Chapter 1

I walked through the crowds of people, dodging as many as I could. People kept bumping into me and staring at me like I was a rabid animal. At time like these, I just wanted to yell out: "Stop it! You're freaking me out!!"

I saw Gaara waiting on the second floor, staring out the window. I walked behind him and tapped him on the shoulder. Startled, he turns towards me. "Hey, Esther." He said, giving me a slight smile.

"Hi, Gaara. Ready to go?" I said. Someone rammed into me, pushing closer to Gaara. I let out a loud huff and Gaara started walking, leaving me behind. I caught up to him and groaned. "Why do we have so many stairs?" I said as we finally got to the first floor of Etsu High.

Gaara shrugged. "You know you're asking the wrong person, Esther. In my opinion, three flights of stairs is way too many." I nodded in agreement and got pulled into the on going current of people.

We made it to Gaara's chemistry class and we stopped out side the door. "You're coming over tonight, right?" Gaara asked. "I wouldn't miss it!" I squealed, giving him a hug. He let out a small "Umph..", but decided to hug me back. He walked into the door and I made my way across the hall to AP World History.

I endured the beginning lesson of AP, which was luckily my last class of the day. Once the teacher had finished , I turned to my two closet friends, Tricia and Erin. "How was your day?" I asked, trying to start up a conversation as we worked on the titanic load of homework we had.

"Itachi was happy that I agreed to go play laser tag with him, Kisame, and Tobi. If I win, you'll know that the end of the world is near." Tricia said, breaking the silence. Erin was just sitting, working meticulously on her work.

"What about you Erin? You seem bugged about something." Tricia said, poking her with the end of her pencil. Erin sighed. "Shikamaru wants me to go over and study tonight. He said that it would be 'troublesome' if I failed the test. What I'm more worried about is that he'll fall asleep during the test, like usual."

I giggled and tucked a strand of my golden brown hair behind my ear. The end bell rang and we said goodbye. I headed to my locker to grab my things and was pushed out of the school by the large herd of people.

I walked onto the sidewalk and walked until I got to the small forest like area near my home. I looked around and saw that there was no one around. I ran into the forest and got to them pond that was oddly in the middle of the forest.

No one knew why the pond was here... except for me.