A/N Hey ya everyone, it's been a while since I posted a story over here. Bing's story will finish soon when I have an idea of what to do with it. I do hope I can finish this one, it feels like I will. A/N

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I keep secrets. They're not usually mine, I'm a pretty open person with other people, but with everyone else, I'm like a Fort Knox of secrets. People cheating on their math tests, chugging down Vodka in water bottles, burning down mansions in Connecticut... I've heard them all, seen them all, been told them all and been through them all, and after all that, my lips are sealed. The secret only in memory. It's amazing what you can see behind the masks of lies people make, hiding what's truly beneath.

Being a secret keeper has it's benefits, a plus when you're the Chinese kid in a suburban hell like Hopewell Junction. You get to know people, from those partying preps to those psudo-gangstas to just about everyone else. It's not like I go to any parties or anything like that, but sometimes it's better to watch and listen than actually being in the mess.

Then there was that time.

How I hate keeping secrets.

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It was a wintry evening. The snow was thick on the ground, but more importantly, on the roads as well. There wasn't any school today, and from the looks of the roads, tomorrow as well. I stayed in my warm home at my computer beating up yo-yo welding crossdressers and killer reptilian robots of Guilty Gear while surfing the net for things to do. I only went outside to help dad shovel the snow a little bit. I wanted to stay outside a bit after, go on a little hike in the snow covered woods of my backyard, I thought better of it, there's always tomorrow. Besides, snow blowing a descent-sized hill up and down was not an easy feat, it took everything out of me.

I spent the rest of the day on the computer, being the geek I am, and went to sleep with a monitor- induced headache. I expected that we wouldn't have school tomorrow, so I decided to stay up a bit a few hours longer than my usual ten o'clock bedtime. Okay, I'll be honest, it was about one o'clock in the morning when I decided to go to bed, but it's not like a regular night for most of us, right?

I was woken by a thud on the front door, the sound echoing through the two floors of the house.

It was about three in the morning according to the LED clock on my nightstand and I was instantly alert. The first thought that came to mind were that someone's car slid off route 376 and they needed help. My second thought was that there were burglars, even though Hopewell has never had any high crime above drug procession, anything can happen I suppose, an old guy could just go crazy and beat someone to death with a wheelchair or something. The third was that there was some drunk that crashed their car in our mailbox. (Though I couldn't imagine why anyone would go to a bar in this kind of weather now that I think of it.)

Whatever the case might be, I grabbed the wooden katana neatly placed on top of my dresser. Five dollars at the oriental shop, during it's closeout sale. The black paint was cracked and uneven in a few areas, unrecognizable Japanese characters were cut off center on one side of the shoddy wood blade.

I listened to the snores of my parents, and the louder snores of my little brother. They didn't seem to hear the noise, but they've been asleep longer than I have, so it's understandable. I gripped the nylon wrapped hilt of the sword and walked down the hallway like a samurai stepping forward into battle. I had to admit, the fact that I might actually need to use this made me feel pretty cool.

I crept down the stairs, and went down to the foyer. With my free hand, I opened the door slowly keeping myself behind it, my katana raised.

"Hello?" I asked, peeking my head from the door.

No answer, no one was even there, nothing but the visible steam of my breath, and the snow glistening in the moonlight.

I sighed, it must've been a fragment of a dream or something I thought, nothing but imagination. I was about to close the door when my eyes caught something on the doorstep.

There was a wolf, laying there, motionless, on the welcome mat.

I wasn't expecting that.