Chapter 1: Scar

A scar stays with you for life. It is imprinted in you. It will never leave you alone. Yet it is only a fragment, a reminder of the pain that was once there. A scar is the lingering memory of a wound, one which would have caused much discomfort. And his scar was no different. Except for the fact that sometimes it would reopen, and the pain would all come rushing back...

People are the most impressionable when they are a child. Children are also more delicate and have bigger scars. Their trauma stays with them longer. And he was just a child when the wound opened. Five years old to be exact.

It was bound to happen sooner or later, they had already paid a visit to his cousins and his house would no doubt be next. his parents knew this too and so they had sent him out to get some bread... On his way home from the shop he heard the sound of crying and stopped in his tracks. He looked left and right then eventually his gaze landed on a baby swaddled in a blanket with a note on top of her lying on a bench. She was all alone and crying her eyes out. Without stopping to think, he walked over to her and picked up the note.

Although he was only 5 years old, his parents were co-headteacher and co-deputy at InfernoOaisis Academy, the local school, and so they had taught him to read from a young age - thus he was as advanced or more so than people twice his age. He began to read the letter: "To whoever this bundle may find its way to, Please look after our daughter. They have come for us. You will find her documents and some supplies with the caretaker of InfernoOaisis. Forever in your debt." This girl was obviously someone he couldn't leave. They had come for her parents, who knew the caretaker of the school his parents worked at. Their situations were far too similar to just ignore. He made his decision without much thought, picked her up, placed the loaf of bread in his bag, and once again set off.

He had only walked about 3 metres (9'8") when his journey was halted yet again. Once more he heard the sound of crying. Once more he looked left and right. Once more he stopped dead in his tracks. This time though, what he saw made his blood run cold....

The crying was coming from a house which looked not too different from his own. The door was hanging open, a cold white hand sticking out, lying in a pool of blood. Hesitantly, he walked inside. The sight he saw made him want to vomit, yet the harshest blow had yet to come. There were two adults lying dead on the floor, drenched in their own blood, and kneeling beside them crying was a young boy, whom he assumed was the child of the pair. He softly walked around the corpses and laid his hand on the boy's shoulder. The boy looked up with a tear streaked face, and upon seeing the baby in his arms, his eyes widened with recognition. "That's my sister!" he exclaimed. and so he decided to trust this stranger and they left the house together. During the conversation, he found out that this boy was 3 years old, his parents were the co-workers of his and that he was more than happy to come to stay with him.

Finally, after many stops for rest, the boy reached his house. He was surprised however to find that the door was ajar. He was sure he had closed it before he left, and his mother hated the cold. He felt something was amiss. His hands were subconsciously shaking. The younger boy took his little sister off him. Together they walked inside. It was eerily quiet. He led the younger boy through to the kitchen to put away the bread....and he stopped still in the doorway. The boy stilled and collapsed onto his knees. "No...No..", he repeated over and over, for there before him were his own parents laying in pools of blood. Tears streaked down his face. Then suddenly his fathers words crossed his mind, " if anything were to happen to us, please take your little sister and go through the trap door I showed you in the garden. There you will get help... You must raise her well...I trust you." He remembered finding it stupid at the time: what could ever possibly happen to his strong and fabulous father - but now he realised exactly what was meant for him to do. He got to his feet, led the little boy by his shoulder, and headed to the best hiding spot he knew. He was in luck, for there lay his sister sleeping soundly on the floor. He gently lifted her and headed out to the back garden. After looking in all directions to check they were safe, he bent down and opened the trap door. He let the other boy go first and then he closed the door behind them. Soon the house would be burnt, and he didn't want to leave any traces of their location.

It was surprisingly well lit down there. That was his first thought. Then he noticed how the air he was breathing didn't seem any different to that above ground. Whoever designed this place did it really well. They climbed down a stone staircase and at the bottom they reached a door. It had a password. He typed in the first thing he could think of: "InfernoOaisis". The door beeped. Wrong. He stopped to think, then he noticed a welcome mat on the floor... He tried again, this time he wrote "Marhaba" - welcome in Arabic. The doors slid open and they walked inside.

They entered into a large hall with several labelled doors leading off. The hall was furnished with hooks to hang coats beside all the doors and shoe racks beneath them all. The labels read: InfernoOaisis, Kitchen, Garden, Pool, Gym, Bedrooms, Lounge rooms, Mosque and many more. Some of the doors opened to long corridors, and others opened straight out to rooms. In the middle of each of the walls was a door slightly more extravagant than the rest much like the one they had come out of - ones leading to houses on the surface. They decided to go to the kitchen first to put the bread away and there they found the younger boy's aunt cooking a meal and her daughter sitting on the counter swinging her legs. So... They weren't the only ones there...