A Story: Prologue

It was a cold moonless night and the small town of Tomo was very silent. Near the end of the town near the forest is a two-storey house with a small front lawn. A small boy around two was loudly laughing with his father who was hoisting him up while his sister was looking at him, pointing and giggling. Their mother was downstairs, cooking food.
A muscular man wearing rugged jeans rang approached the house. He rang their doorbell and the mother opened it.
"Hello, good evening," the woman said as she wiped her hands on her dress.
The man remained silent and he remained standing on the door. He looks slightly anxious yet his eyes were cold and determined.
"May I know who you are," the woman asked in an authoritative voice when the man did not speak.
"Mrs. Haines, I suppose, you call someone to fix your sink," the man said in a casual voice as he peers inside the house looking around.
"Oh, right. Come in please."
Mrs. Haines led the man inside and the man looked around the house in a calculating look.
"Mary, who is that at the door," the man upstairs called out.
"It's the pipeman dear,' the woman cried out as they approach the sink.
"That was fast," the man upstairs shouted, "I thought they'd arrive tomorrow."
"That your husband," the man asked.
Mrs. Haines nodded and she showed him the sink. The man approach the sink and look at it. Just then they heard the loud giggle of the boy.
"That your son," the man asked.
Mrs. Haines nodded again and she turned around to go up the staircase. However, she was not able to go up the stairs.
Everything happens so fast, the boy was with his sister. The girl was crying silently and her head was bleeding profusely. The boy was pointing to the man from inside the closet that was slightly open. The man, who was slightly bleeding was about to approach them when something rang.

A boy with dark brown hair and dark blue eyes bolts upright from his bed as his alarm clock rings angrily.
"That dream again," he said silently as he untangle the bed sheets that has twisted around him.
He rubs his eyes then stood up, "I, I can't remember his face, who is he?"
"Jake get out already or you're gonna be late for school. It's your first day of classes, remember!"
Charlie mumbled incoherently to his sister as he fixed his bed and his school things.
"What took you so long," asked a woman who handed him two mugs of hot chocolate.
"You're dress up. So starting your new job today Liz," Charlie asks, leaving her question unanswered as he shovel in the eggs from the pan.
Liza gets her bag from the couch and handed Jake his lunch money.
"Yeah, so hurry up and just buy your lunch in the cafeteria. I need to go to work now and we've got so much to pay and…" She suddenly stopped at midsentence when she saw Charlie looking a bit grim. She sat down beside him and smiled at him.
Charlie was silent and just stared back at his big sister. Liza wore her waist length hair down in a plait and her almond brown eyes pierce through him. It looks so much like his mother as he remembers it. He has become accustomed to her acting like his mother. After all, he is 12 years older than he is but sometimes, he wishes she stop acting like one. He sometimes felt a little ashamed that his sister has been working really hard for him and she did not accept marriage five year ago when their grandmother died, and she was the one left with the responsibility of taking care of him. They had moved to the apartment ever since and his sister has been shunned from one job to another for she was not able to finish college. He stared at her and he saw that his sister seems to look older than she really is. He began to wish he could do something for her.
"I can help with work if you want to. You know I can. Tomorrow I'll be 15, I can get a respectable pay."
"Just because you're turning 15 tomorrow doesn't mean you're not a kid anymore."
Charlie frowned at this but Liza merely smiled and ruffled his hair.
"Not the hair, I just combed that," he said swaying his hand over his head like whisking away an irksome fly.
"Really, I didn't notice," Liza said half laughing.
Charlie merely raised his eyebrows and look a bit amused then Liza went nearer him.
"Tomorrow, I want you to go home early. I've got a surprise for you," Liza whispered with the last few words to an almost inaudible sound.