The Guardian of Light.

Chapter 10: Memories

     My dreams that night were memories of one of my favorite times with John after our parents died. John was two years older than me so he would have been 15. It was winter, December 25th if I can remember correctly. Being brothers we stuck out for each other but that doesn't mean we weren't jerks to each other. He came into my room and threw a snowball at my face, while I was asleep. I gave him a look and he ran outside. I grabbed my coat and instead of walking out of the door where I thought John was waiting to ambush me with a few of his friends. Our rule was when you were hit with a snowball outside you were out for that round.

       I was right about the ambush. I threw two snowballs and hit his friends. He had just enough time to turn around before I slapped him in the back of the head with snow. "Hey, you're gettin' good." John said to me. "I don't know why snowball fighting would be a skill that you'd compliment someone on being good at, but okay." I said as a joke. "I meant in combat." He said. "What?" I asked. "Never mind, alright, Skyler you're with Zack, Eric, you're with me." John said, evening out the teams. We went a few more rounds that were hard to remember before we all headed inside, I think the final score ended up being John's team with 5 wins and mine with 4.

     John fixed everyone up a cup of hot chocolate. "So...what's it like living alone, I would never know because I still have my parents." Skyler said. "It's alright, so long as you can take care of yourself and an idiot brother." John said jokingly. "Hey!" I snapped. Everyone laughed. I pretended like I was getting a glass of water when I finished my hot chocolate and stuffed an ice cube in my pocket. I walked past John in the kitchen cleaning some dishes and dropped the cube down his shirt. He bent and shivered. Everyone but John laughed. I remember pranks were something that always happened between John and me.

      "So, Zack, I have something for you." John said. "It better not be more snow to the face." I said jokingly. Everyone laughed again. John sat down and gave me a wrapped present.  I ripped off the wrapping, not caring about saving it or not. When I opened the box it was an iPad. I didn't know what to say. Since our parents are gone we were pretty poor so I was surprised he saved up for this just to give it to me. "Merry Christmas." John said. I threw my arms around him. "Zack. Zack, wake up!" John said. I was confused for a second, then I realized that it was Kyle's voice. "Zack, Zack!" "I'm awake!" I said, getting Kyle to stop yelling at me.

     I headed back up to my favorite place in the trees. It wasn't as nice in the day, but nice enough. Some of the leaves had started falling off. It was the middle-end of Fall. "Thought I might find you up here." Sarah said, coming up behind me. "This place looks different in the day, well, anyways Kyle says we should leave to help out the rebels in about ten minutes." She said. I stayed quiet. "Not talkative this morning?" Sarah said. "Sarah, do you think we may have a celebration of some sort, like Christmas." I said. "What brought those thoughts in to mind?" She asked. "Just had a really nice winter dream." I explained the entire dream to her. "Too bad we can't ever do something like that again." I said with a depressed tone. "Well, let's beat that darkness thing then we'll throw a huge party." Sarah said cheeringly as she started climbing down. I smiled, then followed her and Kyle down to the rebel base.

      "His name is Syracuse, by the way." I said while we were walking. "What?" Kyle and Sarah said. "The form of darkness. What, did you forget the stories?" I said. "Oh, okay." Sarah said. "Oh, riiiiight! Now I remember!" Kyle said. "Well that was random." Sarah said. "That's Zack." Kyle said. I grumbled. Sarah and Kyle laughed. I stayed quiet the rest of the walk.