That Which is Unexpected
Page 8
Chapter 6: IT’S BACOOOOOOON!
I first met Cheza when I was ten years old, after Uncle Eric returned home from a business trip up north.
“Cole, this is Chezarei. She’s eight years old and she’s family now so I want you to treat her as such, okay?” Uncle Eric said after I had welcomed him home.
I remember looking at that pretty little girl with a pale complexion, seemingly uncut silver hair that flowed down to her lower back, and glazed over icy-blue eyes. I thought that she was a doll. It turned out that my first impression of her had been pretty accurate because that girl practically was a doll. She didn’t speak, always had a blank stare, and her movements seemed lifeless. Overall, she was very interesting to me, and familiar in some way.
“Cole can you please take Chezarei to her bedroom, the empty guest bedroom next to your room? I need to discuss some things with Tia and Sara,” Uncle Eric requested.
“Sure,” I replied.
“Hi, I’m Cole,” I said to that girl, eliciting absolutely no response, so I grabbed her hand and led her towards the guest bedroom that shared a wall with my room.
I felt that I couldn’t leave her alone so I turned on the small TV that was on the dresser, changed the channel to Nickelodeon, and sat with her on the bed. Twenty minutes after that, Sara entered the room, said “Hi Chezarei, I’m Sara. Let’s go shopping to get you some new clothes and things,” with a pitying look that was just noticeable to me underneath her warm smile, and led Cheza to the car by her hand. I turned off the TV and left the room when I heard the front door close. I had a question for Uncle Eric.
“What’s wrong with Cheza?” I asked when I located him (this was the first time I had called her Cheza. I don’t know why I did, but it just felt right so I stuck with it). Although I was rather astute for my age (I actually knew what astute meant then), it was hardly necessary to tell that something was very amiss with this girl.
Uncle Eric sighed, turned toward me with a grim expression, and said, “Her parents were killed in front of her Cole. She’s like you.” He didn’t need to say anything else. It was enough of an explanation for her behavior. After all, I had been the same way five years prior.
“Okay,” I said in a voice barely above a whisper. “I know what to do.”
Uncle Eric just looked down at me and smiled, completely aware that I wasn’t going to ‘wake her up’ using the same method that was used on me.
…
I don’t remember much about my mother being killed, but I do remember retreating into myself for the two years that followed. Sara had been homeschooling me so I wouldn’t fall behind, although she overdid it a bit and I ended up about three years ahead (because of my ability to soak up information like a sponge. It seems to be pretty easy to learn when you don’t have very many stray thoughts in your mind) with an extensive knowledge for mythology, of all things.
“Mythology was the only subject that caused your eyes to become slightly more focused when I was teaching. Other than that you were completely unresponsive,” Sara told me when I asked her about it some years later.
About nine months after I arrived at the house, Tia started training me in close quarters combat. Training while in my doll-like state wasn’t nearly as effective as my homeschooling had been. A week after my seventh birthday, Tia had finally had it. I had already learned forms by watching and being thrown, kicked, and punched, and she had nothing else that could be taught without experience, so she told me to attack her. The most she’d had me do before was punch a bag (which I had done in a very doll-like fashion of moving my arms back and forth while the rest of my body was perfectly still), so I had no idea what she was talking about. I just stood there in response.
Tia became exasperated and stormed over to where I was standing. She stopped and stood there silently in front of me with a blank expression before suddenly punching me square in the nose, one of those nice hits that cause the person receiving it to tear up uncontrollably. Those tears that rolled down my face, a face that had been otherwise emotionless for two years, broke the floodgates. I dropped into a pile on the ground and started bawling for over an hour. Tia simply sat down next to me and held me for the duration. Over the following three months, I slowly came out of my shell and went to school for the first time.
…