"Do we really need to do this?" Max asked. He turned around every once in a while to make sure no one was behind them. From the tiny beads of sweat on his forehead, it was clear that he was very nervous. 

He stood there with a flashlight in his hand which pointed towards Kevin, who didn't even reply to Max's question. He was busy trying to open the jammed door. 

One of Max's hand scrunched into that curly mess he had on his head. He was the only person to have brunet hair in the family of Wilson's, who were known for their straight, shiny black hair. Well, not exactly everyone. There was one more person who was breaking the stereotype. 

"Yes!" exclaimed Kevin as he turned towards Max with a glint of excitement shining in his brown eyes. He had blond hair, which almost covered the back of his neck.

It was reasonable for Max, who wasn't really a Wilson, but he always wondered how Kevin got that hair.

He pushed the door open, making the least noise possible and they sneaked into the library with the flashlights in their hands. They didn't want to wake everyone up.

The sweet, musky scent of books filled the air of the large room, which had shelves all around.

It was Shane's private library. For some reason, he never allowed anyone to get in there.

Max wanted to go in there ever since he entered the house as an orphan, and that was the reason they were there. The tour in Shane's private library was supposed to be a Max's 16th birthday gift from Kevin. More like a pre- birthday present, since there were still five days for it.

"What? You wanted to get into this room so that you could just stand in a corner?" Kevin pointed the flashlight right on his face and pulled him out of his dreamland.

"Hey!" Max yelled as he squinted his eyes.

"Keep it down young man, or else you are going to wake up Shane and get us both thrown out of this house!" Kevin giggled.

"Any place would be better than this."

They shook their head in unison and headed in different directions.

The room was filled with different kinds of books. But most of them were based on necromancy, teleportation circles, mysticism, and other occult stuff.

What caught Max's eye was a book which was named 'The Apocalypse: End of the world'. He took the book out of the shelf. It had a hard, deep red cover, and the words were written in gold.

"I always knew something was wrong with this old guy, but what's all this?" Max said to himself.

Just as he was about to put the book back on the shelf, a page slid out from it. He picked it up thinking that maybe the book was so old that pages had started coming out, but then he realized that it was something else. Hardly had he opened it to read when he heard Kevin's voice.

"Max, come here."

Max shoved the letter in his pocket unknowingly and went towards Kevin.

"Did you find anything?" Kevin asked him.

"Yeah, but none of that makes any sense. No wonder why he never allows anyone in," Max said as he looked all around.

"Well, this seems to be something interesting."

Kevin swayed a book in front of Max. It was a diary.

Suddenly, Max felt that someone was opening the door. He pulled Kevin and they hid behind a shelf.

"What the-?" Kevin said getting free from his hold. Max didn't say a word and just signaled him to keep quiet.

Within a moment, the door opened. It was Shane!

He was the head of the Wilson family.  A cranky old man in his late sixties but surprisingly fit and active.

He was dressed in his regular old fashioned robe which looked almost a century old. He had shiny grey hair and his face had some nasty scars, but no one knew how he got them. His eyes were deep and crystal clear.

He probably heard some noise. He turned the lights on and looked around. Luckily Max and Kevin couldn't be seen. He turned off the lights and left with a suspicious look on his face.

"Whoa! How do you always do that?" Kevin's eyes turned big with surprise.

"What? I heard him," Max said.

"I was right beside you but I didn't hear anything."

"Let's just leave. I don't want to be in this place anymore."

Kevin saw how uncomfortable Max was. He didn't argue anymore and they simply moved out.

Max silently opened the door to his room. He had almost closed the door when somebody pushed it open and it slammed Max right on his nose. He groaned as he covered his nose with both hands. 

On removing his hands, he saw that Kevin stood there laughing.

"What now?" Max's voice came out kind of squeaky.

Kevin tried to control his laughter, but he couldn't.

"I thought..." he said as he again burst into laughter.

"To damage my nose and then spend all night laughing at it?"

Kevin took a deep breath.

"No. I am sorry, but I thought you might want to read this." He brought his left hand in front. He was holding a book.

Max took it in his hands. It was Shane's diary!

"You stole it?!"

"What? No, I just borrowed it for some time and I'll keep it back once you are done reading it," Kevin tried to sound innocent as he made his cute puppy face expression.
"Well, I should have read it before handing it to you, but then I thought that since all this bothers you the most, then you should be the one to read it," Kevin said as he winked.

Max knew he had only done it for him. Kevin was the best big brother he could get.

He knew how badly Max wanted to know why Shane had been so weird to him since he walked into the Wilson house.

He had always put a lot of restrictions on Max, as if purposely trying to cut him away from the outside world, hiding him from everyone. He made Max shut everyone out of his life. When asked for a reason, the only answer Max got was that he would understand everything when the appropriate time would come.

Moreover, his past experiences made it worse. His uncle, who had been taking care of him after the demise his parents, had also disappeared when he was 9. All this had already made it difficult for Max to get close to anyone, and Shane was also being a total shit!
The person who was supposed to take care of him as a guardian did all that was possible for him to ensure that Max stayed alone.

For him, his only friend was Kevin. No one in the family, except Kevin, stood against this unreasonable whim of Shane. It was only for Kevin's sake that Max hadn't run away.

"What?" Kevin said as he snapped his fingers in front of him. Max had completely zoned out.

"Thank you," Max said as a pleasant smile appeared on his face.

Kevin smiled back. He went back to his room and closed the door after him.

"Thank you for everything."

Max wanted to read the diary right away but a part of him was afraid, afraid to find out the truth. No matter how bad things were, he had probably become used to them. He didn't know if he wanted them to change or not.

Lost in these thoughts, he fell asleep with the diary held close to him.

~~~~~~~~~

"Mommy, where are we going?" said the little boy. He seemed to be about 4. He was in a car that was driven at a great speed. It was dark outside and no other vehicles could be seen. Nor it looked like the main road.

The woman beside him was holding him tightly. She didn't answer the little boy's question. She looked petrified.

"Where are we supposed to go exactly?" The man driving the car looked back at the woman. Sweat dripped from his forehead.

"I don't know. Just keep moving; we can't stop."

They seemed to be running from someone, or something.

Suddenly, they heard something. It was a melodious voice... of some girl. There was a strange magic in that sound. The words were not clear but it appeared to be a cry, a melodious cry for help.

"Close your ears. Don't fall for her voice." The woman screamed to the man as she herself closed the little boy's ears with her hands.

She was too late. The man was already lost in the beautiful voice. The voice seemed to control him. Soon, there was more than one voice. They were in complete sync making it even harder to resist.

"They are here, drive fast. Edward? Oh my God, no!" Tears started rolling out of her eyes. Her voice broke as she said, "Edward, please snap out of it. We have to get out of here, for our child."

The man could no more hear what she was saying. All that was in his head now was their song.

He couldn't even see what was in front of him. He failed to turn the steering wheel on time. The car broke through the fence, plunged off the road and fell straight into the river with a deafening roar.