Double Eclipse

Chapter 1: Part 2

During her Trigonometry class, Star fell asleep from the boredom of ninety-degree angels. In the vividness of her mind, her old dream revived again with the two little girls hanging on the cliff. But this time she looked onto the situation in third person and seemed helpless to the events in her head. Star then heard her name being called in a muffled tone in her dreams.

"Starrrrrrr... Starrrrrrr... MS. MIDNIGHT!"

"Ah!" screamed Star. She looked around and found out that she was still in class! Her face burned red with embarrassment. Everyone responded to her with a weird and curious stare, including Eric.

"Ms. Midnight, may I have a word with you after school?" replied the annoyed Professor Toi.

After school, Star came out with a weary face. She searched for Eric so she can burst out her horrible news and gain sympathy from her childhood, best friend. Her eye caught a group of girls mobbing Eric in fondness. That shouldn’t be an uncommon sight! With wavy brown hair, blues eyes matching a handsome face and is also a great athlete. I expect it everyday! I shouldn’t bother him. Sigh...

"Wait Star! Where are you going? If it’s home, let me walk you!" Holding the handles of his bike, Eric ran up to her with a trail of girls behind him. When they noticed Star, they parted.

Star glared at him. "You shouldn’t leave your fans behind!"

"What are you talking about? It’s like this everyday. I can’t help it!"

"It’s not right to play around with girls’ feelings. You can stop this you know!"

"Like how?", in a sarcastic tone.

"Like getting a girlfriend and settle down. Then you won’t have so many girls flying around you like bees to honey!"

"Well, I want to but..." Eric looked intensely at Star and hesitated to say the rest of his thoughts.

"But what?" She turned around to meet his eyes.

Turning red, "So how did you stand up to Professor Toi?" "It’s just like you to change the subject. Oh sigh! Been with you long enough to know that I can’t change your mind so easily."

"How can you say that! Now tell me, how did you take it with the EVIL MR. TOI? I know you want to pour your heart out!" He said laughingly.

"I got an extra research paper to do!" She mumbled dreadfully.

"But then you shouldn’t have been sleeping."

"Don’t mock me!" She tried to whack him with some papers again.

"You missed!" He laughed.

"Oh! How dare you!" She chased him to her house. He tried for his bike, but the wheels failed him.

"We’re home!"

"You mean my home. Now you go home now before your mother is worried."

"I’m not a child!" He took her arm before she opened the door. "Wait! I have something for you." Eric gently placed a heart-shaped box onto her palm. "Happy Birthday Miss Midnight." With a sudden tug, he pulled her onto him and instantly kissed her forehead. "Oh look at the time! Gotta run!" and abruptly left the scene, grating on the petals of his bike.

In shock, Star stood in front of her door motionless with a flaming red face. However after some seconds, she has a worried appearance that made her more baffled. Someone on the second floor window jerked the curtain close.

"I’m home. Lily, are you there?" Star shut the door and took off her shoes. She looked down and noticed a pair of familiar red, high heels and gasped! "Star! You’re late! Why are you late?!" murmured a drunk voice.

"Mom! Why are you home so early? I thought you were at Aunt Yui’s for the week!"

"Shocked aren’t you! You should be!"

"Mom, you’re drunk again..." She hastily hurried over to her mother and laid her down on the sofa. "You should rest. I thought you quitted already?" The phone rang. "I’ll go get it!" She ran without hesitation to the phone and picked it up in the kitchen. "Who is it?"

"It’s you old man!"

"Oh my! Dad! It’s you!" She replied ecstatically, but sneaked a quick glance at mom on the sofa. "Where are you?" She whispered.

"I’m at the airport! I’m coming home Sweetie and for something very special, but I can’t tell you now. I have to go. Don’t tell you mother that I called you. You do know how last time she raved on and on about the divorce papers... Anyway, I’ll be home soon. Bye Sweetie!"

"Bye Dad." She answered in a sad voice.

"Who was it?!"

"Oh Mom! You scared me! Weren’t you resting?"

"Tell me!" She shrieked in and annoyed tone.

"Mom… Um, it was a friend... A friend! And she needed the homework assignment!"

"Don’t lie to me! You think I don’t know who it was! You think I don’t know! Well, I tell you, little Missy! He’s not going to set one foot into this house, again! Do you understand! He’s going to take nothing! You hear me! Nothing!"

"What do you mean? Calm down, Mom." Star held onto her left wrist uncomfortably and took a step back.

"He doesn’t want you Star! You mean nothing to him! He left me. Now he’s going to break your heart! Don’t you understand!"

"STOP IT! You’re talking nonsense. You’re drunk that’s all."

"Foolish girl! You’re beguiled by one of them. Men are liars! See this!" In her right hand was Eric’s gift. Her mother jerked out the earrings. "Look at this! This means nothing! They are only lies!" She laughed and threw them out the window.

"No! Mom, what are you doing?! STOP THIS! This is my life! I can do what I want and like anyone I wish!"

The drunken form staggered toward Star and slapped her hard! The harsh sound echoed in the house and into Lily’s ears, as Lily quietly closed the door. Star stroked her stinging cheek with the first time impression that her mother never struck her before. "Now you’re turning against your own mother! Hicc! I’m trying to help you... Hicc! Now you’re turning against me for one of them! Well, I don’t care about you! I don’t need to because... Hicc! You’re not even my real daughter! Just look at you! Your hair is white and black! And your eyes... They’re yellow! You’re a freak of nature! I found you in the street girl and don’t you forget about it! Hicc! That’s why he’s not coming back for you. You’re not even his!"

Such scornful words struck her even harder than the physical pain handed on her. Lily’s eyes filled up with tears as she hid in the hallway sitting against the wall. "How can mother say that to her! Star was always beautiful..."

Star stood there dead in the silent air. Dark shadows encroached her face, hiding any signs of life on it. She stared at her mother in the utter stillness. Then, like a sudden bullet of regret, her mother’s features changed coercing her to step back. Her drunken eyes widened as a staggering realization of her own words crushed her with a ton of guilt. "Starrr..." She hoarsely broke the silence.

Star bolted out through the hallway and passed the horrified Lily. She then fell kneeling on the grass in front of the window where her mother flung out her birthday gift. Frantically, Star searched in haste finding the earrings. Without a thought, she ran away from the house with this only comfort and familiarity.

Standing next to an old tree where as a child she came for comfort, upon the high, steep hill, she looked down at the vast city. They added a railing! When did they do that? It seems that at once everything everyday to her changed in a second. In her spiteful heart, she climbed over the protective railing and sat next to her old friend whose branches melancholy waved with the wind. "I’m such a fool! How can I believe that my life is normal when one side my parents are divorcing, then on the other side I am an orphan with a genetic flaw?! But then... Being adopted has never been easy. The feeling was always weighing me down. Who were my real parents? What were they like? Did my real mother have white hair and my father the black, so thus the weird combo? Heh... heh... Sigh..."

In her bewildered state, she doesn’t notice the alien presence behind her. A women figure glided toward its unsuspecting victim. Closer did it come as it finally stood behind Star. The apparition slowly laid its dead hands upon her shoulders. Star became paralyzed in fear! It was as if a cold and foreboding jab struck her spine rendering her motionless. Why can’t I move?! Who are you?! No! Stop! But the figure was without mercy. With hateful hands, it violently pushed her off the crevasse...

"Ahhhhhhhh!" Screamed Star.

Unexpectingly, a tiny, furry creature jumped out of the bushes and joined Star downward. It opened up its crystal wings and grabbed Star’s wrists trying to desperately stop her from descending any further.

"I don’t know how much I can hold on!" It cried.

A sudden warm light surrounded the two like a protective shield, and in a flash they disappeared in mid-air. Plunging into cold water, Star struggled to surface, but the current flowed strong. The water forced itself into her lungs, drowning her...