Shattered Promises 02 - Fractured Souls by Jessica Sorensen (motivational books for students TXT) 📕

of a tree. There’s a rustic wooden table against the back wall where a candle is burning. Next to the table is a metal trunk, and in front of the trunk is a young girl with long, brown hair, violet eyes, and wearing a purple dress. It’s me, the younger version anyway. I’m probably around four years old, which means there’s a good chance that my soul and memories are still intact.

Sitting across from me is a little boy with his legs crisscrossed and a pocketknife in his hand. He has dark brown hair and bright green eyes that shine like emeralds. It’s Alex when he was younger. Alex and me. Together.

“So, what do you think’s going to happen?” the younger version of me asks as she plays with a large sapphire, rolling it in the dirt. “After they take me away?”

Alex shakes his head and gently takes the sapphire from her, tossing it across the room into the trunk in the corner. It lands inside, making a soft thud as it hits the bottom. “I don’t know, Gemma. I really don’t.”

“Do you think we’ll ever see each other again?” she asks, tracing circles in the dirt with her fingers.

He nods, scraping the blade of the pocketknife into the dirt. “I promise we will, no matter what anyone says.”

Tears bubble in the corner of her eyes, and I can actually feel her fear, worry, and sadness stirring with in me as I remember this exact moment. “Do you think Marco and Sophia will be nice to me?” she asks.

“How could they not be nice to you?” Alex says. “No one could ever be mean to you, Gemma.”

My mouth turns downward at his words. It’s such a nice, free moment between us and I’m a little shocked. This is what we were like together? So comfortable. I almost feel sorry for us, we were too naïve to see what was going to happen to us.

“I have an idea,” Alex says, holding the pocketknife up in front of him. “How about you and I become blood brothers?”

She scowls at him and folds her arms. “I’m not a boy.”

Alex laughs and I do, too. “Okay, how about blood friends?”

Tears escape her eyes and roll down her cheeks. “What do I have to do to become one?”

“I’ll make a little cut on my hand and on yours, then we press them together and make a promise, okay?”

She looks wary. “Will it hurt?”

“Only for a minute,” he promises.

She wipes the tears away from her cheeks with her hands. “Okay, let’s do it.”

She stretches her hand to Alex and he carefully makes a small incision in her palm with the tip of the knife. She winces and I glance down at the small scar on my palm. I never knew where it came from and I once made a joke to Alex about it, saying a guy cut me there. He’s known all along what it was from and never said anything.

Alex makes a tiny cut in his palm, then drops the knife to the ground and raises his hand out in front of him. “Okay, put yours up to mine.”

She presses her palms to his with a beaming grin on her lips.

“Forem,” Alex utters. “Now you say it.”

She takes a deep breath. “Forem.”

Alex smiles as he drops his hand to his lap. “There, that’s all it takes.”

“But what does forem mean?” she asks, wiping the blood form her hand with her finger.

“It means—”

“Alex!” Someone yells from above the ground.

The children’s eyes become round and Alex jumps to his feet. “We have to go.” He holds out his hand and helps her to her feet.

“Do you think your dad will be mad at us,” she asks, panicking as they head past me toward the ladder. “For disappearing?”

“I don’t know,” Alex says. “Let’s just hurry up, okay?”

She glances around at the little hideout with a sad look on her face, like she’ll never see the place again, and then she nods. “Okay.”

They climb up the ladder and I follow them. As I step out from the behind the violet bush, I see Stephan waving his finger as he scolds them. I don’t want to see what happens next because I have a feeling I already know. The friendship will get crushed, a soul will be broken, and I’ll forget that it ever happened. I know because I can pretty much feel it coming. It’s heartbreaking to think about and know that this is what will be destroyed. For a second I find myself wishing I could forget it again and go back to unknowing.

I shut my eyes and sink down into the ground, waiting to be yanked away, thinking I’m going back, but suddenly I’m drowning in darkness.

Evil darkness.

Chapter 11

My skin is on fire, raging like a desert storm. The heat claws at my skin, bites at it, gnawing it’s way into my soul as I fly helplessly through the seemingly endless darkness.

The further I go, the hotter I get until I can’t take it anymore. I stretch out my arms, glancing at them, however the darkness is too thick and weighted to see them at all. I open my mouth to shout for help, but my voice is lost in my own head.

I get dragged further into the desolate place and start to give up hope of ever seeing the light of day again. Yet then a light forms around me, lighting up my ghostly pale skin and orbing through the darkness, allowing me to see where I am.

I’m nowhere. Lost in nothingness. Destined to be no one.

As a triangular shape forms on my skin, swirling upward before dipping down in a ray of light, I realize that I could become someone. A strong someone. A powerful someone.

I could become the darkness.

My eyes shoot open and I gasp for air, my skin is covered with sweat. Laylen’s face appears in my line of vision, kneeling to the side of the sofa where I lie flat