Gen Three- Chapter Four

Excitement bubbled vigorously against my chest as Timber led me upstairs. His bedroom was pretty large and incredibly fun to hang out in, but what I looked forward to was the beaten up manila folder he pulled out of his desk drawer. When the power had returned two days after the storm and school resumed, he had mentioned during a quiet moment at lunch that the contents of the folder were what he was so eager to have found. However, quite a bit of time passed between that moment at lunch and now when I was finally able to visit. What was good though was that Mr. Mountain was solidly preoccupied down in his room on the first floor, so there was little worry about being overheard or caught.

     "Are you sure it's safe for you to be holding onto the folder? Won't your dad notice it's missing?" I asked.

     "It's fine," Timber promised, "It's been over three months since we've moved here now, but he's being super slow about unpacking. He hasn't even gotten close towards going through the box I found this in. I can just return it later after I show you it now, and he'll be none the wiser."

With a drama that made me think Timber had been practicing for the grand reveal, he flipped open the folder with flair and a wide smile.

Color My World Behind the Scenes #4

When going around aging everyone up after the first arc, I noticed that the Yonders had adopted a cat. I normally get rid of autonomously purchased pets because I've had trouble with them getting in the way before, but the kitten had come with the name Coal, so I felt obligated to let it stay. The thing was pretty adorable too.

Gen Two- Chapter Forty Two

When Buckeye had me ground under his figurative, and sometimes literal, heel, there had been a sense of weakness that accompanied the situation. When I laid there in the hospital for weeks while finding the simple task of breathing a great chore, that had come with another kind of weakness. I was experiencing yet another version of the sensation at this moment. It was mid-afternoon, yet I couldn't believe it. All that time we spent in the courthouse felt like it took up an eternity. There had been papers to sign, seats to sit in for ridiculous amounts of time as our case kept getting pushed back due to other cases going over, the actual meeting with the judge that included me having to be in a room with Mimosa for almost way longer than I could handle, and the repercussions of the judge's decision, which included a bit more paperwork and a series of unique new emotions.

We delayed going home, because Uncle Al and Aunt Dahlia were taking Mimosa straight home. It seriously was the most awkward thing having this tension riddled case with the other when we could so easily see the other person through our respective front windows everyday. Getting away from the stress was next to impossible, which was why dad had had the smart idea to take all of us to Mr. Mosaic's bookstore. It was empty at this time of the day, I had a nice corner to hide myself in, and the rest of my family had items they could use as excuses to keep themselves away from me.

Gen Two- Chapter Forty One

The walk had been long and silent. However, even that was a fact unnoticed by me as my mind was far away from the current moment. My brain didn't recognize the exhaustion Doodle caused my arm by constantly pulling on the leash too hard, nor did I realize the wonderfully crisp spring air I typically loved more than anything else finally engulfed the city. No, on I walked while my mind screamed at me the same thoughts it'd been screaming for about a month now. The same panicked worry constantly dominated my emotions. It drained me and beat me down, but even with it dragging me deeper more and more I craved to let it do so at the same time. I couldn't be happy or content. I didn't want to be happy or content. I wanted to fight, and the perpetual struggle reassured me the battle indeed continued.

Even being with Holly hardly pulled me out of myself. The talk she requested never happened that weekend when Mimosa set off the war. I spent every second I had preparing my weapons, and the ending of the weekend forced Holly back to school. The same pattern had continued, although Holly was now out for the summer. It was why she'd finally been able to convince me to take some semblance of a break.

Gen Two- Chapter Forty

Given how many times I had run my hands through my hair in the past several hours, I wouldn't have been surprised if I ended up taking out chunks of my hair. I didn't even care to stop the behavior, because I didn't know what to do otherwise. The weeks had passed- slowly and agonizingly, but they passed regardless. I dreaded each new day with a fitful anticipation that had me sick to my stomach. I was certain with my bad luck that the worst would come to pass. However, a brief glimmer of hope resided in my chest when the days kept coming and going and the news didn't arrive. I wondered if I was actually safe. Of course, I could never be so lucky. The revelation came to dad by way of a text from Uncle Al earlier in the morning. When he in turn revealed it to me, I became a useless body of mixed emotions. I had always imagined hearing such information to be a happy one, and I was certainly trying to find some happiness inside me somewhere. Unfortunately, I could only sulk about the house at the moment.

     "Don't be sad, Coal," Glade stood in front of me trying to cheer me up, "You're going to be a great daddy."

Gen Two- Chapter Thirty Eight

The two of them had been talking all morning. The empty house gave them the chance to do such a thing. Mom, against all odds, had been home for weeks with next to no issues popping up past the expected aches and problems one would encounter after dealing with cancer. Uncle Blaze had taken her to the hospital for a checkup. Prism and Desire were there as well, for Desire had a checkup of her own. Well, one mostly for the baby. Cerise and Glade were away at school. That left it at dad, Grandpa Jac, me, and Doodle in the house, and Doodle was out in the yard being his crazy self running around.

I don't think dad would have stopped me if I tried to participate in the conversation he and Grandpa Jac were having, but I didn't want to have a part in the conversation. Funnily enough, I was more than done with secret organizations. Even with my lung and ribs being healed for a few weeks now, the memory of that pain refused to leave. All of my movements were cautious and considered. I even stopped every time I went up or down the stairs, like I was doing at that moment, to make sure there was nothing I could trip on.

Anyway, it had been when I'd been allowed to go from recovering at the hospital to recovering at home that I finally revealed to dad the danger that continued to haunt us. There had been no explanation. There had been no details. I told him the reality of The Company's new identity and way of existing, and I warned of the danger. He questioned me how I knew, of course, but he eventually came to accept that there would simply have to be some secrets. His trust over my utmost sincerity in the confirmation that we no longer had to worry about the mysterious organization was tentative at first. I'd been able to convince him though that we could turn to Officer Noble once more for protection. Dad had naturally also spread the word to the others who were affected, hence the serious talking with Grandpa Jac.

Gen Two- Chapter Thirty Three

I ran my fingers softly across the sill of the window and frowned at the subtle cold touch of the wood. The hospital did the absolute best it could to keep the heat in and the cold out, but it was impossible for them to make sure all of winter's chill remained where it belonged. The room could have been warmer if the blinds were closed, yet mom refused to block the window unless she was changing. It's not that I didn't get that desire. How many years had she been cooped up in this room for the majority of the time now? Restricting herself more from one of her few connections to the normal world wasn't a pleasant idea. However, I was tempted to go against her wishes for a moment. I truthfully doubted having the blinds closed would seriously make any improvements to mom's health, but it was not a lie to say I had been in a state of high paranoia for a few months.

Gen Two- Chapter Twenty Eight

I sighed when I felt a light breeze ruffle the air. A few of the many fall leaves scattered on the ground moved ever so slightly, and the branches on the trees rustled almost inaudibly. The wind was wholly insignificant, but it was going to make Azure do what he had been doing nonstop during the game of horseshoes he was playing with Midas. Putting it simply, Azure was sucking big time. He had always been horrible at horseshoes, but his throws were all over the place today. Thus, Azure had come to the bright conclusion that it was the wind messing him up. At even the slightest trickle of air running past him, he would stop, wait until there was no breeze, prep his throw for way longer than necessary, and finally make his toss unless another gentle huff of air caused him to repeat the process.

Gen Two- Chapter Twenty Two

This was my second time playing this game. The one where I looked down at the wood chips to find matching or similar ones. I wasn't having the best of luck given that I couldn't move from my position on the swing in addition to me having to actively participate in a conversation. I probably should have been focusing more on that second thing anyway, but I had had a lot of trouble concentrating recently.

     "When we got to the market, mom got really mad at me. I couldn't help myself. Everything was so colorful. All I wanted to do was take pictures. Mom kept on complaining that it felt like she was spending her vacation talking to a camera. She finally took it away from me after another half hour." Rosemary spoke cheerfully.

     "I would do so too." I responded.

Then I faded my attention out again. Rosemary had been going on for a while about the vacation she and Aunt Deny had just gotten back from. They had gone to a country overseas known for its flavorful food, rich and colorful scenery, and energetic culture. I had been jealous when Rosemary initially told me about the trip, but now I was content to ignore every now and again what my cousin was telling me. It didn't exactly work out in my favor.

     "After we bought this dragon egg that later went on to hatch in the fire we had in our hotel room, mom and I ended up participating in a local magic show where a spell went wrong granted mom the ability to fly. I rode on her back instead of us taking a plane home."

     "That's pretty cool."

Gen Two- Chapter Eighteen

There was only two ways this evening was going to go. Barely acceptable or badly. My money was on the second outcome. It was true I was smiling to myself in the mirror, but that was because I had been forcing myself to smile for the past half hour or so. If you put on a happy face, your mood increases naturally on its own. That's what they say anyway, right? It was what I was hoping for as I got ready. I figured the majority of my outing would actually be just fine. It was the choice I would have to make at the end that was causing my palms to sweat.

     "Well, at least I look alright." I mumbled to myself, adjusting my collar as the nerves coursing throughout my body had it feeling like it was strangling me otherwise.

Gen Two- Chapter Sixteen

If you asked me how many times I had sighed in the past ten minutes, I wouldn't be able to give you an accurate answer. All I knew was that the answer was high as well as that I was even beginning to feel a little light-headed from all the expunging of air I was doing. I was absolutely sick of the scenario I was in, for it happened far too often. There I stood at the west entrance of the elementary school. It was a new wing they built about three years ago to deal with the school's seemingly always increasing student total. It would have been nice if they built it an extra three years earlier so my friends and I could have experienced the reduced strain of moving throughout the halls ourselves.

In any case, the halls were certainly empty at the moment. School was out for the day, and all the normal, sane people had departed. The kids who rode buses got on their buses. The kids who got picked up came right outside the find their parent's car in the line-up of the special idling lane built to make the departure process smooth and easy...save for my kids. I was beginning to make friends with the parents waiting in cars who also had children who took their time. I never spoke a word to those parents, but we communicated well enough through eye rolls and shakes of our heads. I was also on the receiving end of sympathetic smiles, because I was almost always the last one waiting. I don't know why I bothered to get in that special lane sometimes. It made more sense to actually park the car like I had done several minutes ago. I would have loved to have gone into the school to find the little brats and drag them out, but this door only opened from the inside except for in the morning when students arrived. I knew as soon as I started to make the trek to the main door that my two would appear.

Gen Two- Chapter Fifteen

Dead silence rang throughout the house. Time stood suffocatingly still, and the lingering echoes of Uncle Blaze's words rang in my ears. They lost? We lost? Some judge had seriously thought taking Rosemary away by forcing her to live with people she didn't want to live with was the best thing for her? The fact that Rosemary was happier than ever and had soared in school rankings to be the number one student in her class wasn't proof enough of how much Uncle Eden and Aunt Deny had helped her? Shipping her off to the other side of the country during the last third of the school year didn't seem absolutely absurd to the court?

I had no idea what to say. I had no idea of what to do. Uncle Blaze and I just stood there in the silence. He still wore that strange expression I couldn't read, and there was something off about the whole aura he emanated. I could have sworn it was almost as if he was holding back a smile. I stared up at him with eyes unblinking- until those eyes swarmed with tears once more. The tears of heartbreak, not the wet eyes caused by a cold that I had been dealing with all day. My tolerance levels completely shot thanks to the exhaustion of my illness, I was about to utterly lose it. I wouldn't be surprised if my legs collapsed on me again as I turned into that blubbering mess. Seconds away from that happening was when Uncle Blaze's attitude rapidly changed.

     "Coal, wait, please don't cry. I'm so sorry. I'm just an asshole. Phrasing it like that on purpose like that to see your reaction was such a dick move. I don't know what I was thinking." he apologized for whatever reason.

Confusion putting a possible block on my tears, I frowned as I awaited clarification.

     "Eden and Deny technically lost the case, but Mary will be staying with us."

Gen Two- Chapter Fourteen

I shifted uncomfortably in my seat as I listened to the half of Uncle Blaze's conversation that I could hear. It wasn't that I wanted to listen, but delaying hearing the news wouldn't do me any good. Might as well rip off the bandage fast and all that. There was no hope in me that the news could turn out to be good. Uncle Blaze wasn't trying in the slightest to hide the stress in his expression. He knew I was there, but at the same time he was so intently talking to Uncle Eden that it felt like he had forgotten about my presence anyway.

     "What about that experimental stuff they gave her before? The first time she had it?" Uncle Blaze asked, daring to sound optimistic.

Gen Two- Chapter Thirteen

I had a moment or so to kill, so I snuck across to the other side of the first floor to see how things were progressing with Uncle Blaze and my brothers. I was sure to not let them notice me though, for they otherwise would have made me help them. The only reason I wasn't helping them then was because they thought I was still preoccupied with my previous task.

     "You want us to move it to the front side of the room? But we've always moved it to the back before. There's less heavy lifting and the tree is nice and visible from the street." Prism said in response to Uncle Blaze's unusual decision.

     "Who cares if other people can see our Christmas tree? We always have problems with the sunlight coming in through those front windows on Christmas morning. It ruins the pictures and forces us all to squint the whole time. If we move the piano and drums to the front and put the tree in the back, we won't have to worry about any of that."

     "This thing is so heavy though." Prism complained lightly, pouting at mom's piano.

     "Aren't you the one who's always working out?" Uncle Blaze laughed in disbelief, "What the point in building muscles if you don't put them to good use?"

I was sorely tempted to shout out that Prism only worked out so much just so he could brag, but the taunt wasn't worth getting myself involved in moving the piano that was indeed incredibly heavy.

     "If we're going to move it to the other side, let's pack up mom's planters first. There's no point in having them out now. They'll just get in our way." Wisp suggested.

     "Sounds good." Uncle Blaze agreed.

Gen Two- Chapter Twelve

I couldn't believe it wasn't even lunchtime yet. The morning had dragged on for so long I felt as if the day should already be over. However, the day had dragged on in a good way. The amount of leaves fallen in our yard had grown to a ridiculous amount. Truth be told, dad had always been the one to do the majority of the raking. He hadn't had his own yard to rake growing up, so that apparently translated to him loving to do it as an adult. With him now gone, the task had been left up to the rest of us. That meant it hadn't been getting done. In order to remedy the situation, my mom had made a deal with my friends that she would whip up a massive lunch with everyone's favorite dishes if they came over to help get the leaves into easily disposable piles. We would also be free to watch as much television or play as many video games as we wanted in the afternoon. It was a deal quickly agreed upon.

The leaves had long been raked as promised, although a second sweep would have to be done as our playing had scattered some here and there. Mom was still working on lunch, so we had time to kill anyway. The crazy amount of tall piles allowed us to try something we had never tried as a game before. It was boys against girls, and it was an all out fight.

Gen Two- Chapter Ten

I couldn't wipe the grin off my face, but Rosemary was have just as much trouble in that regard. Not that she had any desire to stop smiling though. It was my birthday party, but you would think it was hers given the sheer amount of joy radiating from her. Hesitant around the horses at first, she sat taller as the minutes passed on. I had asked to have my party at the stables to do something different from the normal celebration at the house or at the beach. There had been no deeper reasoning to it, but, as far as Rosemary was concerned, I might as well have already given her her birthday present. She waved to me grandly as she rode by.

Gen Two- Chapter Nine

My search for my sister brought me to Prism's room. I rarely went in there despite our rooms being right next to each other. It was true my brother had been a lot less annoying since dad's disappearance than he had been, but as the weeks progressed he was steadily working back up to his old levels of bothersome once more. A sadness did continue to linger about the house, but the constant somberness and seriousness as if someone had died was gone. I usually on went into Prism's room if I was desperate to use a computer or if I was trying to dig up some sort of blackmail to use on him to get him to stop pestering me. Then there was also the fact that I avoided his room because it often smelled how it smelled when I walked in at that particular moment. Prism was big on working out, and the scent of his sweat was not exactly something I preferred.

     "Forty." Desire counted the chin-ups Prism was doing.

     "I've already passed that!" he said back shakily as he fought slightly to pull himself up another time.

     "Well, there have been some that you struggled with, so I didn't count them."

     "As long as I get my chin up, they count! It doesn't matter if it takes longer than normal!"

     "Whatever," Desire smiled nonchalantly, "You're close enough. Just do a few more, and you'll definitely hit your goal of fifty."

     "Some counter you are." Prism mumbled under his breath.

Gen Two- Chapter Six

The salty scent of the ocean wind rolling off the waves crashing onto the shore was both familiar and entirely foreign at the same time. I had lived next to the ocean my whole life, but being in a new place was making the experience exhilarating again for me. I'm sure there was something simply a little different in the air and water in Tropic Luna too though.

I never would have guessed that the question Aunt Purity wanted to ask my mom was if she could take me, my friends, and mom on a vacation to the popular islands. Mom had said it was fine for me to go, although she had declined to come along herself. Her morning sickness was just not letting up. She did want to join the rest of us, but the idea of spending half a day on a crowded airplane with her stinking up the isolated space due to her vomiting made her nauseated in itself. Aunt Purity had given her a bunch of free passes to one of the spa parlors the Spring family owned. Uncle Frost and Aunt Sunflower had come along instead to help keep an eye on all of us kids.

As I watched the four adults talk, I had to avoid letting embarrassment wash over me. The idea for this trip hadn't sprung up out of nowhere. Uncle Sap and Aunt Purity thought it up because they knew mom was feeling down, but also all of the adults had grown concerned over me. I had heard the word "depressed" be whispered a lot among them in the days following my little adventure to the grove, for Midas, the little snitch, had told his dad about me crying. That information had been quickly passed on to my mom, which had led to me getting a lighter lecture and punishment than I would have gotten, so I suppose I couldn't be too mad at my friend. I knew the depressed everyone was talking about wasn't the one that meant I was simply sad for a time. Mom had even hinted that she would want me to talk to some counselor or therapist or whatever if I didn't perk up on my own relatively soon.

Gen Two- Chapter Four

It had been hard to break out of my melancholy mood, but the challenge I was facing was finally beginning to surge some energy through me. My glazed over expression instead narrowed in determination as I had to now pay attention if I didn't want to get absolutely pummeled. I hadn't even noticed how far ahead in points Rosemary had gotten, or that she was now duking it out with Malachite for first place.

     "You're finally starting to learn." Malachite teased as he only just avoided letting Rosemary total his car with hers.

     "And soon you're not even going to have time to trash talk." she warned competitively.

Malachite simply shrugged and continued speeding along, but there was loud shouting and cursing on his part and raucous cheering on Rosemary's part when her car once again came out of nowhere to successfully annihilate Malachite's car off the track this time around.

     "Are you sure you don't want to pick a different place to read?" I asked the question to one of the others sitting on the other couch.

Gen Two- Chapter Three

It took several days for me to learn just how horrible that first one was.

It was concerning at the beginning, of course, when dad didn't come home, but only time could show us just how serious the situation was. I woke up that Sunday morning expecting that dad had been found safe and sound while I slept. Though doubt and dark thoughts whispered the crueler truth to me, I wasn't prepared to find out that reality had only grown more dire. To be honest, it wasn't just the fact that dad went missing that made those days heartbreaking. The worst part was that he had been there for the majority of that Saturday. Dad had been right in front of me. We had talked as we always did, we goofed around like usual, and I took him for granted like I done each and every day of my life. I hadn't taken one second to say goodbye before he left. It had been a while since I had even hugged him or done anything to let him know I appreciated him. Dad had walked out the door, and in that moment he transformed from a person I knew into a mere memory of a person I had known.

I woke up early, and I left my bed eagerly. I wanted to see what dad had done that caused him to be so late. I wanted to joke around with him again, and I wanted to tease an extra ice cream cup out of him for making me worry. However, what I got instead was a series of unfamiliar voices quietly wafting up from downstairs. I could tell by the way they were talking that the discussion wasn't a cheerful one.