"This is way too weird to be a coincidence."

I rub my right forearm and nod in agreement. A large, vibrant purple bruise-like thing has appeared on not only my arm, but the arms of my friends, both near and far away. The one to speak is Brittany, my waifu. She's the shortest of our group, being somewhere around 5'. She's very 'fluffy' compared to me, but I like her that way. She's currently wearing grey sneakers, a gray tee shirt and blue jeans, her black glasses, and her shoulder-length blonde hair is tucked behind her ears. She's also the youngest at fifteen.

Sitting next to her is Dani, the oldest of us at eighteen. Her dark brown hair is shorter than Brittany's and is tipped with blonde. She's got the darkest skin, but it's more of a sun-kissed dark than race dark. Her clothes consist of denim shorts, black converse, and a red tee with white embroidery all over the front. Dani's more heavy set and shorter than I am, but slimmer and taller than Brittany.

Nate is on the other side of me, across from Dani. He's an seventeen-year-old Asian-American with a darker skintone than my olive, but is much lighter than Dani (Brittany's pale as heck). He's recently shaved his head, and is in his normal outfit of black jeans, a black-and-grey hooded jacket, and black sneakers. He also wears glasses, but they're plain and black.

"Yeah," Dani says. "It's not normal, but what are they, and why do we have them?" No one has a real answer, so we all head for the Web for one. Nothing pops up that has a cement connection, so we just start throwing ideas at the wall. Nate suggests that an assassin has been hired to kill the lot of us, and went and marked us for death. Dani and Brittany say that a spellcaster has cursed us and these marks are the first telltale sign.

"Well, as amusing and paranoia-inducing as these thoughts are," I say. "I really don't want to ponder about it too much."

"What?" Brittany asks. "You have an amazing imagination!" I blush a little. "Why not theorize?"

I shrug. "Because that's all it will be - theories and imaginary scenarios. I kind of want to leave it to surprise me." My friends murmur responses, and I take out my iPod touch to message my online friend, Ethan. Though I've never seen him - we live in different states - we're good friends and have helped each other through painful things. He's told me about a large purple bruise on his right arm, so I quickly fill him in and tell him he's not alone.

godzillafan21:so this is a thing?

KitsunePhantom09: Yeah, I guess. At least we're in this together, huh?

godzillafan21: should i be scared?

KitsunePhantom09: Yeah. Probably. Be very afraid.

For a majority of the day, the marks didn't do anything for anyone. They were just blotches of color on our skin. But, when twilight fell, my bruise started hurting. "Ow," I mutter, holding my arm close. It's throbbing underneath my flesh, a bone rattling ache that burns through my muscles and makes the skin tender to the touch.

I retreat to my bedroom with my old dachshund Gizmo at my side, and sit on the bed. Gizmo jumps onto the bed by using the toy chest my sisters rarely use and cuddles up beside me, wary of my affected arm. She whines and nuzzles me, and that raises a red flag. Dogs are supposedly more sensitive to supernatural phenomenon than humans, so, is she sensing something I'm blind to?

"What is it, baby puppy?" I asks, letting her crawl into my lap. She sits and places her paws on my breasts to balance herself, whining louder now, which only confuses me more. "What?" I repeat, louder. "I don't understand. What's wrong?"

As if that question was set as a cue, the oddly-colored flesh on my right arm comes alive with an imaginary fire, and I scream in return. I cradle my arm, though it doesn't stop the burning, and chew on various parts inside my mouth to keep quiet. Gizmo barks and howls, able to tell I'm in serious pain but unable to do anything about it. The burning begins to focus and move, like someone's drawing on my arm with a blowtorch or rubbing near-molten metal against it. I groan against the inside of my mouth, refusing to make even more loud noises, until the pain vanishes and gets replaced with a gracious cooling sensation.

I sigh as the cool chases away the pain and burning, and hold up my arm to survey the damage. Instead of burnt flesh, it's actually a pretty marking now, looking like a backwards 'c' with sharp angles and spikes, and a smaller, thinner version inside it. The lines are bold and a deeper, more regal shade of purple than the bruise it formed from. A familiar sight comes to mind, and I gasp and sit up quickly, startling Gizmo off my lap. A small noise emits from my iPod repeatedly, alerting me to certain people's messages. I retrieve my device and look at the first few words of the messages.

zebra3778: OMG did you feel that pain?!

snakeminigun: Holy shit, what was that!?

bluelily: WTF just happened?!

godzillafan21: Carol? did anything happen to you just now?

With vigor, I send out a group message via KiK.

KitsunePhantom09: I see we have several similar experiences…

bluelily: dude, I barely avoided being sent to the hospital!

snakeminigun: so, we all had that wicked pain happen?

zebra3778: pretty much.

godzillafan21: does anyone else have a weird tattoo on their arms?

At this, I snap a picture of my 'tattoo' and post it, prompting the others to do the same. Dani posts one looking like a tribal drawing of a predator's hind leg. Brittany posts a pair of wings connected to a pair of smaller ones. Nate has a dragon's head. Ethan has a clawed hand.

And I almost drop the device in shock.

I recognize these marks. I know exactly what they're from and why they shouldn't exist.

KitsunePhantom09: Alright guys. I have some news and a bit of a confession.

KitsunePhantom09: I know what these marks are.

zebra3778: what?!

snakeminigun: how?

bluelily: you didn't say anything before!

KitsunePhantom09: I didn't know what they were before. Now that I've seen them for what they truly are, I can say what they are - marks of an Aztec deity.

I don't get a response right away, so I launch into the story behind them - how they were featured in an anime I love, that they were bestowed by Quetzalcoatl, and that they weren't supposed to be purple, but red. Thunder rolls outside my window, so I quickly tell them to sleep on it and meet up tomorrow (except for Ethan, because he can't exactly do that) and sign off to let the iPod charge before we have an inevitable power outage. It's about ten at night, so I resign to calming Gizmo and curling up under the comforter, with a few questions swirling around in my head.