Chapter One

Stranger at the Window

I ran through the darkness away from certain death. I wasn't sure who it was exactly that was chasing me, but I knew I had to get away. The sound of rushing water reached my ears, as if there were a stream nearby. That was the only noise I could hear besides the echoing footsteps behind me. They were getting closer.

Suddenly, the footsteps ceased.

I turned around to try to see through the gloom, perhaps to spot my pursuer, maybe even challenge him. Now it was just the sound of my heavy breathing. The silence wore on and I feared that my heart would burst from pounding against my chest so hard.

A tiny speck of light appeared some ways away in front of me. As it slowly made its way toward me, the dim light grew brighter and brighter. When it came closer, the light revealed the outline of a figure. The figure wore a black cloak with the hood pulled up over its head. I could faintly see the long blond hair spilling out down to their waist. That hair was familiar, but I couldn't quite figure out why…

The woman drew nearer and I became more and more afraid. The object she held in her hand was now clearly visible--a sword. The hilt was pure black and the blade was just as dark; almost as if it were made of the shadows surrounding us…

That was when she was close enough to strike. The glow of the sword didn't illuminate her face at all, but as she raised it over her head to kill me, her ice-blue eyes shifted to black.

I woke with a start, panting and sweaty. My mind still swirled with the aftermath of my nightmare. My eyes practically bulged out of their sockets, darting around my bedroom at maximum speed. Would the strange woman still be there, standing at the edge of my bed ready to finish what my being conscious so suddenly broke off?

I was alone. The only sound was coming from the wind blowing through the tiny crack under my window that wasn't shut quite hard enough. I rolled out of bed and padded over, pushing down on the window and closing it. The noise ceased and the room became eerily quiet. I took a deep breath and when I exhaled, it came out as a swirling mist.

The thermostat was at the very end of the hall just outside my mother's bedroom. I opened my door slowly, peering out with caution. It was dark, but silver moonlight poured in through the window and lit the way. I inched my toes to the extreme edge of my room, where the carpet met the hardwood floor. Carefully, I took a step.

It was cold. I nearly retreated back to my warm bed, but then I saw my breath whirling through the air around me and I kept going.

Creak.

I stopped dead, listening. As my heartbeat quickened, so did my breath; short, tiny wisps of mist. I made it the rest of the way, turned up the temperature, and ran back, shutting the door quickly. Then I crawled back into bed and curled up into a ball, shutting my eyes and taking a deep breath.

The morning dawned dim and cloudy. There were no birds to sing their morning songs, for they had all flown south for the winter. What else would you expect at the end of November?

I made my way down the hall to the bathroom, shutting the door and standing in front of the mirror. I saw more than registered the eyes staring back at me; a perfect mix between green and brown, they were a brilliant hazel. My hair fell in black waves, framing my pale face. I stared back at my reflection for a moment, and then brushed my teeth and carefully combed through my hair.

After slipping into a pair of jeans and my favorite blue t-shirt, I ran downstairs. My mom was sitting at the table sipping coffee and reading the latest Janet Evonavich book. I ran in, grabbed a granola bar out of the cabinet and picked up my backpack off the chair across from her.

"Kody," she said, "Aren't you going to eat breakfast?"

"I have a granola bar!" I called behind my shoulder and jogged out the front door. My mom worked at the hospital during the day and I never really got to see her much. I think she enjoyed the time in the morning when we could sit and talk about things, but I wasn't feeling very sociable.

I unlocked my old Nissan Altima and climbed in, blasting the heat. The little car was my dad's before he and my mom split up.

My parents got divorced when I was nine. I was an only child, and I didn't take it very well. But after a while, I got better. That's when the nightmares started. I always had strange and illogical nightmares. Most of them were about creatures that I had no name for, but lately they had been about the blonde-haired woman. And every night I dreamt of her, at the very end, right before I woke up, I died.

When I arrived at school, I parked in my usual spot near the gym and made my way to my locker. When I opened it, I looked at all the drawings I had hung on the inside. I wasn't the best artist, but I liked to draw. On the top, there was a picture of a woman with black hair, and I knew her eyes were blue even though the drawing was in black and white. Then after that, there was a strange creature that I often saw in my dreams. I didn't look at it long. Below the creature was a sword. I had the feeling that this was the sword the blonde-haired woman was carrying in my dream last night…

Suddenly, I looked up to see a flash of long blonde hair and I screamed. It wasn't a huge scream, but loud enough to startle the few people around us.

"What the hell?" Molly asked, her blue eyes wide. I drew a breath of relief.

"You startled me, that's all."

Molly shot me daggers and then leaned against the locker next to mine. "Awfully jumpy today, aren't we?" I shrugged, but she persisted. "Have any weird dreams last night?"

"Maybe."

"What about?"

Molly wasn't usually so interested in my dreams, but she stared at my drawings like they were freaking her out, especially the one of the woman with the black hair. It bugged me that I had no names for these women!

"The blonde-haired woman." I told her.

"Again?" she asked.

"Yeah." I said.

"That just proves it."

"Proves what?"

"That you are officially insane."

We walked silently to first period together and Molly didn't say anything else about my dreams, which was good because I didn't want to talk about them anymore.

Molly had been my best friend for…I couldn't remember how long. She was always outgoing and assertive, but never cruel. I loved her like she was my sister.

First period went by fast, but second period was the opposite. Our usual drama teacher was out sick, and we had a substitute. He had a balding head, and huge glasses that made his eyes look inhumanly large. About a month ago, drama was my favorite class, but then Adam came. Adam was a new kid at our school and had only come to Rocky Mountain High about a month ago. That's the school I went to. Adam was a senior, only a year older than me, and he acted like a total jerk all the time. Sure, he was gorgeous, but that didn't make it right. I don't know why he bothered me so much, but something about him just made me want to gag.

Adam walked in when the sub started taking role and sat in the very back of the auditorium, playing with the ring he wore on his right hand. It looked almost like a mood ring, but there was something different about it that I couldn't quite put my finger on…

Adam suddenly looked up and saw me staring, so I quickly turned around and sunk down into my seat. Why did those eyes have to be so intense?

For the rest of the period we just played games and I was glad to walk out of there and have a free period. I went straight to my favorite place in the whole school: the library. The minute I entered, I felt at home. I went over to the fiction section and started browsing for anything that looked promising. I saw Pride and Prejudice and grabbed it off the shelf.

"Jane Austen?" said a voice from behind me.

I turned around to see Adam looking at me thoughtfully. He ran his hand through his brown hair and crossed his arms over his broad chest. I ignored him and walked over to the check-out desk. Adam followed.

"You know what book you should be reading?" he asked, but I didn't answer. "Fine," he continued, "ignore me."

I sighed and looked up at him, only to be astounded once again by those eyes. They were the brightest green I had ever seen. "What do you want?" I asked, turning away.

"Do I need some kind of motive to talk to someone?" he said, his face oozing with false innocence. I snatched the book off the desk and said, "No, but the fact that you've never spoken a word to me before and now all of a sudden want to strike up a conversation leads me to believe that you do have some kind of motive." He blinked and I walked away, only to run into a murderous-looking Molly entering the library.

"Were you just talking to the new kid?" she asked. I hesitated.

"He talked to me first."

"Oh my God, Kody!" she turned and left, but when I went to follow her, she turned around and continued, "You know you shouldn't be talking to him! He's a weirdo!"

"But--"

"Don't talk to him anymore!" Molly stormed off and didn't say anything else. I kind of enjoyed the silence.

Lunch was…interesting. Molly had brought her lunch, so she left me stranded and alone in the lunch line. I snatched my pizza and saw Adam at the very back corner of the cafeteria. No one was sitting near him, so he had the whole table to himself.

When I had finished going through the line, I spotted Molly at our usual table and sat across from her, my appetite suddenly gone. We ate without too much conversation, and I had almost forgotten about my little encounter with Adam, but when I looked over to the back corner, he was there, staring right at me with those green eyes. I looked away quickly.

"Kody," Molly said suddenly. "Promise me that you won't talk to him." I knew instantly who she was talking about. "Okay," I replied, but deep down, I knew that was a promise I was going to break.

After lunch, I sat in English, a class I didn't have with Molly. I listened to Mr. Shuster's lecture on Shakespeare for almost half an hour before my stomach turned with a familiar feeling of unease. I looked out the window in the door.

Adam was just passing the classroom.

"Can I go to the bathroom?" I asked, looking up at Mr. Shuster with an inquiring expression. He looked back with startled eyes. "Yes, I suppose so." I jumped out of my chair and darted for the door, opening it and hearing it crash behind me. I saw Adam turning the corner to my left and I pursued him, calling out, "Hey!" He glanced back and attempted to speed up so as to avoid me, but I ran up to him and grabbed his arm, which was probably a mistake because I hadn't realized how big his arms were until now.

"What?" he asked, giving me a look of chagrin. I ignored it.

"Do you have a problem with me?"

"Oh, Ihave the problem?" He raised his voice a little. "Look, whatever I did to make you hate me so much, I'm sorry. And as for what happened in the library, I have nothing to say except, 'I'm sorry.' Maybe I was just trying to be nice." He stormed off then, and I stood there, speechless. Maybe it was a mistake to confront him like that…

A feeling of resentment sunk in and I carried it around for the rest of the day. When Molly and I walked to my car, she knew something was wrong. When she asked, I shrugged and told her it was nothing. She persisted.

"You talked to him, didn't you?" she said.

"Kind of."

"Ugh, I cannot believe you! And after I told you not to!" she exclaimed. I felt too bad to react and opened the door of my car on the driver's side. "Do you need a ride?" I asked Molly.

"No," she said with a frown, "I have volleyball practice."

Molly was the star player on the varsity volleyball team, and no one knew exactly how she was so good. Thus continues the mystery that is Molly.

I drove home and pulled into the driveway, my mom's car already there. I walked in the front door and dropped my backpack in the dining room. "Mom?" I called. I heard her from upstairs saying that she'd be right there, so I meandered over to the kitchen and got a glass out of the cabinet, glancing out the window over the kitchen sink. We lived in a particularly woodsy part of Colorado Springs, and our house was surrounded by a plethora of trees and shrubs, which was really all I could see out the window. I filled the glass with water and took a long sip. When I finished, I looked out the window again, but this time there was a man standing there. His face was covered in hideous scars, reaching from his hairline to the tip of his chin. He glared at me with dark, impenetrable eyes, and I gasped, dropping the glass of water in my hand and it shattered on the linoleum floor. I blinked, and the man was gone as quickly as he had come. In his place, a single black crow was perched on a tree branch. It made a loud caw and then flew off in the direction of the mountains, and I heard my mom running down the stairs.

"Kody, what on earth…" she saw the broken glass and my startled expression and started bombarding me with questions.

"Really Mom, I'm fine, it was only crow." It was only a crow. I couldn't decide whether I was trying to convince her or myself. It made no sense.

I went to bed early, Mom insisting that I needed rest; but I couldn't get the image of the creepy man out of my head. When I finally fell asleep, I had the weirdest dreams. Adam was present in one of them, strangely enough. It was sometime during the day, the sun beating down on us and warming our skin. I couldn't help noticing how his hair gleamed in the sunlight and he looked at me with an odd expression on his face. I didn't know what it was at first, but then I realized with a stab of surprise. It was affection. His green eyes sparkled with it, and he leaned in close to me…and then he kissed me. The weird thing was that I didn't stop him. In fact, I started kissing him back.

Suddenly, a dark figure appeared and I recognized it right away as one of the nameless creatures. It looked as if it were wearing a mask; it had big, bulging eyes and an impish smile. The thing cocked its head, reached its hand toward me and whispered "Let me in…"

I was wrenched into consciousness, my breath coming fast and hard. For the tiniest second, I thought I saw the creature standing right in front of my bed, but then it was gone, as if the wind had blown it away.

I heard the soft click of my window unlatching and then it began to open very slowly, inch by inch, until it was open wide. I held my breath.

"Hi Kody!"

"Ah!" I screamed, throwing my pillow at the assailant. It hit her with good accuracy, but I heard the muffled, "Kody, you idiot," and I realized who it was.

"Molly?"

"Yeah, no duh, Sherlock!" Molly threw my pillow back at me and I caught it, smiling nervously. "Sorry about that," I said.

"Oh, you should be. You know, that scream could have gotten me grounded…again. Why did you scream anyways?"

"Well, when someone comes through one's window, one doesn't always assume it's a good thing," I told her. "And, I thought I locked that window before I went to sleep…"

"I guess not," Molly answered quickly. She plopped down on the end of my bed and sighed. "Thanks for waking me up for nothing. I'm leaving." She got up and exited out my window, shutting it hard. I heard another click, as though she had locked it on her way out. I got up to check and my eyes flickered to the street below, where a streetlight glowed yellow. I saw a shadow underneath it, but couldn't see the person casting it. Sure it was just my mind playing ticks on me, I checked the window to find that it was, in fact, locked. I scratched my head and thought nothing of it.

Pulling back the covers, I climbed back in bed and closed my eyes for a moment, taking deep, even breaths. Slowly, I drifted back into an uneasy sleep.