Brothers and Sisters
Chapter One.
Load Full StoryChapter One.
I awoke to humming, it was a tuneless tone, seemingly purely practical. It stirred me awake regardless. Sitting up from where I was I saw myself climbing from my bed wearing a smirk. My body just getting up from where I was sleeping, without me. I sat there dumbfounded believing to be a dream, an out-of-body experience if you will, but I felt the ground beneath me. He stood over me, the stranger that is my body.
"Have a nice life, Aria." He said with a sneer.
"That's not..." I weakly protested, before succumbing to a powerful and overbearing sleep.
It is hard to explain the dream I had when I was under that time. If I was forced to I would say it was like watching a play with the main character had to keep switching out for a understudy. I understood that the whirling situations were supposed to be my memories, but it also felt very alien. Like half or more of them didn't belong to me, but were also an irreplaceable part of who I was. I can no longer remember that night's dreams distinctly enough to describe in detail.
When I woke the second time I was immediately sick. I threw up over the side of my bed onto the floor. After a minute of laying there centering myself, I got up. My whole body felt wobbly and wrong, like I was trying to walk on uneven stilts. After a while I banged my way to the bathroom where I resolved myself to finish being sick. When that harrowing experience finally finished, I looked at the mirror above the sink.
A familiar stranger looked back at me from the mirror. I looked at myself and felt nothing looked wrong, but I knew that I was not seeing myself in the mirror. A fuchsia young woman stared back at me with a scowl. She wore a black tank top and a pair of dark purple sweats. She looked like the type to be complaining how hot topic was too main stream, and likely collected preserved skulls as a hobby. I washed that face and brushed my teeth with my tooth brush, not really paying attention to the feeling that it wasn't the same one as normal. When I was finally done I left to check around the house to see who else was awake so I can share my strange feeling with someone else.
Sonata, my sister, was awake and staring at her ceiling. Her eyes were wide and had an indescribable feeling plastered on her features. "Sonata." I said to get her attention.
"That isn't..." she grumbled not turning to look at me.
"Sonata." I called again.
She leaped up from her bed screaming. "That isn't my name Aria! Say the right one!" She looked furious, but I was a bit more focused on what she called me. It felt right but I knew it was wrong too. We stared at each other in wide eyed horror.
"Sis..." I stopped and with a bit of effort started again, "Bro, does this all feel wrong to you?"
"Like totally wrong. Like the worst kind of wrong! The wrongest anything has ever been!" I saw tears start to form in her eyes.
"Lets, go see Ada..." I stopped and looked at her pleadingly, but she nodded as if she understood.
Walking down the strange and familiar hallway we approached Adagio's room. I knock out of habit, well it feels like habit, but we walk in anyway. Adagio is crying next to her bed. Her hair a mess and poofing out everywhere.
"...Bro, I think we need to talk." Adagio looks up at me with her blood shot eyes searching my face for answers I did not have. She eventually nods and we all sit on Adagio's bed in a huddle.
I clear my voice first to buy some time. "I don't know how to put this, but..." More stalling came from me as I looked around the room. "My name is... My name is... I don't know. I am desperately searching but all I get is Aria Blaze. I know that isn't me though and it hurts something inside of me to even say it. I was a... man, a nerd, who liked games, computers, and the internet a bit too much to be healthy, but I am also a fuchsia skinned misanthrope who revels in being moody."
Sonata looks up and nods. "I can't remember my other name either, but I know that Sonata Dusk is the weird one. I am the guy who liked metal working and cars, but I am also this air headed bimbo. They both feel super wrong, and I don't know which one is me!"
We both looked to Adagio, who sniffled a little and then said. "Adagio Dazzle, a calculating task master bitch and the other me who worked two jobs and was very shy. I have no idea which one I am suppose to be. They both feel... ugh. What happened to us?"
I recalled back to seeing myself climb out of bed last night. "I think we were stolen, they... took our bodies somehow..." After a moment of thought. "Does it sound crazy that I instantly thought of them doing it through magic?"
They both chirped back with how they thought the same.
"Look girls..." I stopped and apologized to them both with a look. "I think... we need a bit of time to sort this out in our heads, look around your rooms and find any clues, I have a mess I need to... clean up."
I return to Aria's room with a towel and a bottle of carpet cleaner. My unfortunate mess from this morning waiting for me. I make quick work of cleaning it up due to a severe dislike of the smell. After taking care of that business I return to the room and examine the feelings of possession I had for the floor. I really didn't want it to stain or leave a smell, but I knew that this was Aria's floor. Sneering at it I move quickly onto searching the room for my... Aria's Diary. I think she left it in the gap between the bed and the wall.
The knowledge of knowing where it was and it actually being there made me sick to my stomach. I pulled the deep purple book from the gap and looked at the star and forte symbol inscribed onto the cover. I knew this to be Aria's mark. I cracked open the cover of the book and a note fell out.
Hey Loser,
I knew you'd go poking around for answers. My sisters and I decided to pity you and not burn the house down around your cute little butts. Be grateful. Welcome to my body asshole. Its a mess of hatred and feelings of self importance. My room and that useless magic inert body are now yours forever. Feel lucky to live forever in a ageless ex-siren body. You should know what a siren is. Just think about it a while. Don't worry about your body and stuff. I took it since I traded you mine. I figure immortality is more than fair for working magical circulation. It's not like you were using it anyways loser. I'll have to reshape your smelly monkey body into something a bit more fashionable. We won't be seeing each other again!
The other Aria didn't sign her nasty note. I stared in disbelief. I knew it was likely true, that nagging knowledge in the back of my head and the diary confirmed it. I was in the body of a siren. She was damaged and stole my body to resume power. While I knew of sirens, I didn't feel their innate music. I figure she took that with her. From what I could gather I wouldn't have been able to use it anyway. Magic... it was real. A part of me felt that yea duh it is, but I knew that magic was actually new to me. I already knew that the rest of the room had no more answers for me. I already had them when I woke up. The knowledge was there, they left it so we would know what we lost without being able to grasp it fully.
"Taking my name is just sadistic though, bitch." I grumbled to myself as I walked out to the kitchen to prepare breakfast. Something Aria Blaze didn't do, but I often did. Working the pancake batter into the pan I felt a stronger connection to my other self. I suppose my sisters smelled that I was cooking and stumbled into the room after not to long.
From behind me Adagio said. "So sirens huh?"
I gave a mhmm, but continued to cook. Sonata's head hit the table.
"This is the worst." she complained.
After a few minutes I set the blueberry pancakes in the middle of the table.
"Girls... I think we need to accept this." I started. "As much as I want to get back at them for this, I don't even know who they are now. Just that it was us once..." I trailed off. "So I guess, you can call me Aria for now."
Adagio spoke up. "Yea... it would be best to be grown up about this and not pout over spilled milk." She slowly ate her share of breakfast.
"Why don't we ask those Rainbooms for help?" Sonata spoke up. Both me and Adagio stared at her.
"Who?" I asked quietly
"The Rainbooms, those girls who hurt the sirens in the first place." She clarified. I had no knowledge of that, but the word sparked an uncontrollable anger from within me. Adagio looked the same, with a confused but angry look on her face.
"Yes, that name. It makes me so angry to hear it!" I shouted excitedly. Sonata looked at me worriedly.
"Sonata, don't you see. That ditz who stole your body wasn't as smart as Aria or Adagio. She left that knowledge instead of taking it! We might actually be able to use that!" I almost felt happy if Aria was even capable of such an emotion.
Adagio spoke up next. "Whoever these Rainbooms are I doubt they would be happy to see us." She deflated me in a single stroke. "However, they are our only lead on getting help."
I looked at my two sisters. "We're going to need to clean ourselves up before we head out." We were all in varying degrees of disheveled. With a nod and after eating we returned to our rooms.
Author's Note
Well, here it is. Another character study sort of story. I am focusing on a much more crude Aria as the main focus of our story here. If anyone is curious about the boys' personalities and how they are effecting the sirens' bodies I could be persuaded to write up a blog post on it. Otherwise you will find out a lot of it in the story itself. Aria's anger hasn't warmed up yet, so this it the last language warning for the story. Next chapter will show her in all her glory.
