Zachariah Wilson was in the middle of a forest somewhere in northern Pennsylvania. The last few days had been a blur for him. It had been two days since the attack on Northwest High School. Today was a Wednesday, so it happened on Monday. That monday morning had been a normal morning for Zachariah. It was when he met his best friend, Natalie Sever, at the bus stop when things started being weird.

"Heya Zach," Natalie yelled as she ran down the driveway from her house. The bus stop was at the end of her driveway, so she always slept in late.

"Hey." Zach smiled as he saw his best friend running toward him. They had been friends for as long as he could remember. They probably met in kindergarten or something like that, he couldn't exactly remember. But he and Natalie have always been inseparable.

She looked really nice today. Surprisingly, she had her jet black hair pulled back into a ponytail. Today she wore her black AC/DC T-shirt and a pair of blue jeans. Pretty much the same outfit Zach had on except he wore a nave blue Blue Oyster Cult shirt and a baseball cap over his blonde hair. She looked pretty good for not being in any sports. She had a very toned body. Zach was letting his mind wander until Natalie's voice snapped him out of it.

"You do the English homework?"

"Uh...yeah... course."

"Something wrong," She asked. He looked in her eyes. Those light blue eyes, with the hint of purple to them. He found it hard to lie to her when he looked into her eyes.

"No. I'm fine," He lied. The fact of the matter was something was bothering him. Earlier, before Natalie had come out, he heard a voice. A male's voice say to him "Be prepared my son. Today will be challenging." Now he knew that that wasn't right. His father was a million miles away.

He was living in Japan. He moved after Zach was born. Zach had asked his mother why he moved, but she never wanted to talk about it. He shook his head and came back to reality. The bus was screeching to a halt at their stop. As Zach and Natalie got on, Zach had heard a strange noise. Almost like a hissing. He looked out the window to see two yellow eyes staring back at him. Weird, he thought.

"Hey man! Over here!" Zach saw his friend Joel Tarling sitting in the second seat from the front. Joel had just moved to to northwest high school at the beginning of this year, and had become one of Zach's best friends. Joel was a pretty cool kid in zach's eyes. He loved to play music like Zach. In fact he almost always played the drums when Zach practiced guitar.

Joel was about 17 and a pretty good looking guy. He had very curly dirty blonde hair along with brown eyes. The only problem was that his legs were messed up so he had to walk with crutches. Zach walked ovwer to Joel and sat next to him. "Whats up with you man," Joel asked. "You look shaken up or something."

"I keep seeing weird things. Like...well nevermind, you wouldn't understand."

"Alrighty then," Joel said with a sceptical tone. "If you need to talk im here."

"Ill remember that." Zach leaned back in his seat and shut his eyes. When he opened them next, they had arrived at the school." Joel was shaking Zach's arm.

"Wake up. We're at school."

"I'm up. I'm up." Zach shook his head as he stood up and helped Joel out of his seat onto his crutches. Zach and Joel stepped off the bus and waited for Natalie to get off.

"Hey lazy bum," she said to Zach. "I could hear you snoring." She laughed and said "hi" to Joel. Joel snickered and said hi back and the three friends walked into the school.

"Oh yeah," Joel said out of the blue. "I have to go talk to one of my teachers. Ill catch you guys at lunch." Joel hobbled off on his crutches leaving only Natalie and Zach As they were walking in, natalie spotted one of the girls on the cheer squad. She couldn't remember the girls name, but thats not what bothered her. What bothered her was that where the girls legs should be, there were two snake tails. She grabbed Zach's shirt sleeve. She leaned over and whispered into his ear. "Zach look at that girl's-"

"Yeah I see it," Zach cut her off. "Ignore it."

"How can I ignore it? There's a snake woman in our school," she said a little louder.

"Natalie it's-"

"Zach! What if she wants to kill us! What if she's going to blow up the school?"

"Who's gonna blow up the school?" Natalie jumped a little when a voice from behind her said this. Natalie turned to see her best friend April Esmond. April was a nice girl and head been friends with Natalie and Zachariah since fifth grade. April was a very pretty girl. She was a cheerleader, and had a verty toned and athletic body, but she didn't show it off like most other girls.

She almost always wore a black hoodie sweatshirt with baggie jeans, and he favorite blue beret, wich people said complimented her grey eyes. All that plus her pretty smile and her long brown hair, though it was frizzy, made her a very cute girl, and the object of affection for almost all the juniors and sophomores in the school.

"Uhm," Natalie stumbled, realizing she had spoken a little louder than she had intended to.

"Noboy's gonna blow up the school," Zach said, saving Natalie an explenation. He got the group walking again and they resumed talking in front of Natalie and Zach's anatomy class."Natalie was talking about a new game she got a couple days ago." Aprils eyes shot over to natalie and her eyebrows raised.

"You got a new game aned you didn't tell me! We're best friends girl!" The truth about April was that her personality was nothing like how her looks suggested. Though she was a cheerleader, she was a hardcore videogamer. She loved RPG's the most but liked to play first person shooters with Natalie when they had their weekly frida game night.

"Yeah I did," Natalie said.

"Well what game?"

"Destroy All Humans 3"

"Sounds great!" April had a huge grin on her face. "We're definitly playing that on friday." The warning bell for class rang, signiling they only had one minute to get to class. "Well ill see you guys at lunch then. Toodooloo." April turned and walked away while Zachariah and Natalie entered the class. Niether of them really liked the class. Zach didn't like it because it was so easy for him, and natalie didn't like it because it was too hard for her. The classroom always had this weird smell to it, too. Zach didn't know how he knew this, but it smelled like iodine. The two took their seats at the back of the class and it was about ten minutes of Mr. Jones' talking until they zoned out. Natalie turned to face Zach and talk to him.

"Alright so you and I were'nt the only ones that saw that...that thing, were we, " Natalie asked Zach in a hushed whisper

"Well assuming how niether April nor Joel said anything about her, i'd say we were the only ones who saw it."

"But how is that even possible? Who wouldn't notice a girl with two snake tails roaming around the school?"

"Well you would assume people would, but apparently not." Zach noticed Natalie didn't look like herself. She looked different somehow. Scared. "Natalie. Are you okay?"

Natalie shook her head slightly. "Yeah. I'm fine." she smiled at Zach, which gave him some comfort.

"Good. I don't like it when you're scared." Zach looked Natalie in the eyes, but her eyes were shooting all across the room. He gave her a questioned look, when her eyes locked on one spot, dead in front of her. He turned his head in front of hime to see his teacher, Mr. Jones, standing in front of him. Mr. Jones was a short, pudgy jman. He had no neck and a big bushy mustache. Harry Potter fans called him Vernon, because he reminded them of Mr. Dursley. His voice was low and gruff.

"Having an interesting conversation with Ms. Sever, Zachariah?" He always called Zach by his full name, which Zach hated, and Mr. Jones knew Zach hated it.

"No sir," Zach said calmly.

"Well then perhaps you can answer my question."
"And what question would that be sir."

"What is the best way to treat a bleeding wound, if you have no professional help."

"I don't see.."

"Answer the question, Zachariah."

Zach tried his best to stay calm. " First you wouuld want to elevate the wound, above the heart of course. Then apply direct pressure to it, with a clean cloth, as to stop the bleeding. Keep the pressure applied for ten to fifteen minutes. Once the bleeding stops, clean the wound with Hydrogen Peroxide, then apply a bandage. If it's a serious wound, splint it to avoid any movement, as to stop the bleeding from restarting," Zach said almost all in one breath and without stuttering. Mr. Jones grunted and walked back to the front of the class and continued his lecture on the bone structure of the human chest. Zach turned back to natalie to see that her eyes were as big as dinner plates.

"What?"

"You just answered that question perfectly. I can't believe it. How did you do that."

"Just said what came to mind."

"I see," Natalie said, although not entirely convinced. Anataomy ended and the friends went through their day until lunch. After lunch the day went by like normal. Then came biology, which all four friends were in. They all sat at the back table that was to the far right, next to the counter that had the class pets, Amber the lizard, aquarium. Zach always ended up zoning out and watching Amber just go about her day.

Today she was just basking on a bramch, soaking up the heat from her lamp. Except something was different about her. She looked bigger than usual. Zach figured it was just his imagination and turned back to his friends. About twenty minutes passed when Zach looked back at Amber, and this time she was definitly bigger. She was about as big as her aquarium. Which was not normal at all. Suddenly the glass cracked and amber grew to the size of the classroom. The students and teacher screamed and ran out of the class, all except for April, Joel, Natalie, and Zach. They all stood staring at the lizard, who now had 3 giant snapping snake heads on long necks, attached to one giant muscular, mottled green body.

"A hydra! I knew I smelled something," Joel said. "But I didn't think it would be something as dangerous as a hydra!" The hydra hissed and struck towards joel but he threw his crutches away and jumped back. "Well," He yelled at his friends. "Attack it or move!" Joel grabbed his pencil and it shifted into a bronze spear. Joel threw it at the creature as Zach, Natalie, and April ran behind the teachers desk.

"Joel! What the heck is going on," Natalie yelled

"It's a hydra," Zach yelled to her

"April was just stunned at what was going on. Joel was fighting off a hydra with a spear. Joel threw the spear and it struck the hydra in the chest. The monster let out a giant hiss and wailed. It began to disintgrate around the wound.

"Guys come on!" Joel yelled. "We have to get out of here. No doubt there's more monsters here."

Natalie, Zach, and April ran out from behind the desk and followed their friend who was running out a hole in the wall that the monster had made with his tail. Zach took a look back at the school and had a feeling he would never see it again.