Tales of Myths, Magic and Monsters ((for Omuyasha))

Mackenzie waited at the door, and she giggled to herself as she listened in on what was going on inside of the house as Nate got ready with his mother panicking about a girl being at the door. It sounded like a typical family to her, and she felt a little better about hers seeming dysfunctional. She put her hand on her hip and smirked at him deviously. "Condoning cheating are we?" she teased before she shoved him playfully. "Didn't your mom ever tell you to not make a girl wait?" she joked before she motioned for him to follow her lead. She could hear his mother make a comment about how tall she was, but she paid no mind to it. "So just what do you know about the Supernatural anyway?"

He and Mackenzie parted ways as they both went to their homes. He was about halfway home when he realized that be never gave her his address, nor his phone number. "Hopefully she'll be able to find me." He had spent a week here and there was already something interesting and supernatural happening to him. Rather, something else that was supernatural. He went to his front door, a simple old looking door. Nothing particularly interesting about it. He pulled a key out from his back pocket and looked at it.

"Eh." He looked around to see if the coast was clear before putting his hand on the doorknob. He held the knob in his hands, concentrating. As he felt energy leave him and flow into the doorknob. He then made this energy carefully maneuver within the confines of the locking mechanism, tinkering with it. It wasn't long before he heard a click, meaning that he had achieved his goal. He opened the door and called out.

"Hey, Mom. I'm home."

Another voice responded to this as he made his way into the living room. "Hey, how was school?"

He saw his mom sitting on the couch. The light was on and the television was on a news channel. He didn't pay attention to it though. "It was fine," he said.

She turned where she was sitting to look at him. She inspected him for a moment before smiling at him. "That's good, I'm glad. Did anything exciting happen?"

His mind went to Mackenzie and the dodgeball game and the nurse. All he said was: "Well, I made a friend today."

"That's great! What're they like?"

"They're interesting, to say the least."

"Well, as long as they're nice."

"Also, they're coming over today. So I'm gonna be out for a bit."

"Alright, just be back by ten o'clock."

"Got it."

He walked out of the room and went to what he could call his room, kicking off his shoes. Simple, with unpacked boxes stacked up on each other in a corner of the room. The most he had set up was his bed, his dresser and his clothes. He threw his backpack on his bed and walked to his bathroom that was just through the next door. They each had their own bathroom and bedroom. He walked in and looked around, it wasn't decorated yet, and all it had decoration wise was a mirror that was over the sink. He put his hands on the sink and leaned forward. He had short brown hair accompanied with blue eyes. He looked at his face, inspecting the area that was struck with the dodgeball. He looked at it for a minute before letting out a sigh. There was no bruise.

He walked back into his room and went to his closet. He decided to put on a simple change of clothes, a plain black shirt with jeans. He reached in and pulled out the shirt. Pulling the shirt off of the hanger, he took off his striped shirt, and threw it on the bed. He then slid into the other shirt, reaching his arms through the holes to pull it down the rest of the way. He then sighed and fell onto his bed with his arms outstretched. He opened his eyes and saw the boxes in the corner of the room, making him groan in frustration. It was already a lot of work putting everything he had into those boxes, and it would be a hell of a lot more work to get them out. "I'll do it later," he decided. He then closed his eyes and fell asleep.

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He hadn't slept for long when he woke up. He was jolted awake by what sounded like knocking. He groggilly sat up and rubbed his eyes, looking around his room only for his eyes to land on the boxes again. "Ugh." He then lay back down and closed his eyes. He started to give in to his want for sleep until he heard two voices.

"Um, hi! Is Nate ready?"

His eyes shot open as he remembered about his plans. He sat up and looked around in a panicked fashion, looking for his shoes.

"Nathan, someone's here for you," his mother called.

"Uh, I'll be there in a second!"

He found them away from each other near the center of the nearly empty room. He walked quickly over to one and picked it up. He picked up his right foot where he was and tried to slide the shoe on only for it to not comply to this.

"Nathan, are you there?"

"Yeah, Mom, just give me a second!"

He struggled to put the shoe on and lost his balance when he realized something: he was putting the shoe on the wrong foot. He toppled over and found his other shoe now next to his head. He quickly put the shoe in his hands on his foot, having it slide in with ease. He did the same with the other shoe and produced the same result. He then quickly stood up and matted down his unkept hair from sleeping before his mom walked in.

"Nathan, are you alright? I heard a loud noise."

"I didn't hear anything," Nathan lied.

"Are you sure?"

"Yep."

"Oh, alright. Also, there's a girl waiting for you at the door."

"Alright, just let me grab something real quick." He then started to walk over to his backpack that lay on the bed.

His mom gave him an annoyed look. "It's not that lighter again, is it?"

"Gee, how ever did you figure that out," he said sarcastically. He opened up one of the front pockets and dug through it, pulling out a thin red lighter.

"You're always carrying that around with you, everywhere! Why do you do that, it's like you're obsessed with it or something!"

He scoffed at what she said. "I'm not obsessed, It's just lucky. It's my lucky item." She was about to argue with him again when he interrupted her. "What about you and your lucky pencil?"

"Hey, don't talk about my pencil like that! It just so happens that that pencil has been very useful to me in the past!"

He flicked the lighter and saw a flame appear. He then put it out and put the lighter in his pocket. "And by useful, you mean you carved answer choices on it and rolled it to see which answer you would pick for the questions you didn't know on tests."

"And it worked most of the time believe it or not!"

"Oh, believe it alright."

"Just go see your friend."

"I'm going, I'm going." He walked out of the room with his mom following behind him. He saw Mackenzie standing in the front doorway and walked up to her. "You ready to go?" He then walked with her out of the house, waving to his mom.

"Ten o'clock!"

He gave her a thumbs up in response.

Mackenzie looked at him curiously as he requested to go to the woods, but it was his framing that made her look at him oddly. "Uh, you know that my place is a safe place to talk about these things. My family has lots of supernatural experiences...unless you don't want to get embarrassed. My brother can be a little shit sometimes" she said before she thought for a moment. "Then there's my dad...I don't know how he'd react with you being around his little pup, but you know...maybe it's a better idea we talk about this in the woods" she rambled on before she had the realization that her father might pull some alpha male behavior on him.

Later after school she told him she would meet him back at his place, but she never bothered to ask where he lived. After she dropped off her things at her home, she brought along snacks in a backpack and a spare change of clothes. She rushed over at his place using her keen sense of smell, and she knocked on his door. When someone answered the door, she was surprised with how the inside was decorated. "Um, hi! Is Nate ready?" she asked.

Having a connection to the supernatural would be an understatement. As far as Nathan knew, he was a part of the supernatural. He had been for about as long as he can remember. He didn't know why, but he was able to see and do things that normal people, as well as special people couldn't do. The one thing he couldn't place a finger on, was the fact that that the nurse had referred to him as "the uninitiated". That must have meant that she knows that Nathan's different. There's no other way of looking at it, because if it was meant to be kept as much of a secret as possible, then that's one hell of a way to keep it unnoticed.

"No problem," Nathan responded. "I've had more than enough of my fair share of this stuff. It's basically a part of my life now. I just have a few questions for you, and I want to talk about them as soon as possible in a secluded area. So I want to go to the forbidden woods."

Mackenzie's mother overheard them and gave them one last glance, but it was more of a look that begged them to be careful than that of anger. Deep down she was still a loving mother, and she wanted the best for her daughter. She then went back to checking on the football player who only had a massive bruise on his stomach.

Mackenzie walked with him out of the nurse's office towards his looker. "Look, uninitiated is just code for us around here that means people who have no encounters with the supernatural, which means...you must have a connection to the supernatural do you not?" she asked. She cleared her throat and shielded her face directing her talk to him as students walked past them. "Just be sure to keep it to ourselves...we don't want more hunters coming into our town" she whispered to him.

Her gaze felt like it was poking and prodding him with a stick, or maybe a needle. Either way, it wasn't comfortable. It was as if she was judging him, and his abilities. He looked right back at the woman, doing the same. Both, just looking at each other until they heard a door open. Nathan looked back and saw the football player being assisted into the nurse's office by some of his friends. He then felt something cold on the back of his head. He turned around and saw Mackenzie's mom leering at not only him, but her daughter too before she crossed her arms. "She's pissed," he thought.

"I don't want either of you playing dodgeball! You don't have anything to prove to each other!" She then brought her hand up and rubbed her temple.

"Definitely pissed," he confirmed.

"Just, go and do something more productive."

"But mom," Mackenzie argued.

He saw another energy spike in response to this. This time, it was worse. A wavering spike.

As far as Nathan knew, there was about eight or so levels of energy. A stream, for people who are normal. And when they get excited in some way or form, it turns into a glowing stream, never leaving the host, but streaming all around them, as if it was an outline. Those are two. The next is a halted energy. One that seems to be specific only to Nathan, as far as he knows. He's never seen another halted energy. It's as if it's kept in place, and never moving. The only time he's ever seen his own energy move is when he wills it to move. He calls this remote spiritual energy. That's another two. Another form is wavering energy. It's as if a force is always trying to break free from the host, yet it's being restrained. So it's always wavering. Then there's the spiking energy. It's where someone special, or different gets excited and their energy starts to act up more and more, the restraints being lessened. Then there's the wavering spike. It's when this special person is nearing the limits of the restraints. Nathan doesn't even want to meet the last lever of energy, he had met one case before, but he didn't want to. Not again.

"But nothing! You aren't going to make me pay for any damage to school property! Is that clear?"

"Yes, ma'am," Mackenzie said.

The spike went down so her energy was just wavering once again. He then saw Mackenzie's mother glare at him.

"Yes, ma'am," Nathan repeated.

She spoke to Mackenzie again. "It's a stupid idea to be doing this around the uninitiated."

Uninitiated?

"It will draw all sorts of negative attention," Mackenzie's mom said.

"Huh," Mackenzie asked.

When her mom walked past them to go and tend to the other student, Nathan felt very cold all of a sudden. A shiver was sent down his spine as she walked past him. He did not want to pick a fight with her.

He then heard a whisper. "Sorry... My parents might be super scary, but they keep the peace around here."

"I'm sure they do," he whispered back.

"Hey! You wanna go out to the forbidden woods?"

He pondered the question. Strangely snough, he found no cons to this. The word "forbidden" meant that it could be fun, and he wouldn't be playing dodgeball there. So it would be a win-win situation. "Sure, why not," he said.

Mackenzie's mother gazed at Nate very closely, and she was in close enough proximity to get a flavor of his aura and its intensity. His spiritual energy was most appetizing and fulfilling. She sat behind her desk and leaned back as the football play came in with help from his teammates. She instantly shot them both an intense leer and crossed her arms over her chest. "I don't want either of you playing dodgeball! You don't have to prove anything to each other!" she shouted before she raised her hand to her temple to rub it vigorously hoping to relieve an oncoming migraine. "Just go and do something more productive" she finished.

"But mom!"

Her mother's eyes turned black with soul piercing yellow irises, and she restrained herself from unveiling her true form. "But nothing! You aren't going to make me pay for any damage to school property! Is that clear?" she said with a slightly demonic voice.

Mackenzie gritted her teeth and looked away. "Yes, ma'am"

Her mother's eyes returned back to normal, but she gave Nate the same cold look. "It's a stupid idea to be doing all this around the uninitiated. It will draw all sorts of negative attention"

Mackenzie looked at her surprised. "Huh?"

"We'll speak about this later!" Her mother said as she walked past them. The air around them felt as if the heat got sucked out of the building.

On her desk was a family picture with the pregnant school nurse huddled up to a huge burly mountain of a man with melons for biceps and hands the size of dinner plates. Mackenzie and three other siblings sat in front with herself and a brother inheriting their father's physique, and a brother and sister that appeared normal. Something about that man told you that he would end you in the most gruesome way possible. Mackenzie leaned over and whispered to him. "Sorry...my parents might be super scary, but they keep the peace around here"

She tried to think of a better way to have fun before a new idea popped up. "Hey! You wanna go out in the forbidden woods?" she asked.

He always kept her in the corner of his vision, seeing the wavering effect. It wavered more when she was eating. He saw her wolfing down her food. "It's almost as if she's some sort of animal," he thought. Soon, he saw her get up and start to walk away. He took this as his cue to go with her.

He found that they ended up in the gym. He watched her get everything set up for the game. He looked at the dodgeballs that were lined up in the center of the court. He took a deep breath and walked out to th his side of the court and saw that others followed suit. He mentally groaned as they followed him out to the court, counting every person who went with him.

10 people in all, including Nathan.

The cue for the game to start was when everyone started to run towards the center line, most of the balls were on his kid's side. Then, he noticed the spiking effect. Every single person threw their ball at her almost at the same time. Then, she jumped. She jumped would be an understatement. It's as if she launched up and over every single ball, this jump was high. Just like her spiritual energy. It skyrocketed when she did, giving him near confirmation. She isn't human.

He then locked eyes with her. It seemed like she was only after one person. She flipped her ball, only one out of many now that most were on her side. Another ball was slowly rolling onto his side of the game and his initial reaction was to take it, seeing how everyone was expecting him to do so. He casually walked to it and picked it up.

He then focused and felt his spiritual energy enter the ball. He smiled and took the energy out of the ball, returning it to himself. He than looked at Mackenzie. "Time to test the waters for myself," he thought. He then, using no spiritual energy, threw the ball. He saw another spike from her as she threw hers in response. Her ball went curved around his and he saw it coming. It was then, that he decided not to dodge it.

It connected with his face, although that had a minimal effect on him compared to what he saw. When he was hit by it, he saw something dark. Visions of a beast, something growling, something big, and something deadly. He gasped back into reality and saw that he was on his back on the floor of the gym.

He saw that Mackenzie was helping him up and she slung his arm over her shoulder. She started to walk him somewhere. They soon ended up in the nurse's office. Soon enough, Mackenzie and the nurse started to argue. It seemed like this had happened before. He stood there, listening to their conversation and analyzing it. He was snapped back out from his thoughts by a question.

"You're our new neighbor aren't you?"

He blinked twice from the surprise of this question. This could only mean that the two girls were related, family members.

"Yes, I am," he said. "Also, don't worry about it, I'm the one that challanged her so it's fine. Besides, I'm pretty sure I'm one of the few people she won't be able to kill, heh." Nathan then looked at Mackenzie. "Remember, that was only the practice round. In the next two rounds, I'm gonna show you just what I'm really capable of."

He had only one goal in mind, establishing that no matter what, that no matter what she is or how powerful she is, that he can be a real threat to her. He smiled determinedly at her. This time, he would play to win.

She slugged him in the arm as they sat down at the table. "I'll make sure not to make you pick up too many of your teeth from the floor" she said before she pulled out her huge lunch box that took up nearly the whole backpack. She pulled out loads of meat heavy food items, which there was so much protein that it was no wonder why her muscles were so large. When she started to eat, it was a sight to behold as her voracious appetite made quick work with the huge meal that should have been impossible to eat within the time allotted for lunch. She wolfed down everything in just fifteen minutes, and no one seemed to care. Actually, the newer students and freshmen were shocked, but the others were desensitized to her binges.

She stuffed the lunchbox with the empty containers before she quickly disappeared. Unbeknownst to him, She had managed to run to her locker drop off her lunchbox, and she swapped her backpack with text books and homework for the latter half of school then she rushed back to the gym, and she opened the supply closet with a key someone copied for her. She pulled out a couple of dodgeballs and laid them out on the floor before students came flooding in. She was not going to wait, and the newcomers unwisely took part in the unfair game—10 against 1. They immediately grabbed the balls on the line, and which to their shock, she leaped a good five feet off the ground and caught one ball with the rest flying beneath her. They realized that all the balls were on her side of the court, and she mockingly placed them in a row three feet from the line where they would have to lean over the line to grab them. The students laughed at the newcomers as she stood back on the other side of the court with a ball in hand.

She looked at Nate tauntingly flipping the ball up and down expecting him to be the one to defiantly come up to grab the ball. She allowed him to do so having a particular amusing play in mind. The newcomers thought she was being a good sport and started to make their way, which to their horror, upon Nate throwing the ball at her, she threw the ball in such away that it curved around his, and it smashed into is face with such force that it sounded like a gun went off in the gym. She caught his ball and finished the play by hitting a junior varsity tightend in the gut as he tried to rebound the ball that bounced off Nate's face. This hit sounded way more brutal, and the football player fell to the ground gasping for breath. "Out" she said calmly. The rest of the students gave up, and the crowd laughed at the spectacle considering this to be a form of hazing.

After the fun, Mackenzie came over to nurse his swelling face. "You know you could have given up...why did to put yourself out there knowing it was suicide to do so?" she asked. The football was on the ground wallowing around after getting the wind knocked out of him. It was clear that she held back a great deal with Nate seeing the 250 lbs kid brought to his knees from a simple dodgeball. She found Nate to be very interesting indeed, and she walked him to the nurse's office for an ice pack. Her mother was the school nurse, and she saw Nate's face and the circular mark.

"I thought I told you to hold back...and what did I tell you about aiming at the head?" She spoke harshly.

Mackenzie gulped and looked away. "I did mom...It's dodgeball" she muttered.

Her mother was surprisingly an average height and curvy, but her authoritative voice told you that she had a dark side to her comforting motherly appearance. "Am I going to have to get your father to speak to you?" she asked.

Mackenzie's hairs stood up on the back of her neck and her eyes widened. "No mom! Nate challenged me, and I was just showing him that I bite as hard as I bark"

Her mother gave him and ice pack from the freezer, and she sighed wearily. "Mackenzie...you can seriously kill someone with your strength. I think you should have a talk with your father. He's the one that your uh...gifts take over from" she said.

"Tch, he's just going to yell and scream at me"

"You're his daughter, and he knows what you're going through. He's hard on you because he loves you. He doesn't want you to have a life that he's had!" Her mother said before she looked at Nate. "You're our new neighbor aren't you?"

He felt something was off. It wasn't anything she said, nor was it anything she had done. Every single instinct told him: "back off," or "don't provoke her,". But he felt that he should start his true inspection from here on out, friend or no friend. Whatever the case, he had to do this. To try and estimate what he would be up against in not dodgeball, but in the long run.

"Oh yea? Well you're in for a surprise."

He focused and blinked, seeing something emitting from everyone. Most people weren't the same. He could see small streams of different colors emit from different people. Spiritual energy. He didn't use this much but he had to make an exception for her. It didn't seem like other people's. Her's was wavering. And it seemed that the more pumped up she got, the more it wavered. This wasn't just excitement, he knows excitement. Spiritual energy glows more upon excitement, always staying in a steady stream. However, this was a wavering effect.

Only one way to find out.

He looked up at her with determination. "You're on."

Mackenzie giggled to herself realizing that he was looking straight at her chest and not her eyes. It was a typical reaction for a boy to do around a girl with large boulders. She spun around and grinned to herself after he answered her question. "Well, I watch a lot of horror movies. I have a lot of werewolf movies though" She said before she looked back at him winking when he mentioned that he would like to see her wolf. "I don't know if my wolf will want to see you just yet. She's a very shy one" she said before she slapped him on the back playfully when he challenged her. "Oh yea? Well, you're in for a surprise" she teased.

She knew he was talking shit, but she was determined to show him just how amazing she was. "You know we can sneak into the gym and settle this now!" she suggested. There were students that had overheard his challenge, and they began to spread the rumor throughout the school at light speed. She laughed evilly and knew that some of the students would want to play just because of how dangerous it got.

If there's some thing that she's right with, it's that he really didn't pay attention. Not that that's exactly a bad thing. He only pays attention for what he feels that he should pay attention to. Such as looking for any other loners to potentially be friends. But it was when she pointed out her height when he noticed that he had to look up at her.

Every time he tried to say something, he was cut off by her. He mentally sighed to himself, paying attention that she seemed to be a talker. He waited until she seemed finished. His cue to talk was her going silent while smiling at him.

He then took a deep breath and started to talk. "I do like horror movies, I don't exactly play sports because I've never really been able to get into any of them, even though I'm decent, and I don't specifically have any hobbies or anything. I just do what I do most of the time. Also, you having a pet wolf, that sounds pretty awesome, I'd like to go and check it out myself sometime. And if you want, I can play you in a round or two of dodgeball. I'm not half bad at it, so I fell that I could handle myself against you. No matter how many muscles or how big you are, I personally think I can take you."

"I'm in for it now," he thought. "First friend, and I'm already saying I can beat them in dodgeball even though I've never seen them play? It's cool I guess. I'll just do what I always do, play it to the best of my ability."

He then spoke to her again. "So how about it? You and me, one on one, dodgeball. Best of three. Practice rounds then the game starts. You choose the time and place."

Mackenzie was very amused with his reaction to her 'accidental' bump, and she found him to be cute with his awkwardness. She was going to have a lot of fun flirting with him, and she was going to keep track of how many times she can do it before he says something about it. For now, she was going to be subtle and under the radar with it.

She rolled her eyes at his reasoning. "You really don't pay attention much, but let me clue you in..." she said before she held her hand over her head. "See my height? I'm pushing six foot ten, and I got the biggest muscles in the darn school. Tell me that being this different is not going to attract negative attention?" she said before she turned around walking backwards. "I just got sick and tired of the bullying that I fired back...I held nothing back during dodgeball. I actually am the reason they stopped playing it after I gave three people concussions" she said before she flashed him a playful smile. "I'm in my own group" she said before she giggled. "I adore wolves...did you know they make great parents? I know everything about them, and I have to take care of one at home" she said.

She thought of more questions. "Do you like horror movies? Do you play sports? What do you like to do for fun?" she asked all while giving him an attentive smile.

He wasn't exactly sure how to react to this. Her bumping into him didn't really seem like an "oopsie" moment. His thoughts were answered when he saw that grin from her face. "Act cool," he thought. "You only just met her, maybe she isn't like that. You should just give her the benefit of the doubt for now."

He then smiled and raised his hand and waved it in front of his face, as if he was pretending to brush aside the matter. "No problem, accidents happen," he said with a nervous chuckle. When she looked away his expression changed from a smile to a just plain awkward look. "I'm gonna have to keep an eye on her, see if she does anything like that again," he thought. His awkward look went back to a smile when she rose from putting her book and binder into her backpack. He saw her flip her backpack over her shoulder before she asked him a question.

"You know... you're the first boy brave enough to talk to me... or are you just so desperate you'll talk to anyone?" He was about to answer this when she popped another question. "Do you like wolves by any chance?"

This was a weird one. He assumed that wolves were her favorite animals. He decided to answer both questions.

"Well, from what you said, that means that either nobody wants to talk to you or you did something to make that happen, so call it bravery or call it desperation. Because according to that, it's probably both, considering that everyone already had their own groups whereas I had to leave my group. And wolves, I think they're alright. Not that that's a bad thing, they just aren't my favorite animal. Not exactly my least favorite either if that makes any sense." He scratched the back of his head. "What about you? I'm assuming that wolves are your favorite animal."

There was a cute red headed girl that attended his school. She always wore unbutton plaid shirts over a tight black t-shirts that shown off her athletic figure but also her large breasts. Today her t-shirt said, "I like warm hugs". Her jeans were converted into shorts where it was torn off at the upper thigh and to cheat violating dress code, she hid showing skin with black spandex that went down to her knees. She was charming, quick-witted and very funny, but she is also the biggest bitch you will know, and she takes little shit from anyone before she will unleash hell fire upon you. She had gained this reputation and they would call her butch or shehulk.

When a new kid moved into her neighborhood, she was curious about him, but that attention to him grew into a crush. She was very torn on whether or not to pursue him as she was way stronger and taller than he was, but she was a lady still. She kept her distance hoping to see some reciprocal feelings in him, but that quickly was confirmed when he confronted her after class. A huge blush crept upon her cheeks as her beautiful green eyes looked away timidly. "Um, My name is Mackenzie Moon" she said before she laughed at him. "Well duh! Obviously you're not from around here, that's what being new is, isn't it?" she teased him. She stood up after she picked up her binder and book, but she looked back at him as she intentionally bumped her rear into his crotch as she leaned in to grab her backpack. "Oopsie, sorry about that!" she said with a flirtatious grin. She stuffed her things in before she flipped her backpack over her shoulder. "You know...you're the first boy brave enough to talk to me...or are you just so desperate you'll talk to anyone?" she asked as she walked with him out of class.

She noted that all the students were talking about her, and she rolled her eyes annoyed with the gossip crowd. She did admit that she liked the attention as it took away from the popular kids. "Do you like wolves by any chance?" she asked him innocently. She wanted to test the waters with him as she was already making that conscious decision to put him in potential mate category or just a friend. Although she knew what he had encountered a couple nights before. Like anyone could ignore a helicopter crash, but more importantly it happened in the forest where there was an extremely high activity with the supernatural, and it happened during the full moon. She was not going to tell him about her secret, but she was curious as to his thoughts and perceptions about the experience.

He couldn't even tell what was going on at this point in time. He kept blacking out and hearing his ears ring when he was awake, and having strange nightmares when unconscious. Yet it felt like it was all happening at once, one second he'd be awake, the next he'd be out. His vision was blurry and his sense of touch felt murky, as if everything he touched felt alien to him.

He was finally awake for a period of time now, the feeling of unconsciousness slipping away from him and being replaced with a headache and pain in various other areas. He could hear the wind whistling past himself as the ringing slowly faded away. His blurred vision and sense of touch were also replaced with clear vision and the ability to make out what it was he could feel. He was moving fast, that much he could tell from his position. He was also laying facedown on something soft that seemed to be carrying him. Whatever it was, it was breathing heavily with each second as he heard a noise that sounded like an aircraft. A helicopter? He couldn't exactly tell what it looked like because his head was looking down and to the side, seeing grass, trees, leaves and dead twigs that was resting on the dirt pass by them in a flash.

In attempt to see what was carrying him, he struggled to look up, barely able to tell what it was with only the moon for light, until a brighter beam of light focused on them for a second before leaving them. Whatever it was, it was big. It had what he had assumed were pointed ears. Desperate to get a better look, he tried to sit up in a position he was more familiar with on the back of this creature until a wave of pain surged through his body making his muscles jerk slightly and a gasp to leave his mouth. The sound, he noticed, made the creature's ears perk up and he saw it turn it's head, an eye focused on him right before he fell off of the creature's back.

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He gazed out the window, seeing the trees pass by when his mom spoke.

"I'm really sorry again, Nathan." He didn't respond to the woman. "I know you're really upset, and I feel terrible, but it would be better. This position has a better pay and it's not too far from the city. We can go and visit every once in a while, go to a hotel, you can spend time with your friends on vacation, and you'll have fun, living in a small countryside town. I think you'll enjoy it."

"Abhor would be the more correct term for this," he thought to himself. He sat there, lost in thought as his mom rambled on about his one sided fate of living in a new town, with people he's never met before. While she was constantly trying to get him to believe that it was good, his mindset was that it would be the opposite. He continued to think to himself. "I'm a senior in high school, and just as the year started, it had to end early for me only to start fresh for not even a full year somewhere completely different. I wish that she had at least postponed the position for a while longer, just enough for me to get a job and save up money and maybe rent an apartment. I could make it work! I could totally make it work. At least that way I'd still be with my friends." He then saw something hiding within the trees of the nearby forest. It looked like an old house or something, but it was hard to tell due to most of it being behind cover from the road.

"Look, there's the town!"

Nathan looked forward and saw a few small buildings come closer and closer.

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He landed hard on his side, causing another wave of pain to surge through his body. Rolling over to his back, he could see stars slowly pop up, one by one, between the trees. "Beautiful," he thought. He could see the stars until an object flew overhead, a bright beam of light leaving it to rest on him got rid of the stars. He was now blinded as he heard something land near him. He heard what sounded like footsteps come closer and he could see a man with body armor on along with a helmet. He couldn't tell what the man looked like, but he didn't like the sight of the man due to him pointing a gun right at his face.

In response to this, he instinctively tried to bring his arms up above him to try and defend himself, failing and his arms falling back down. One arm was at his side while the other rested on his gut. He felt something sticky and warm there. He didn't dare to look. The man spoke while facing him, but not talking to him.

"Get another one down here, he's secured."

A moment later he heard something else land, he assumed it was another one of those guys. One of them grabbed his arms while the other grabbed his legs, causing adrenaline to stir within him. When they lifted him, he wiggled his body and raised his arms above his head, smacking the guy holding his upper body right under the chin in the helmet while kicking the other one square in the front of that helmet. This made them drop him and he once again felt pain but he didn't care. He rolled over and used what little strength he could muster and struggled to crawl away before one of them grabbed his foot, trying to pull him back.

"No," he yelled. Just after this, he heard a growling sound before he saw something bound in from the darkness and tackle the man grabbing him, making him let go. The boy turned around and saw the creature grab hold of the helmet with it's mouth and shake the man as if he were a rag doll, hearing a cracking sound only a second after shaking him. The other man saw what had happened to his comrade and set his gun on the creature with a yelp. Right before he fired, the creature jumped straight to the side, literally dodging bullets. The flashes of light made the boy close his eyes slightly to be able to see through the gunfire. The creature connected on all fours with a nearby tree and didn't even spare a second before bouncing off and leaping behind the man. The man barely had time to turn his head before the creature tackled him, putting all of it's weight onto the now downed man. The creature then growled once more and bit the helmet of the man, and pulled with its weight still pinning the man down. It wasn't long before the boy heard another cracking sound and see the man go limp. The creature then dropped the body, causing it to just fall to the side with no support whatsoever.

It then looked up at the helicopter and growled again. It quickly jumped and ricocheted from the trees again, this time continuing the jumps in rapid succession, one after the other, going upward. When it was at the top of the tree line, it then jumped for it, higher than one would've thought possible, and right into the open door of the helicopter. Nathan couldn't see what had happened inside, but whatever it was, it couldn't have been pretty as he saw the helicopter go careening side to side.

He then groggily stood up, feeling another wave of pain that was overpowered by the immediate need for escape. He had started to limp away when the helicopter started to spin out of control and start to fall to the ground. He turned around to see it and saw something leap from the helicopter as it came closer and closer to where Nathan was. Seeing this made him raise his pace, his slow limping now became a desperate running limp. It was only seconds later that he heard it hit the ground some meters behind him and a wave of heat push against his back, sending him flying forward.

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He sat there in that old wooden desk staring down awkwardly at the table before himself. "Just a few seconds left," he thought. He moved his gaze upward and to the side, setting his sights on another student. "Possibly my first friend of the year if not my only friend, and if I do make any friends." He had been there for a week now and still had not gathered up the courage to talk to anyone. Everyone there seemed to have their own cliques and groups that it was most likely too late for someone like him. Except for one person. The student that he was gonna talk to, he noticed was always alone. In home room, lunch, and even after school. "A loner and a loner, we already have something in common." He looked up at the clock at the front of the room when he heard a loud buzzing sound. The bell for first lunch. Everyone had started to move out of their seats, some joining others, and others going to meet their people at the cafeteria. Nathan got up from his desk, and noticed that the student had dome the same from the corner of his eye. He took a deep breath and walked as casually as he could to the door and waited for the crowd of students to pass. When they had all filtered out, he walked out the door with his potential friend to be right behind him. He took another deep breath and turned around to greet them.

"Hi," he awkwardly said. "I'm Nathan Salem." He then just as awkwardly held his hand out. "I'm new around here cuz I just moved recently. What's your name?"