Chapter 1

He had been destroyed. Humiliated. Defeated. His plan had shredded into nothing but dust. Dust! After thousands of years of biding his time and waited to seize the right opportunity, his plan had failed because of a mere demi-God! It was unacceptable! Incomprehensible, that someone not even fully immortal had undermined his brilliant scheme! And now, what to do? Bide his time and wait for another chance? Perhaps it was a viable option, but he did not want to wait that long. Besides, his armies had fled; no one would fight for him again for another few thousand years. It would never work.

Could he find another body? He felt weak, and his powers were drained. It would take millennia for him to heal.

There was one plan; one last, desperate attempt he could try. Not only was it desperate and hasty, but also risky. Should it backfire, he could potentially doom himself. But he had no other choice; he had to act fast if he was to show the Gods he wasn't finished just yet. That the war was not over. He smirked in the darkness

"No, Zeus, the war has only just begun!"

"It's over!" Darren shouted, twisting his Wii remote in his hand. On the screen, his character jumped up in the air and came down on mine. I clicked a button on my remote to try and dodge, but my character wasn't fast enough. Darren's came down and buried mine into the ground. There was a second of pausing, and then the entire screen lit up in a terrific "YOU WIN!" banner. His characters symbol flashed by in a burst of light, then zipped right across the screen. Darren jumped out of his skin. "Alright! Told you I had you!" he beamed, flipping his remote through the air. I sighed, setting mine down on the table. I was really bad at this game, and my only ever win came once when Darren took pity and "accidentally" fell of the edge of the map. The game was based around combat, but it had something to do with Gods. Each character had a different power, and you could choose which one you wanted. Lightening was faster, but water had more defensive abilities. Rock was brute strength, and so on and so fourth. I usually went with Distortion (Who controlled odd things like Space and shadows), but everyone always told me he was the worst character. Not that it mattered; I lost even with the cheapest character available in the game, Wind. He was so good because he had great offense and defense, as well as the special ability to fly. He was hard to beat.

He was also Darren's character of choice, which I usually used as my sad excuse for losing, like today

"Okay alright," I said, holding up my hands as if a Cop had pulled me over. "Sure, you won. Congrats. But, could you win with fire?"
Darren laughed, falling back down on the couch and holding his sides. "Please!" he said, "I'm pretty much the best there is at this game! I bet I could win with any of the characters! Watch me!" He sent the game to the title screen and switched his character to being fire. I kept distortion. Darren hit play, and the game started with a loud "BEGIN!" from the announcer.

That's about where it all went downhill.

"Shh!" Darren said, holding a finger to his lips. "Hear that?" we had been playing for 5 hours straight, sitting in his basement and feasting on Lays Chips and Coke-a-colas. It was now dark out, and the last night of summer had arrived. School started tomorrow. I was pretty sure this was just Darren being the idiot he was and playing a joke on me, but something in the back of my mind nagged at me. Darren couldn't usually hold a joke without a smile, and right now he looked pretty serious. Still, I decided not to think anything of it. I smiled.

"What? Is the Boogeyman outside?" He gave me a glared and shushed me again.

"No!" he whispered. "Ryan, I'm not kidding you. Something's right outside the house" He shifted the baseball cap he always wore on his head to the back, so that the visor was opposite his face. A few curly ginger hairs poked out the sides.
"I'm dead serious. We could be in trouble! Just stay quiet, please" the way he said it sounded like he was scared, but I was still sure it was a joke. Half of me wanted to play along with him, but I scoffed it away. How could I pass up an opportunity like this? The entire house was dead silent since his parents had gone to sleep long ago, giving the old, "Don't stay up too late you crazy kids, or we'll catch you!" and then falling right asleep. I slowly tiptoed over to the coke cans and noiselessly grabbed one. Darren was looking out one of the really small basement windows, crouching next to the wall and "trembling". I shook up the coke and walked towards his general direction.

It was so easy. I pointed the face of the can right at him, and slowly started pulling the tab. It made next to no sound, and he didn't notice. Delighted, I got ready to whisk open the top and get him good.

Something stopped me.

Right outside the window, a shadow passed over the grass. The shape wasn't human, either: it looked like a bad cross between a gorilla and a whole jumble of snakes. The hissing sound I heard wasn't coming from my slowly opening coke can, either. Suddenly trembling myself, I lost my focus and dropped the can. That time, Darren noticed.

Time seemed to slow down. Darren and I both outstretched our hands for the can, but ended up both missing. It hit the ground with what seemed to be the loudest thud in the world, and rolled over on its side. To top it all off, the tab opened up and coke spewed everywhere, making a super loud gushing noise.

It was responded to by a second of silence, an earth trembling roar, Darren screaming, "RUN!" and the thing bursting through the window.

Something died in me that day that has never truly come back to life.