From Our Ashes

Alexi woke up with a killer headache. He sat up in bed clutching his head as another wave of pain flooded his senses. He winced and pushed his reddish brown bangs back from his sweat-drenched forehead. Alexi quickly realized that not only was his head crying out, but his whole body was sore. He couldn’t really recall what he had done last night that could’ve caused all the searing pain.

Slowly moving his legs out from under the sheets, Alexi dragged his body out of bed and forced his arms to throw open the maroon curtains of his room. The bright rays of the sun rained down upon him driving him to cover his dark gray eyes from the overpowering light. After allowing the sunshine to flow into his room, Alexi took a few moments to let his eyesight adjust to the sudden change of brightness. He gradually opened up his eyes, blinking a few times until he was capable of staring at the soft baby blue sky. Alexi almost thought of admiring the view from his window, but another rush of pain crashed against his skull.

Groaning softly, Alexi massaged his forehead with his fingers and turned his back to the window. He moved sluggishly toward the dark spruce wood closet that stood in the corner near his bed. He took a single glance at the scattered mess of blankets and sheets on his mattress, but it didn’t Alexi more than a second to decide against fixing it up. Using as much strength as he could muster with his aching arms, Alexi swung the brown closet doors open. He quickly scanned through the stash of clothing and plucked out a plain white shirt and a pair of jeans before tossing them onto his bed.

After changing into his new outfit, Alexi yawned and made his way over to the door of his room. He set his hand onto the copper door handle, letting the feeling of cool metal wash over his fingertips. As he opened the door, Alexi had expected to see an empty hallway, but instead came face-to-face with a familiar silver-haired figure. A familiar and particularly angered figure.

He blinked a few times in confusion. “Reina? What are ya doing up this early?”

“Early?” Reina reiterated with an irritated tone. The edges of her lips twitched upwards. “Alexi, you do realize what time it is, right?”

Alexi rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly and tried to calm his jumping nerves. “Um… not really? I just kinda assumed–”

The sting of the punch registered before Alexi even saw the fist coming. He flew backward onto the floor of his room. “Who the hell do you think you are!?” Reina yelled, lifting her fist and raring to go in for another punch.

“W-wha–?” Alexi stuttered out before Reina took a step forward into his sunlit room causing him to scoot back nervously. Rubbing his now aching cheek, Alexi made direct eye contact with the silver-haired menace. “Ya know what I’m like! My internal clock always wakes me up earlier than the rest of ya!” Reina raised an eyebrow and continued toward him. With every step she took forward, Alexi moved back until he was met with the wall.

Reina glanced around the room, taking into account the still messy bed. Looking toward the window, her anger skyrocketed. “Tell me, Alexi, in what world does ‘midday’ constitute as ‘early’?” Her crystal blue eyes traced their way back to Alexi who began debating running for his life or lying to the world’s labeled number one most dangerous person.

Luckily for him, another wave of pain crashed against his skull. Forgetting about the sting on his cheek and Reina’s blatant rage, Alexi quickly placed a hand in his forehead and winced. His head throbbed and a faint ringing in his ears began to steadily crescendo. Alexi clenched and ground his teeth together as the crushing feeling grew.

“Alexi?” A soft voice filtered through the white noise in his brain. Sparing a moment to look up, the man in question was met with a face filled with overwhelming concern. Alexi was certain that he hadn’t ever seen Reina look so worried before in his life and, quite frankly, it was his last wish to have to see Reina like that, after everything she had given to him. So he quickly brushed off the pain as best he could and flashed her a smile.

“No need ta worry about me, Reina. I just happened ta wake up with a killer migraine,” Alexi supplied her. “I’m sure I’ll be fine in no time!” He waved off the pounding in his head and supplemented the silver-haired maiden with a toothy grin.

Alexi could still spot a faint glint of concern in Reina’s eyes in the split second before her body shifted away from him and towards the doorway. “Well, I guess that’s what you get for having too many drinks, huh?” she huffed, clearly sounding annoyed, but Alexi could tell that there wasn’t something quite right.

Regardless, Alexi felt that he shouldn’t push the subject, and casually responded, “Now, now, Reina. I know I tend ta drink a lot, but I’ve never gotten so drunk to the extent that I’ve had ta break my sleep schedule and forget everything I did the night before. I ain’t that much of a drunk.”

Reina sighed, obviously unimpressed with Alexi’s excuses. “You say you forgot everything you did last night? That sure sounds like what happens when you drink a bit, just a bit, too much, don’t you think?”

Alexi stood up and laughed nervously. “I guess yer right, huh?” He watched silently as Reina started for the door and her long hair swished from side to side. Yeah, but… what was I doin’ last night? Hell, what was I doin’ yesterday? A slight panic began to bubble up inside Alexi, but his thoughts were dispersed as quickly as they had appeared.

“Hey, Alexi! You don’t get to slack off anymore. Just because you woke up feeling like shit, doesn’t mean you get to bypass my rules.” Reina’s voice was just as hard and steely as before, but she didn’t look back at Alexi, only continuing forward out of the room.

“Yeah, yeah, I hear ya,” Alexi replied with his usual humor. He followed her out of his room and into the hallway. The two marched silently, with only the sound of their footsteps resounding through the narrow corridor to accompany them.

Alexi yawned as they entered another, larger room. Through the door, three people seemed to be awaiting their arrival, some rather impatiently. “Took you long enough to get your ass out of bed,” a prickly voice commented at Alexi. Alexi didn’t bother turning to face his offender who was leaning casually against the wall, opting instead to take a seat at the polished spruce wood table. “Hey asshole, are you listening to me?” the same voice announced with their annoyance building.

With a soft sigh, Alexi leaned back in his chair and retorted, What was that? Sorry. I thought you were just talkin’ ta yourself again,” Alexi leaned back in his chair and looked over at the already irritated man. “I mean, don’t ya do that all the time, Leon?”

The grand reverberation of a fist being slammed against the wall put a smirk on Alexi’s face. He turned to see Leon’s fuming expression. Leon adjusted his black framed glasses before curling his hands into fists and strolling towards Alexi, his eyes twitching. As he made his way over to the table, however, the sound of quiet, mocking laughter stopped him in his tracks. Leon swung his head around. “The hell are you laughing about, Tristan?”

Sitting across from Alexi was Tristan, who casually placed the teacup he had been sipping from onto the porcelain saucer in front of him. He flipped back his long, brown hair and gave Leon a smug grin. “Me? Oh, please, don’t mind about me, I’m just enjoying the free entertainment.” Leon’s hazel eyes seemed to become red with rage.

“You people…” He growled out. He mumbled death threats underneath his breath as his whole body shook with incessant fury.

Alexi sighed, taking the moment to enjoy a few seconds of peace. Unfortunately, Tristan, being the habitual narcissistic pretty-boy that he was born to be, was not willing to leave any stone unturned. “So, Alexi, what reason could you possibly have that you just had to disregard the rules placed upon us by our gracious Miss Reina?” Tristan’s dark olive green eyes glinted with mischief.

Alexi cringed at the odd formality that Tristan always used when addressing Reina. He glanced over at the silver-haired woman standing in the spot that Leon had previously been. She looked unbothered and, if anything, was quite pleased with the honorific. So that’s how we’re supposed to get on her good side, Alexi thought. “There really ain’t much I can say ‘bout it. I woke up feelin’ like my body was tryin’ ta kill itself.”

Tristan raised an eyebrow precariously, placing his elbows onto the table and intertwining his fingers where he rested his chin upon. “Is that so? Well, I do believe that I woke up with barely any feeling in either of my arms. It had seemed as if they had been ripped from my body, but you don’t see me complaining, now do you?” Tristan’s smile grew. “Not only that but isn’t that what you deserve for spending all your time drowning yourself in alcohol?”

Grimacing, Alexi replied, “Hey, would ya imagine that. Reina said the same thing, but I can swear to ya both that I was not gettin’ my ass drunk.”

“But isn’t that what you always say?”

Just as Alexi was about to make up a sad excuse, a voice from the kitchen interrupted them. “Could you two please stop blabbering? It might make my ears bleed.” Alexi turned to the voice’s origin. A cup of coffee in hand, Marco looked the same as always. A stoic and seemingly emotionless face. He outstretched his hand with the coffee toward Leon who still stood motionless rambling on about death threats. “Hey, Leon, I made another cup of coffee like you wanted,” Marco announced, his tone was just as devoid of emotion as his expression.

Leon’s head snapped up at the sound of Marco’s voice, instantaneously ending his incoherent muttering. He pushed up his glasses with his forefinger and smoothed his golden hair back as he strolled over to Marco. Plucking the cup of coffee out of other man’s hand, Leon gave the dark liquid a short staredown before chugging down the entirety of it. Alexi flinched back in disgust while Tristan went back to sipping his own bitter drink. “Thanks, Marco,” Leon said, his voice much softer than it had been only moments before. He placed the mug back into Marco’s hands. “If you wouldn’t mind, could you make me another? I can already feel the effect of the last few wearing off.”

Without even the slightest bit of hesitation, Marco nodded and turned back to enter the kitchen. Alexi cleared his throat as Marco disappeared from the room. “Um… ‘the last few?’ How many cups of that damn stuff have ya had already?”

“How the hell should I know? Eight or something, I guess.”

“Ten, actually,” came the faint and distant reply from the next room.

Leon shrugged. “What he said.”

Alexi fought the reflex to gag. “I can’t believe ya can actually drink that stuff.”

Leon snorted. “I could ask you the same thing. How much alcohol do you normally drink within a week?”

Alexi put his hands up in mock surrender. “Could today for once not be ‘bully Alexi day?’ I’m startin’ to get real sick of this maltreatment. What do ya say, Reina?”

“Last time I checked, you weren’t the one in charge of making the rules around here, Alexi,” Reina replied, her voice cutting in sharply. “In fact, I’m pretty sure you just broke one of those rules today,” she glared daggers at him, “so I say, anything goes.”

Alexi pouted away silently just as Marco appeared with Leon’s eleventh cup of coffee. “Nevermind that, Reina, but when are we going to do something? We’ve done nothing but sit around here for weeks now,” Leon complained right before downing his coffee.

Then, as if on cue, the building began to shake.