Chapter 1

-- How it Started --

“Who do you think you’re talking to?! I never—!!”

I rolled my eyes as the teacher yelled at me in the hall about manners and why you’re supposed to respect your elders. She was probably mad at me again for embarrassing her again in front of the whole class when she spoke incorrectly. I thought she would appreciate the fact that I was helping her teach the class how to speak properly but no. She has to throw a fit! I mean, she’s an English teacher and she still can’t talk correctly!

The very moment the lecture was finished, the bell rang for next period so I sighed, realizing that I had to make up missed work on the last day of school now because the stupid crap head decided to talk to me during my free time! I mean, if she wants to lecture me she should do it in her own time! That’s what my parents taught me! To do things you wanna do in your own time! Seriously! I wanted to punch that— that teacher in the face!

Taking my books, I headed towards the bathroom, and on the way my friend Devonna found me and started to walk with me. The annoying thing was she wouldn’t shut up! She never ran outta questions! It was very annoying most of the time, but in this instance she was asking questions I felt like answering so I didn’t mind… as much.

“So, what did she yell at you for this time?” she asked.

I gave her a weird look, “Why do you need me to answer? You were there.”

“Ooh… she got mad at you again for correcting her,” she said.

I spent the next period answering questions, while trying to wash off the spit that came flying out like jets outta the teacher’s mouth, and I could’ve swore that I heard her goober blobs saying “Ha, ha! It’s Emma! Food!!” In the end, couldn’t get the feeling off of the loogies that infected my clothes.

Devonna sighed, “Too bad, that red spaghetti strap looked sexy on you. It’s really too bad she had too spit all over it.”

Still rubbing the shirt violently, I answered, “Yeah, I liked this shirt too. It goes really well with my cargo pants. But you know I really couldn’t care less about being… sexy.” (Something about that word bothered me… and still does…)

“Well, it’s only like you not to care,” She replied. “The day you do care will be the end of the world.”

I smirked. She knew me since sixth grade, and she knew just as much as my other friend Breanna who had known me since kindergarten, but then again, there’s not much to know about me. So after I felt that the loogies had gone away, I continued to talk to Dee in the bathroom until the bell rang.

Finally, lunchtime; my favorite time of day; the time of day I get to sit with my friends and steal their French fries when they’re not looking. I sat down next to Destiny who immediately started talking to me. It wasn’t like her to talk so much but then again, she was talking about what she was going to be doing over the summer. It was like her. Well, after she was finished talking to me, Devon started talking to me, so without hesitating, I tuned her out but regretted it soon after when she asked me, “Don’t you think so?”

I was left no option but to give her a blank stare signaling that I didn’t know what the question was about so she immediately rolled her eyes.

“You have to stop doing that or you’re gunna lose a lot of friends!” she told me.

I shrugged, “And? It would make my life quieter.”

Devon rolled her eyes, “So what’s all this crap I hear about wanting a big adventure?! Huh?! If you go on an adventure your life’s gunna be—!”

I smirked and waved a finger, “There’s a difference between a chaotic life and a noisy life. A noisy life is with a lot of noise, chaotic life just has a lot of violence and violence isn’t necessarily loud.”

Devon shook her head and let out a big sigh then went to a different table with different friends, so I went back to daydreaming about a perfect life, which was not going to happen. Remember that, I said not going to happen, not.

I went outside with Devonna, Devon, and Miranda for the first time the whole school year and soon afterwards regretted that too because I found myself dodging fists, hair grabs, kicks, and all other kinds of attacks. The crowds that had gathered around were cheering for me for some reason yet I wasn’t really friends with most of them… actually I wasn’t friends with any of them! But I pushed that to the back of my mind. Now I was thinking on how I got into this situation.

“What is your problem?!” Devonna shouted.

The guy pushed her, “You’re my problem! You cheated on me!”

“No I didn’t! You’re just a paranoid freak! With a hot body…” she retorted stupidly.

He raised a hand to slap her, but I stepped in front of her and took the blow instead. They both seemed surprised, but then I turned my head so I was looking straight into his eyes and shot him a malicious stare. I noticed that as he stared into my emerald eyes, he started to get nervous, but before the fear was at it’s peak, he threw a punch so I blocked with an arm. I pushed Dee to the ground so that she wouldn’t get hurt in the fight and dodged the next ten blows.

Finally, some teachers came over and stopped him, but they didn’t need to restrain me because they could clearly see I wasn’t about to attack anyone so I really don’t know why they sent me down to the office with the faggot. I didn’t hurt the guy! All I was doing was dodging and blocking!

I didn’t get any punishment, but the other guy got his high school diploma taken away, so now, even if he did graduate, he was not going to get a diploma. All is fair in school and war, right? Well, it was annoying afterwards because everyone I ran into wanted to talk to me about the fight; if you can even call it one.

Finally, my quiet time came. I turned on my Discman and started on my way home, humming along with my favorite tunes, but maybe ten minutes into the walk, it ran out of batteries right before my favorite song came on.

“Ugh, crap, I didn’t bring extra batteries,” I murmured to myself.

I heard a car beep, and I looked over my shoulder only to be struck with terror as a car sped towards me. I snapped out of my paralysis and ran across the bridge as fast as I could and, right as the car would’ve hit me, entered the forest. I snickered as I heard a loud crash, realizing the stupid idiot had hit a tree so I looked back to see the sight. Lo and behold, out came the faggot I had had a fight with, but despite it was his fault for crashing, he started beating on the car and swearing as if it was the car’s fault.

Finally, after some hours of running, the sun was setting; I was tired and dehydrated, so I trudged along, thinking that it might’ve been better to get run over than to run in the forest for hours.

Just as I though that, something in the distance caught my attention. It was a huge stonewall and a gate. So now being extremely intrigued by this structure, I forgot about my fatigue and ventured towards it in curiosity. Then after examining it a moment, I knocked on the gate a couple times.

“Hello?! Hello?!” I shouted.

I shrugged and started to push on the gates only to find out they were surprisingly light and took almost no effort to open despite their size.

I walked in and found myself in a clearing with a huge stone in the middle, and walking up to the stone, I examined it, finding absolutely nothing fascinating about it… until I got around to the other side and found some strange, ancient looking inscriptions carved into the stone.

There were even translations above it.

I raised an eyebrow as I read, “I want to come and witness the heirs of the gods when they come together. What does it mean by that?”

Suddenly everything went white.