Chapter 01

    Dear, God

    I don't know how to do it. I don’t even know why I’m doing it. Maybe it’s because I’m lost. Or because I’m drowning in my thoughts. Or because I need to talk to someone, but I don’t want to talk to my brother at this moment, not right now at least. Either way, I need to talk, to get the words out of my head, out of my heart.

    Tonight, on this cold and dark night, I remembered what my mom told me about you. She told me about the lord of everything and everyone. About the God of love and war. About the kind and furious God. She told me about someone who will listen and understand everything I say and still will stay with me and loves me. I hope with all my heart that everything my mom tells me is true. I hope that in someplace in somewhere exists someone like you. Likewise, I hope that there is some good in this cruel world.

    I remember my mom saying that I need to talk to you with my heart. She says I have to be honest. She says you would be my friend, but at the same time, I have to be respectful because you are a God and you deserve it. So, I would do it. I would be kind, honest, and respectful. I promise you it. And I hope you listen to me and help me do whatever I need to do.

Chapter 02

    Dear God,

    The day that everything turned into a nightmare was a perfect day. You can’t ever predict when your life will turn into a hell, but I think that perfect days are the best for misfortune to happen, because no one is waiting for it.

    Yesterday was the perfect day. The type you waited for a long time. The sun was bright, the climate was neither cold nor hot, I had a free day, my brother was at home after a long time, my sister probably will visit us. So, I will stay with my family after a long, long time. We will be together. Perfect. So perfect.

    I choose this beautiful place next to the sea, away from the city, and where we can find a piece of peace for a few moments. We played in the sand when we were kids and had some time together. In some sad way, it was poetic, remembering a quiet moment in our lives.

    I was in the sand, looking at the sea, where I heard the whisper of the wind, someone was flying toward me, a place that should have no one. Anya was flying, my sister’s friend. Like she was a king’s messenger with a legion of assassins behind her. She almost fell in the sand, fighting to breathe, fighting to speak, fighting to accomplish your mission. And I stayed there, looking at her, trying to understand what was happening, trying to understand why she was there and where my sister was. At the same time, I was praying for my sister and my brother to be okay, for my family to be safe, for nothing bad to happen to them. It lasted for a few minutes, but I thought about so many things, I prayed for everything and everyone who could hear me.

    I think it was an of this moment that lasts forever, an eternity, a second that you can think about everything in your life, everything that makes you what you are, everything you care about and makes you feel safe. I think this instant can be the most important time of your life or the worst time of your life. The type that stays in your head for years and never goes away, the type that makes you have nightmares for countless nights in your torment life. Unfortunately for me, this is the second option. My personal nightmares.

    After this few moments of trying to breathe, and that for me took forever, Anya said:

    “They take her.”

***

    Thank you for listening to me. Thank you for don't let me lose my mind. Please give us a good night of sleep. And Please, please, give me the strength I need to protect my family. That’s what I ask you and appreciate, God.

    Dear God,

    A common thing between families is that they always talk about their children’s birth history. About how happy it is, how tragic or funny, or how one of the parents passed out. I think this history keeps families together and creates happy memories that will keep them strong when the bad moments come, with life starting becoming so real, so cruel.

    My family talked about my birth history. They told me about how I almost died before I was born. It's a detail I have known my whole life. I almost died before I was born. My twin brother, Athedrus, died before he was born. A fact that I just learned a few years ago, when I started to know what death really means, not just a detail of a story my mom told me my whole life.

    I started to think about it tonight, about my mom and my twin brother. About how she took years to tell me about someone I should have known my whole life. Today, I think she can't. She couldn't tell me about him. She lost a son.  A baby son. She lost a son before she ever knew him. Someone she loved before ever met. Someone that was taken from her. She lost a son. I think it's broken her heart, it's broken my mom's heart, one of the strongest women I ever know. She took years to talk about him because it's broken her soul to ever think about Athedrus. My twin brother, Athedrus. Someone I will never meet. Someone who through death gave me life.

    Furthermore, someone else gave me life too. Someone else sacrificed their own life to give me an opportunity.

***

    In my culture, babies are gifts. They are common, but they are gifts. And this consensus always makes me feel uncomfortable, because, in my culture, every woman and man, after an age, is forced to have children. Three children, more precisely. A duty you must do to your nation. A duty to help your nation to stay powerful. To stay strong and survive the difficult times. A duty to bring glory and power for your family. A duty you should do no matter what.

    When any person reaches the age that the nation says that the person needs to have children, you can't take or make something that stops the conception. My mom doesn't have control of her body. She can't control when she wants to have children. Or how many children she will have.

    Thus, my mom had children when her time came. It's a duty, but at the same time, a gift. My mom loved each one of her children. And she would do anything for them. This always makes me admire my mom a lot more, because my brothers, and I were duties, but she still loved us. Always.

***

    She was a healer, my mom. A powerful healer for his kind, so when my brother and I start to grow in her body, she knows about us. She will conceive two babies. A double gift. However, when she became aware of our existence it broke her heart, not because of us, but because of who our father was. Our offspring. He was a Dreamer, one of the few, or the one, in our world. The powerful kind that can make everything you want to become true. The kind that can stop armies and make every King's dreams become real, in every nation of the world. The ones that help us build our world. Everyone says these things about them. But what anyone says is that The Dreamer’s children are rare. Weak. Fragile. That the children's birth needs a lot of work and sacrifice.

    The Dreamer’s children need magic, Dreamer’s magic. They need magic to grow in someone's body, they need magic to be born, they need magic in the first periods of their life. My mom doesn't have Dreamer’s magic. She just had the healer's magic. She knows it. Thus, she couldn't give life to us. But she does her best. Actually, she almost kills herself trying to give us life, to keep us alive. We almost killed her. I almost killed my mom trying selfishly to stay alive. But, she couldn't. She didn't have enough magic and didn't have the right type of magic.

    She used a magic that it's not adequate to a baby's Dreamer.

    So, one day, she couldn't handle us anymore, my mom. And Athedrus died.

    My mom, as a healer, can feel us inside her. She could feel us growing. She could feel our life. Thus, She felt my brother dying inside her. She could feel him fighting for his life. Desperately trying to find the magic that would have kept him alive. But failing. Failing. Failing. And she couldn’t do anything. Just stay there while her baby boy dies.

    Sometimes, I almost feel in my bones his life slipping away. I almost feel him dying. While I watch everything. And don't make anything while he fights to stay with me a little long. I almost feel him dying dying dying dying. In my bones.

    And All this thought makes me think: if I feel it, what my mom felt? I can't measure her pain. I will never be able to understand my mom's pain. Furthermore, I will never understand my mom's strength.

***

    A few times my sister, Sun, talked about what happened after Athedrus died. She was a kid when everything happened. But she remembers every single thing like yesterday. She says that will never forget what happened and how many things in her life changed after this day.

    She was at home that day. Not only that, but she helped my mom keep us alive. She was a kid, but probably the most powerful healer in the nation. I think Sun is the only reason mom managed to keep us alive for so long without the right type of magic. But, although my mom did everything she could and Sun was there trying to keep the three of us alive, what we needed was dreamer's magic. Thus, she was there when Athedrus died and my mom broke.

    She was in the same room with my mom. She saw my mom’s heart break in two, and she saw my mom cry like the whole world died.

    I wonder how Sun feels in this situation. She was a kid. Whose mom was pregnant and trying desperately to keep the babies. She was a kid trying to keep the unborn siblings alive. She was a kid seeing her mom crying like no tomorrow over a baby she ever met. Sun was a kid seeing her loving mom sad and can't think of anything to do to bring a smile to the most sorrowful person she ever saw. And somehow, thinking about my older sister standing there looking at my mom is the saddest thing in the entire world.

    Sun says that my mom cried for hours. And my big sister stood there trying to understand what happened and how to fix it. She was a healer. She fixes people. Sun says that the first hour she didn't understand how she could not save a baby boy. The second hour she passed, felt us to find what went wrong. The third hour passed with Sun trying to find something to do to save her baby sister, because she could not fail with another sibling.

    In the third hour, she found a way to save the baby girl. Something she listened to a long time ago, that our people do, when they don't have hope. Whenever they had no other option. When they had no other person to look to find help.

***

    Dear God, thank you for listening to me. Please, give me the wisdom I need to make good decisions to save my family. Please, give me the strength I need to save my family. And please give us a good night of sleep. That’s what I ask you and appreciate, God.

    Dear God,

    I flew. I flew faster than I ever flew. I felt like the whole world stopped. I felt like I stopped. Everything became a whisper that it was a few moments ago. Everything went wrong.

    I flew to the harbor. They were taking my sister to some dark place that I couldn't ever begin to imagine. They were taking my family from me. They were taking the Sun.

    When I arrived at the harbor, I felt as if I could faint on that dirty floor. I couldn't breathe. I couldn't breathe. That was a mess. My worst nightmare. A bad dream.

    The harbor was a confusion. It was crazy. It looked like every person in the nation was in the same place, trying to make something, sell something, say goodbye to someone, load and unload huge packages. They were taking my sister. In some spot in this horrible place.

    I start to walk. I walked like I owned the place. I walked like I could conquer the world. While I walked I started to use my magic, feel my sister, looking for her. Looking for the person that I had known my entire life.

    Most of the people were looking at me. Like I was an animal on the verge of madness. Like I could start to kill people while I walked. And for a brief moment, I wanted to do it. I wanted to make them pay for letting the real monsters take my sister. I wanted to shout out bad things to these people. But I don't do any of these things. I take a deep breath and get control of my emotions. I continue walking and looking for the Sun.

***

    I found her. She was in a warehouse just a few feet away from a ship. A warehouse full of things that would go to various places in the world, to so many other nations I couldn't ever count. A warehouse full of things, and between these things was my sister. My beautiful and brave older sister was in a cage. A cage. She was in a cage. And in this brief moment, this dark moment, my heart stopped for a few seconds.

    She didn't see me standing there at first. She didn't see anything, actually, because she was crying. Sun was crying, my sister, in a cage. I think that was one of the moments where you know, with everything you have, that you could, if you just had the opportunity at that instant, to destroy everyone and everything that dares hurt someone so lovely, kind and courageous like Sun.

    When I started to walk toward the beautiful girl, and I was close enough to see everything in that hideous cage, I saw the most ugly thing I ever saw. On the floor, in black ink, were the symbols of imprisonment. Of the containment. The type of symbols, that was only used in prisoners, in danger people. And they used it on my sister, a healer. Someone that never hurt another person. Someone who has spent his whole life helping people. She was a prisoner.

    When I was close enough, I whispered like the world needed me to be silent:

    “Sun?”

    That little word made her cry more. And I saw her shoulders shaking hard. Too hard. The Sun was crying. The world stopped when I continue, whispered:

    “I'm here. I'm here with you, Sun. You are okay. Everything is going to be okay. I promise.” I did my best to not start crying too. My heart was in pieces. My heart was a wreckage. “What's happened?” I said, choking my heart. “Why are they doing it to you?”

    She tried to stop crying. But she couldn't stop. They put my sister in a cage. They tried to silence her. They are trying to make her become a shadow than she is.

    “Aladris died” She said like the wind in a cold river. “She died this morning. She… She said…” Sun was sinking. She was sinking in her thoughts. “She said someone was pressing her. She said someone wanted more power. She died trying to give me freedom. Not only that, but she was at her desk when she died. I saw her with the papers. I saw it. Under her. Someone was in her room. Someone that shouldn't be there.

    She said everything like someone was there. Trying to kill her. Trying to hurt her. She said everything like a thief in the middle of the night.

    And her words make my body freeze. Make my body have shivers of fear. Because Aladris shouldn't die. She must be alive. Strong. As long my sister lives, as long my sister serves her, Aladris would live too. My sister gave Aladris’s life. She must be alive.

    While my sister spoke, while fear was sinking in my body,  I placed my hands in the bars. Somebody like me makes this paint. Somebody like me created this hideous way to slave someone else. And if somebody like me created it, I could destroy it.

    “I took the papers. I gave it to Anya.” She said Silently, as she feared someone would listen if she said it too loud.

    “Okay” I whispered.

    I dove inside myself. Looking for my magic. Looking for my power. I dove inside myself, calling what makes me what I’m. I called it and hugged it. Not only that, but I hugged the pure joy. Pure happiness. I hugged the feeling of being alive. The feeling of being strong and unbeatable. And my power, my magic, hugged me back. It sang to me. It told me how happy it is to be with me again. And I felt in heaven. The heaven in the earth.

    The metal bars became dust. It became nothing. It was nothing.

    “I will get you out of here. Okay?” I whispered, while my heart beat like an animal running for life, fighting for life.

    “Moon, The Runes…” She said, with her big green eyes open, fighting against the tiny hope that I could see there.

    “I know. I could do it, right?” I smiled at her, like it was not my worst nightmare, like I was not crying internally.

    The magic of the Runes. I could feel it. The power. I could feel how it made my sister a prisoner. I put my hands at the barrier, I called my magic, and I involved The Runes with it. Not only that, but I feel how these two magics feel together, and somehow it was similar. The same but different, someone else magic, someone else power. But I was more powerful, I was there, I was infinite and could do everything.

    I was almost there. I remember the feeling, feeling victorious, to be powerful enough to save someone you care    about, it was like being at the top of the world. Intoxicant.

    I was almost there. Almost there. I felt it. For a second. A second longer than life. I was almost there, but we were not alone anymore.

    “Take your funking hands from The Runes.” Someone else said, with a voice like a velvet. “Walk away. Slowly.” He said it with hate, but at the same time his voice was soft, calm.

    I remember to think a hundred things per second when I hear his voice. I think about running away, trying to kill him, trying to take Sun away from him.

    I looked at the Sun, and I just saw fear in her eyes. Pure and genuinely fearful. The type that paralyses you and makes you lose your mind. The type that makes you become a shell of yourself. It was the type of fear I never thought I could see in the Sun's beautiful eyes. She probably feels his power, something I should have noticed too, but I was so focused on Sun, to break The Runes, and take us out of there.

    I was with my hands in The Runes’s barrier, still desperately trying to break it, trying to give freedom to my sister.

    “I said to you to walk away from The Runes. Don't do it and I will kill her.” He said, with a cold voice, a whisper of death in the air.

    “You can't kill her. You need her, if this cage is a hint of your obvious fear of losing her.” I talked with so much conviction I could get together in these few seconds. “Thus, don't make a threat you can not accomplish.” I said, looking, finally to him, into his pale blue eyes.

    He laughed. He laughed as if he had heard the funniest joke. Not only that, but he laughed like he didn't have a care in the world. How could someone so handsome be so cruel?

    It made me angry. The way he treated someone else's life. The way he looked like he was having fun.

    The magic took my body. I felt it inside me, I felt it in the surrounding space. I saw his surprise. Thus, I attacked before he could think about me as a possible danger. I used my power as a weapon, I used my hands to be precise on the target, I used my magic as a knight seeking revenge, blood, and pain.

    Shock. It was the only word I could use to describe what I saw in his eyes when I used my magic to attack him.

    I saw light blue flying towards him. I took one, two, three steps and stood in front of my sister, trying desperately to protect her. It took just a few seconds. But that guy was fast, because before my magic ever touched him, everything in that warehouse became murk. It’s like a mist, but was so dark, as light never existed in the world, as the darkness was the only thing that ever existed.

    I send my magic toward him, over and over again. It was like a spark in the middle of the night.

    “Someone here forgot to mention that was a Dreamer. It hurt my feelings. Being the last to know things sucks.” His voice was in each corner of the warehouse. He was in every corner of a place in the darkness.

    I used my magic to stay in our surroundings. Light blue was there to keep me strong during a difficult time. A torch in the dark.

    “Stay away from us. I don't want to hurt you.”  A foolish threat. A silly sentence.

    “Don't make a threat you can not accomplish, little dreamer. It's rude.” He said low and slowly. I could almost see his smile. I could hear it in his voice. He was having too much fun. “Just to make this clear, love: in any other situation, I will stay away from you, like you demanded. I will ever help you release your lovely friend, but unfortunately, to us, I make an oath to take her to the place she is required. So, please, forgive me.” He said, earnest for the first time.

    It was the only warning he gave me. After it, I felt, and I saw his power coming towards me. The darkness in the room was coming to attack me. It feels like being in a chasm, and just feel and see darkness and gloom.

    I lost seconds. I lost an eternity. I took so much time to raise my shield. The shield of The Guardians. I took so much time to raise it beyond myself, to use The Shield to protect my sister, to protect someone that was inside The Runes. That could not use magic, that could not use The Shield.

    When I raise The Shield, I do my best to do it fast. To make it strong. To make the darkness go away. I did my best to focus on the shield, I did my best to enlarge as much as I could. I was a fool.

    I made it. Not only that, but I managed to beat that guy's magic. I made that darkness go away and become nothing. Nothing. But I was not a Guardian. Thus, in the middle of my foolish happiness, I saw what I allowed to happen. The Runes were broken. The cage was empty. The warehouse is empty. I was alone. That Dreamer took her. The Sun is gone.

***

    Dear God, thank you for listening to me. Please, make me fast and agile to protect my family. Please, give me the strength I need to save my family. And please give us a good night of sleep. That’s what I ask you and appreciate, God.