Forbidden Desires

Outside the cavern, the sky thundered. Yet, I took no notice of what was happening. My eyes sting from how I had been crying. All because of him, Hans. He was the man of my heart, yet he could never be mine.He was the orphan that my parents took in when I was no more than a child of six. Apart from the fact that he is the lost child of my mother’s senior, I do not know much about his past, because he rarely speaks. Over the years, I followed him wherever he went, not letting him out of my sight. I discovered that when Hans was lonely, he loved to hide in a cavern in the woods away from Tyi or on the soft grasslands of the neighbouring meadow. Tyi was the village we lived in.Eventually, one day, he began opening up to me. When I was fifteen, we shared a kiss. We began meeting alone in the cavern, starting a forbidden relationship. Though we kept to our boundaries, I knew one day that it would all change. I planned to have it happen, that when I reached eighteen, we would reveal the

After Hans left, I lay in my bed in a daze. I had been lying there for goodness knows how long when I looked up and then saw Autumn in the room. While I lacked a good relationship with either of my siblings, Autumn was more of a neutral type and for some reason, I had wanted to sympathize with her in whatever she did. However, after sleeping with Hans, a pang of guilt engulfed my heart instead, and I refused to face her, instead turning towards the wall.Autumn lay down beside me on the bed in her attempts to coax me. As she came closer, I realised I was still naked under the sheets and pulled the blanket around me more tightly. She stared at me with a strange look in her eyes. I knew instantly it had something to do with my nakedness, obvious from my bare shoulder blades. Her words confirm my suspicion. My sister, despite being older than me by four years, could be rather daft in her words.“Winter, how did you ever become so provocative? As far as I recall, you never slept in the

I woke up with his robe covering my bare body, shivering in the coldness of the night. Fortunately, my parents never bothered to check up on me if I was at home. Otherwise, they would have suspected me of sneaking out late at night to indulge in indecent behaviour. Such actions were highly condoned in Tuyi, as maidens were expected to keep themselves pure for marriage. But my mother was different since she was raised with sword-fighting training and born with innate powers. She didn’t meet the definition of “maiden”, so why should I? Hans was still asleep, with his arm lodged deep in my bosom. Silently, I disconnected him from my body and crept towards the lake to watch my reflection under the bright moon. Removing Hans' robe slowly, I observed the marks he had left on my naked body.I had very fair skin, snow-white by definition, which went very well with my name, Winter. My skin got bruised easily, which Hans knew. I didn’t understand what he stood to gain by leaving these marks. D

Before Charley could say anything more, I slammed the door in his face.“What was that?” my mother asked. “The wind,” I snickered. She shook me off as if I was crazy. I walked to the kitchen and dropped off her five packs of herbs. Then I climbed up the steps with the remaining two packs, entering my room. My mother doesn’t notice as she was engrossed with knitting a scarf for my father, who has gone out with Uncle Gerald.If I stayed a moment longer to speak to my mother, she would try to bring up the engagement with Charley, which I was uninterested in at all. I was already hopelessly in love with Hans, and nothing could ever change that. Once I have made up my mind, nothing can change my decision. Thinking about Hans and my sister just drove me nuts. I pushed open the door of my room and searched for more porcelain items to smash, but there were none. Then I let out a scream, one after another, until I felt exhausted. After goodness knows how many hours have passed, I put away