Fifteen ✔

10

Shepherd and Nadia sat in my room, Sno paced the hall outside. I looked between the twins who sat on my floor moving their hands back and forth, once more like a silent conversation.

"What does the hand motions mean?" I asked the two, who suddenly looked up at me, their identical eyes looking at me with questions nearly spilling from them.

They looked back at each other and did more of the hand motions, they were slower this time and didn't last nearly as long.

"Sign language," Nadia spoke up after I had looked away thinking they weren't going to answer.

"What?"

"Sign language."

"I heard, but what is it?"

"It's just like speaking but for people who can't hear. It's speaking with hands," Nadia spoke, looking up at me.

"Why do you use it? I assume you can both hear good enough."

"Our parents taught it to us when we were growing up. Just incase we ever did come across a deaf or hard of hearing person," she paused, "We began using it more frequently after our parents died. "

"I-I'm sorry.."

"They died saving us," Shepherd spoke, breaking his streak of silence, "We lived outside of town, away from the worst of the Fall. One day a group of bandits showed up and our dad picked up a gun and told us to run."

"We were only about 9. Neither of us had been exposed to the harsh world. We lived secluded in our own little world where it was so peaceful and surrounded by education."

"So when we were sent on our own, it was terrifying. But nothing is as scary as hearing our dads screams as the bandits murdered him."

"Our mother came running from behind the house towards us and told us that we had to go. She ushered us out of the area where we found ourselves in the main part of the city."

"We found a river and began following it. We followed it until our feet screamed at us to stop and our stomachs yelled to be filled. I spotted some berries just at the edge of the river and ran towards them in an attempt to be a hero for my sister and my mother," Shepherd looked as though he had wanted to curl in a ball and start crying and I wanted to help him but didn't have a clue as to how.

"He fell into the river. And drifted out into the deeper part of that area and our mother didn't hesitate to jump in to help him. She managed to save him, obviously, but.." Nadia's voice drifted off.

"She didn't make it," Shepherd finished her sentence, "Her leg got caught in something that was under the water. She told us to go into the woods and follow a path that would lead to a group that would protect us. She said that she'd be there soon."

"We were young and didn't have a clue that she was in danger. So we, being the obedient little Indian Hindus that we are, listened to her and went on without her. When we got there, we turned and found no one behind us."

"Some girl took us inside and warmed us up. She gave us food and all of that human stuff before she threw us in a room and told us that we'd get a tour of the place the next day."

"We never went back for her. We never went back to that river. Leaving her still stands as our biggest regret."

"We understand that we couldn't have done anything. She didn't want us to do anything. She was so calm about it."

"That was quite the introduction we had into the harsh world we live in."

"I went completely silent for a while, changed my name time and time again. But after a while, I learned that a name is just that. A name. It doesn't mean anything pertaining to who I am. I'm still the boy who wanted to help his family but failed terribly," Shepherd looked to the ground, "Still the boy whose good intentions got his mother killed."

Nadia placed an arm over his shoulders and pulled him towards her. He easily leaned into her embrace. I moved from my spot on the bed and hugged him from behind.

I swirled small circles onto his arm and made a light "shh" sound, calming him as though he were a small child. His shoulders shook lightly as he cried into his sisters chest.

Nadia placed a hand in his hair, moving her fingers in a way that visibly comforted him. My left arm, the one that wasn't swirling on his own arm, wrapped around his stomach. I placed my head on his back, continuing with the "shh" sound.

We sat like this for a while, I was the only one of us to make any noise, and it seemed to help him. Nadia and I wrapped around him, holding him close to each of us. Soon his shoulders had stopped moving each time his cry was muffled by his twins shoulder. Even after he had calmed, no one moved.

Each of us sat there comfortably for what could have been eternity. I had silenced myself but continued the swirling I had been doing subconsciously until now. I put full thought into the swirling, now using all my fingers to make a large swirl on him. Rather than a small swirl I was previously doing with my thumb.

He made a small sniffling sound before moving his head slightly off of his sister. We both loosened our hold on his frame just enough for him to turn and face the bed I had sat on.

"My name isn't Shepherd. I just like it because it reminds me of being a leader," he turned towards me and looked into my blue eyes, "Leaders are good and smart and don't get their family killed. I thought maybe if I called myself Shepherd, I'd finally be just that."

"What's your real name?"

"Nirav," he showed a sad smile, but it didn't reach his puffy eyes, "I haven't said that in a while. Not since the day at the river."

"What does Nirav mean?"

"It means silence. I think our parents chose it because we had to stay silent or else the bandits would find us. And we were silent for so long but the bandits did find us."

"It's okay, Nirav," I placed a hand behind his ear and played with his hair similar to how Nadia had done it, "That day is in the past. You can't change it, but you can change how it effects you."

"I want it to make me stronger, braver, smarter."

"Then it did just that, Nirav," I wiped at a stray tear that had fallen from his eyes with my free hand, "Let's get you cleaned up."

Nadia and I made Nirav sit on the bed as we both went downstairs to get him water.