had had in my past life, nor one I had written in the novel. Originally, Jacob was supposed to be exhausted- and currently, even if he was, he was hiding it quite well- and he was supposed to wobble to the left room and collapse on the bed without even taking his boots off.

"Then...how about we have a heart-to-heart talk between brothers, we haven't had once ever since you joined high school?"

"Ah...yeah, sure."

"So, tell me, what's been on your mind. I can clearly see that you've been preoccupied, and even in the morning, you pulled off that stunt, and so casually at that. It must be a girl, right? What's her name? How old is she? What does she look like?"

Met with a flurry of questions I didn't know whether to laugh at or be serious about, I began thinking about the stark difference between what was going through my head and what Jacob was suggesting.

"Pfft."

"What? What's so funny?"

"No, it's just...no, nothing, nothing at all..."

'I can't just say that the face you're making looks exactly like mom's when she was confronting you about your girlfriend, now can I?'

"Anyway, I'm gonna go take a shower, if that's fine with you."

"Okay then, keep your secrets. And, yeah it's fine, I'm gonna go lie down for a bit, call me when you're done."

"Yeah..."

With my voice trailing off, I carried the single suitcase that contained both of our clothes to my room.

'I have to take measures so that I can ensure that this time we all make it through.'

Looking out the window to my room, I peered at the family of three that had just arrived at the third cottage, with my eyes lingering for a few seconds longer on the teenager with curly blonde hair.

'Simon.'

Various emotions should have plagued my heart looking at the protagonist of my novel, yet there was not a single fluctuation in my heart rate, and neither did I feel any different.

Pure white were the eyes that I was met with when he turned towards my window as if he could feel my gaze, the light in them so bright that I could distinguish them even amongst the white background.

Seeing the blinding smile across his face, I couldn't help the goosebumps crawling over my body. Even I, for a second, failed to believe that a person who looked so much like a saint had a future laced with blood.