Happy Birthday to you!
Happy Birthday to you!
Happy Birthday, dear Xena
"Happy Birthday to you,"
Xena's eyes shot open. She had just woken up from a deep slumber and a beautiful dream. In her dream were her parents singing a jolly chorus of the infamous birthday song. It wasn't perfect, but it brought her to tears. Her mother was a little off the tune; still, her father's deep harmonious voice added into melody balanced it perfectly.
Zion's hands held a chocolate drizzled cake with the numbers one and three stuck on top. The two looked at Xena with pure joy in their eyes, and their smiles beamed with radiant happiness. She felt euphoric. She thought her parents had forgotten her birthday, and she was in a sulky mood all morning, but she was happy that wasn't the case. Just as Xena leaned forward to blow the flailing fire of the candles, her eyes shot open.
The realization that it was all just a dream dropped upon her. Her lips curved downwards into a frown.
The rain outside her window reminded her of the downpour on the 25th of April. With exhaustion in her body, Xena dreaded leaving the bed and had to drag herself out of it. Xena stood by the windowsill and watched the rainfall stream down the dense forest surrounding her. Fog blurred the view outside. She had to lean forward and wipe the fog with her warm palm. Xena stared hard at the forest. Oh, how peaceful it looked. The trees were full of hydration, its plants and the leaves glistened in the rain. She wished she was as happy as the trees receiving water.
Xena has been living under Steven's cabin for two weeks. Fourteen days have passed since the 25th of April. She's now at the golden age of thirteen in which kids her age usually explore the virtue of life. In Xena's case, however, experiencing life as a normal thirteen-year-old is a luxury that she can't afford.
A disappointed sigh escaped her mouth. It has since been two weeks, yet she still hasn't found the answers to her questions. Xena hasn't found out the whereabouts of her mother.
The downpour calmed down, but a slight drizzle came after it.
Tap tap tap
Xena heard three knocks on the door. She turned to face the sound and walked toward it.
"Dinner," said Steven in a sombre voice. After discovering that Xena had touched his daughter's paintings, Steven has been acting indifferently. Xena couldn't blame him. She must have opened a past he's been trying very hard to forget.
Steven had already gone to the kitchen, intoxicated. Once Xena arrived, she saw him gulping down a hefty amount of alcohol. Concerned overflowed in her eyes. There hasn't been a day where she found Steven sober in the past two weeks.
They both sat down at the dinner table. Steven was busy chugging down the beer that he hadn't noticed Xena. Quietly and timidly, she began munching on the food in front of her. She was peacefully eating her meal until the sound of the glass bottle hitting the table's surface made her flinch. Steven had a look of despair on his face; his eyes had nothing but hopelessness.
"You ever wish you could turn back time?" Steven questioned. It was of no warning. He wondered as if he had forgotten the person he asked was just a mere child.
Xena halted, she looked at him with confusion in her black eyes. But after realizing what he meant, she felt a sudden weight of sadness. Her face went blank, but the answer was obvious. She desperately wished to turn back time: she wanted to see her mother's face again, to hear her father's voice, and to eat happily as three. She wanted everything to go back to how it was.
Steven continued to mumble. His words slurred because of how drained he was. "Sometimes, I wish I could have those superpowers... Like the one that can turn back time." The ends of his lips curled into a smirk.
"Like an Arken?" she asked. But what she said was something Steven didn't want to hear. In a sudden spike of anger, he threw the bottle of beer onto the floor. The force was so strong that the shards of glass flew back up as it hit the floor. Xena silenced herself once again. She was still and didn't know how to react to Steven's angered response.
"Don't you fucking say that word again!" he threatened with a face that had a disgruntled expression. Xena apologized as quickly as she broke her silence. Her hands trembled under the table while her hands trembled under the table.
"Arkens think they're all high and mighty just because they have powers." A laugh escaped Steven's mouth.
He said, "They screwed up the city good, but the government did a good job handling them. Those pesky beings deserve all of it."
All Xena could do was listen. She neither wanted to react or respond. All she thought about were the Arkens. What did they do to deserve this treatment? Why must it be them who's suffering? Xena felt appalled by how the government treated them. She felt lucky she wasn't an Arken—not yet, at least.
Steven glanced at Xena, and his eyes narrowed as if he was assessing her, "You know. You remind me of Sasha." He pointed at her.
"Sasha?" said Xena. She knew of no Sasha, or at least had never heard of that name before. Its familiarity gave her a tinge of knowledge, but she had already forgotten where she saw the name before.
"My daughter," he replied calmly. Silence filled the air, but the winds howled outside, and it was the only noise that the two could hear. Xena didn't know what to say, nor did she know how to feel about Steven referring to his dead daughter.
A smile of nostalgia appeared on his wrinkled face. "Sasha was quiet—only ever talked when someone started the conversation..."
"She would have been twenty years old now."
The wind continued to howl outside, trees and bushes swayed along with the current of the air. The sun had already set and left the sky with no light.
"I���m sorry to hear about your daughter…" Xena mumbled softly. She was anxious that what she said might cause a fuss from Steven. Luckily, the man was too drunk to hear a thing.
"It was all my fault," he wept.
"I should have paid more attention."
"I should have been there for her."
Xena worried. He sounded too drunk for him to process his thoughts and emotions. It was her first time witnessing someone so drunk of alcohol.
"Had she not killed herself, I would have continued to live my life normally."
Steven's daughter had killed herself? Xena was in dismay. She didn't know how to react to the fact that her gut feeling was correct. That Sasha had ended her own life. Visuals of Sasha's paintings replayed in Xena's mind. It was disorienting.
Probably, the last painting of her crying in the corner was how she felt. It made Xena feel as if the world had turned upside down. She pitied Steven, knowing how his daughter died made a difference in everything.
"I should have listened to her," Steven mumbled. His head felt hazy, and he was in shambles while his face reddened because of the alcohol.
Steven started tearing up. His eyes became glossy and reflected the light in his eyes. "She had these dreams..."
Xena listened, all she could offer was her attention.
"Those dreams..made her see the future."
"One time, she dreamt of our dog dying. She was frantic about losing her pet." The beads of his tears fell and formed a small puddle on the table. Steven grabbed another beer and chugged its contents. Once he finished, he let out a satisfied sigh.
"The next thing we knew, our dog died of cardiac disease." Slowly, Steven revealed his daughter's troubled past. And the more he told them, the faster Xena glued the pieces together.
"I thought--" Steven stopped. Gravity brought his head down. The amount of alcohol in his body knocked him out. Xena leaned forward to check on him, but he had already fainted.
To an average child, all the information would confuse them. But to Xena, it was the last piece to the puzzle. She felt an array of emotions and didn't know what to think about the fact that Steven's daughter was highly an Arken.
Or that Sasha knew about everything, even before it was a thing: like the Metamorphosis Plan. And if she had dreamt about the future, she had probably seen everything—including the death of a thousand Arkens. The power of knowing the future weighed her down and brought her to her demise.
The howling wind grew louder and more robust. It caused the windows to rattle. Xena had a moment's temptation; she hurried to her room to search for more answers. She didn't care if Steven would catch her again, as long as she discovers the truth.
Xena rummaged for clues. But to no avail. She saw none. Her eyes magnetized toward the room across hers—towards Steven's room. With him knocked out, Xena could enter the room without his knowledge. It was a bold idea, but she felt a sudden burst of courage.
She slowly tiptoed towards the room and opened its doors. Luckily, Xena didn't have to search that far. On top of the table near Steven's bed was a stash of papers, conveniently placed. She gulped and thought twice about what she was about to do. Xena inhaled and let out a breath of determination.
Swiftly, she looked through all the paintings and skipped the ones she had already seen.
One painting ignited her interest. It was of a building: its exterior was sky blue, sky blue neon lined against the railings on top of the flat roof, fortified glass replaced the brick walls that she was used to seeing. It looked very different from the usual architecture around her town. Inside the building, there were detailed paintings of people in white coats. Based on the shows she had seen, those people in coats were doctors or scientists. Xena assumed this building was a hospital.
'Maybe...' Xena pondered.
'Maybe that's where they took mom.'
The chances were likely. However, it made no sense even to Xena. She noticed an address written on the lower right. And Xena was very much tempted to travel to the place.
The thought of her mother being there made her want to travel fast toward it. She took a deep breath and folded the sheet into her pocket.
Xena had to go to this place. No matter what it takes. If going there meant that she'd see her mother once again, she'd be willing to do anything to arrive at that destination.